9.20.—­Attacked with Deuillin a group of three one-seated Albatros, famous on the Lorraine front.  At 9.26 I brought one down almost intact:  pilot wounded, Lieutenant von Hausen, nephew of the general.  And Deullin brought down another in flames at the same time.  About 9 o’clock Dorme and Auger had attacked and grilled a two-seated plane.  These four Boches were in a quadrilateral, the sides of which measured five kilometers, four and a half kilometers, three kilometers and three kilometers.  Those who were in the middle need not have bothered themselves, but they were completely distracted.

     14.30.—­Forced down a two-seated Albatros in flames.

     Three Boches within our lines for my day’s work....  Ouf!  G.G.

Guynemer, who had been promoted lieutenant in February and was to be made captain in March, treated this Lieutenant von Hausen humanely and courteously as soon as he had landed.  In all his mentions up to that time Guynemer had been described as a “brilliant chasing pilot”; he was now mentioned as an “incomparable chasing pilot.”

* * * * *

Early in April the Storks left Lorraine and went to make their nests on a plateau on the left bank of the Aisne, back of Fismes.  New events were in preparation.  After the German retreat to the Hindenburg line, the French army in connection with the English army—­which was to attack Vimy cliffs (April 9-10, 1917)—­was about to undertake that vast offensive operation which, from Soissons to Auberive in Champagne, was to roll like an ocean wave over the slopes of the Chemin des Dames, the hills of Sapigneul and Brimont, and the Moronvillers mountain.  Hearts were filled with hope, and the men were inspired by a sacred joy.  Their sufferings and their wounds did not prevent the hearts of the soldiers in that spring of 1917 from flowering in sublime sacrifices for the cause of liberty.

As at the battle of the Somme, so at the battle of the Aisne our aerial escadrilles were in close touch with the general staff and the other arms of the service.  Their success was no doubt dependent upon the quality of the airplanes, and the factory output, and limited by the enemy’s power in the air.  But though they were unable to achieve the mastery of the air from the very first, they continued obstinately to increase their force, and little by little their successes increased.  They had to oppose an enemy who had just accomplished an immense improvement in his aviation corps.

In September, 1916, the German staff, profiting by the lessons of the Somme campaign during which its aviation forces had been so terribly scourged, resolved upon an almost complete reorganization of its aeronautical service.  Hindenburg’s program arranged for a rehandling of both the direction and the technical services.  A decree dating from November, 1916, announced the separation from the other services of the Air Fight Forces (Luftstreitkraefte), which