Living machinery it is, but it is in appearance only that it seems to be independent of man.  A battle is a collective work, to which each participant, from the General-in-chief to the road-mender behind the lines, brings his contribution.  Colossal though the whole seems, perfect as the enormous machine seems to be, it would not work if there were not behind it a weak man made of poor flesh.  A humble gunner, the anonymous defenders of a trench, a pilot who purges the air of the hostile presence, an observer who secures information in good time, some poor soldier who has no idea that his individual action was connected with the great drama, has occasionally brought about wonderful results—­as a stone falling into a pool makes its presence felt to the remotest banks.

Amidst the fighters on the Aisne, Guynemer was at his post in the Storks Escadrille.  “All right! (sic) they tumble down,” he wrote laconically to his family.  There were indeed some five tumbling down:  on May 25 he had surpassed all that had been done so far in aerial fights, bringing down four German machines in that one day.  His notebook states the fact briefly: 

     8.30.—­Downed a two-seater, which lost a wing as it fell and was
     smashed on the trees 1200 meters NNE. of Corbeny.

     8.31.—­Another two-seater downed, in flames, above
     Juvincourt.—­With Captain Auger, forced another two-seater to dive
     down to 600 meters, one kilometer from our lines.

     Downed a D.F.W.[22] in flames above Courlandon.

     Downed a two-seater in flames between Guignicourt and
     Conde-sur-Suippes.  Dispersed with Captain Auger a squadron of six
     one-seaters.

[Footnote 22:  The D.F.W. (Deutsche Flugzeug Werke) is a scouting machine provided with two machine-guns, one shooting through the propeller, the other mounted on a turret aft.  It is thirty-nine feet across the wings, and twenty-four in length.  One Benz six-cylinder engine of 200/225 H.P.  Its speed at an altitude of 3000 meters supposed to be 150 kilometers an hour.  One of these machines has been on view at the Invalides since July, 1917.]

Now, his Excellency, Lieutenant General von Hoeppner, Kommandeur der Luftstreitkraefte, being interviewed two days later by newspaper men he had summoned for the purpose, told them and through them told Germany and, if possible, the whole world, that the German airplanes and the German airmen were unrivaled.  “As for the French aviators,” he went on to say remarkably apropos, “they only engage our men when they are sure of victory.  When they have doubts about their own superiority, they prefer to desist rather than take any risks.”  This solemn lie the newspaper men repeated at once in their issues of May 28.