were struck and a number of fires started.

The Parisians flocked to the streets and watched the strange combat
with rapt interest. Although the raiders had come before, the
spectacle had not lost its fascination. Even though the authorities
issued strict orders and troops tried to drive the throngs indoors,
Parisians persisted in risking life and limb to see the Zeppelins
battle in the night skies. Upon this occasion the battle aloft lasted
until after four o'clock in the morning, or more than three hours.

On the same night, March 21, 1915, three bombs were thrown upon
Villers-Cotterets, fifteen miles southwest of Soissons. There was
small damage and no casualties. But the two raids emphasized that a
few weeks more would see intensive resumption of war in the air.

French aviators shelled Bazincourt, Briey, Brimont, and Vailly on
March 22, 1915. At Briey, the station was damaged and the railway line
cut, two of the birdmen descending to within a few hundred yards of
the track. Enemy batteries at Brimont suffered damage. The next day a
German machine was shot down near Colmar, in Alsace, and its two
occupants captured.

With the return of spring, 1915, came renewed activity among airmen on
all fronts. The first day of April was marked by the loss of two
German machines, one near Soissons and the other near Rheims. The
first fell a victim to gunfire, both occupants being killed. The
second, an Albatross model, was discovered prowling above Rheims.
French pilots immediately gave chase and after a circuitous flight
back and forth across the city, compelled the enemy machine to land.
The pilot and observer were overpowered before they had time to set it
afire, the usual procedure when captured.

A typical day of this season with the birdmen of France was April 2,
1915. A War Office report of that day tells of forty-three
reconnoitering flights and twenty others for the purpose of attacking
enemy positions or ascertaining the direction of gunfire. Bombs were
dropped upon the hangars and aviation camp at Habsheim. The munition
factories at Dietweiler, and the railway station in Walheim. The
station at Bensdorf and the barracks at the same place were shelled
from the air. Much damage was done.

Seven French aeroplanes flew over the Woevre region on this day,
penetrating as far as Vigneulles, where the aerial observers
discovered barracks covered with heavy corrugated iron. The machines
descended in long spirals and dro