xcuse than for those on the peaceful little seaside
bathing resorts and fishing villages. London is full of military
and naval centres, arsenals and navy yards, executive offices and
centres of warlike activity. An incendiary bomb dropped into the
Bank of England, or the Admiralty, might paralyze the finances of
the Empire, or throw the naval organization into a state of anarchy.
But as a matter of fact the German bombs did nothing of the sort.
They fell in the congested districts of London, "the crowded warrens
of the poor." They spread wounds and death among peaceable theatre
audiences. One dropped on a 'bus loaded with passengers homeward
bound, and obliterated it and them from the face of the earth. But
no building of the least military importance sustained any injury.
It is true, however, that the persistent raiding has compelled
England to withhold from the fighting lines in France several
thousand men and several hundred guns in order to be in readiness to
meet air raids in which Germany has never employed more than fifty
machines and at most two hundred men, including both aviators and
mechanics.

It is entirely probable that the failure of the Germans to strike
targets of military importance and the slaughter they wrought among
peaceful civilians were due to no intent or purpose on their part.
Hitting a chosen target from the air is no matter of certainty. The
bomb intended for the railway station is quite as likely to hit the
adjacent public school or hospital. If the world ever recurs to that
moderate degree of sanity and civilization which shall permit wars,
but strive to regulate them in the interest of humanity this
untrustworthiness of the aircraft's aim will compel some form of
international regulation, just as the vulnerability of the submarine
will force the amendment of the doctrine of visitation and search.
But neither problem can be logically and reasonably solved in the
middle of a war. And so, while the German violation of existing
international law had the uncomfortable result for Germany of
bringing the United States into the war, the barbarous raids upon
London caused the British at last to turn aside from their
commendable abstention from air raids on unfortified and
non-military towns and prepare for reprisals in kind.

From the beginning of the war the British had abstained from bombing
peaceful and non-military towns. They had not indeed been weak in
the employment of their air forces. G