t officers, it
was feared, were available to command a large number of small
independent units. On the other hand, if too large a unit had been
chosen, it would have been difficult to put the air service at the
disposal of the various army formations which might ask for assistance
from the air. The squadron, when it was created, was elastic and
manageable, and secured for the air force, as the war has proved, that
corporate spirit and that pride in history and tradition which are the
strength of the regimental system.

The deliberations of the sub-committee were conducted in a severely
practical spirit. Many of the constructive problems which came before
them still remain problems, and might have been debated, with much to be
said on both sides, till the conversion of the Jews; but the pressure of
time made itself ominously felt in all their proceedings. The country,
as a whole, was not awake to the German menace. The sudden appearance of
the German gunboat _Panther_ at Agadir in July 1911 ought, it may be
said, to have awakened it. But the average Englishman could hardly bring
himself to believe that a great European nation would seek war as a
duellist seeks a quarrel, from sensitive vanity and pride in his own
fighting skill. The army and the navy were quicker to discern the
reality of the threat. The military machine that was to supply the small
expeditionary force was working at high pressure, and the air was tense.
If Germany intended to make her bid for the mastery of Europe, it was
recognized that she had every reason for making it soon. 'All the heads
of departments', said the chairman, at a meeting in January 1912, 'are
very anxious to get on with this--Lord Haldane told me so last night,
Mr. Churchill told me so two or three days ago, and the Chancellor of
the Exchequer himself is anxious to see it done, and wisely: but what is
the best method to pursue in order to do in a week what is generally
done in a year?' 'At the present time in this country,' he said later,
'we have, as far as I know, of actual flying men in the Army about
eleven, and of actual flying men in the Navy about eight, and France has
about two hundred and sixty-three, so we are what you might call
behind.'

Moreover, the committee realized that an air service would be needed by
the army of Great Britain more than it is needed by the armies of
foreign powers. In a memorandum by the War Office, drawn up in the same
month of January 1912, it