machines and pilots wherever possible. French
pilots, on the other hand, ran all the risks there were, got news
of German movements, bombed the enemy, and rapidly worked up a very
respectable antiaircraft force which, whatever it may have accomplished
in the way of hitting German planes, got on the German pilots' nerves.

It has already been detailed how Britain sent over 82 planes as its
contribution to the military aerial force of 1914. These consisted of
Farman, Caudron, and Short biplanes, together with Bleriot, Deperdussin
and Nieuport monoplanes, certain R.A.F. types, and other machines of
which even the name barely survives--the resourceful Yankee entitles
them 'orphans.' It is on record that the work of providing spares might
have been rather complicated but for the fact that there were none.

There is no doubt that the Germans had made study of aerial
military needs just as thoroughly as they had perfected their ground
organisation. Thus there were 21 illuminated aircraft stations in
Germany before the War, the most powerful being at Weimar, where a
revolving electric flash of over 27 million candle-power was located.
Practically all German aeroplane tests in the period immediately
preceding the War were of a military nature, and quite a number of
reliability tests were carried out just on the other side of the French
frontier. Night flying and landing were standardised items in the German
pilot's course of instruction while they were still experimental in
other countries, and a system of signals was arranged which rendered the
instructional course as perfect as might be.

The Belgian contribution consisted of about twenty machines fit for
active service and another twenty which were more or less useful as
training machines. The material was mainly French, and the Belgian
pilots used it to good account until German numbers swamped them.
France, and to a small extent England, kept Belgian aviators supplied
with machines throughout the War.

The Italian Air Fleet was small, and consisted of French machines
together with a percentage of planes of Italian origin, of which the
design was very much a copy of French types. It was not until the War
was nearing its end that the military and naval services relied more
on the home product than on imports. This does not apply to engines,
however, for the F.I.A.T. and S.C.A.T. were equal to practically any
engine of Allied make, both in design and construction.

Russi