The Dominion. TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1913. AVIATION AND WAR.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1718, 8 April 1913, Page 4

The Dominion. TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 1913. AVIATION AND WAR.

In yesterday's paper there appeared : two interesting messages, one from Berlin, and the other from London, bearing upon the necessity that Great Britain should turn her energies into preparations for war in the air. Germany, we were told, has thirty-five flying machine factories, and has constructed fifty dirigibles within the last five years. The. second message reported thafe the Spectator, the Daily Teler/raph, j and- - several other newspapers' are waging a crusade on behalf of the preparation of a fleet of British military airships. The beginning of this crusade is visible in several of the British newspapers which arrived by -mail yesterday. If the use oi' aircraft in warfare in tho future is as certain a tiling as is abundant reason to believe,' Britain has been ■ curiously behind other nations in realising the importance of such a development. This was tho view expressed by Major P. H Sykes, of the Royal Flying Corps! on February 26 last, in the course of an address to the Aeronautical Society, which attracted very widespread attention, especially as itwas followed by an address by General Sir John French, Chief of the Imperial General Staff. Major Sykes took some pains to show that aviation would not "revolutionise" warfare, but would only promote a further development of * methods. There would still, he meant, : be the enormous strains .of mobilisation, of supply difficulties, of lines of communication. But tactics and strategy would be materially affected, not only through the vanishing of "the fog of war," and the "hill" behind which Wellington could not see, but also through the wide range of action and the terrible dostruc* tiveness of the now arm. General Sir John' French,, in his speech, emphasised the great effect which would be exerted on the three arms by aircraft, but he noted also that the greatest influence which would be cxerciscd would be upon the minds of the higher commanders in the field. A curious little passage in his speech touched upon the certainty of actual duels in the air. "He hud always held," he said, "thai, when two reconnoitring cavalries came together they must fight, because the result must absolutely dispel tho Cog of war for that side which was successful, ami make it tenfold dccuer for the vanquisher.

As _ aircraft became more stable and reliable, the tendency would be for battles! to take place in the air, and it would be the result of those marvellous collisions which, more than anything else, would decide the future value of aircraft and the extent to which they would influence the wars of the future." How dangerous is the situation of Britain, if the aerial arm in warfare must be rated as highly, in the matter of effectiveness, as France and .Germany rate it, is made, very obvious from a sentence Sn a London Times article, advocating a vigorous military aviation policy: ''Until the country has obtained for itself experience of what can .be done with large airships, it will be difficult, in view of the very proper secrecy maintained on these matters abroad, to decide how far the possession of them by an enemy is a grave menace to our security." This represents Britain as being almost in the position, with respefct to aircraft, which she would occupy if she were only just about to begin building ironclads in order to find out if nations which hacl anticipated li.er had been wise in building them!/ In a letter to The Times, Major advocated an "offensive" airship policy for Britain, on the ground, as we understand him, that an enemy with big and efficient airships could smash the nerves as well as the ships and men of an aerially inferior Britain. Op course, the Radical press _ attacked the notion that Britain need worry at all: they exclaimed ; even more loudly against expenditure on ' airships than 'against expenditure on the ' Navy, in the true ltadical way. The difficulties in the way of securing safety, or of setting the public mind afc rest, are well indicated by the Saturday lleview when it says:— A. First Lord of the Admiralty can ask for as many Dreadnoughts as he lilies, and I)o sure that he will got tliera, because the public has grasped the necessity of supremacy at sea. But if a Secretary of State for War demanded compulsory service ho would only get it after a tremendous struggle, because tlio public has not yet realised tlio effective value of a national army. But when' wo como to the airships, public ignorance is complete. . ; . What wo wnnt is a statement backed by the authority of the Defence Committee of the part which tho Fourth A;rm can and will play in modern warfare'. . ,