THE IN WAR.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLVI, Issue 216, 11 September 1912, Page 4

THE IN WAR.

The FroiicK wore the'first to pay special and careful attention to the possibilities of aviation as a factor in the conduct of a campaign; but the Germans were not long in following the Gallic lead, and now Great Britain is coming, tardily though it be, into line, a special aeroplane station being about to bo established at Colchester, with "resting stations" at intervals between tho Thames and the Tweed. Meanwhile the weekly toll of death exacted by these serifil carriers continues unabatedly heavy. Last week alone one Ge.rm'an and two British officers were killed, and a third Briton witnessed the destruction of his biplane and narrowly escaped a terrible end. The fatal accidents so frequently recorded do not, however, appear to diminish th<* enthusiasm with which the art of aviation is being followed by its devotoes^and as time coes on it is more than probable that science may discover moans by which i

greater safety will be secured. The aeroplane, as an engine of war, has come to stay. No one can read tho descriptions of the last French army manoeuvres without being convinced that the aeroplane is destined to play an extremely important role in the next great European war. When we read that an aviator, carrying a j supply of small imitation bombs, was able to drop ten out of fourteen oi these missiles within an area of less than twenty-five yards, it will be seen at once what a new and formidable means of attack has sprung into j existence. When Mr H. G. Wells' wrote his sensational story, "The War in the Air," few of those who read that now famous novol ever imagined that what was then considered the wild but ingenious suggestion of a novelist's imagination would so soon be proved to be capable of being put into actual effect. But the wonders of modern science and invention follow each other with almost uncanny rapidity, and that the a?roplano is destined to be much more than a mere scouting or reconnoitring machine for use by the modern army may now be accepted as an incontrovertible fact. Advocates of peace may see in tho teroplane an aid to the realisation of their dreams of the abolition of war. The same thing was, long ago, said of the modern battleship; but year by year more battleships are built, and still there is no immediate sign of the day coming when war shall cease. On the contrary, the nightmare of war is to-day uglier and more insistent than ever. It is, however, a consoling fact that if eventually wars will be fought mainly in the air and not by sea and land, the primary cost of the.engines of destruction upon which the nations will spend their money will probably be greatly reduced. For between the cost of an aeroplane, the bombs from which could easily destroy a whole city, and that of a modern battleship, there is a vast gulf fixed. Wars will probably continue until it has been brought home to the workers of the civilised world that war is at once as foolish as it is wicked, as unprofitable even to the so-called victors as to the vanquished. It may take a half-century or more to bring about stich a solidarity amongst the working classes of the p-reat civilised nations as will enable them to abolish war; but we firmly believe that slieh a day will come, and with it the inauguration of new era for the world--an era of almost universal peace. But before that day does come the aeroplane. cannot fail to play a very prominent part in the struggles for sitpremacy in which the notions pi1 the world will engage.