ch the Military Wing left England the bulk of the
trained officers and men, and almost all the machines fit for service,
had to be taken. When I started to raise the Corps, in May, 1912, the
War Office estimated that its organization, (of a headquarters and seven
aeroplane and one airship squadrons) would take at least four years;
instead, there had been little more than two. Even at the risk of
leaving insufficient personnel and material behind to form and train new
squadrons, I recommended that four complete squadrons (including the
wireless machines which had to be thrown in to make up the numbers)
should be sent overseas to help the British Expeditionary Force in
bearing the brunt of the terrific blow that was to come. It was a very
serious matter that so little could be left with which to carry on in
England, but we considered it essential to dispatch at once to France
every available machine and pilot, because both political and military
authorities were of opinion that for economic and financial reasons a
war with a great European power could not last more than a few months.
Another reason was that those of us who had been at the Staff College
during the few years before the war, or who had recently served on the
General Staff at the War Office, believed that the weight of the German
attack would be made through Belgium, where, owing to the enclosed
nature of the country, cavalry would be at a disadvantage, and we
realized therefore, and urged, the great effect which the air would
have from the commencement of operations--a view which was not widely
held, especially among senior officers in the Army. We also felt the
necessity of using our maximum air strength from the outset, so as to
prove its supreme importance as quickly and practically as possible. It
required the Retreat from Mons before even G.H.Q. as a whole would
accept the fact, though Colonel Macdonogh, the head of the intelligence
section, was our firm ally. The iron of confidence, both to used and
user, had to be welded with the first great blows on the anvil of war.
For these reasons it was vital that every available trained pilot and
suitable machine should be employed with the Army, even at the danger of
serious initial depletion at Home. The smooth progress of expansion was
largely attributable alike to the strength of the pre-war spirit,
organization and training,[2] and to the results actual and moral
obtained by the first four squadrons during t