So, as part of the hundredth anniversary of WWI, my town organized three conferences with local scholars about how the war unfolded in our region and what it meant for the people that lived here. Yesterday's conference was about aerial warfare, but one thing the speaker said didn't convince me: he said that working parachutes existed in 1914, and that they were issued to those poor souls that crewed recon baloons so they could bail out as soon as they saw an enemy plane approaching, but that they were not issued to plane pilots and observers as it was believed that having an 'easy' way out of the fight would have made pilots less willing to fight. Is there any truth to this?
Yes, it's true. It seems mad in retrospect but one must remember that planes were a relatively novel technology, especially in regards to their military use. It also took some time before cars came with seatbelts, and many didn't have airbags until a decade or two ago.
Parachutes weren't issued, like you said, because it was thought that they would encourage timidity. These early air forces had a very aggressive and macho mindset. Pilots might bail, it was feared, at the first sign of trouble and lose a valuable plane. Better to force the pilot to try and save the machine. Also, of course, airplane cockpits were very small and there wasn't really any room in most machines for a pilot to wear a parachute.
In practice, of course, this meant that pilots in burning planes had to make a terrible choice between staying in it and burning to death, or jumping out to equally certain death.
By the end of the war the Germans did begin issuing parachutes to pilots, and observation balloon crews used them for most of the conflict. Balloon crewmen wore harnesses that connected to parachutes packed in containers on the outside of the balloon gondolas, and when a crewman jumped overboard his weight pulled the parachute from the container.
Source: World War I: Encyclopedia, Tucker & Roberts
In addition to the "will to fight" rationale, the resistance to parachutes stemmed from an unexpected source: the pilots themselves. Early parachutes were bulky and often the cockpits of WWI planes could not easily fit he existing parachute pack and the pilot. Some pilots also believed the weight penalty exceeded the value of escape, a factor that should not be discounted given the relatively low power of WWI engines and constant development of aircraft made pilots leery of sacrificing performance. Finally, it should be remembered, as u/CaptainPyjamaShark points out, that the most effective parachutes for most of the war relied upon the weight of the body to extend the parachute canopy, which was tethered to the gondola. Such a system was not applicable for heavier than air machines.
This is not to say that all pilots categorically rejected parachutes, many did indeed request them. However, there was a push against parachutes that did not originate from the behind the lines.
Source
Cormack, Andrew, and Peter Cormack. British Air Forces. Oxford: Osprey Military, 2001.