he
face. How armies were rapidly mobilised! How the British Fleet steamed
out into the unknown, and Force became the only guarantee of national
safety!

It is hard to write of these things now that many days have passed
between, for events followed each other with the swiftness of a mighty
avalanche.

How Germany thrilled the universe by throwing at Belgium the greatest
army the world had ever seen. An awful wave of 1,250,000 men crashed
upon the gate of Liege.

How the great Krupp siege guns slowly crawled up, stood out of range of
the Liege forts, and broke them at ease.

How through the battered gate a flood of Uhlans poured to make up for
that wasted fortnight, preceded by their Taube aeroplanes spying out the
movements of the Belgium army; the German artillery following, and
smashing a track through France!

How that fortnight gave France and England the chance to interpose a
wall of men and steel, which met the shock of battle at Mons, but was
pushed back almost to the gates of Paris.

It was at the battle of Mons that the squadron to which I was attached
went into active operation, reconnoitring the battle line on our left
flank. It was my first taste of battle, but I do not remember any
strange feelings.

I was in that awful shock of forces that stopped the southern progress
of the German juggernaut like a chock beneath a wheel, when on September
2 it recoiled back--back to the Marne--back to the Aisne--back almost to
the Belgian frontier. Then winter dropped upon it, turning the roads
into pools of mud, checking all speed movements necessary to active
operations, and the troops dug in like soldier crabs upon a river bank.

[Illustration: "The Aeroplane had been a ... curiosity."--Chapter III.

(The first Aeroplane to fly in Australia.)]

All surprise movements had to be made at night; the dawn finding our
aeroplanes out in the frosty air spying out any changes in positions of
the day before. A smoke-ball fired as we flew above a new trench gave
our artillery the range; then till night fell a rain of shells would
batter that new position. In the dark our troops would creep forward,
rush that trench, and dawn would find them dozing in their newly won
quarters. The war had become a battle of entrenchments.

CHAPTER III.

The Flying Men.

For ages man walked the earth.

To-day he is the only living creature that can travel in the air by
other than its own substance.

'Till the Great War