Writing whilst with the British Armies in the field, September 12, 1916, Mr. Philip Gibbs said: ‘To-day has been quiet on our front, without infantry fighting, up to the time I write. Southward, on our right, the French have been attacking heavily, with a bombardment that has swept a great stretch of country with fire between Combles and Péronne. When the French get to Combles—one need hardly use the word “if,” as they are now hammering at its outskirts—they will link up with us to the right of Ginchy and Leuze Wood, where the enemy is still holding out against us in a bad position, a few hundred Germans still defending themselves bravely in the “loop” trench which is flung like a lassoo to the north-east of Guillemont.... We are still below the line of the Ginchy telegraph on the high plateau, so that we have not yet obtained full observation of the valley slopes on the other side, though by the capture of Ginchy itself we have robbed the enemy of his old point of view, which was of enormous value to him in registering upon our batteries and watching our movements. ‘His only means of observation now is from the air, and yesterday there was visible proof of this, because fifteen or sixteen of his kite balloons came creeping out of the clouds above the plateau here, peering at us at close range. I should hate to be a German observer in one of those “sausages,” as our men call them. They have a painful reminiscence of six such gas-bags brought down on one day, which was June 30 last, before the great battle began. Since then they have not floated aloft with any safety. On September 1 two of them were attacked by one of our air-pilots, who fired machine guns at them and dropped bombs on to them so that they had to haul down hurriedly in a great scare, and a few days ago one of our knights-errant of the air crossed the enemy’s lines at nearly 12,000 feet, mounted directly above a German balloon, and dived upon it, until he was no higher than 500 yards above it. Then he fired until he almost touched the great bag, and as he passed it burst into a vast flame and was burnt to a wisp of smoke in a few seconds. For fighting purposes these German “Peeping Toms” are not safe and certain means of observation with our airmen hovering near them, even though they have adopted a new means of defence, which is a gun below them sending up a high-reaching flame to scorch the wings of any British moth who dares to come too close. Our moths will take the risk....