other nations, as we shall see in a later chapter. And in the prompt
and efficient employment of such aircraft as she possessed at the
opening of the war she far outclassed Germany which in point of
numbers was her superior. At that moment Great Britain possessed
about five hundred machines, of which two hundred were seaplanes,
and fifteen dirigibles. Despite this puny force, however, British
aviators flew across the channel in such numbers to the headquarters
in France that when the Expeditionary Army arrived on the scene it
found ready to its hand a scouting force vastly superior to anything
the Germans could put in the air. It is no exaggeration to say that
the Royal Flying Corps saved Sir John French's army in his long and
gallant fight against the overwhelming numbers of the foe.

Russia before the war had hidden her aeronautic activities behind
the dreary curtain of miles of steppe and marsh that shut her off
from the watchfulness of Western Europe. Professional aviators,
indeed, had gone thither to make exhibition flights for enormous
purses and had brought back word of huge airplanes in course of
construction and an eager public interest in the subject of flying.
But the secrecy which all the governments so soon to be plunged in
war sought to throw about their production of aircraft was
especially easy for Russia in her isolation. When the storm burst
her air fleet was not less than eight hundred airplanes, and at
least twenty-five dirigibles.

A competent authority estimates that at the outbreak of the war the
various Powers possessed a total of 4980 aircraft of all sorts. This
sounds like a colossal fleet, but by 1917 it was probably multiplied
more than tenfold. Of the increase of aircraft we can judge only by
guesswork. The belligerents keep their output an inviolable secret.
It was known that many factories with a capacity of from thirty to
fifty 'planes a week were working in the chief belligerent lands,
that the United States was shipping aircraft in parts to avoid
violation of neutrality laws before their entrance upon the war, and
that American capital operated factories in Canada whence the
completed craft could be shipped regardless of such laws. How great
was the loss to be offset against this new construction is a subject
on which no authoritative figures are available.

It was estimated early in the war that the life of an airplane in
active service seldom exceeded three weeks. In passing it m