Since America invented the machine-gun and also barbed wire, and since America furnished the inspiration for the tank with which to trample down the wire entanglements and stamp out the machine-guns, naturally people expected our army to come out with something better than anything produced by our allies. We did turn out a number of heavy machines patterned after the original British tank, with armor that could stand up against heavy fire, and we also produced a small and very speedy tank similar to the French "baby" tank, but before we could put these into service the war ended. The tanks we did use so effectively at St.-Mihiel and in the Argonne Forest were supplied by the French. CHAPTER VII THE WAR IN THE AIR We Americans are a peace-loving people, which is the very reason why we went into the war. We had to help down the power that was disturbing the peace of the world. We do not believe in conquests--at least of the type that Germany tried to force--and yet there are certain conquests that we do indulge in once in a while. Eleven years before Germany undertook to conquer Europe two young Americans made the greatest conquest that the world has ever seen. The Wright brothers sailed up into the heavens and gained the mastery of the air. They offered their conquest to the United States; but while we accepted their offering with enthusiasm at first, we did not know what to do with the new realm after we got it. There seemed to be no particular use in flying. It was just a bit too risky to be pleasant sport, and about all we could see in it was an exhibition for the circus or the county fair. Not so in Europe, however. Flying meant something over there--there where the frontiers have ever bristled with big guns and strong fortifications, and where huge military forces have slept on their arms, never knowing what dreadful war the morning would bring forth. The war-lovers hailed the airplane as a new instrument with which to terrorize their neighbors; the peace-lovers saw in it another menace to their homes; it gave them a new frontier to defend. And so the military powers of Europe took up the airplane seriously and earnestly and developed it. At first military authorities had rated the airplane chiefly as a flying scout. Some bomb-dropping experiments had been made with it, but it proved very difficult to land the bombs near the target, and, besides, machines of those days were not built to carry very heavy loads, so that it did not seem especially profitable to attack the enemy from the skies. As for actual battles up among the clouds, they were dreamed of only by the writers of fiction. But wild dreams became stern realities in the mighty struggle between the great powers of the world. EYES IN THE SKY