War in the Skies (1914)
As the war started, aviators and the machines they piloted became symbols of the human potential to transcend time and space. The Great War, however, featured the airplane as the new weapon in what British writer H. G. Wells called the “headlong sweep to death.” Daring pilots, or “aces,” took the planes on reconnaissance flights and guided them in the totally new practice of aerial combat, as shown in this engraving from an Italian newspaper of a French airplane shooting down a German one. (by Achille Beltrame [1871–1945], from La Domenica del Corriere / De Agostini Picture Library / Alfredo Dagli Orti / Bridgeman Images.)