Douhet and Beyond: The Italian Perspective on Aerial Bombardment, 1919-1939

The talk will address the strategic discussions within Italian airpower circles in the interwar period, focussing primarily on the two main protagonists with are Giulio Douhet on the one hand and Amedeo Mecozzi on the other and locating their contributions within their particular political, military and ‘philosophical’ contexts. Drawing on the experiences and their analyses of the First World War, the talk will then focus on how the experiences in Ethiopia and Spain during the 1930s shaped the way in which the Italian air-forces entered the Second World War.

Thomas Hippler

He studied history, philosophy and music in Berlin, Paris, Berkeley and Florence. After teaching at Oxford and Lyon, he is currently professor of modern history at the University of Normandy in Caen (France). His publications include Citizens, Soldiers and National Armies: Military Service in France and Germany, 1789-1830 (Routledge 2007), Bombing the People: Giulio Douhet and the Foundations of Air Power Strategy, 1884-1939 (Cambridge University Press 2013), Paradoxes of Peace in Nineteenth Century Europe, co-edited with Milos Vec (Oxford University Press 2015) and Governing from the Skies: A Global History of Aerial Bombing (Verso 2017). He is currently involved in a research project on the conceptual history of peace at European and global level.