That the services of our Flying Corps, which has really been on trial, are fully appreciated by our Allies is shown by the following message from the Commander-in-Chief of the French Armies, received on September 9 by Field-Marshal Sir John French:
Please express most particularly to Marshal French my thanks for services rendered on every day by the English Flying Corps. The precision, exactitude, and regularity of the news brought in by its members are evidence of their perfect organisation, and also of the perfect training of pilots and observers.
To give a rough idea of the amount of work carried out, it is sufficient to mention that during a period of twenty days up to September 10 a daily average of more than nine reconnaissance flights of over 100 miles each had been maintained.
The constant object of our aviators has been to effect the accurate location of the enemy’s forces, and incidentally—since the operations cover so large an area—of our own units. Nevertheless, the tactics adopted for dealing with hostile aircraft are to attack them instantly with one or more British machines. This has been so far successful that in five cases German pilots or observers have been shot in the air and their machines brought to ground.
As a consequence, the British Flying Corps has succeeded in establishing an individual ascendancy which is as serviceable to us as it is damaging to the enemy. How far it is due to this cause it is not possible at present to ascertain definitely, but the fact remains that the enemy have recently become much less enterprising in their flights. Something in the direction of the mastery of the air has already been gained.
In pursuance of the principle that the main object of military aviators is the collection of information, bomb dropping has not been indulged in to any great extent. On one occasion a petrol bomb was successfully exploded in a German bivouac at night, while, from a diary found on a dead German cavalry soldier, it has been discovered that a high explosive bomb thrown at a cavalry column from one of our aeroplanes struck an ammunition wagon. The resulting explosion killed fifteen of the enemy.
Ample evidence has been supplied by the correspondents to the newspapers of the inhuman treatment meted out to civilians by the Germans. Reference has already been made in the present book to this subject. There is another unworthy characteristic of the Germans by which they exact the utmost penalty from non-combatants. Mr. William Maxwell has illustrated this form of vandalism in the following interesting article contributed to the columns of the _Daily Telegraph_. Apparently the same tale might be told of any village or town in France or Belgium through which the Germans advanced or retreated:—