available at this
time for the wider sort of strategic reconnaissance. Nos. 2, 3, and 5
Squadrons had been attached, by an order issued on the 1st of October,
to the First, Second, and Third Army Corps respectively, while No. 4
Squadron was detailed for strategical reconnaissance. The General
Officers Commanding army corps had learned the value of aeroplanes and
demanded their assistance. Much of the country over which they were
operating in Northern France and Flanders was flat and enclosed,
unsuitable either way for cavalry reconnaissance.

Long-distance work was done chiefly from headquarters. On the 3rd of
October, when the situation at Antwerp had become critical,
Lieutenant-Colonel F. H. Sykes flew direct to Bruges from
Fere-en-Tardenois, with a message from Sir John French to the Belgian
Chief of Staff at Antwerp. On the following day he returned and reported
that the Germans had broken through the south-eastern sector of the
outer defences of Antwerp, that the Belgians were awaiting help, and
that they might possibly hold out for two or three weeks. In forwarding
the report to Lord Kitchener Sir John French adds, 'The relief of
Antwerp I regard as my first objective'. This mission was followed by
others, and a few days later Sir John French speaks of reports which he
is receiving daily by air from General Rawlinson.

Meantime a squadron of the Royal Naval Air Service, as shall be told in
the next chapter, had been operating for some weeks from Ostend and
Dunkirk with French territorial forces. The French territorials were
hastily embodied troops taken from civilian life and were not of much
use for a fight against odds. When the Seventh Division was landed at
Ostend and Zeebrugge during the first week of October, and the
improvised British Naval Division arrived at Antwerp, the situation was
already out of hand. The British army was small; it had helped to save
Paris, and now paid the price in the loss of the Belgian coast. The
Seventh Division occupied Ghent, and after covering the retreat of the
Belgian army, which halted along the line of the Yser, from Dixmude to
Nieuport, fell back by way of Roulers to a position east of Ypres. When
the whole British force came into line, it held a front of some
thirty-five miles, with Maud'huy's Tenth French Army on its right across
the Bethune-Lille road. On its left the line was held, from a point
north of Ypres to the sea, by the Belgian army, assisted by four French