gland, so that cross-country training may be
facilitated. 'These stations should be as near as possible', he adds,
'to where troops are quartered, so as to afford an opportunity for
aeroplanes to work with troops on field days. The cost would, I think,
be inconsiderable in comparison to the value gained.' This suggestion
was carried out, but not until the war had compelled an immense
expansion of the air force.

The French, then, were ahead of us, and were showing us the way. Of
German preparations less was known, and estimates of the German air
force, even when made by experts, were largely guesswork. The Zeppelin
airships enjoyed a world-wide fame, and there is good reason to think
that the German Government practised a certain measure of frankness with
regard to their airship establishment in order the more effectively to
shroud the very resolute effort they were making to overtake the French
in the production of aeroplanes. If ever they thought that the airship
alone would do their business, that dream soon passed away. A good deal
of valuable information concerning the German air force was obtained in
the summer of 1912, just after the formation of the Royal Flying Corps.
In June of that year the Technical Sub-committee of the Committee of
Imperial Defence (a body whose cumbrous name does no justice to its
swift decisions) dispatched two of its members, Captain Sueter and Mr.
O'Gorman, to France, Austria, and Germany, to report, primarily, on the
whole airship question. In Germany these delegates took occasion to
visit five aeroplane factories--the Rumpler, Etrich, Albatross, Harland,
and Fokker, besides inspecting various flying grounds and wireless
stations. Their report is full of interest. 'No year passes', they
remark, 'in which orders equal to our total equipment are not placed by
Germany, France, and Italy.' In Germany they found there were thirty
airships available, and a large Government factory for rigids 'only
thinly pretending to be a private speculation'. They append a list of no
fewer than twenty-eight military flying grounds at which there were
flying camps. They were deeply impressed by the evidence of large
expenditure, direct and indirect, on aerial preparation, and the
systematic manner of that expenditure. 'The position of Germany', they
say, 'appeared to us to be widely different from what it is described in
the English press ... and far more active.' During their trip in the
Zeppelin airship _