d their immediate strength in the air
for the sake of the future by adopting four or five machines as army
types and throwing out all of other makes. More than 550 machines
were thus discarded, and their services lost during the first weeks
of the war. The reason for this action was the determination of the
French to equip their aviation corps with standardized machines of a
few types only. Thus interchangeable parts could always be kept in
readiness in case of an emergency, and the aviation corps was
obliged to familiarize itself with the workings of only a few
machines. The objection to the system is the fact that it
practically stopped all development of any machines in France except
the favoured few. Moreover it threw out of the service at a stroke,
or remanded for further instruction, not less than four hundred
pilots who had been trained on the rejected machines. The order was
received with great public dissatisfaction, and for a time
threatened serious trouble in the Chamber of Deputies where
criticisms of the direction of the flying service even menaced the
continuance of the ministry in power.

At the outset of the war Great Britain lagged far behind the other
chief belligerents in the extent of her preparations for war in the
air. As has been pointed out the people of that nation had never
taken the general interest in aviation which was manifested in
France, and there was no persistent Count von Zeppelin to stir
government and citizens into action. The situation was rather
anomalous. Protected from invasion by its ring of surrounding
waters, England had long concentrated its defensive efforts upon its
navy. But while the danger of invasion by the air was second only to
that by sea the British contemplated with indifference the feverish
building of Zeppelins by Germany, and the multiplication of aircraft
of every sort in all the nations of the continent. The manufacture
of aircraft was left to private builders, and not until the war was
well under way did the government undertake its systematic
supervision. The Royal Aerial Factory, then established, became the
chief manufacturer of machines for army and navy use, and acted also
as the agent for the inspection and testing of machines built by
private firms. Control of the Royal Flying Corps is vested in the
Admiralty, the government holding that the strategy of airships was
distinctly naval.

In the use of seaplanes the British were early far in the lead of