_know_." And he handed me the next photograph, taken a few seconds
later. There was no doubt about it; the pin-point of a man at the
right had left his two companions and was turning in at the first of
the row of cottages. Another photograph was produced. It showed the
second man entering the gate of the fourth cottage. And the final
picture of the series showed the remaining speck plodding on alone
toward his home in the country.
"An officer of some importance is evidently making this house his
headquarters," remarked the commandant, indicating another tiny
rectangle. "If he wasn't of some importance he wouldn't have a
telephone."
"Good heavens!" I exclaimed. "You don't mean to tell me that you can
photograph a telephone-wire from a mile in the air?"
"Not quite," he admitted, "but sometimes, if the light happens to be
right, we can get photographs of its shadow."
And sure enough, stretching across the ploughed fields, I could see,
through the glass, a phantom line, intersected at regular intervals by
short and somewhat thicker lines. It was the shadow of a
field-telephone and its poles! And the airplane from which that
photograph was taken was so high that it must have looked like a mere
speck to one on the ground. There's war magic for you.
You will ask, of course, why the Germans don't maintain over the
Allied lines a similar system of aerial observation. They do--when the
Allies let them. But the Allies now have in commission on the Western
Front such an enormous number of aircraft--I think I have said
elsewhere the French alone probably have close to seven thousand
machines--and they have made such great improvements in their
anti-aircraft guns that to-day it is a comparatively rare thing to see
a German flier over territory held by the Allies. The moment that a
German flier takes the air, half a dozen Allied airmen rise to meet
and engage him, and, in the rare event of his being able to elude
them and get over the Allied lines, the "Archies," as the
anti-aircraft guns are called on the British front, get into noisy
action. (Their name, it is said, came from a London music-hall song
which was exceedingly popular at the beginning of the war. When the
shells from the German A. A. guns burst harmlessly around the British
airmen they would hum mockingly the concluding line of the song:
"Archibald, certainly not!") Unable to keep their fliers in the air,
the Germans are to all intents and purposes blind. They are unable to
regulate the fire of their artillery or to direct their infantry
attacks; they do not know what damage their shells are doing; and they
have no means of learning what is going on behind the enemy's lines.
It is obvious, therefore, that to have and keep control of the air is
a very, very important thing.
* * * * *
No one who has been in Europe during the past two years can have
failed to notice the unpopularity of the Belgians among the French
and English. This is regrettable but true. Also it is unjust. When I
left Belgium in the late autumn of 1914 the Belgians were looked on as
a nation of heroes. They were acclaimed as the saviors of Europe.
Nothing was too good for them. The sight of a Belgian uniform in the
streets of London or Paris was the signal for a popular ovation. When
the red-black-and-yellow banner was displayed on the stage of a
music-hall the audience rose en masse. The story of the defense of
Liége sent a thrill of admiration round the world. But in the two and
a half years that have passed since then there has become noticeable
among French and English--particularly among the English--a steadily
growing dislike for their Belgian allies; a dislike which has, in
certain quarters, grown into a thinly veiled contempt. I have
repeatedly heard it asserted that the Belgian has been spoiled by too
much charity, that he is lazy and ungrateful and complaining, that he
has become a professional pauper, that he has been greatly overrated
as a fighter, and that he has had enough of the war and is ready to
quit.
The truth of the matter is this: The majority of the Belgians who fled
before the advancing Germans belonged to the lower classes; they were
for the most part uneducated and lacking in mental discipline. Is it
any wonder, then, that they gave way to blind panic when the stories
of the barbarities practised by the invaders reached their ears, or
that their heads were turned by the hysterical enthusiasm, the lavish
hospitality, with which they were received in England? That as a
result of being thus lionized, many of these ignorant and mercurial
people became fault-finding and overbearing, there is no denying. Nor
can it be truthfully gainsaid that, for a year or more after the war
began, there hung about the London restaurants and music-halls a
number of young Belgians who ought to have been with their army on the
firing-line. But, if my memory serves me rightly, I think that I saw
quite a number of English youths doing the same thing. Every country
has its slackers, and Belgium is no exception. But to attempt to
belittle the glorious heroism of the Belgian nation because of a few
young slackers or the ingratitude and ill-manners of some ignorant
peasants, is an unworthy and despicable thing. The assertion that the
Belgians are lacking in courage is as untruthful as it is cruel. Ask
the Germans who charged up the fire-swept slopes of Liége--those of
them left alive--if the Belgians are cowards. Ask those who saw the
fields of Aerschot and Vilvorde and Termonde and Malines strewn with
Belgian dead. Go stand for a few days--and nights--beside the Belgians
who are holding those mud-filled trenches on the Yser. And remember
that the Belgians were fighting while the English were still only
talking about it. Nor forget that, had not their heroic resistance
given France a breathing-spell in which to complete her tardy
mobilization, the Germans would now, in all probability, be in Paris.
The truth is that the civilized world owes to the Belgians a debt
which it can never repay. We of America are honored to be counted
among their Allies.
FOOTNOTES:
[F] In order to keep pace with the steady improvement in range and
accuracy of anti-aircraft artillery, aviators have found it necessary
to operate at constantly increasing altitudes, so that it is now not
uncommon for aerial combats to be fought at a height of 20,000 feet.
Hence, many airplanes are now equipped with oxygen-bags for use in
the rarefied atmosphere of the higher levels. The aviators operating
on the Italian front experience such intense cold during the winter
months that a system has been evolved for heating their caps, gloves,
and boots by electricity generated by the motor.
[G] For an account of this, the longest-range bombardment in history,
see Mr. Powell's "Vive la France!"
* * * * *
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