When the war began the situation foreseen arose. The whole of the military aeroplanes went to France at once with the Expeditionary Force, and not a single squadron or even an effective machine remained to guard British vulnerable points from German aerial attack. The Admiralty was, however, found provided with a respectable force of its own which immediately took over the protection of our dockyards and patrolled our shores in connection with the coast watch. As the Germans overran Belgium and all the Channel ports were exposed, the danger of air attacks upon Great Britain became most serious and real. Zeppelins had already cruised over Antwerp, and it was known that London was in range of the Zeppelin sheds at Düsseldorf and Cologne. To meet this danger there was nothing except the naval aeroplanes the Admiralty had been able to scrape and smuggle together. On September 3 Lord Kitchener asked me in Cabinet whether I would accept, on behalf of the Admiralty, the responsibility for the aerial defence of Great Britain, as the War Office had no means of discharging it. I thereupon undertook to do what was possible with the wholly inadequate resources which were available. There were neither anti-aircraft guns nor searchlights, and though a few improvisations had been made, nearly a year must elapse before the efficient supplies necessary could be forthcoming. Meanwhile at any moment half a dozen Zeppelins might arrive to bomb London or, what was more serious, Chatham, Woolwich or Portsmouth. I rated the Zeppelin much lower as a weapon of war than almost any one else. I believed that this enormous bladder of combustible and explosive gas would prove to be easily destructible. I was sure the fighting aeroplane, rising lightly laden from its own base, armed with incendiary bullets, would harry, rout and burn these gaseous monsters. I had proclaimed this opinion to the House of Commons in 1913, using the often-quoted simile of the hornets.