Though the Zeppelin raids proved wholly ineffective, so far as their effect on troops and fortifications were concerned, the German aviators introduced some novel tricks in aerial warfare which were as practical as they were ingenious.  During the battle of Vilvorde, for example, and throughout the attacks on the Antwerp forts, German dirigibles hovered at a safe height over the Belgian positions and directed the fire of the German gunners with remarkable success.  The aerial observers watched, through powerful glasses, the effect of the German shells and then, by means of a large disc which was swung at the end of a line and could be raised or lowered at will, signalled as need be in code “higher—­lower—­right—­left” and thus guided the gunners—­who were, of course, unable to see their mark or the effect of their fire—­until almost every shot was a hit.  At Vilvorde, as a result of this aerial fire-control system, I saw the German artillery, posted out of sight behind a railway embankment, get the range of a retreating column of Belgian infantry and with a dozen well-placed shots practically wipe it out of existence.  So perfect was the German system of observation and fire control during the final attack on the Antwerp defences that whenever the Belgians or British moved a regiment or a battery the aerial observers instantly detected it and a perfect storm of shells was directed against the new position.

Throughout the operations around Antwerp, the Taubes, as the German aeroplanes are called because of their fancied resemblance to a dove, repeatedly performed daring feats of reconnaissance.  On one occasion, while I was with the General Staff at Lierre, one of these German Taubes sailed directly over the Hotel de Ville, which was being used as staff headquarters.  It so happened that King Albert was standing in the street, smoking one of the seven-for-a-franc Belgian cigars to which he was partial.

“The Germans call it a dove, eh?” remarked the King, as he looked up at the passing aircraft.  “Well, it looks to me more like a hawk.”

A few days before the fall of Antwerp a Taube flew over the city in the early afternoon, dropping thousands of proclamations printed in both French and Flemish and signed by the commander of the investing forces, pointing out to the inhabitants the futility of resistance, asserting that in fighting Germany they were playing Russia’s game, and urging them to lay down their arms.  The aeroplane was greeted by a storm of shrapnel from the high-angle guns mounted on the fortifications, the only effect of which, however, was to kill two unoffending citizens who were standing in the streets and were struck by the fragments of the falling shells.