to that of his French or British rival.  The ordinary German has neither the flexible quality of body, the quickness of nerve, the temperament, nor the mental habits that make a successful aviator.  This idea was first put into my head by considering the way in which Germans walk and carry themselves, and by nothing the difference in nimbleness between the cyclists in the streets of German and French towns.  It was confirmed by a conversation I had with a German aviator who was also a dramatist, and who came to see me upon some copyright matter in 1912.  He broached the view that aviation would destroy democracy, because he said only aristocrats make aviators. (He was a man of good family.) With a duke or so in my mind I asked him why.  Because, he explained, a man without aristocratic quality in tradition, cannot possibly endure the “high loneliness” of the air.  That sounded rather like nonsense at the time, and then I reflected that for a Prussian that might be true.  There may be something in the German composition that does demand association and the support of pride and training before dangers can be faced.  The Germans are social and methodical, the French and English are by comparison chaotic and instinctive; perhaps the very readiness for a conscious orderliness that makes the German so formidable upon the ground, so thorough and fore-seeking, makes him slow and unsure in the air.  At any rate the experiences of this war have seemed to carry out this hypothesis.  The German aviators will not as a class stand up to those of the Allies.  They are not nimble in the air.  Such champions as they have produced have been men of one trick; one of their great men, Immelmann—­he was put down by an English boy a month or so ago—­had a sort of hawk’s swoop.  He would go very high and then come down at his utmost pace at his antagonist, firing his machine gun at him as he came.  If he missed in this hysterical lunge, he went on down....  This does not strike the Allied aviator as very brilliant.  A gentleman of that sort can sooner or later be caught on the rise by going for him over the German lines.

The first phase, then, of the highest grade offensive, the ultimate development of war regardless of expense, is the clearance of the air.  Such German machines as are up are put down by fighting aviators.  These last fly high; in the clear blue of the early morning they look exactly like gnats; some trail a little smoke in the sunshine; they take their machine guns in pursuit over the German lines, and the German anti-aircraft guns, the Archibalds, begin to pattern the sky about them with little balls of black smoke.  From below one does not see men nor feel that men are there; it is as if it were an affair of midges.  Close after the fighting machines come the photographic aeroplanes, with cameras as long as a man is high, flying low—­at four or five thousand feet that is—­over the enemy trenches.  The Archibald leaves these latter alone; it cannot fire a shell to explode safely