He would always do too much, and nothing
could restrain him.
The importance of the development of aviation in the war had been
foreseen neither by the Germans nor ourselves. If before the beginning
of the campaign the military chiefs had understood all the services
which would be rendered by aerial strategic scouting, the regulation of
artillery fire would not have still been in an experimental stage. No
one knew the help which was to be derived from aerial photography. The
air duel was regarded simply as a possible incident that might occur
during a patrol or a reconnaissance, and in view of which the observer
or mechanician armed himself with a gun or an automatic pistol.
Airplanes armed with machine-guns were very exceptional, and at the end
of 1914 there were only thirty. The Germans used them generally before
we did; but it was the French aviators, nevertheless, who forced the
Germans to fight in the air. I had the opportunity in October, 1914, to
see, from a hill on the Aisne, one of these first airplane combats,
which ended by the enemy falling on the outskirts of the village of
Muizon on the left bank of the Vesle.
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