6. A BRITISH AEROPLANE.
Finally, for one must not pursue this subject too far, a General Order has been issued to the German Army to the effect that when troops are marching they must halt and take cover whenever a British machine is known to be in their vicinity; for the English are in the habit of flying sufficiently low over the invaded territory to use their machine-guns against moving troops and convoys.
To this evidence from enemy sources I may perhaps add my own. I assert, then, as definitely as it is possible to do it, that one of my most agreeable surprises, during my visit to the British front, was the discovery of the great numbers and unceasing activity of the British aeroplanes. Whether I was in the firing-line or behind it, my attention was being constantly drawn to the movements of the British air service.
On the 15th of September the total number of hours during which flying was carried on upon the British front was 1,300. Reckoning that each aviator flies, on an average, for two hours, it is possible to form an idea of the number of machines which were in the air on that day.
During the last Battle of the Ancre the British planes of every kind, for bombing, fighting and directing the gunfire, seemed always to be over the German lines; and on one fairly still day I was able to count as many as 30 of them in the air at once, and this on a comparatively narrow sector.
Behind the lines I went to see numerous aviation camps, instruction camps, depôts of munitions, etc. They were like so many beehives, models of organisation, order and method. The pilots, the observers, the mechanics, everyone, seen at close quarters, gave me an impression of a very unusual power and intelligence, and inspired me with the same confidence with which their own mastery of the air has so long filled them, ever since, indeed, they wrested it from the enemy.
Perhaps it may not be labour lost if, in order to get a right understanding of the present very satisfactory and praiseworthy position, we review shortly the history of British military aviation since the beginning of the war.
England had not wished for war, nor had she prepared for it, and while aviation seemed to her a marvellous achievement of the human brain, she was far from thinking that she was bound to make use of it in order to injure mankind. This is why her military air service, like her whole Army, was in no more than an embryonic condition when she found herself faced with the grim reality of this war.
Far more than the exigencies of the campaign on the continent, it was the repeated raids of the Zeppelins over England which caused her to devote herself to the development of her aviation.