men, would it have proved of any real utility? Answer is unnecessary. It may be reasonably argued that the capital value of an aeroplane, with pilot and observer, being so much greater than that of a cavalryman, the above comparison is unfair; granting this objection, the position is not seriously altered, the equivalent force would be quite unperceived and be of no tangible service to the German army of to-day.
If, then, instead of the present moment being that of the introduction of the aeroplane (and dirigible), it had chanced to be the moment when mounted men were put on trial for the first time as a fighting force, and presuming the initial trial to have been made on a similarly modest scale, the mounted men would, relatively speaking, have proved a failure, and no one, not possessed of exceptional intuition or foresight, would have had the least conception of the possibilities of cavalry when numerically sufficient, boldly handled in masses and with appropriate supports.
The foregoing does not constitute a demonstration that the air service is in the future destined to become as important an auxiliary to an army in the field as the cavalry of to-day, although this is in effect the belief of the present author. Clearly, if we may judge from the scale of preparation which obtains, it is far from being the accepted view, in this country at least. The difficulty in connection with the present subject is that in order to get the future into true perspective, it is necessary to be able to look forward along two parallel lines of development—i.e., to visualise the improvement of aircraft possible in the near future as a matter of engineering development, and simultaneously to form a live conception of what this improvement and evolution will open up in the potentialities of the machine as an instrument of war. The author does not wish it to be supposed that he is
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