Aircraft and Submarines. Abbot Willis John
upon the Emperor who, indeed, with a keen eye for all that makes for military advantage, should have given heed to his efforts long before. Merely a letter of approval from the all-powerful Kaiser was needed to turn the scale and in 1902 this was forthcoming. The factories of the empire agreed to furnish materials at cost price, and sufficient money was soon forthcoming to build a second ship. This ship took more than two years to build, was tested in January, 1906, made a creditable flight, and was dashed to pieces by a gale the same night!
The wearisome work of begging began again. But this time the Kaiser's aid was even more effectively given and in nine months Zeppelin III. was in the air. More powerful than its predecessors it met with a greater measure of success. On one of its trials a propeller blade flew off and penetrated the envelope, but the ship returned to earth in safety. In October, 1906, the Minister of War reported that the airship was extremely stable, responded readily to her helm, had carried eleven persons sixty-seven miles in two hours and seventeen minutes, and had made its landing in ease and safety. Accepted by the government "No. III." passed into military service and Zeppelin, now the idol of the German people, began the construction of "No. IV."
That ship was larger than her predecessors and carried a third cabin for passengers suspended amidships. Marked increase in the size of the steering and stabling planes characterized the appearance of the ship when compared with earlier types. She was at the outset a lucky ship. She cruised through Alpine passes into Switzerland, and made a circular voyage carrying eleven passengers and flying from Friedrichshaven to Mayence and back via Basle, Strassburg, Mannheim, and Stuttgart. The voyage occupied twenty-one hours – a world's record. The performance of the ship on both voyages was perfection. Even in the tortuous Alpine passes which she was forced to navigate on her trip to Lucerne she moved with the steadiness and certainty of a great ship at sea. The rarification of the air at high altitudes, the extreme and sudden variations in temperature, the gusts of wind that poured from the ice-bound peaks down through the narrow canyons affected her not at all. When to this experience was added the triumphant tour of the six German cities, Count von Zeppelin might well have thought his triumph was complete.
But once again the cup of victory was dashed from his lips. After his landing a violent wind beat upon the ship. An army of men strove to hold her fast, while an effort was made to reduce her bulk by deflation. That effort, which would have been entirely successful in the case of a non-rigid balloon, was obviously futile in that of a Zeppelin. Not the gas in the ballonets, but the great rigid frame covered with water-proofed cloth constituted the huge bulk that made her the plaything of the winds. In a trice she was snatched from the hands of her crew and hurled against the trees in a neighbouring grove. There was a sudden and utterly unexpected explosion and the whole fabric was in flames. The precise cause of the explosion will always be in doubt, but, as already pointed out, many scientists believe that the great volume of electricity accumulated in the metallic frame was suddenly released in a mighty spark which set fire to the stores of gasoline on board.
With this disaster the iron nerve of the inventor was for the first time broken. It followed so fast upon what appeared to be a complete triumph that the shock was peculiarly hard to bear. It is said that he broke down and wept, and that but for the loving courage and earnest entreaties of his wife and daughter he would then have abandoned the hope and ambition of his life. But after all it was but that darkest hour which comes just before the dawn. The demolition of "No. IV." had been no accident which reflected at all upon the plan or construction of the craft – unless the great bulk of the ship be considered a fundamental defect. What it did demonstrate was that the Zeppelin, like the one-thousand-foot ocean liner, must have adequate harbour and docking facilities wherever it is to land. The one cannot safely drop down in any convenient meadow, any more than the other can put into any little fishing port. Germany has learned this lesson well enough and since the opening of the Great War her territory is plentifully provided with Zeppelin shelters at all strategic points.
Fortunately for the Count the German people judged his latest reverse more justly than he did. They saw the completeness of the triumph which had preceded the disaster and recognized that the latter was one easily guarded against in future. Enthusiasm ran high all over the land. Begging was no longer necessary. The Emperor, who had heretofore expressed rather guarded approval of the enterprise, now flung himself into it with that enthusiasm for which he is notable. He bestowed upon the Count the Order of the Black Eagle, embraced him in public three times, and called aloud that all might hear, "Long life to his Excellency, Count Zeppelin, the Conqueror of the Air." He never wearied of assuring his hearers that the Count was the "greatest German of the century." With such august patronage the Count became the rage. Next to the Kaiser's the face best known to the people of Germany, through pictures and statues, was that of the inventor of the Zeppelin. The pleasing practice of showing affection for a public man by driving nails into his wooden effigy had not then been invented by the poetic Teutons, else von Zeppelin would have outdone von Hindenburg in weight of metal.
The story that Zeppelin had refused repeated offers from other governments was widely published and evoked patriotic enthusiasm. With it went shrewd hints that in these powerful aircraft lay the way to overcome the hated English navy, and even to carry war to the very soil of England. It was then eight years before the greatest war of history was to break out, but even at that date hatred of England was being sedulously cultivated among the German people by those in authority.
As a result of this national attitude Count Zeppelin's enterprise was speedily put on a sound financial footing. Though "No. IV." had been destroyed by an accident it had been the purpose of the government to buy her, and $125,000 of the purchase price was now put at the disposal of the Count von Zeppelin. A popular Zeppelin fund of $1,500,000 was raised and expended in building great works. Thenceforward there was no lack of money for furthering what had truly become a great national interest.
But the progress of the construction of Zeppelins for the next few years was curiously compounded of success and failure. Fate seemed to have decreed to every Zeppelin triumph a disaster. Each mischance was attributed to exceptional conditions which never could happen again, but either they did occur, or some new but equally effective accident did. Outside of Germany, where the public mind had become set in an almost idolatrous confidence in Zeppelin, the great airships were becoming a jest and a byword notwithstanding their unquestioned accomplishments. Indeed when the record was made up just before the declaration of war in 1914 it was found that of twenty-five Zeppelins thus far constructed only twelve were available. Thirteen had been destroyed by accident – two of them modern naval airships only completed in 1913. The record was not one to inspire confidence.
In 1909, during a voyage in which he made nine hundred miles in thirty-eight hours, the rumour was spread that von Zeppelin would continue it to Berlin. Some joker sent a forged telegram to the Kaiser to that effect signed "Zeppelin." It was expected to be the first appearance of one of the great ships at the capital, and the Emperor hastened to prepare a suitable welcome. A great crowd assembled at the Templehoff Parade Ground. The Berlin Airship Battalion was under orders to assist in the landing. The Kaiser himself was ready to hasten to the spot should the ship be sighted. But she never appeared. If von Zeppelin knew of the exploit which rumour had assigned to him – which is doubtful – he could not have carried it out. His ship collided with a tree – an accident singularly frequent in the Zeppelin records – so disabling it that it could only limp home under half power. A rather curt telegram from his Imperial master is said to have been Count von Zeppelin's first intimation that he had broken an engagement.
However, he kept it two months later, flying to Berlin, a distance of 475 miles. He was greeted with mad enthusiasm and among the crowd to welcome him was Orville Wright the American aviator. It is a curious coincidence that on the day the writer pens these words the New York newspapers contain accounts of Mr. Wright's proffer of his services, and aeronautical facilities, to the President in case an existing diplomatic break with Germany should reach the point of actual war. Mr. Wright accompanied his proffer by an appeal for a tremendous aviation force, "but," said he, "I strongly advise against spending any money whatsoever on dirigible balloons of any sort."
Thereafter the progress of Count von Zeppelin was without interruption for any lack of financial strength. His great works at Friedrichshaven expanded until they were capable of putting out a complete ship in eight weeks. He was building, of course, primarily