Editing Zeppelin (section)

====End of the war====
The German defeat also marked the end of German military dirigibles, as the victorious Allies demanded a complete abolition of German air forces and surrender of the remaining airships as [[war reparations|reparations]]. Specifically, the [[Treaty of Versailles]] contained the following articles dealing explicitly with dirigibles:

;Article 198:"The armed forces of Germany must not include any military or naval air forces&nbsp;... No dirigible shall be kept."
;Article 202:"On the coming into force of the present Treaty, all military and naval aeronautical material&nbsp;... must be delivered to the Governments of the Principal Allied and Associated Powers&nbsp;... In particular, this material will include all items under the following heads which are or have been in use or were designed for warlike purposes:
:''[...]''
:* "Dirigibles able to take to the air, being manufactured, repaired or assembled."
:* "Plant for the manufacture of hydrogen."
:* "Dirigible sheds and shelters of every kind for aircraft."
:"Pending their delivery, dirigibles will, at the expense of Germany, be maintained inflated with hydrogen; the plant for the manufacture of hydrogen, as well as the sheds for dirigibles may at the discretion of the said Powers, be left to Germany until the time when the dirigibles are handed over."

On 23 June 1919, a week before the treaty was signed, many Zeppelin crews destroyed their airships in their halls in order to prevent delivery, following the example of the [[Scuttling of the German fleet at Scapa Flow]] two days earlier. The remaining dirigibles were transferred to France, [[Kingdom of Italy|Italy]], Britain, and Belgium in 1920.

A total of 84 Zeppelins were built during the war. Over 60 were lost, roughly evenly divided between accident and enemy action. 51 raids had been made on England alone,{{refn|The figures given total 54. While A. Whitehouse in ''The Zeppelin Fighters'' (1966) gives figures of 5,907 bombs dropped, 528 people killed, 1,156 wounded in 208 individual sorties.|group=N}} in which 5,806 bombs were dropped, killing 557 people and injuring 1,358 while causing damage estimated at £1.5 million. It has been argued the raids were effective far beyond material damage in diverting and hampering wartime production: one estimate is that the due to the 1915–16 raids "one sixth of the total normal output of munitions was entirely lost."<ref>Liddell Hart 1934, p. 76.</ref>