I'm John Dux who is Sam Gwen. His new book is His Majesty's Airship, the life and

tragic death of the world's largest flying machine, rigid airships, competition,

nationalism. Kit Thompson is a man who's born in India near Bombay in

1875. His father's the major general. He's related to a man who will become the head of the army in India.

His mother's family is extremely well known everywhere.

He becomes a member of the Royal Army and Royal Engineers, goes out to India.

He fights with everybody. As far as I can see, this is Zellig of the British Army.

He fights with, he fights in the Boer War, he fights the Jerusalem in the Second

War with Allenby. He's in the British Expeditionary Force with Haig, and then he's assigned

1915 to Romania and therein lies the tale.

Who does he meet in Romania, Sam, who comes to dominate his life?

Right, Christopher Birdwood Thompson is, as you said, a man of empire.

I mean, he was raised multi-generational in the Raj, his family on both sides extremely influential he is in all those places indeed

this is yet another military posting as part of the British Empire he's he's sent to a Bucharest in Romania,

which seems sort of like the middle of nowhere except it was actually near a very

critical front.

And while he's there, he needs a woman to him is a fairy tale princess and she is kind of

of a fairy tale princess if you see photographs of

her she's absolutely flat gorgeous I mean she was considered one of the best

looking women in Europe she's fluent in four or five languages she is is Romanian, yes, but spends much of her time in Paris.

She is a princess, having married the prince. She is unamaginably wealthy. She is also, and this is interesting, so here we have a young gorgeous woman who is also, in addition to all those things,

she is the toast of literary Paris. She has written a couple of books that have

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