{"id":14345,"date":"2022-05-17T08:35:41","date_gmt":"2022-05-17T06:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.historyextra.com\/?p=207247"},"modified":"2022-05-17T08:47:17","modified_gmt":"2022-05-17T06:47:17","slug":"creating-fake-paris-how-one-man-built-a-mock-city-to-fool-ww1-german-bombers","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/rss_feed\/creating-fake-paris-how-one-man-built-a-mock-city-to-fool-ww1-german-bombers\/","title":{"rendered":"Creating fake Paris: how one man built a mock city to fool WW1 German bombers"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Freya Parr\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Tuesday, 17 May 2022 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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Tucked away in a British newspaper called The Globe<\/em> in its edition of 4 October 1920 was a short story with an intriguing headline: \u201cA Mock Paris: French Plan to Hoodwink German Raiders.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ruse, explained the paper, had only just come to light, and it was almost too fantastical to be true. \u201cCamouflaged streets, factories, dwelling houses, railways, with stations and trains complete, and in fact a camouflaged capital, was the gigantic task on which French engineers were engaged when the Armistice put an end to military operations,\u201d ran the report. It was the brainchild of an electrical engineer called Jacopozzi; a way to draw German aircraft away from the capital and onto a fake conurbation where bombs could fall without causing death and destruction. But the Germans sued for peace as the city began to take shape and Jacopozzi\u2019s ingenuity was never put to the test.<\/p>\n

Paris was first bombed by German aircraft on 30 August 1914, the first time that a capital city had been attacked in such a manner. Four small bombs were dropped from the hands of Ferdinand von Hiddessen and his observer from their Rumpler Taube monoplane. The casualties were minimal, but the wider psychological damage was profound. A little over a decade after the Wright brothers had made the first brief flight in an airplane, the Americans\u2019 invention was a new and terrifying weapon of war.<\/p>\n

The home front was now a battlefront, and women and children were no longer safe from enemy fire.<\/p>\n

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Ferdinand von Hiddessen (right) \u2013 perpetrator of the first Paris bombing raid \u2013 with an unknown pilot, c1914. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Death from above<\/h3>\n

There were other sporadic attacks in the 18 months that followed, including the first attack by Zeppelins (named after their inventor, Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin) in March 1915. The airships came from their bases in Belgium, but none caused serious casualties. However, on 29 January 1916, two Zeppelins appeared in the grey winter sky over the French capital. Their bombs wreaked havoc, killing 24 and wounding 30.<\/p>\n

The funerals of the dead were held on 7 February 1916 in a service that brought Paris to a standstill. Thousands of mourners lined the streets as six gun carriages carried the coffins to the Church of Notre-Dame<\/a> de la Croix, and politicians and other dignitaries walked behind. The service was conducted by Cardinal Leon Adolphe Amette, the archbishop of Paris, who delivered what one British newspaper described as a \u201cmoving oration\u201d. \u201cBefore you lie the victims of German barbarity, who fell on no field of battle,\u201d he proclaimed.<\/p>\n

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Buildings along the historic Boulevard Voltaire are reduced to rubble following a raid by a German Gotha. The heavy bomber, which entered service in 1917, brought widespread carnage to the French capital. (Image by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

\u201cTheir death will help the cause of mankind and will strengthen the vigorous determination to conquer, to reduce the enemy to impotence, and to prevent a repetition of his crime.\u201d But the impotence was all French as the air attacks increased in the months that followed. Paris had a respite in 1917 when the Germans switched the focus of their air attacks to London, using their latest bomber aircraft, the Gotha. One raid in June left 162 Britons dead. The French knew their turn would come. But how could they defend themselves?<\/p>\n

How Fernand Jacopozzi built a fake Paris<\/h2>\n

A man who thought he had a solution was an electrical engineer called Fernand Jacopozzi. A Florentine by birth, Jacopozzi had previously worked on the Paris International Exposition in 1900, a world\u2019s fair that celebrated the achievements of the past century and looked forward to what the next 100 years held. Jacopozzi believed it would be a century of progress, one which could prove lucrative for an electrical engineer such as himself. He remained in Paris and, according to one contemporary newspaper, \u201cmade a special study of electric lighting\u201d.<\/p>\n

How Jacopozzi became involved in this secret project is unclear \u2013 for obvious reasons. But at some point in late 1917, he was commissioned by the DCA [D\u00e9fense contre Avions, the War Office department charged with protecting France from air attacks] to build a fake Paris in order to fool German bombers.<\/p>\n

As outlandish it sounds to modern minds, the plan made sense at the time. Enemy aircraft navigated their way to the capital at night not by technological aids but by topography. They simply followed the River Seine and then dropped their bombs. But the Seine is a meandering river that, once it cuts through the heart of Paris, under its famous bridges and past landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower<\/a>, then doubles back on itself not once, but twice, like the humps of a camel. It was on the second of these \u2018humps\u2019, in the suburb of Maisons-Laffitte, that the French instructed Jacopozzi to construct his phoney city. However, there were to be two other \u201czones of false objectives\u201d: a fake industrial zone would be created at Vaires-sur-Marne, situated 10 miles east of the capital, while the suburb of Saint-Denis would be relocated to Villepinte in the northeast.<\/p>\n

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French police pose with an unexploded bomb dropped by a Zeppelin. (Photo by Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

Light railway system<\/h3>\n

Jacopozzi began his work at Villepinte in 1918, constructing a replica of the Gare de l\u2019Est railway station \u2013 one of Paris\u2019 busiest \u2013 and even fabricating a moving train. Drawing on his years of study of electrical lighting, the Italian used wooden boards for the train\u2019s carriages, and for the interior lights he rigged up an ingenious system of lights on a conveyor belt. From the air it appeared that the train was moving.<\/p>\n

The industrial zone was next. Jacopozzi once again used wooden boards for the shell of the factories and for the roofs he used canvases craftily dappled with various hues of paint. With a clever combination of different coloured lamps \u2013 whites, yellows and reds \u2013 he recreated the fires and vapours emitted by a factory during the manufacturing process. The key was subtlety; he didn\u2019t want to arouse the Germans\u2019 suspicion by lighting up his fake creations like a Christmas tree.<\/p>\n

It was painstaking work but Jacopozzi had all but finished when German Gotha aircraft raided the capital on 16 September, dropping 22,000 kilos of bombs that left six dead and 15 wounded. Next time the bombers returned the subterfuge would be put into operation. But there wasn\u2019t a next time. Two months later the war ended and Jacopozzi was denied the chance to see if his ingenuity had outsmarted the German pilots.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, the French government believed they had created an important form of defence should enemy bombers appear over Paris in a future war. A veil of secrecy was thrown over Jacopozzi\u2019s creation, one which was lifted in 1920 when the British press got hold of the story. The Globe<\/em> had the scoop at the start of October, but it was The Illustrated London News<\/em> in its edition of 6 November 1920 that really brought Jacopozzi\u2019s invention to life in a photo essay headlined: \u201cA False Paris Outside Paris \u2014 a \u2018City\u2019 Created to be Bombed.\u201d There were photographs, maps and explanations, all of which amounted to what the newspaper called \u201cremarkably interesting revelations\u201d.<\/p>\n