sanitary task of shoving the German Thing off the soil of Belgium and
France back into its own land. A man who is frequently throwing out
prophecies is bound to score a few successes, and one that I may
legitimately claim is my early insistence upon that fact that the
equality of the German aviator was likely to be inferior to that of his
French or British rival. The ordinary German has neither the flexible
quality of body, the quickness of nerve, the temperament, nor the mental
habits that make a successful aviator. This idea was first put into my
head by considering the way in which Germans walk and carry themselves,
and by nothing the difference in nimbleness between the cyclists in the
streets of German and French towns. It was confirmed by a conversation I
had with a German aviator who was also a dramatist, and who came to
see me upon some copyright matter in 1912. He broached the view that
aviation would destroy democracy, because he said only aristocrats make
aviators. (He was a man of good family.) With a duke or so in my mind I
asked him why. Because, he explained, a man without aristocratic quality
in tradition, cannot possibly endure the "high loneliness" of the air.
That sounded rather like nonsense at the time, and then I reflected that
for a Prussian that might be true. There may be something in the German
composition that does demand association and the support of pride
and training before dangers can be faced. The Germans are social
and methodical, the French and English are by comparison chaotic and
instinctive; perhaps the very readiness for a conscious orderliness
that makes the German so formidable upon the ground, so thorough and
fore-seeking, makes him slow and unsure in the air. At any rate the
experiences of this war have seemed to carry out this hypothesis. The
German aviators will not as a class stand up to those of the Allies.
They are not nimble in the air. Such champions as they have produced
have been men of one trick; one of their great men, Immelmann--he was
put down by an English boy a month or so ago--had a sort of hawk's