their plan most excellent. So far as their knowledge went,
America was the only dangerous possibility; America, which was
also now the leading trade rival of Germany and one of the chief
barriers to her Imperial expansion. So at once they would strike
at America. They would fling a great force across the Atlantic
heavens and bear America down unwarned and unprepared.

Altogether it was a well-imagined and most hopeful and spirited
enterprise, having regard to the information in the possession of
the German government. The chances of it being a successful
surprise were very great. The airship and the flying-machine
were very different things from ironclads, which take a couple of
years to build. Given hands, given plant, they could be made
innumerably in a few weeks. Once the needful parks and foundries
were organised, air-ships and Dracheinflieger could be poured
into the sky. Indeed, when the time came, they did pour into the
sky like, as a bitter French writer put it, flies roused from
filth.

The attack upon America was to be the first move in this
tremendous game. But no sooner had it started than instantly the
aeronautic parks were to proceed to put together and inflate the
second fleet which was to dominate Europe and manoeuvre
significantly over London, Paris, Rome, St. Petersburg, or
wherever else its moral effect was required. A World Surprise it
was to be--no less a World Conquest; and it is wonderful how near
the calmly adventurous minds that planned it came to succeeding
in their colossal design.

Von Sternberg was the Moltke of this War in the Air, but it was