The first week in September, 1915, saw considerable artillery activity along the whole front. Except in the Vosges, where French and German bayonets clashed on mountain peaks and in underground tunnels, infantry action had been suspended for nearly two weeks. Heavy bombardments had been maintained by both sides--those of the Allies being especially deliberate and persistent. As a fireman would sway the nozzle of his streaming hose from side to side, so the Allies poured a continuous, sweeping torrent of shot and shell over the German positions in certain well-defined zones along the line. It began from the extreme left on the Belgian front, thence swung into the region of Souchez, then around Arras, farther on along the Aisne, particularly at the two extremities of the Aisne plateau, turned to the right in Champagne, spread to the Argonne, next in the Woevre and finally in Lorraine. Beneath the cyclone and out of sight trench mortar actions were fought, mining operations carried on, bombs and hand grenades thrown. On September 1, 1915, four German aeroplanes had dropped bombs on the open town of Luneville, killing many civilians. As a measure of reprisal forty French aeroplanes returned the compliment by making another air raid on Saarbruecken, where they bombarded the station, factories, and military establishments. A squadron of thirty or forty vessels of the British Fleet bombarded the whole of the Belgian coast in German possession as far as Ostend. French artillery stationed in the vicinity of Nieuport cooperated to shell the German coast batteries at Westende. In retaliation for the bombardment of the open towns of St. Die and Gerardmer by German aeroplanes, a French aeroplane squadron assailed the railroad and military establishments of Freiburg in Breisgau. Aerial operations had by this time become a powerful auxiliary to the combatants on each side. The aeroplane attained a definite position as a weapon even in trench and field warfare. Machines hovered over the lines every day, reconnoitering and dropping bombs on positions, stores, transports, moving troops, trenches, and munition depots. Bombardment by aeroplane was, in fact, quite as serious and formidable a business as any artillery attack. The bombs carried by these machines were exactly of the same caliber as those used by heavy guns. Constant practice afforded by daily opportunities had enormously increased the skill of the aviators, many of whom could hit a small house from high altitudes without much trouble. Duels and pitched battles in the air were of daily occurrence on the western front. As soon as an "enemy flyer" hove in sight on either side of the lines, locally attached aviators rose and attacked the intruder. This, the most "modern" method of fighting, has produced a crop of thrilling incidents and stirring examples of bravery exhibited by the German, French, and British flying men. A code of what might be called "aerial chivalry" has spontaneously grown up