Six months is not long enough for the home aeroplane industry to lift itself from its Slough of Despond. The Government’s tardy recognition of the value of military airmanship cannot cause an immediate making-up of leeway. As a matter of fact, the industry in this country is bound to suffer, from its past neglect, for several years to come.
SEVENTH SECTION WHAT EXISTING WAR AEROPLANES CAN ACTUALLY ACCOMPLISH
I. Plight of a Commander-in-Chief without an aeroplane corps—The work of cavalry reconnaissance.
What can be achieved by aeroplane reconnaissance, when skilfully carried out, and conducted upon an adequate scale, it will be the purpose of this section of our book to show.
In order to appreciate the services which an efficient air-corps will be able to render, the position of a Commander-in-Chief who has no aeroplanes to help him should first be understood.
In modern warfare, operations are extended over a very wide area. Sometimes, for example, a fighting line will stretch over a frontage of many miles. This makes it increasingly difficult for a Commander-in-Chief to obtain precise and speedy information concerning the movements of his enemy.
[Illustration: BUILDING WAR AEROPLANES. In this picture—taken in the Bristol works—skilled artizans are seen busy with the building of the bodies of a consignment of military-type monoplanes. Although apparently frail, these frameworks are—owing to their method of construction—immensely strong.]
Cavalry scouts are, of course, sent out. They move cautiously forward, until they come into contact with the outposts which the enemy has thrown forward with the deliberate intention of concealing his intentions. The cavalry scouts are able to report the position of these outposts; but as to what general strategic movement is taking place behind this screen they can, as a rule, provide only meagre information, if any at all.
How difficult it is to glean anything like reliable news of an enemy’s movements has been indicated by that great military genius, Napoleon. Dealing with this very question, and clearly emphasising the need for such a scouting medium as the aeroplane, he wrote:—
"Nothing is more contradictory, nothing is more bewildering, than the multitude reports of spies, or of officers sent out to reconnoitre; some locate army corps where they have seen only detachments; others see only detachments where they ought to have seen army corps.