Tebruary 27, 1915, 
E A N D AND 3V: A T E R, 
SKETCH MAP OF ESSEK SHOWING THE KHUPP WOEKS. 
leading nations for tlie " Supremacy of the 
Aip-'_a pleasant-sounding phrase, but, at the 
moment, lacking in exact meaning. Now, after 
seven months of arduous fighting, and alter the 
new arm has been severely tested, the phrase has 
acquired a concrete meaning which it is necessary 
to define. , . , . , • n 
General Sir John French, m his admirable 
despatches from the front, has drawn forcible 
attention to the services which his airmen render 
daily to the Army. In fact, our Army owes a 
great part of the ascendancy it has established 
over the enemy to the precious assistance given by 
our airmen. It can be said that the services which 
our aircraft render to our Army can be gauged by 
the ascendancy which our airmen exercise over 
those of the enemy. The amount and accuracy ot 
the information which our air service gives to our 
commanders relatively to that given to the enemy s 
generals by theirs may, in most cases, be taken 
as a direct measure of our ability to preserve our 
initiative. We are thus led to define the term 
" Supremacy of the Air " as meaning the capa- 
bility of airmen to give, in good time, the neces- 
sary information which will enable their com- 
manders always to possess the initiative. This 
definition assumes that the part played by air- 
craft is connected with, and inseparable troiu, 
the successes of the armies to which they are 
attached. It is a " Supremacy of the Air 
having, to a certain jlegree, negative characteris- 
tics. To a defeated army, with its units broken 
up and fleeing in various directions, or to an 
army too weak to take advantage of the informa- 
tion supplied by its airmen, such a " Supremacy: 
of the Air" would Ix; almost valueless. It ist 
however, the kind of aerial supremacy afte?- 
which the various nations were striving when tiis^, 
war broke out during the declining days of Juhv 
1914. Through lack of any accumulated cxpeiir 
