It was the raid into the Midlands on the night of 31st January, 1916, that finally shelved the old policy of do nothing. Further justification, if any were needed, for active measures was supplied by a still more audacious raid upon the east coast of Scotland, upon which occasion Zeppelins soared over England—at their will. Then the authorities woke up, and an extensive scheme of anti-aircraft guns and squadrons of aeroplanes was devised. About March of the year 1916 the Germans began to break the monotony of the Zeppelin raids by using sea-planes as variants. So there was plenty of work for our new defensive air force. Indeed, people began to ask themselves why we should not hit back by making raids into Germany. The subject was well aired in the public press, and distinguished advocates came forward for and against the policy of reprisals. At a considerably later date reprisals carried the day, and, as we write, air raids by the British into Germany are of frequent occurrence.
In March, 1916, the fruits of the new policy began to appear, and people found them very refreshing. A fleet of Zeppelins found, on approaching the mouth of the Thames, a very warm reception. Powerful searchlights, and shells from new anti-aircraft guns, played all round them. At length a shot got home. One of the Zeppelins, "winged" by a shell, began a wobbly retreat which ended in the waters of the estuary. The navy finished the business. The wrecked air-ship was quickly surrounded by a little fleet of destroyers and patrol-boats, and the crew were brought ashore, prisoners. That same night yet another Zeppelin was hit and damaged in another part of the country.
Raids followed in such quick succession as to be almost of nightly occurrence during the favouring moonless nights. Later, the conditions were reversed, and the attacks by aeroplane were all made in bright moonlight. But ever the defence became more strenuous. Then aeroplanes began to play the role of "hornets", as Mr. Winston Churchill, speaking rather too previously, designated them.
Lieutenant Brandon, R.F.C., succeeded in dropping several aerial bombs on a Zeppelin during the raid on March 31, but it was not until six months later that an airman succeeded in bringing down a Zeppelin on British soil. The credit of repeating Lieutenant Warneford's great feat belongs to Lieutenant W. R. Robinson, and the fight was witnessed by a large gathering. It occurred in the very formidable air raid on the night of September 2. Breathlessly the spectators watched the Zeppelin harried by searchlight and shell-fire. Suddenly it disappeared behind a veil of smoke which it had thrown out to baffle its pursuers. Then it appeared again, and a loud shout went up from the watching thousands. It was silhouetted against the night clouds in a faint line of fire. The hue deepened, the glow spread all round, and the doomed airship began its crash to earth in a smother of flame. The witnesses to this amazing spectacle naturally supposed that a shell had struck the Zeppelin. Its tiny assailant that had dealt the death-blow had been quite invisible during the fight. Only on the following morning did the public learn of Lieutenant Robinson's feat. It appeared that he had been in the air a couple of hours, engaged in other conflicts with his monster foes. Besides the V.C. the plucky airman won considerable money prizes from citizens for destroying the first Zeppelin on British soil.
The Zeppelin raids continued at varying intervals for the remainder of the year. As the power of the defence increased the air-ships were forced to greater altitudes, with a corresponding decrease in the accuracy with which they could aim bombs on specified objects. But, however futile the raids, and however widely they missed their mark, there was no falling off in the outrageous claims made in the German communiques. Bombs dropped in fields, waste lands, and even the sea, masqueraded in the reports as missiles which had sunk ships in harbour, destroyed docks, and started fires in important military areas. So persistent were these exaggerations that it became evident that the Zeppelin raids were intended quite as much for moral effect at home as for material damage abroad. The heartening effect of the raids upon the German populace is evidenced by the mental attitude of men made prisoners on any of the fronts. Only with the utmost difficulty were their captors able to persuade them that London and other large towns were not in ruins; that shipbuilding was not at a standstill; and that the British people was not ready at any moment to purchase indemnity from the raids by concluding a German peace. When one method of terrorism fails try another, was evidently the German motto. After the Zeppelin the Gotha, and after that the submarine.
The next year—1917—brought in a very welcome change in the situation. One Zeppelin after another met with its just deserts, the British navy in particular scoring heavily against them. Nor must the skill and enterprise of our French allies be forgotten. In March, 1917, they shot down a Zeppelin at Compiegne, and seven months later dealt the blow which finally rid these islands of the Zeppelin menace.
For nearly a year London, owing to its greatly increased defences, had been free from attack. Then, on the night of October 19, Germany made a colossal effort to make good their boast of laying London in ruins. A fleet of eleven Zeppelins came over, five of which found the city. One, drifting low and silently, was responsible for most of the casualties, which totalled 34 killed and 56 injured.
The fleet got away from these shores without mishap. Then, at long last, came retribution. Flying very high, they seem to have encountered an aerial storm which drove them helplessly over French territory. Our allies were swift to seize this golden opportunity. Their airmen and anti-aircraft guns shot down no less than four of the Zeppelins in broad daylight, one of which was captured whole. Of the remainder, one at least drifted over the Mediterranean, and was not heard of again. That was the last of the Zeppelin, so far as the civilian population was concerned. But, for nearly a year, the work of killing citizens had been undertaken by the big bomb-dropping Gotha aeroplanes.
The work of the Gotha belongs rightly to the second part of this book, which deals with aeroplanes and airmen; but it would be convenient to dispose here of the part played by the Gotha in the air raids upon this country.
The reconnaissance took place on Tuesday, November 28, 1916, when in a slight haze a German aeroplane suddenly appeared over London, dropped six bombs, and flew off. The Gotha was intercepted off Dunkirk by the French, and brought down. Pilot and observer-two naval lieutenants-were found to have a large-scale map of London in their possession. The new era of raids had commenced.