cleverness.

Taking him by and large, one rather likes von Richthofen, and one fancies that most of the R.F.C. people who have fought him would be quite pleased after the war to sit at table with him and compare notes over the cigarettes and liquors, as my Naval friend wants to do with his pre-war friends of the German Navy. And there are unhappily not too many of our present enemies of whom one would like to express such an opinion.

When one comes to read into the book one begins to find many interesting things about the German Army, and the war in general, as well as about the German Feldfliegertruppen—or Flying Service. The German is not really a skilful censor. Just as certain portraits painted by an artist at Ruhleben conveyed by the expression of the faces a good deal that Germany would like hidden, so von Richthofen's book, though carefully censored, lets out quite a good deal of information.

The first thing that strikes one is that Germany's standing army at the beginning of the war was nothing like so perfect a fighting machine as we in this country believed. Although, like all the people with any sense in this country, the German Army knew that a war was coming, the officers and men seem to have set about their work in a singularly amateurish way, judging by the short section of the book devoted to the opening of the war on the Russian Front. And one is pleased to find that von Richthofen has the grace to laugh at himself and his brother-officers for their mistakes.

In some ways the soldiers of all nations resemble one another strongly. For instance, one finds in this book the same contempt for what the Germans picturesquely call a "base-hog," as the French have for the "embusqué" and as the British front-line officer has for the young and able-bodied officer who is "Something on the Staff." This obnoxious breed is the same in all armies, and must be clearly distinguished from the carefully trained and expensively educated General Staff Officer, who is very much of a specialist and is the very brain of the Army.

When we come to the purely aviatic portion of the book one finds more of the real von Richthofen and less of the cavalry officer. His honesty about his utter mental confusion the first time he went into the air recalls General Brancker's famous remark in his lecture to the Aeronautical Society when he said that no one ever sees anything at all during his first hour in the air owing to the hopeless confusion in his mind caused by the novel aspect of everything. Von Richthofen's description of his experience is about the best thing that has been written on the subject.

An interesting bit of information is disclosed in his description of his flight in a "Grossflugzeug," on September 1st, 1915. At that period little was known about twin-engined aeroplanes. The Germans were known to have tried them, but they were not a success. The only example known to our people—though probably there were actually several different machines—was commonly known in the R.F.C. as "Wong-wong," on account of the curious noise made by the engines or air-screws when they got "out of phase"—as an electrician might call it. This noise is now quite familiar to the inhabitants of Southeastern England as the characteristic note of the Gotha bombers.

Von Richthofen's good judgment of fighting values, though he was then only an observer, and a novice at that, is shown by his disapproval of the twin-engined aeroplane as a fighting machine. It is also of interest to learn that at that period the Germans had tried an auto-lock device to hold the rudder of a twin-engined machine over to one side so that it would fly straight if one engine went out of action, an ingenious idea even if foredoomed to failure.

It is encouraging to find that though these twin-engined machines were in operation