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Aviation History
1917
1917 - 1016.PDF
fUCHT OCTOBER 4, 1917. statistics to furnish a working basis, a condition which would be bound to exercise a retarding influence on development. Besides, there is the immediate ques- tion of insurance of our airmen who may not be directly engaged in the war so far as actual contact with the enemy is concerned. If such statistics were prepared as suggested, we doubt not the insurance companies would find it possible to undertake the risks at premiums which would make business not only possible but profitable to everybody concerned. Germanyand tbe Air. A valued correspondent sends us a translation, from the Berlin paper Der Motorwagen, of the report of a recent meeting of the German Aerial League. The latter is. and always has been, a very live body indeed—as live as the German Navy League—and it may be taken, therefore, that the report in question represents quite accurately the views and beliefs of that very large section of the German people which thinks ahead and is convinced that air power will decide the future of empires. The translation is as follows :— " At a recent meeting of the ' Deutscher Fliagerbund,' or German Aerial League, the treasurer, Lieut. Bothe, of Berlin, gave some interesting details regarding the objects and activities of ^he League. " He first gave a very clear and comprehensive survey of the present position of aeronautics in Germany, claiming that the Germans had now really obtained the supremacy of the air on the Western Front as on <»ther fronts, though he had to acknowledge that at the time of the great Somme offensive the mastery'/in the air belonged to the British and French. " This led to a reawakening in German military circles and to a redoubling of their efforts to regain that supremacy, and no stones were left unturned until that object had been successfully attained. " The Germans had.now left their adversaries far behind, both in the number and quality of the aircraft being turned out, as the English were learning to their cost. " Lieut. Bothe thea dealt at some length with the position of military aeronautics after the present war. He foretold that on the cessation of the present hostilities all the nations would at once proceed to build up an impenetrable series of modern defensive works, extending several miles behind their frontiers, and which it would be beyond the power of human beings to break through, except by the aerial arm. " In future wars it would be necessary to invade the enemy's territories by means of tens of thousands of aeroplanes, which by dropping hundreds of tons of explosives would destroy all industrial works, transport routes, &c, and thus delay the advance of the troops and impede preparations for offence or defence. " The war would be won within the first few days of the declaration of hostilities by the Power or Powers which were thus able to throw in the largest weight of aerial ' fright- fulness.' and thereby paralyse the fighting efficiency of its opponents, before even a battle had been fought or a campaign opened. " Where, it may be asked, are to be found the pilots to man these tens of thousands of aeroplanes ? This would beone of the chief duties of the ' German Aerial League,' an institution which was daily growing in importance andinfluence. " By suitable courses of training at aerodromes and inthe workshops, the youth of the country would be prepared for later service in the Flying Corps." The speaker urged everyone interested in this subject to give the League all the support possible by joining a localbranch and by making its objects more widely known." The first point that stands out is the obvious belief that Germany has definitely secured the supremacy of the air on all fronts. It is quite clear that this belief is genuinely held by the enemy public, since it has received confirmation in the Reichstag itself, where Herr Kaempfe, the other day said: " In the air also we have gained the supremacy." Against that, it is claimed for the Allies that in the West and on the Italian Front the boot is on the other leg, and the claim is certainly borne out by the official reports issued from time to time on the work of our own and the French and Italian Air Services. That the enemy succeeds in raiding our shores does not affect the question at all so far as actual fighting supremacy is concerned, and he is welcome to what consolation he can derive in the meantime from the exploits of his Gothas in their utterly futile raids on London and the British coast towns. The next point of importance that emerges is that the thoughts of the Teuton are manifestly still on war and preparation for war with its ultimate aim of a German world dominion. There is not a word in the report on the possibilities of peaceful aerial expan- sion for the ends of commerce. On the contrary, it is war—war all the time that appears to obscess the minds of this extraordinary people. If there were no other incentive to the Allies to prosecute the war until the last vestiges of Prussain militarism have been ground into the dust, it would be supplied by the utterances of Germany's public men. So far from having renounced their schemes of world conquest, it is abundantly clear that though they recognise they have failed to attain their objectives by one method they are still busy thinking out schemes for reaching them by another route. Germany has never been an agreeable member of the comity of nations and never will be. There is only one manner of, rendering the poisonous snake harmless, and that is by drawing its fangs. When Germany's have been drawn it will be possible for decent people to live in the same world, but, to pursue the simile, we shall have to watch the mouth of the snake lest they grow again. A nation that has thought war and dreamed war for more than half a century cannot change its ideals all at once, even though it be brought to see that it has worshipped false gods. It will change the out- ward seeming of those gods, but they will be the same gods. How Germany has worshipped the War God in the past we know, and we hardly wanted to drive home the realisation of her true character, the revela- tion of the United States State Department of the statement made to Admiral Dewey by the Hun Admiral Goetz of her intention to launch a world war somewhere about the year 1913. That she still wor- ships at the same shrine is amply shown by all the contemporary evidence relating to the feeling of all classes of Germans, of which the report we have quoted is characteristic. It carries with it a warning for our after-the-war activities, which we shall hardly be able to ignore. • • • As was anticipated by all who have Tbe Raids followed the German method of con- London ducting the war in the air, the brilliant moonlight nights of the past ten days have produced a plentiful crop of aerial raids on British towns, the feature of which has been the desperate attempts made by Hun airmen to reach the Metropolis. Unfortunately they have, to some extent, succeeded in that object, though the results which have attended their efforts have been by no means commensurate with the expenditure of energy in- volved. The sum total of their achievements in London has been that a few corners have been knocked off a very few quite unimportant buildings ; a number —fortunately a small number—of inoffensive civilians 1016
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