Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe

Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe (September 25, 1846 – November 24, 1919) was a French oil magnate (known as the "Oil King of Europe") and a passionate supporter of early aviation. He sponsored numerous prizes to promote technological development in aviation, including the Grand Prix d'Aviation and the Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize. He was also the composer of the 1911 opera Icare.

Biography

The Deutsch de la Meurthe family was known in France for their wealth and their active technological and philanthropic sponsorship, having contributed to the development of the industrial oil industry in France. In 1845, Alexander Deutsch founded a company for processing and marketing vegetable oils in La Villette, then an independent commune of Paris. With the discovery of oil in Pennsylvania in 1859, Deutsch began studying and developing the use of petroleum products in France. In 1877, he incorporated his two sons, Henri and Emile, into the family business. He acquired a refinery in Rouen in 1881 and another in St. Loubès, Gironde, in 1883. In partnership with the Rothschild brothers, he began refining crude oil in Spain in 1889. Around this time, Alexander added "de la Meurthe" to the family name.

Henri understood that the future of oil sales would depend on the development of small internal combustion engines, and he promoted the development of the automobile (he publicly presented the President of the French Republic, Marie François Sadi Carnot, in an automobile) and also became interested in aviation. Together with Ernest Archdeacon, he founded the Aero-Club of France to promote new technologies. To this end, he used part of his own wealth to create numerous cash prizes as incentives for aviators, aimed at achieving milestones in aviation safety.

In 1906, Henri formed a partnership with Wilbur Wright and Hart Berg to establish a company in France to supply Wright aircraft to the French government. Deutsch financed the venture by purchasing the only block of shares sold in France and used his influence with the French government. Nevertheless, the business was unsuccessful.

He supported Lazare Weiller, who purchased the Wright brothers' patents and organized demonstration flights piloted by Wilbur Wright in Le Mans on August 8, 1908. Deutsch de la Meurthe also invested in aircraft manufacturers such as Société Astra (1909) and Nieuport et Deplante (1911), and commissioned the construction of aircraft, including the Blériot XXIV Limousine and the Voisin Icare Aero-Yacht.

At the end of May 1909, Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe offered the University of Paris a sum of 500,000 francs and an annual endowment of 15,000 francs to create and maintain the Aérotechnique Institute in Saint-Cyr-l'École, dedicated to theoretical research and the development of transport aircraft. It was later integrated into the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers.

Despite being an enthusiastic supporter of heavier-than-air flight, De la Meurthe did not make his first flight in an aircraft until May 1911, when he flew in a Blériot monoplane piloted by Alfred Leblanc.

On May 21, 1911, Deutsch was injured and Minister of War Maurice Berteaux was killed when a Train monoplane crashed into spectators at the start of the 1911 Paris-Madrid Air Race.

Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe was named Commander of the Legion of Honor on November 20, 1912.

Prizes

Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize

In April 1900, Henri offered the Deutsch de la Meurthe Prize, also known simply as the Deutsch Prize, offering 100,000 francs to the first machine capable of completing a round-trip flight between Parc Saint Cloud and the Eiffel Tower in Paris in under thirty minutes. The winner would need to maintain an average speed of at least 22 km/h to cover the 11-kilometer route within the time limit. The prize was valid from May 1, 1900, to October 1, 1903.

To win the prize, Alberto Santos-Dumont built the Santos-Dumont No. 5, a larger airship than his first aircraft. On August 8, 1901, during one of his attempts, the airship began losing hydrogen and descended, unable to clear the roof of the Hotel Trocadero. After the collision, Santos-Dumont was left hanging from the gondola of the airship on the side of the hotel. With help from the Paris fire brigade, he reached the roof of the building unharmed.

On October 19, 1901, after several attempts and tests, Santos-Dumont launched his airship Number 6 at 2:30 p.m. After just nine minutes of flight, he had already circled the Eiffel Tower, but then suffered an engine failure. To restart it, he had to climb onto the gondola frame without a safety harness. The attempt was ultimately successful, and he crossed the finish line in 29 minutes and 30 seconds. However, there was a delay in confirming his crossing of the finish line, and the judging committee initially denied him the prize, despite De la Meurthe, who was present, expressing his satisfaction. This caused a public outcry among the crowds who witnessed the flight, as well as commentary in the press. To avoid controversy, a compromise was reached, and Santos-Dumont received the prize. In an altruistic gesture, he donated half of the prize to his team and the other half to the poor of Paris.

Grand Prix d'Aviation

In 1904, Deutsch de la Meurthe, in collaboration with Ernest Archdeacon, created the Grand Prix d'Aviation (also known as the Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize), a prize of 50,000 francs for the first person to fly a circular course of 1 kilometer in a heavier-than-air machine. It was won on January 13, 1908, by Henry Farman flying a Voisin biplane in Issy-les-Moulineaux in a time of 1 minute and 28 seconds—a distance and speed record not officially achieved since the Wright brothers' flights.

Deutsch de la Meurthe Cup

This speed race was held intermittently from 1912 to 1936, offering a prize of 20,000 francs sponsored by Deutsch and later by the Aero-Club of France.

See also

• Place des États-Unis (Paris)