naissance by cavalry has become far too slow to keep pace with the conditions of modern war.
So far as the author is aware, there has, up to the present, been no serious attempt to work out in complete detail the duties which can be undertaken by aircraft, or to define in specification form by any process of logic the types of machine which will be necessary at the outset to deal with the various duties so postulated. It is necessary to say at the outset, in view of the fact that if to-day we had a perfect organisation based on existing conditions, the first great Power to be similarly equipped would require to be answered in the form of a further equipment especially directed to his destruction, and so (as in the evolution of the Navy) we may in due time have aerial destroyers and "super" destroyers, and again still faster and more heavily-armed machines for the destruction of these.
The primary function of, and basic justification for, any Arm is the execution of its duties in relation to other than its own kind; thus, although it is admittedly one of the first and most important duties of cavalry to drive the enemy's cavalry out of the field, and establish ascendency, this is actually the secondary function of the cavalry Arm; its primary function is the observation and harrying of the other Arms of the Service. Again, the primary function of a fleet is neither to hold nor defeat a hostile fleet, although this, its secondary function, is universally admitted to be its first and most important objective. Ultimately, in every case, there must be some primary purpose which gives rise to the need for any kind of fighting machine, apart from its power of offence or defence against its own kind; it is this primary purpose that imparts the initial impulse and direction to its development.
It is proposed forthwith to define the primary
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