which was returning to its lines, attacked it from above in front, tacked over it, reached its rear, and overwhelmed it like a thunder-clap.  The Boche fell in flames between Assevillers and Herbecourt.  One more victory, and this one had the honor of appearing in the official communique.  Sometimes he got back with his machine and his clothes riddled with bullet-holes.  He carried fire and massacre up into the sky.  And all this was nothing as yet but the exercise of a knight-errant in his infancy.  This became evident later when he had acquired complete mastery of his work.

February, 1916—­the month in which began the longest, the most stubborn and cruel, and perhaps the most significant battle of the Great War.  In this month began Verdun, and the menacing German advance on the right of the Meuse (February 21-26), to the wood of Haumont, the wood of the Caures and Herbebois, then to Samogneux, the wood of the Fosses, the Le Chaume wood and Ornes, and finally, on February 25, the attack on Louvemont and Douaumont.  The escadrilles, little by little, headed in the same direction, and Guynemer was about to leave the Sixth Army.  He would dart no more above the paternal mansion, announcing his victories by his caracoles in the air; nor watch over his own household during his patrol of the region beyond Compiegne, over Noyon, Chauny, Coucy, and Tracy-le-Val.  The cord which still linked him with his infancy and youth was now to be strained, and on March 11 the Storks Escadrille received orders to depart next day, and to fly to the Verdun region.

The development of the German fighting airplanes had constantly progressed during 1915.  Now, early in 1916, they appeared at Verdun, more homogeneous and better trained, and in possession of a series of new machines:  small, one-seated biplanes (Albatros, Halberstadt, new Fokker, and Ago), with a fixed motor of 165-175 H.P. (Mercedes, and more rarely Benz and Argus), and two stationary machine-guns firing through the propeller.  These chasing escadrilles (Jagdstaffeln) are essentially fighting units.  Each Jagdstaffel comprises eighteen airplanes, and sometimes twenty-two, four of which are reserves.  These airplanes do not generally travel alone, at least when they have to leave their lines, but fly in groups (Ketten) of five each, one of them serving as guide (Kettenfuhrer), and conducted by the most experienced pilot, regardless of rank.  German aviation tactics seek more and more to avoid solitary combat and replace it by squadron fighting, or to surprise an isolated enemy by a squadron, like an attack of sparrow-hawks upon an eagle.