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 Aërial 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 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 may be mentioned that by some misapprehension on the part of the public, this estimate of the duration of a machine was thought to cover also the average life of the aviators in service. Happily this was far from true. The mortality among the machines was not altogether due to wounds sustained in combat, but largely to general wear and tear, rough usage, and constant service. The slightest sign of weakness in a machine led to its instant condemnation and destruction, for if it should develop in mid-air into a serious fault it might cost the life of the aviator and even a serious disaster to the army which he was serving. As the war went on the period of service of a machine became even briefer, for with the growing demand for faster and more quickly controllable machines everything was sacrificed to lightness and speed. The factor of safety which early in the war was six to eight was reduced to three and a half, and instances were known in all services of machines simply collapsing and going to pieces under their own weight without wound or shock.
