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bombard London or Edinburgh at sea during the period of tension, and they may be able to keep under frequent observation any ships of ours which enter the decisive maritime area within the Channel and the North Sea. The reports by wireless from the airships will permit the German naval forces to operate against any weaker detachments of ours within striking distance, and should render any attempt on our part to watch closely the German coast and ports a hazardous proceeding. It is certainly true that the weather conditions over the British Isles are frequently very unfavourable for airship work, and that afflavit Deus may yet be struck upon another British medal. But we must also suppose that a Power which expects important results from airships will select a moment that is favourable for their activity and not the reverse.

from the air. Such an act would only infuriate our people, and make them ready for every sacrifice. If we heard that a Royal or a plebeian nursery, a crowd of peaceful clerks, or bevies of young women in the Telephone Exchanges,exasperating as they sometimes are, -had suddenly been swept into eternity, the war would become one of extermination. Humanity aside, I do not think that it would pay Germany to provoke a war of that character with the British Empire. We shall be under the disagreeable necessity, in case of war with Germany, of temporarily incarcerating all German citizens in this country of a military age, -that is to say, between the ages of 17 and 45. There is such a thing as the stern law of reprisals, and I hope that no enemy may ever impose it

upon us.

Nor do I think that airships are ever likely to be used for the transport of troops for the invasion of our islands. So far as our experience goes, there seems to be no likelihood that the men, guns, ammunition, and stores, to say nothing of waggons and horses, required by an army destined for the invasion of the British Isles, will ever pass by way of the air.

But even if these two forms of attack be excluded, there remains, unfortunately, a sufficiently large sphere of activity for the airship to cause us much anxiety. First of all, reconnaissance. In favourable weather the German airships will begin their watch

I pass from the role of reconnaissance to that of attack. We must reckon with the fact that in favourable weather the dirigible soon will, if it cannot already, outstrip the fastest warship afloat. So long as the ship has no armament which will keep the airship at a respectful distance-and this is the case with us at presentthere is no reason why the latter should not rain down projectiles on the deck and into the funnels of the ship until the supply of explosives is exhausted. So long as our warships are without this special armament they remain exposed to this form of attack, the future consequences of which will vary from year

to

year according to the detect submarines and mines, forms which the projectiles of the hostile airship will here after take, the character of the contrivance for dropping or firing them, and the future types of armoured decks or steel penthouses to resist these new attacks, if they can be resisted. As the airships increase in numbers and efficiency we must expect to see groups of them seek out our fleets at their anchorages and renew their depredations on a larger scale.

By hovering over our naval ports and establishments dirigibles can hope to play havoc with ships within the port, and with those completing for sea, building, or repairing. Cordite factories are sure to invite the particular attentions of the enemy. Flotilla bases where destroyers or submarines may be found will offer a specially attractive bait, for these light craft, secured as they often are in long lines near a quay, form a large and vulnerable target. The points open to attacks of this nature will constantly be increased as the range of hostile airships extends. Such attacks will be particularly dangerous at night when there is a moon, for it has been proved that it is very difficult to distinguish an airship by night, while the outlines of ships in the water can be seen plainly from above.

Every one who has watched fish from a bridge knows that it is possible to see a considerable distance into water directly below. Observers in airships will often be able to

to drop marks over the latter
to guide mine-sweeping craft,
and to attack submarines
when these are either on the
surface or near enough to
the surface to use their peri-
scopes. Dirigibles can safely
approach within close range of
submarines and make good
practice with bombs or speci-
ally designed projectiles for
use against these pests. The
airship seems destined to play
the part of the gull to the sub-
marine fish, and offers at pres-
ent the best hope of mitigating
if not of ending the severe strain
imposed upon a navy by the sub-
marine menace.
It is partly
because Germany has such a
large number of airships ready,
while we have almost none,
that I think she must hope to
beat us in flotilla war. The
airship has the faculty of ap-
proaching its objective, whether
on sea or on land, rapidly and
noiselessly. A few minutes after
it is first observed it will be
able to act. Nothing but other
airships or special guns can
check or delay its attack. It
has all the moral force which
attaches to novelty in war.

We cannot speak of the command of the air in the sense that we understand that of the sea. The command of the air, in its literal sense, seems destined to remain in the temple of the winds. Nevertheless, superiority in power to wage war in the air has become an imperative obligation for the State which desires to command at sea, and it is not improbable that in the near future the command of narrow waters may be decided in the

long,-very

air. Superiority in the air aeroplanes before long, -very will enable a Power to act Power to act fast craft, with decks organwith knowledge against an ised exclusively for launching enemy in the dark. It will, aeroplanes, and with supplies in favourable weather and of fuel, and all facilities for narrow waters, discount large- picking up aeroplanes on their ly superiority at sea. It will return from scouting trips. In allow attacks to be made on my idea, the aeroplane will hostile ships at sea and in port. impose itself upon the Navy. By it alone, failing military action ashore, can a hostile a hostile fleet which takes refuge in defended harbours within airship range be attacked and perhaps destroyed. By it alone can the submarine menace be met and perhaps discounted.

If we reflect upon our preparations for figuring in these aerial combats, we shall probably agree that the creation of an Advisory Committee under Lord Rayleigh was a wise measure, for it is in experiment and research that we are so greatly behindhand. But we took another step which can less easily be defended, namely, the separation of our future airmen into two corps, one naval and the other military. The idea was that the rigid-frame dirigible was alone suited to the naval service, and other types of airships only to war on land. But is it quite so clear that the Army has not just as much need for distant reconnaissance as the Navy? and is it so certain that semirigid and non-rigid dirigibles and aeroplanes have no useful functions in 8 naval war? Many hard-headed people believe that the aeroplane will, without using her motors, eventually emulate the longcontinued soaring flight of great birds. I think that we shall see parent ships for

I think that we are on the wrong tack in maintaining service distinctions in the domain of aerostation. The corps should be a single family, with a single aim, namely, the safe navigation of the air. We cannot count upon the same unity of doctrine and effort in two corps as we can in one. The division which we have imposed is artificial and arbitrary, for the air knows no coasts nor ever will. All forms of aerial locomotion have much in common-for instance, the study of air currents, motors, steering, observation, signals, and so forth. A single corps, neither of Army nor of Navy, but one which will serve both without distinction and form the missing-link between the services, is the real need of the times, and into such corps we should take steps to attract as many practical airmen as possible. It is also obvious that a technical school for the complete instruction of apprentices should be created with the least possible delay.

Airship and anti- airship artillery must also be constructed. Every warship that floats should have an anti-airship armament, and as the surface destroyer is gradually ousted by her swift submersible sister of 30 knots on the surface and 15 submerged, this type

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too will in the end be compelled in self-defence to adopt similar precautions. Anti-airship guns must be mounted at our naval ports and anchorages and round our factories of cordite and war material. It is necessary that the hostile airship should be attacked promptly and at extreme ranges directly she appears. Direct hits will be most difficult to obtain, but, as the mark will be large, and a single hit with flame-fire will mean the certain death of every one on board a dirigible which trusts to hydrogen, there will be much inducement to keep out of range, at all events by day, and to avoid the poised position, which means a "sitter for the guns below. In principle it is in the air that the airship must be fought, but the speed and rapid aotion of the airship make the defensive value of aerial forces very problematical. The stroke will probably be delivered in most instances long before the airships of the defence are ready for action, so that we shall with difficulty escape the obligation of arming our ships, yards, and factories of warlike materials with anti- airship guns. As for the night attacks of airships I am unable to suggest any means of combating them, and I am very doubtful whether any such means will ever be found. The best preservative will be to get in our aerial blow upon the hostile navy first.

There is need for great vigilance and sustained effort. We are mainly dependent at pres

ent upon second-hand evidence of foreign experiments, and we shall never realise all that the airship can do in war until we have built and practically tested every form of airship of our own. If we can succeed, as I am convinced we can, given adequate financial provision, in building and in navigating a few score of serviceable dirigibles with a range of some 1500 miles, and capable of discharging projectiles which will wreck a ship if they hit her deck, we shall gain the inestimable advantage of being able to attack, and perhaps destroy, hostile fleets in their ports where our Navy cannot at present get at them.

We shall in any

case possess the power which we lack of attacking hostile submarines, and thereby of gaining the upper hand in the war of small craft which may determine the fate not only of Navies but of Empires.

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The ideas which I have ventured to express in these two articles are no doubt-but no more than the new arms themselves-revolutionary and disturbing. They are without the sanction of war experience, because neither the submarine, nor the airship, nor the modern torpedo which is practically a new weapon, has yet figured in any war.

But when new arms are introduced, and until we have the test of war to approve or condemn them, we are reduced to speculation concerning their future use. In the conflict of ideas arising from free discussion some sparks of light occasionally flash forth.

IN ARCADY.

A FEW years ago we came to the conclusion that if we did not move, London would catch us in its tentacles. Although our village was more than forty miles from Hyde Park Corner, an energetic railway company already brought the Daily-Breader to and from his business; villa residences began to make hideous the countryside; and, last straw, the War Office built an unsightly collection of tin-roofed booths and tabernacles, which they called a Camp, all along by the side of my wife's favourite drive. It is true that they soon discovered (what any native could have told them) that the site on which the Camp was built became a swamp in wet weather. They were then obliged, laboriously and and at great expense, to move their unsightly edifices to a different spot; but ere then we had fled. I was telling this little story, to the tune of Pity the poor Taxpayer, one evening over the port not long ago, when an elderly and distinguished general smiled a ghastly smile and said, "Oh yes; I was on a small Committee of Inquiry which condemned that site as wholly unsuitable, some time back in the 'Eighties. I expect they have our report in a pigeonhole at the War Office now." Yet foreigners never can make out why we refuse to take our War Office seriously.

For us there began a most interesting chasse aux maisons. At houses of all kinds we looked, in every county in the South, travelling many leagues in our rather aged motor-car, usually by our two selves. Various adventures and mishaps we met with, but one in particular is stamped on my mind.

Any chauffeur will tell you that changing a tyre on a hot day after a shower of rain is a dirty, muddy performance. We knew not then of Stepneys and moving rims; and it so fell out, one morning of rain and sunshine, that an old cover gave up the ghost with a bang about three miles away from a house in Oxfordshire which we were to inspect. However, the house agent had told us that only caretakers were there; so I did not worry worry particularly about dirty hands and dusty clothes. Panting from the labour of blowing up the new tyre, I sat me down on a stile by the wayside, and, surveying my work, found that the tyre stood. "Come along," said a voice from the car;

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