Outside Violence Comes to a City and Citizens Laugh
Austrians Tried to Bomb Venice in 1849 but Venetians Thought It Was Funny
By the time someone tried to drop a bomb on Venice, the citizens had pretty much had enough.
Venice was once the longest standing republic in the world, but that time was long over in 1849 when the Austrian army sent a fleet of balloons over the city as an act of war. Although Austria owned the city at that point, their hold was tentative, resisted, and historically herky-jerky. They first claimed Venice in 1797 after Napoleon conquered city and then handed it over to Austria in some sort of back-door deal. Austria then held on for eight uncomfortable years until 1806. At that point, Venice was given back to Napoleon, adding to his Italian spoils. But it was back in Austrian hands again in 1814, when Napoleon lost power.
Sick of both French and Austrian rule, nationalist Danial Manin launched a Venetian revolution in 1848 and succeeded in pushing the Austrians out of the city, for a time. In response, Austria, which also occupied the mainland near Venice, began to blockade the city, which didn’t do much. They wanted a military solution but Austrian tacticians were baffled by a rebellious city set in the middle of a vast lagoon. There was no place for a land battle and there was no way to conduct a sea battle in a shallow water.
That’s when Austrian lieutenant Franz von Uchatius got the bright idea of attacking the city from the air, an inspiration that changed the very nature of warfare. He suggested they turn balloons into bombs and float them over the lagoon to the city center, where he predicted the armed balloons would land and explode, sending Venetians running. Von Uchatius’s bright idea was the first ever attack of a place by air (although unsuccessful), and we know where that eventually lead.
The first launch was on July 12, 1849. The balloons were set aloft from the barrier island on the eastern side of the lagoon called the Lido, and from a ship just offshore. Each balloon was filled with tar, gunpowder, and shotgun pellets. These armed missles, however, floated right past the city; many others exploded in midair or landed in the water. The second attempt occurred on August 27th when 200 of the birthday party artillery were filled with cotton and charcoal and equipped with half-hour fuses. At least one of those landed in Venice, but the others either exploded randomly way off target or were blown back at the Austrians.
Meanwhile, the citizens of Venice thought this was hilarious. They stood in crowds all over the city, looking up and pointing. And as the balloons went off like entertaining fireworks, or drifted back overt the Austrians, they laughed. The entire citizenry. Austrian might have owned their city, and they would take it back and hold on to it for 17 more years, but the demoralized and angry Venetians had the last laugh, and they took it.
Because sometimes, as the underdog or the powerless, you just have to make fun of those who try to take over your homeland. That’s why protesters in Portland play the Star Wars “Storm Trooper” theme as federal agents throw tear gas at them, and why protesters in Washington D.C. turned the temporary wall around the White House into a festive neighborhood bulletin board in the face of federal troops and the National Guard. During a not-so-funny time, sometimes a moment of levity announces ownership and patriotism better than all the military hardware in the world, even armed balloons.
