150 years of airmail - "par ballon monté"
The Franco-Prussian war (cf. ITJ 36-39/2020, p. 26) gave rise to the start of the first regular air mail service. On 5 September 1870, in order to connect the beleaguered city and fortress of Metz in Lorraine to the outside world, Julien-François Jeannel, a pharmacist in the service of the French imperial army, sent off his first gas balloon. Until 4 October 1870, a total of 25 0.5 cbm gas balloons transported around 50,000 letters across the German lines. An estimated 100 of these messages are said to have survived.
While these "Papillons de Metz" were unmanned, the people under siege in Paris moved on to larger balloons with pilots and passengers.
Thus, from 23 September 1870 to 28 January 1871, 66 balloons left the isolated capital of France’s new third republic with 2.5 million letters (10.7 t), around 1 t of cargo and about 400 carrier pigeons, of which 57 managed to transport messages in the opposite direction. (ah)