In the Summer 20001 issue of "Over The Front," there is a very interesting article by Peter Fedders. In it the author uses German fatalities to measure air activity and victory claims. While there is an awful lot of grist for the mill, I was struck by the author saying: "The fatality analysis indicates that the French contribution to the air war on the western front has been minimized; perhaps unfairly so." Yes? No? Reaction to the article?
DD

Hi Denny

I read the article with interest...and I think Peter Fedders has done a good work.. :D:

Unfortunate you must write this kind of articles to convince the audience of the basic facts about the Air War in WW1.. :(

Strangely Fedders did not have the official German Air Force losses for October 1916 which were 17 a/c on the Western front and 1 on other fronts. As mentioned sometimes before this does not include walk away crashes..but you can calculate them.. ;)

The main problems for the totally wrong picture of the Air War that many people has, is the focusing on British literature(to little has been translated) and the "believing" and focusing in/on the British claiming systems and reports

8)
Gunnar

Apparently the Germans consistently committed a disproportionate share of their aircraft against the British, presumably indicating the greater threat. However, to a large extent French was the lingua franca ( ;) ) of aviation: fuselage, empennage, aileron, and chandelle come to mind.

No arguments with any of the above. The article suggests that the French were far more agressive than they have been given credit for.
* *DD

The French contribution to air war in WWI has different components.

At first try to imagine the Britons would not have had all the French engines and aircraft (No SPAD, no Nieuport for Britons). The Russian Air Service would have collapsed without French help. etc.

Then let us speak about the pioneer role in the introduction of machine guns, "acedom" and technical and organisational "firsts" in air war.

The French aces are underrated compared to the Britons because OOC were not included in French offical victory scores. *

I would not wonder if the French would have had the better kill ratio than the Britons because extrem (British) aggressivity is often resulting also in unnecessary losses.

Kind regards

Rammjaeger

A few point (and I am biased on that subject as I am a great beliver that the french contribution is alwais underrated and not only in the air)

1/ if the french air force have been using the same victory procedure than the RAF the top allied ace of the war will be french (in fact Guynemer, Madon and Fonk will all have more than 80 victory ) then it is always forgoten that the allied ace of ace was french (Fonk may not have been the nicest guy in the world but he was the allied top scorer under a very strict control system)

2/ How many book published in english about the french air force. when you see that windstock publish a book on a relatively unknown english plane (produced at less than 100 ) before something on the breguet 14. even in french there are not that much publication

3/ The fact that after the war every country wanted to glorify it's air force.

Gregoire,

Je suis d'accord.

Part of the problem has also been language. Other than in Canada (and that only for the past 30 years) French is not widely taught in North America or the U.K. And so many fine books on French aviation went unknown. A book publisher who publishes English language books can count on north American sales plus the UK. A French aviation book would be mostly for the European market.

I agree far too little is published about the French. I was amazed when I read in the Morrow book about "Groups de Bombardment" (I think that's right) in 1918 - sounds like they were doing some interesting tactical stuff.

Michael, French is very widely taught in the UK, but the trouble is you leave school and all you can remember is "Le sange est sur l'arbre" and "Ou est le camping?". It's not much use unless you are on a strange arboreal camping holiday in the Dordogne.

Vig.

Denny:
* *When you consider the Western Front was about 375 miles long from the English Channel at Nieuport to the Swiss border. *The British Front was at maximum was about 75 miles and *the French front was slighly less than 300, the Belgians had a small front in northern Flanders. THe French Air Force was twice the size of the RFC/RAF at any time. *The threat to the Germans were the British Army, not the French Army. You must not only look at the were the Germans concentrated their Air Force but their Infantry Divisions. The deployment of the German Air Force was concentrated about 50% against the British and 50% against the French. There was a slight shift of the German Air Force to the American First and Second Army front in late 1918 because of the threatnening activity of the American Armies. *Opposing the French Army in the defensive period of the German Air Force were the any concentration of German Fighter Jagdgeschwadern or Bombengeschwadern, and the same applies to the Schlactgruppen. *The German airmen considered duty on the French Front as R & R. As Barrett said the French gave us many aviation terms, aviation, cabane, longeron, aileron and many others. *It must be understood the root cause for the lack of agression, it was the gross failure of the "Nivelle Offensive of 1917" and the mutiny of the French Army that followed and the subsequent attitude of the French soldier, they did not fight until mid 1918 when their fighting spirit was restored.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *GOD bless and preserve our LIBERTY!
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *Dan-San Abbott

I can´t fully agree with you, Dan-San.

“French soldier, they did not fight until mid 1918” – that is heavy overclaiming! Neither the French infantry nor the French airmen did “not fight” in this time. I guess you are overclaiming and you know it. *;D

Even the most of the mutineers (!) did NOT refuse to fight, they were refusing to be dropped in senseless offensives which were arranged without brains by Nivelle and Co. The British literature is in general – possibly under impression of WWII – drawing a picture of nearly complete dissolvment of the French Army. That is NOT correct (!), despite the fact that the Frenchmen would have lost the war without the British intervening and heroic fight. Also the French airmen did never stopp to fight. There were some cases of deserting pilots but not only Guynemer died over German-held area in the critical time.

Please look at your own numbers also under consideration of another fact: Your own numbers show the Britons could afford to concentrate the doubled number of aircraft per mile compared to the Frenchmen. Clear – such a concentration of aviation troops will be more efficent in combat if clever managed. Therefore such a concentration will be seen as a bigger threat by the enemy (the Germans) and is attracting also an overproportional part of the hostile (German) aviators. If the Britsh aviators would have had the task to cover 150 miles of the frontline – they would not have had the same power of attack! *

Kind regards

Rammjaeger