The Command of the Air

The fate of General Douhet's celebrated work has been strange. For long it was referred to in this country with extreme distaste. It was taken as representative of the most brutal ideas, of the degradation of warfare, of the doctrine of indisriminate slaughter. Now the .times have changed and we have changed with them. Douhet is described as a great genius, a great prophet. Pic is compared with Clausewitz. He is constantly quoted, not in reprobation, but in justification when this is considered to be necessary. In point of fact the earlier view of Douhet was based on hearsay or occasional magazine articles at most. The number of critics who had read him in the Italian was small and not till now has he been translated into English.