While going through a site, MarkV provided us, (By the way MarkV thanks for the sites). I came across some fanciful drawings of French Armoured Vehicles from 1908. I thought they might interest those of you into rather strange improvised, and dreamed up vehicles.
By the way, how about that flying machine??? any ideas?????
Hi Tim R interesting stuff... shades of Jules Verne, the flying machine looks more like a fish and given that there were many flying machines in the air by this time probarbly just a little fancifull......
Mentioning Jules Verne isn't far off - these illustrations are by Albert Robida, a near contemporary of Verne's. Thank you for posting them, Tim!
Robida wrote several novels in the 1880s and 1890s set in the twentieth century - Le Vingtieme Siecle (1883); La Guerre au Vingtieme Siecle (1887); and La Vie Electrique (1892). He is striking for his artistic abilities; he produced literally hundreds of illustrations for his novels, for magazines, etc. right into the 1920s. Always possessing a sardonic humour, even when depicting horrors, his imagination was remarkable. In his 1880s works he foresees: giant mortars of the Artillerie Miasmatique firing typhus shells; chemical weapons; gasmasks (for both the cavalry troops and horses); war correspondants reporting from the front live via phone; viewers at home watching wars live via their telephonoscopes (TV); airships and aeroplanes, often fish-shaped (always a dead giveaway that it's Robida) and much more.
Here is the signature from the 1908 armoured car picture of Tim's, blown-up:
And this is Robida's signature from an 1880s drawing of a giant battleship:
Robida was only really known in the Anglophone world as a humorous illustrator, as none of his writings were translated from French until the Weslayan University Press published The Twentieth Century in 2004!
And here is his artillerie miasmatique from the 1880s:
And an armoured train/railway gun (note the female troops):
