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From a photograph, copyright by M. Branger.
A company of French military aviators.
nothing to prevent a commander-in-chief
from visiting his whole line, if need be,
from end to end; and, unprecedented as is
the length of the opposing forces, the
modern car has put the respective commanders
in a more favorable position in
that respect than in the ante-motoring
days, when armies were relatively insignificant
in size. How much to-and-fro
movement the chiefs have found actually
necessary it is impossible to say; but I do
know that General Joffre covered over
four hundred miles
by road on the first
day of the war, and
on another occasion
he was so near the
fighting zone that
his car narrowly escaped
destruction.
A group of shells
fell all around the
vehicle, and a fragment
of one struck
the bonnet, but the
driver opened wide
the throttle, dashed
on at full speed, and
both the genera]
and himself escaped
uninjured.
Cars, too, have
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Front a photograph by the Record Press, Loudon,
been in ceaseless use in maintaining communications
between Paris and the front,
while Lord Dalmeny, on a Rolls-Royce,
has made repeated journeys from the fighting-lines
to the coast, en route for England,with
official despatches for the King.
The men who volunteered their cars and
their own services at the outbreak of the
war comprised the very flower of British
motoring, and many well-known names,
too, have appeared in the same capacity
on the French side. Volumes might be
Specially constructed chassis for carrying aeroplanes.