Long Before Chinese Spy Balloons there were Austrian Terror Balloons: History's First Use of Hot Air Balloons in Warfare 1849
An American observer named Edmund Flagg who was working as an envoy on behalf of the United States government to the nascent revolutionary Republic of San Marco described what he saw floating in the skies above Venice on the morning of July 15, 1849 as, “Dozens of small cloudlets.” He said that, “Every five minutes, or so it seemed, scores of them would come majestically floating over the city.” That day, although the city of Venice, the City of Canals, had been under siege by the Austro-Hungarian Army and Navy for nearly five months, thousands of Venetians were out and about in the city’s squares to celebrate a day of Thanksgiving dedicated to the Virgin Mary, who thus far had brought their tiny rebellious Republic through a year and a half long War for Independence against the mighty and powerful Habsburg Empire of central Europe. A later generation of historians would call what happened in Venice and other Italian cities during 1848-49 in the midst of Europe’s Year...