At an enormous waste of resources
Germany has produced these futile monsters, that drift in the darkness
over England promiscuously dropping bombs on fields and houses. They
are now meeting the fate that was demonstrably certain ten years ago.
If they found us unready for them it is merely that we were unable to
imagine so idiotic an enterprise would ever be seriously sustained and
persisted in. We did not believe in the probability of Zeppelin raids
any more than we believed that Germany would force the world into war.
It was a thing too silly to be believed. But they came--to their certain
fate. In the month after I returned from France and Italy, no less than
four of these fatuities were exploded and destroyed within thirty miles
of my Essex home.... There in chosen phrases you have the truth about
these things. But now mark the perversion of thought due to spectacular
effect.
I find over the Essex countryside, which has been for more than a year
and a half a highway for Zeppelins, a new and curious admiration for
them that has arisen out of these very disasters. Previously they were
regarded with dislike and a sort of distrust, as one might regard a
sneaking neighbour who left his footsteps in one's garden at night. But
the Zeppelins of Billericay and Potter's Bar are--heroic things. (The
Cuffley one came down too quickly, and the fourth one which came down
for its crew to surrender is despised.
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