[Photograph: Étienne Alexandre Millerand, Minister of War, August 27, 1914.]
Morning and evening they fly at Buc. They are constantly testing new machines, and then, when they have tested them, they fly off to the army on the eastern frontier, or to Amiens, perhaps. The other day a pilot even flew to Antwerp right across the German lines over the heads of the German army, but so high up that they never even guessed he was there. Then they practise bomb-dropping, too, and they are always on the alert for a possible Zeppelin raid on Paris. The other night a wireless message reached the Eiffel Tower from the frontier that one had started. It was midnight, and instantly the alarm was given at Buc. The airmen sleep in the hangars there, and in five minutes they had their machines wheeled out.
By the light of lanterns you could see mechanics running to and fro. The airmen themselves were hurriedly putting on helmets and woollen gloves and leather coats, for it is cold work hunting airships at midnight. Their little armory of bombs was quickly overhauled, and the belt of the machine gun that the man in the passenger's seat uses—the "syringe" as they call it—was filled, and the engines were set running to see that they were all right. But it was a false alarm after all, for, although a close lookout was kept everywhere between Paris and the frontier for the adventurous Zeppelin, and a hundred guns were craning up into the sky ready for her if she hove in sight, she never came, and the tired airmen turned in again to snatch a little sleep before morning parade.
Constantly airmen fly off to the front. Those who have been there say that the supply trains and the whole service is working splendidly. They have organized a new sport among the air-scouts. Every day, at the end of the day's reconnoitring, the airmen count the bullet-holes in the wings and body of their machines. The aeroplane that has the most is the cock machine of the squadrilla—six in the squadrilla—and holds the title until some one gets a bigger peppering and displaces him. They are very jealous of this distinction, and the counting has to be very carefully carried out by an impartial jury, for the cock aeroplane has the honor of carrying the mascot of the squadrilla.
Saturday, August 29.
Twenty-seventh day of the war. Sultry weather, with light northerly breezes. Temperature at five P.M. 26 degrees centigrade.
"Hold tight!" Such is the watchword given by the French Government, and French and British soldiers are holding tight for all they are worth against the slowly advancing German armies. Heavy fighting all along the lines from the Somme to the Vosges continues without a break. The Prussian Guard Corps and the Tenth German Army Corps have been driven back to Guise, in the department of the Aisne (one hundred and ninety kilometers from Paris), but on the French left the Germans have fought their way to La Fère (northwest of Laon, about one hundred and forty kilometers from Paris). In the eastern theater of the war, Koenigsberg has been invested by the Russians under Rennenkampf, who continue their advance towards Berlin.
Paris begins to realize that the war is coming closer to them, by the following official announcement:
DEFENCES OF PARIS
_The Military Governor of Paris, in view of the urgent military requirements, has decided: