This we will call Grade A2; a revised and improved A.What is the retort from the opposite side? Obviously to enhance and extend the range of the preliminary bombardment behind the actual trench line, to destroy or block, if it can, the dug-outs and destroy or silence the counter offensive artillery.If it can do that, it can go on; otherwise Bloch wins.
If fighting went on only at ground level Bloch would win at this stage, but here it is that the aeroplane comes in.From the ground it would be practically impossible to locate the enemies'
dug-outs, secondary defences, and batteries.But the aeroplane takes us immediately into a new grade of warfare, in which the location of the defender's secondary trenches, guns, and even machine-gun positions becomes a matter of extreme precision--provided only that the offensive has secured command of the air and can send his aeroplanes freely over the defender lines.Then the preliminary bombardment becomes of a much more extensive character; the defender's batteries are tackled by the overpowering fire of guns they are unable to locate and answer;the secondary dug-outs and strong places are plastered down, a barrage fire shuts off support from the doomed trenches, the men in these trenches are held down by a concentrated artillery fire and the attack goes up at last to hunt them out of the dug-outs and collect the survivors.Until the attack is comfortably established in the captured trench, the fire upon the old counter attack position goes on.This is the grade, Grade B2, to which modern warfare has attained upon the Somme front.The appearance of the Tank has only increased the offensive advantage.There at present warfare rests.
There is, I believe, only one grade higher possible.The success of B2 depends upon the completeness of the aerial observation.
The invention of an anti-aircraft gun which would be practically sure of hitting and bringing down an aeroplane at any height whatever up to 20,000 feet, would restore the defensive and establish what I should think must be the final grade of war, A3.
But at present nothing of the sort exists and nothing of the sort is likely to exist for a very long time; at present hitting an aeroplane by any sort of gun at all is a rare and uncertain achievement.Such a gun is not impossible and therefore we must suppose such a gun will some day be constructed, but it will be of a novel type and character, unlike anything at present in existence.The grade of fighting that I was privileged to witness on the Somme, the grade at which a steady successful offensive is possible, is therefore, I conclude, the grade at which the present war will end.
2
But now having thus spread out the broad theory of the business, let me go on to tell some of the actualities of the Somme offensive.They key fact upon both British and French fronts was the complete ascendancy of the Allies aeroplanes.It is the necessary preliminary condition for the method upon which the great generals of the French army rely in this sanitary task of shoving the German Thing off the soil of Belgium and France back into its own land.A man who is frequently throwing out prophecies is bound to score a few successes, and one that I may legitimately claim is my early insistence upon that fact that the equality of the German aviator was likely to be inferior 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 Ihad 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.
