purposes. Yet things changed and moved so fast, that before the
war broke out, although the German people still believed that the
Zeppelin gave them the sovereignty of the air, the German Government had
been troubled by doubts, had changed its policy, and was striving hard
to overtake the French in the construction and manning of army
aeroplanes. The consequence was that the war found Germany better
provided with aeroplanes for use on the western front than with airships
for operations oversea. The German Emperor, speaking to a wounded
soldier, is reported to have said that he never willed this war. One
proof that this war was not the war he willed may be found in the state
of preparation of the German air force. If war with England had been any
part of the German plan, German airships would have been more numerous,
and would have been ready for immediate action, as the armies that
invaded Belgium were ready. The German theory was that England was not
prepared for war, which, with certain brilliant and crucial exceptions,
was true, and that therefore England would not go to war, which proved
to be false. The French were supplying themselves with a great force of
aeroplanes, and for all that could be known, air operations on the
western front might determine the fortunes of the campaign. So the
German Government turned its attention to machines that are heavier than
air.

What had brought about this situation was the rapid and surprising
development of the aeroplane by France. Here it is necessary to go back
and take up the story again at the beginning of those few and headlong
years.

French aviation derives directly from Lilienthal and collaterally from
the Wrights. The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church; but the
martyrs, for the most part, die in faith, without assurance of the
harvest that is to come. When Lilienthal was killed he can hardly have
known that his example and his careful records would so soon bear fruit
in other countries. He was regarded by his fellow-countrymen as a
whimsical acrobat, who took mad risks and paid the price. But as soon as
he was dead, the story of what he had done got abroad, and began to
raise up for him disciples and successors, who carried on his
experiments. The chief of these in France was Captain F. Ferber, an
officer of artillery and a student of science, who from 1896 onwards was
a teacher in the military school at Fontainebleau. It was in 1898 that
he first came