If you think unmanned vehicles used in dangerous observations or even combat are a new thing, you are mistaken. Of course you can not expect the use of inertial sensors, Bluetooth communication, GPS or other microprocessor solutions in a 1917 version.
This is what we found in “The Electrical Experimenter” of May 1917 in an article written by the famous Hugo Gernsback who was its editor.
In this article we find the suggestion of a torpedo directed at a distance with electric propulsion, but the propulsion was made by wires! At that time battery technology was not sufficiently developed to adopt this solution.
In the figure below we have the project described by Gernsback that had a power cord which unfolded when the torpedo left towards the enemy.
If we look at how flying drones behave today, even carrying weapons, guided by GPS, we see how much we've evolved in terms of technology in less than a century.
