The Way to Win

Chapter Four

Our Mastery of the Air

The story of the British air service in the days before the War is so characteristically English that I must give a few lines to it if only to make quite clear the realisation of what we have done to meet the new dangers which, as usual, caught us unprepared.

We exhibited as a nation a most regrettable reluctance to comprehend the value of the aeroplane and the airship as a means of making war.

We failed utterly to grasp the fact that with the coming of the aeroplane a new factor had entered into military science, just as, in the early days of the submarine, we neglected the new invention until we had lagged behind other nations to an extent that, under different circumstances, might well have proved disastrous. We made a few feeble and futile efforts in aeroplane construction; we dallied tentatively with airships of a microscopic pattern. The flying wing of the Army was half starved, and the advice and remonstrances of the men who had really studied and understood the subject were cold-shouldered by the authorities to whom everything new and revolutionary was – and too often is – anathema.

I have studied the progress of aviation from the time when I acted as a judge at the first Aviation Meeting held in this country – on Doncaster racecourse. It may perhaps be remembered that in the early days of flying, when the Daily Mail offered a prize of 10,000 pounds for the first flight from London to Manchester, a misguided evening journal derisively offered a prize of a million pounds for the first man who flew, I think, ten miles.

No doubt the sneer was inspired partly by professional jealousy of the Daily Mail, but it revealed, in very striking fashion, the mental attitude, shared unfortunately by our military authorities, of those who refused to see in the new arm anything more than a very complicated, useless, and dangerous toy.

Time has slipped along since Sommer, Le Blon, and Cody flew at Doncaster; the pioneers of aviation persisted in their efforts, and within three years of the Daily Mail’s offer being made the prize had been won. Tremendous progress was made in every department of flying, and the keener students of military affairs realised that in the aeroplane there had arrived a weapon, both of offence and defence, which would go far to revolutionise warfare as it had been understood in the past.

None the less, our Army lagged far behind the rest of the world. Either the War authorities were not sufficiently insistent, or the Treasury turned a deaf ear to their appeals for money for the development of the new science.

The result was that while our French friends and our German enemies – for they were our enemies even then, as we have now good reason to know – were pushing ahead with aerial investigation and securing a lead which might well have been fatal to us, the British air service languished in comparative neglect. It is certainly hardly too much to say that but for the assistance given by the Daily Mail flying in England would have been utterly and totally neglected. The result was what might have been expected, and the outcome was characteristically British.

When the War broke out we were in a condition of decided inferiority to the French fliers – that perhaps mattered little, as we were fighting on the same side – and very much behindhand in relation to Germany, which mattered a great deal. We had to make up in quality – and of the quality of our airmen there was happily no question – what we lacked in equipment. We were entirely without airships comparable in any way to the Zeppelins, and we had nothing like the number of the German “Tauben.” Most happily for us the quality of our airmen proved far beyond anything which Germany possesses, and in the matter of men we took at once, and have since held, a commanding lead.

It was not long before the value of the new arm was signally demonstrated. In all probability the fate of the British Army in the early days of the War was decided by air reconnaissance. It was one of the air scouts who discovered the enormous concentration of German troops before Sir John French’s army, and thus gave the timely warning which made the great retreat from Mons a possibility.

What followed reproduced in striking fashion the early history of the submarine, and proved very clearly that our deficiencies in the matter of aircraft were not due to any defect in personnel or energy or inventiveness. Striking advances were made when the obvious requirements of the War became manifest.

Money, of course, had to be poured out like water, and no doubt we spent a great deal more than would have been necessary had we made due preparation in time of peace. But, at any rate, thanks to the British genius for improvisation, the work was done. Men and machines were soon forthcoming in ever-increasing numbers, and it was not many months before Sir John French was able to announce that our airmen had established a definite personal ascendency over the airmen of the enemy. That ascendency has been fully maintained.

Man for man and machine for machine we lead the Germans in the matter of flight, so far at least as the aeroplane is concerned. German losses in aerial conflict have been very much heavier than our own, a fact that is not surprising when the personal equation is taken into consideration. In natural daring and personal initiative – two of the qualities indispensable to the successful airman – the French and the British characters are far superior to the German. We can look forward with complete confidence to any comparison that can be made between the rival air services so far as the heavier-than-air machines are concerned.

A good deal has been said lately about the new German Fokker machine, and there has been a good deal of loose talk as to its formidable possibilities. As a matter of fact, its wonders appear to have been very much exaggerated, for it is only a powerful engine put into an obsolete type of French machine. It is not without significance that it is designed for purely defensive purposes, and is absolutely forbidden to cross the German lines under any circumstances whatever. It is a very small, very heavily engined monoplane, carrying a formidable gun, and for short distances capable of very swift climbing and very high speed.

For its own special purpose it is undoubtedly a first-class engine of war, but that it has met its match in the British and French battle-planes was clearly shown during a recent raid on Freiburg. During that raid, a great part of which was over enemy territory, the fighting machines which acted as escorts to the bombers fought no fewer than ten battles with the Fokkers and Aviatiks; and when we remember that the only aeroplane of the Allies to be lost out of the entire squadron was compelled to descend through engine trouble, we can easily understand that highly exaggerated reports as to the efficiency of the rule-of-thumb Fokker had by some means got into circulation. In all probability they arose from the comparatively numerous victims among our flying men claimed by the German official news just after the Fokker made its appearance. But the reason for the seeming disproportion in numbers was very simple. We were constantly the attacking party; in other words, our airmen were constantly over the German lines, while the Germans, as far as they could, gave our lines a very wide berth. The following figures, quoted in the House of Commons by Mr Tennant, are illuminating. They relate to four weeks’ fighting on the Western front, practically all of which had taken place in German territory:

British machines lost, 13.

Enemy machines brought down, 9.

Enemy machines probably brought down, 2.

British bombing raids, 6.

Enemy bombing raids, 13.

British machines used, 138.

Enemy machines used, about 20.

Machines flown across enemy lines, 1227.

Enemy machines flown across our lines (estimated), 310.

Now we need not go farther than these figures to see that the apparently heavier British losses are due not to any superiority on the German side, but to the enormously greater risks taken by our men. They are constantly flying over the German lines, whereas the German airman appears – probably with good reason – to keep to the comparative safety of his own territory, where he is protected by the German anti-aircraft guns. And that when it comes to actual combat in the air the British battle-plane has little to fear from the Fokker is shown by the experience of one of our airmen who single-handed fought a duel with three Fokkers and brought them all down. Moreover, we have always to remember that when a battle is fought the defeated Fokker comes to earth in German territory, and we cannot definitely count it as destroyed, whereas if one of our machines is brought down the Germans are always as sure of it as we are.

Another factor which shows how great an advantage we have over the enemy in the matter of the air service is revealed by the comparative failure of German bombing attacks and the havoc that has been wrought by the French and British squadrons. Leaving the Zeppelin raids for the moment out of the question, there can be no difference of opinion that the Allies’ air raids have been enormously the more destructive, not in the matter of the sacrifice of civilian life – pre-eminence in that regard is easily claimed by the Huns – but in the havoc wrought on military objectives.

When we turn to the dirigible airship – the lighter-than-air machine – the comparison at first sight seems hopelessly against us. We have nothing that can be compared to the Zeppelin in either speed or power of destruction. We have, it is true, a number of airships of different types, but experience so far has not shown that they are of great, if of any, practical value. Our military authorities have deliberately pinned their faith to the aeroplane, and so far as this War is concerned it would appear that we are hopelessly outclassed in the matter of airships.

But we must not allow ourselves to be deceived by appearances. We must not fail to take into consideration the fact that so far as its real military value is concerned the Zeppelin has shown itself to be an absolute and costly failure. This may seem at first sight a hard saying when we think of the many victims of the Zeppelin raids, of the women and little children slaughtered, of the civilians murdered in midnight raids whose lives against any opponents with the slightest regard for the laws of war or for their own good name would have been absolutely safe.

But the facts cannot be disputed. The Zeppelin is a murder machine pure and simple. Its military value is absolutely negligible, and the destruction it has wrought has been of no military significance whatever. Out of all the victims it has claimed during its frequent nocturnal expeditions here and in France, only the barest handful have been soldiers, and on none of the raids has any military base sustained the slightest damage. Moreover, it has failed in its avowed object of terrorising; neither our own people nor the French have been weakened – rather have they been strengthened – in their determination to carry on the War to the only issue consistent with the future existence of civilisation. The only real and tangible results of the Zeppelin raids from a military point of view have been to cover the Germans with a stigma of crime and murder for which they will pay dearly in the future, and to make the Allies more than ever determined to root out the nest of vermin which for so long has troubled Europe. They have done more, perhaps, than anything else except the infamous submarine campaign to convince the civilised world that so long as Germany retains her power of mischief there will be no peace for the nations at large.

There is no disguising the fact, however, that, for what it is worth, the Zeppelin for the moment holds the field.

We have not yet succeeded in discovering any means either of keeping the raiders away when the conditions are favourable for their visits, or of dealing effectively with them when their presence is detected. Undoubtedly the problem is a very difficult one. Zeppelins can fly so high that gunfire is practically ineffective against them, as has been proved in the raids on both Paris and London; the one recently brought down by the French was flying much lower than usual. They are able to take very effective cover behind any clouds that may be about, and the difficulties by which the aeroplanes are faced in locating and attacking them at night appear to be well-nigh insuperable under present conditions. In time, perhaps, we shall have fleets of powerful aeroplanes which will be able to take the air and not merely rise swiftly to the height at which the Zeppelin flies, but remain aloft all night, if need be, until the dangers inseparable from a landing in the dark have disappeared.

But it must not be forgotten that the very factors which give the Zeppelin its invulnerability against attack practically destroy its value as a fighting machine. No one – not even the commanders of the Zeppelins themselves – would pretend that, flying at a height of 12,000 feet or so on a dark and cloudy night, they can say with certainty where they are, or that they can drop their murderous bombs with any sure hope of hitting an object which would be their justification from a military point of view. They simply wait until they think they are over an inhabited area, and then drop their bombs in the hope of killing as many people as possible, or, perhaps, luckily striking some material object and doing real damage. That is not war as the civilised world understands it, but simply anarchism.

A distinguished writer recently expressed the opinion that as the Germans were essentially a practical people they would not waste effort by dropping at haphazard bombs which they had been at such pains to carry to this country, and that they must therefore be genuinely under the impression that they were doing real military damage. But their whole record in the War entirely disposes of this theory. We know quite well – the Germans have told us so, and their acts have borne out their words – that the policy of “frightfulness” commends itself to their judgment. Their one idea is to terrify; they hope to do enough damage and kill enough people to bring about in England a movement for peace. Nothing but defeat will convince them that they are wrong.

And this consideration brings me naturally to another – the subject of reprisals. If we cannot stop the Zeppelins coming or deal with them adequately when they are here, can we teach the Germans a lesson which will convince them that two can play at the game of “frightfulness,” and that in the long run we can play that game better than they can themselves? I think we can, and I think we should.

It has been one of the most striking characteristics of the career of Lord Rosebery that on more than one occasion he has put into terse and vigorous expression the opinions of the great majority of the English people. With all his apparent detachment, Lord Rosebery has a wonderful understanding of what England is saying, and still more what it is thinking, and the reader will call to mind more than one occasion on which the nebulous and only half-expressed thought of England has been suddenly crystallised in the clearest fashion through the mouth of Lord Rosebery. This has unmistakably been the case in the matter of the Zeppelin raids.

In a recent letter to The Times, dated February 3, Lord Rosebery put the English point of view with his customary clearness and directness. He wrote:

This last Zeppelin raid has cleared the air. There may be difficulties from the aircraft point of view in reprisals. I am not behind the scenes, and I do not know. But as regards policy there can be none. We have too long displayed a passive and excessive patience.

We all remember Grey’s noble lines, “To scatter plenty o’er a smiling land.” For “plenty” read “bombs” and you have the Prussian ideal. To scatter bombs over a countryside, to destroy indiscriminately the mansion and the cottage, the church and the school, to murder unoffending civilians, women, children, and sucklings in their beds – these are the noble aspirations of Prussian chivalry, acclaimed by their nation as deeds of merit and daring.

Let them realise their triumph. Let us bring it directly to their hearts and homes. Let us unsparingly mete out their measure to themselves. Nothing else will make them realise their glories. And the blood of any who may suffer will rest on their Government, not on ours.

I am firmly convinced that in that letter Lord Rosebery expressed not merely what the great mass of the English people are thinking and saying to-day, but that he expressed a great and real truth.

In the early days of the War it was the fashion here in England to affect to believe that we were at war not with the German people – represented by the pro-Germans in our midst as a kindly, harmless, and industrious lot of folks – but with the mysterious “military caste” who were supposed to have usurped all authority, and to be driving the delightful German people at large into the commission of all kinds of bestial outrages which were entirely foreign to their wholly delightful nature. I should imagine that fiction has long gone by the board. We have seen the “delightful” German nation sent into paroxysms of inhuman glee by such outrages as the sinking of the “Lusitania”; we have seen them time and again savagely gloating over the slaughter of men, women, and children by their murderous Zeppelins; and if those savage outbursts of delight have done nothing else, we have at least to thank them for teaching us the lesson that we are at war with the entire German nation, and that between that nation and the civilised world there is a great gulf fixed which in our time at least will not be bridged over.

Do we owe any consideration to such a nation? Do we owe to them any of the chivalry and honourable forbearance which we have shown, not once, but a thousand times, in our long contests with civilised adversaries on a hundred fields in all parts of the world? Are our hands to be tied and our people to suffer through our adherence to creeds of warfare which the Huns evidently regard – as they regard Christianity itself – as a lot of worn-out shibboleths?

I say emphatically “No,” and I say the time has come when we should take steps, in Lord Rosebery’s words, to bring home the triumphs of the Zeppelins to German hearts and German homes.

It is too much the fashion in this country to look upon the German as a stolid individual with nerves of steel, who is not to be shaken from his serenity by any of the trials which would bear hardly upon ordinary mortals. There never was a greater mistake. I am quite ready to admit that the German can look unmoved upon a great deal of suffering in other people – that is a characteristic of bullies of all nations; and if the German has not shown himself to be a super-man, he has at least convinced the world that he is the super-bully in excelsis. And the only argument that appeals to him is force, naked and unashamed. In his heart of hearts he knows it. That is why he believes that England to-day is cowering in impotent terror under the menace of the Zeppelins, because he knows that is exactly what he would be doing himself if the positions were reversed, and he cannot understand other people who are built on very different lines. We know how one of the early raids on Freiburg produced an instant panic flight of every German who could afford to get away from a district which had suddenly become “unhealthy.”

Now we have it in our power to reproduce that panic in a dozen German towns within easy reach of our lines in France. And we know something of the real effects of a bombardment by one of the Allied squadrons. In the recent raid on Petrich only fourteen French aeroplanes took part. Yet the Bulgarians officially admitted that they sustained a thousand casualties – far more than we have suffered in the twenty odd Zeppelin raids on England.