utput of aircraft. They organized an air service with
naval and military wings. They formed advisory and consultative
committees to grapple with the difficulties of organization and
construction. They investigated the comparative merits and drawbacks of
airships and aeroplanes. The airships, because they seemed fitter for
reconnaissance over the sea, were eventually assigned wholly to the
Naval Wing. No very swift progress was made with these in the years
before the war. The expenses of adequate experiment were enormous, and
the long tale of mishaps to Zeppelins seemed to show that the risks were
great. The experts who were consulted pointed out that the only way to
test the value of the larger type of airship was to build such airships
ourselves, that Germany had patiently persevered in her airship policy
in the face of disaster and loss, and that if we were to succeed with
airships it would be necessary to warn the public that heavy losses, in
the initial stage, were unavoidable. Opinion in this island, it is right
to remember, was strong against the airship, or gas-bag, and Germany's
enthusiastic championship of the Zeppelin made the aeroplane more
popular in England. So our airship policy was tentative and
experimental; a few small airships were in use, but none of the large
size and wide range required for effective naval reconnaissance. Good
and rapid progress, on the other hand, was made with aeroplanes and
seaplanes, and when war broke out we had a small but healthy service,
both naval and military, ready to take the air.

Four squadrons of the Military Wing, or Royal Flying Corps, that is to
say, forty-eight machines, with a few additional machines in reserve,
bore a part in the retreat from Mons. A detachment of the Naval Wing, or
Royal Naval Air Service, was sent to Belgium, and after bearing a part
in the defence of Antwerp, established itself at Dunkirk, which remained
throughout the war a centre for aerial operations. These were the
beginnings; in the four years and three months of the war the air
service grew and multiplied a hundredfold. At the date of the armistice,
the 11th of November 1918, there were operating in France and Belgium
ninety-nine squadrons of the Royal Air Force. In August 1914 there had
been less than two hundred and fifty officers in the service, all told;
in November 1918 there were over thirty thousand. In August 1914 the
total of machines, available for immediate war service, was ab