a Austrian Brandenburg C1 followed by an Italian Nieuport 17
The use of plane during WW1 had changed spirit of aviation, and the public thinking about flying and pilots. Althought plane had been ever used, in a very limited way, as a war weapon before the conflic, most europeens, in 1914, considered aviation as an entertainment for adventurous persons; thus they didn't think that it could have a practical utility. But, when the war ended, aviation had became very commercial. Many industries, which most never had any contact with aviation, had made for about a thousand of planes and engines. The air forces of fighting nations had became important in war strategic plans, predicting what military aviation was, 22 years after, when it opened total war concept. But, in 1914, only few visionaries were able to imagine future, because plane part was not certain. Althought tests have been made, before the war, with principaly light guns and little bombs armed aircrafts, the enthousiasm made by military aviation concept was considerably low. In a certain way, that was normal, because of the lack of performance of aircrafts, it's difficult to imagine those with the armement weight in more. Few important officers could realized the real importance of aviation in war, and imagine the use of an armed plane between another plane. Anyones, however, realized what it's going to happen. In France, country who, before the war, made the most important progress in aviation sector, the Général Joffre has foreseen the possibility of other missions than pure recon. and has encouraged studies of strategic used for the new weapon. In United Kingdom, Captain Bertam Dickson, who has found death in 1913 in Italy, has predicted that one day "armed planes will be used to fight between each other" and that "the fight for area control will be really important in a future war." But, despite of the general blinding of military authorities, who refused to see the good and the bad points of aviation, some enthousiastics talked for the air force part in army. This pressure of public opinion, bind to the desire of not beeing outruned in military sector, made that France, Germany, Italy, U.K., and most Europeens took aviation in their armement. In 1914, France had the most important aviation force of the moment, with about 138 aircrafts. As for Germany, where public enthousiam for Comte Ferdinand von Zeppelin success was always very hardy; as Emperor said, Germany "refused to be outrun by France in any sector." This declaration and the indignation it made was one of the reason of British military budget augmentation. So, belligerents contries had a military aviation. But, how did they going to use it? The only envisaged solution was recon. missions, which were just a similar view of Drachen part. Two used were forseen: firsly, strategic recon. (tactic for infantry); secondly, adjustment for ground gunners. In the first case, a train Officer may be able thanks to the plane, to observe and note ennemi mouvments, and inform his C.O. In the second case, an Officer may forsaw the fall of gunners shots and modify it, if it was necessary. France, Germany, who had bet a lot on infantry, quickly took plane as an artillery regulator. In U.K. were they were really in late for theory and practice, air forces wasn't considered as good add for ground forces. This attitude changed a little bit in the early of the war. But, for the majority of conventionnals armies Officers, plane was like all others new weapons of WW1 (tanks, automatic riffles, gaz,...), not a really important thing. The recruitment was really easy, because the new weapon gave a great place for young adeventurous Officers who didn't like the tradionnal army life. That was the same for U.K., where before 1911, novice pilots may pay to learn in civil schools. Everywhere else, air forces had training schools, but instructors were often civils. In 1911 and 1912 events, the diffrent contries had made a plane choice to select those who could take part in fighting crews, for normalize production and maintenance. But selecting and producing are tow diffrent things, and "Old industries" weren't able to do serial production; many industries had just experience to product one type of plane but not yet a good production capacity. In military words, the result was that the number of choosen planes was not enough and Squadrons were not homogenous. In that point, French and Germans had the lead over U.K. Germans had many "Taubes"
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made by Etrich and Wels