Most people seem to have the impression that it is as easy for an aviator to see what is happening on the ground beneath him as though he were looking down from the roof of a high building.  Under ordinary conditions, when one can skim above the surface of the earth at a height of a few hundred feet, this is quite true, but it is quite a different matter when one is flying above hostile troops who are blazing away at him with rifles and machine-guns.  During reconnaissance work the airmen generally are compelled to ascend to an altitude of a mile or a mile and a quarter, which makes observation extremely difficult, as small objects, even with the aid of the strongest glasses, assume unfamiliar shapes and become fore-shortened.  If, in order to obtain a better view, they venture to fly at a lower height, they are likely to be greeted by a hail of rifle fire from soldiers in the trenches.  The Belgian aviators with whom I talked assured me that they feared rifle fire more than bursting shrapnel, as the fire of a regiment, when concentrated even on so elusive an object as an aeroplane, proves far more deadly than shells.

The Belgians made more use than any other nation of motor-cars.  When war was declared one of the first steps taken by the military authorities was to commandeer every motor-car, every motor-cycle and every litre of petrol in the kingdom.  As a result they depended almost entirely upon motor-driven vehicles for their military transport, which was, I might add, extremely efficient.  In fact, we could always tell when we were approaching the front by the amazing number of motor-cars which lined the roads for miles in the rear of each division.

Anything that had four wheels and a motor to drive them—­diminutive American run-abouts, slim, low-hung racing cars, luxurious limousines with coronets painted on the panels, delivery-cars bearing the names of shops in Antwerp and Ghent and Brussels, lumbering motor-trucks, hotel omnibuses—­all met the same fate, which consisted in being daubed with elephant-grey paint, labelled “S.M.” (Service Militaire) in staring white letters, and started for the front, usually in charge of a wholly inexperienced driver.  It made an automobile lover groan to see the way some of those cars were treated.  But they did the business.  They averaged something like twelve miles an hour—­which is remarkable time for army transport—­ and, strangely enough, very few of them broke down.  If they did there was always an automobile des reparations promptly on hand to repair the damage.  Before the war began the Belgian army had no army transport worthy of the name; before the forts at Liege had been silenced it had as efficient a one as any nation in Europe.