ng a portion of our trenches, but
the latter were completely recaptured by a heroic counterattack by our
reserves, the enemy being then driven back to his old positions."

Owing to the lack of water, General Aylmer was forced to fall back on
the Tigris. On March 10, 1916, information reached the Tigris corps
that the Turks had occupied an advanced position on the river. The
following day a British column was sent to turn the enemy out. The
British infantry daringly assaulted the position and bayoneted a
considerable number of the Turks, after which the column withdrew.

PART XI--THE WAR IN THE AIR

CHAPTER LV

DEVELOPMENT OF THE STRATEGY AND TACTICS OF AIR FIGHTING

The student or observer of the Great European War inevitably must be
impressed with its impersonal character. Everywhere masses and
organizations rule supreme, and men and material are thought of and
used as aggregations rather than as individuals and units for
destruction and defense. The individual, save as he gives himself up
to the great machine, everywhere is inconspicuous, and while no less
courage is demanded than in the days of the short-range weapons and
personal combat, yet the heroic note of personal valor and initiative
in most cases is unheard, and the individual is sunk in the mass. One
is almost tempted to believe that chivalry and individual heroism no
longer bulk large in the profession of arms, and that in the place of
the knightly soldier there is the grim engineer at telescope or
switchboard, touching a key to produce an explosion that will melt
away yards of trenches and carry to eternity not tens but hundreds and
thousands of his fellows; there are barriers charged with deadly
currents; guns hurling tons of metal at a foe invisible to the
gunners, whose position is known only by mathematical deductions from
observers at a distance.

All of this and much more the engineer has brought to
twentieth-century warfare, and the grim fact remains that trained
masses are used, made and destroyed in vain attempts at an object
often unknown to the individual.

Accordingly, when we turn to the work of the aviators we pass back
from the consideration of the mass to the individual. Whatever may be
the airman's convictions as to the ethics of the Great War, always his
duty and his adversary are well defined, and it is his personal
devotion, his skill and daring, his resourcefulness and intrepidity
that are to-day playing no small