THE COUNT VON ZEPPELIN
The year that witnessed the first triumphs of Santos-Dumont saw also
the beginning of the success of his great German rival, the Count
von Zeppelin. These two daring spirits, struggling to attain the
same end, were alike in their enthusiasm, their pertinacity, and
their devotion to the same cause. Both were animated by the highest
patriotism. Santos-Dumont offered his fleet to France to be used
against any nation except those of the two Americas. He said: "It is
in France that I have met with all my encouragement; in France and
with French material I have made all my experiments. I excepted the
two Americas because I am an American."
Count Zeppelin for his part, when bowed down in apparent defeat and
crushed beneath the burden of virtual bankruptcy, steadily refused
to deal with agents of other nations than Germany--which at that
time was turning upon him the cold shoulder. He declared that his
genius had been exerted for his own country alone, and that his
invention should be kept a secret from all but German authorities. A
secret it would be to-day, except that accident and the fortunes of
war revealed the intricacies of the Zeppelin construction to both
France and England.
Santos-Dumont had the fire, enthusiasm, and resiliency of youth;
Zeppelin, upon whom age had begun to press when first he took up
aeronautics, had the dogged pertinacity of the Teuton. Both were
rich at the outset, but Zeppelin's capital melted away under the
demands of his experimental workshops, while the ancestral coffee
lands of the Brazilian never failed him.
Of the two Zeppelin had the more obstinacy, for he held to his plan
of a rigid dirigible balloon even in face of its virtual failure in
the supreme test of war. Santos-Dumont was the more alert
intellectually for he was still in the flood tide of successful
demonstration with his balloons when he saw and grasped the promise
of the airplane and shifted his activities to that new field in
which he won new laurels.
Zeppelin won perhaps the wider measure of immediate fame, but
whether enduring or not is yet to be determined. His airships
impressive, even majestic as they are, have failed to prove their
worth in war, and are yet to be fully tested in peace. That they
remain a unique type, one which no other individual nor any other
nation has sought to copy, cannot be attributed wholly to the
jealousy of possible rivals. If the monster ship, of rigid frame,
were indeed the ideal form of dirigible it would be imitated on
every hand. The inventions of the Wrights have been seized upon,
adapted, improved perhaps by half a hundred airplane designers of
every nation. But nobody has been imitating the Zeppelins.
[Illustration: _The Giant and the Pigmies._
_Painting by John E. Whiting._]
That, however, is a mere passing reflection. If the Zeppelin has not
done all in war that the sanguine German people expected of it,
nevertheless it is not yet to be pronounced an entire failure. And
even though a failure in war, the chief service for which its
stout-hearted inventor designed it, there is still hope that it may
ultimately prove better adapted to many ends of peace than the
airplanes which for the time seem to have outdone it.
Stout-hearted indeed the old _Luftgraaf_--"Air Scout"--as the
Germans call him, was. His was a Bismarckian nature, reminiscent of
the Iron Chancellor alike physically and mentally. In appearance he
recalls irresistibly the heroic figure of Bismarck, jack-booted and
cuirassed at the Congress of Vienna, painted by von Werner. Heir to
an old land-owning family, ennobled and entitled to bear the title
_Landgraf_, Count von Zeppelin was a type of the German aristocrat.
But for his title and aristocratic rank he could never have won his
long fight for recognition by the bureaucrats who control the German
army. In youth he was anti-Prussian in sentiment, and indeed some of
his most interesting army experiences were in service with the army
of South Germany against Prussia and her allied states. But all that
was forgotten in the national unity that followed the defeat of
France in 1872.
Before that, however, the young count--he was born in 1838--had
served with gallantry, if not distinction, in the Union Army in our
Civil War, had made a balloon ascension on the fighting line, had
swum in the Niagara River below the falls, being rescued with
difficulty, and together with two Russian officers and some Indian
guides had almost starved in trying to discover the source of the
Mississippi River--a spot which can now be visited without
undergoing more serious hardships than the upper berth in a Pullman
car.
It was at the siege of Paris that Zeppelin's mind first became
engaged with the problem of aërial navigation. From his post in the
besieging trenches he saw the almost daily ascent of balloons in
which mail was sent out, and persons who could pay the price sought
to escape from the beleaguered city. As a colonel of cavalry, he
had been employed mainly in scouting duty throughout the war. He was
impressed now with the conviction that those globes, rising silently
into the air, above the enemy's cannon shot and drifting away to
safety would be the ideal scouts could they but return with their
intelligence. Was there no way of guiding these ships in the air, as
a ship in the ocean is guided? The young soldier was hardly home
from the war when he began to study the problem. He studied it
indeed so much to the exclusion of other military matters that in
1890 the General Staff abruptly dismissed him from his command. They
saw no reason why a major-general of cavalry should be mooning
around with balloons and kites like a schoolboy.
The dismissal hurt him, but deterred him in no way from the purpose
of his life. Indeed the fruit of his many years' study of aeronautic
conditions was ready for the gathering at this very moment. On the
surface of the picturesque Lake Constance, on the border line
between Germany and Switzerland, floated a huge shed, open to the
water and more than five hundred feet long. In it, nearing
completion, floated the first Zeppelin airship.
In the long patient study which the Count had given to his problem
he had reached the fixed conclusion that the basis of a practical
dirigible balloon must be a rigid frame over which the envelope
should be stretched. His experiments were made at the same time as
those of Santos-Dumont, and he could not be ignorant of the measure
of success which the younger man was attaining with the non-rigid
balloon. But it was a fact that all the serious accidents which
befell Santos-Dumont and most of the threatened accidents which he
narrowly escaped were fundamentally caused by the lack of rigidity
in his balloon. The immediate cause may have been a leaky valve
permitting the gas to escape, or a faulty air-pump which made prompt
filling of the ballonet impossible. But the effect of these flaws
was to deprive the balloon of its rigidity, cause it to buckle,
throwing the cordage out of gear, shifting stresses and strains,
and resulting in ultimate breakdown.
Whether he observed the vicissitudes of his rival or not, Count
Zeppelin determined that the advantages of a rigid frame counted for
more than the disadvantage of its weight. Moreover that disadvantage
could be compensated for by increasing the size, and therefore the
lifting power of the balloon. In determining upon a rigid frame the
Count was not a pioneer even in his own country. While his
experiments were still under way, a rival, David Schwartz, who had
begun, without completing, an airship in St. Petersburg, secured in
some way aid from the German Government, which was at the moment
coldly repulsing Zeppelin. He planned and built an aluminum airship
but died before its completion. His widow continued the work amidst
constant opposition from the builders. The end was one of the many
tragedies of invention. Nobody but the widow ever believed the ship
would rise from its moorings. It was in charge of a man who had
never made an ascent. To his amazement and to the amazement of the
spectators the engine was hardly started when the ship mounted and
made headway against a stiff breeze. On the ground the spectators
shouted in wonder; the widow, overwhelmed by this reward for her
faith in her husband's genius, burst into tears of joy. But the
amateur pilot was no match for the situation. Affrighted to find
himself in mid-air, too dazed to know what to do, he pulled the
wrong levers and the machine crashed to earth. The pilot escaped,
but the airship which had taken four years to build was
irretrievably wrecked. The widow's hopes were blasted, and the way
was left free for the Count von Zeppelin.
Freed, though unwillingly, from the routine duties of his military
rank, Zeppelin thereafter devoted himself wholly to his airships. He
was fifty-three years old, adding one more to the long list of men
who found their real life's work after middle age. With him was
associated his brother Eberhard, the two forming a partnership in
aeronautical work as inseparable as that of Wilbur and Orville
Wright. Like Wilbur Wright, Eberhard von Zeppelin did not live to
witness the fullest fruition of the work, though he did see the
soundness of its principles thoroughly established and in practical
application. There is a picturesque story that when Eberhard lay on
his death-bed his brother, instead of watching by his side, took the
then completed airship from its hangar, and drove it over and around
the house that the last sounds to reach the ears of his faithful
ally might be the roar of the propellers in the air--the grand pæan
of victory.
[Illustration: Photo by Press Illustrating Service.
_A French "Sausage"._]
Though Count von Zeppelin had begun his experiments in 1873 it was
not until 1890 that he actually began the construction of his first
airship. The intervening years had been spent in constructing and
testing models, in abstruse calculations of the resistance of the
air, the lifting power of hydrogen, the comparative rigidity and
weight of different woods and various metals, the power and weight
of the different makes of motors. In these studies he spent both his
time and his money lavishly, with the result that when he had built
a model on the lines of which he was willing to risk the
construction of an airship of operative size, his private fortune
was gone. It is the common lot of inventors. For a time the Count
suffered all the mortification and ignominy which the beggar, even
in a most worthy cause, must always experience. Hat in hand he
approached every possible patron with his story of certain success
if only supplied with funds with which to complete his ship. A
stock company with a capital of $225,000 of which he contributed one
half, soon found its resources exhausted and retired from the
speculation. Appeals to the Emperor met with only cold indifference.
An American millionaire newspaper owner, resident in Europe, sent
contemptuous word by his secretary that he "had no time to bother
with crazy inventors." That was indeed the attitude of the business
classes at the moment when the inventors of dirigibles were on the
very point of conquering the obstacles in the way of making the
navigation of air a practical art. A governmental commission at
Berlin rejected with contempt the plans which Zeppelin presented in
his appeal for support. Members of that commission were forced to an
about-face later and became some of the inventor's sturdiest
champions. But in his darkest hour the government failed him, and
the one friendly hand stretched out in aid was that of the German
Engineers' Society which, somewhat doubtfully, advanced some funds
to keep the work in operation.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_A British "Blimp"._]
With this the construction of the first Zeppelin craft was begun.
Though there had been built up to the opening of the war twenty-five
"Zeps"--nobody knows how many since--the fundamental type was not
materially altered in the later ones, and a description of the first
will stand for all. In connection with this description may be noted
the criticisms of experts some of which proved only too well
founded.
The first Zeppelin was polygonal, 450 feet long, 78 broad, and 66
feet high. This colossal bulk, equivalent to that of a 7500-ton
ship necessary to supply lifting power for the metallic frame,
naturally made her unwieldy to handle, unsafe to leave at rest,
outside of a sheltering shed, and a particularly attractive target
for artillery in time of war. Actual action indeed proved that to be
safe from the shells of anti-aircraft guns, the Zeppelins were
forced to fly so high that their own bombs could not be dropped with
any degree of accuracy upon a desired target.
The balloon's frame is made of aluminum, the lightest of metals, but
not the least costly. A curious disadvantage of this construction
was made apparent in the accident which destroyed _Zeppelin IV._
That was the first of the airships to be equipped with a full
wireless outfit which was used freely on its flight. It appeared
that the aluminum frame absorbed much of the electricity generated
for the purpose of the wireless. The effect of this was two-fold. It
limited the radius of operation of the wireless to 150 miles or
less, and it made the metal frame a perilous storehouse of
electricity. When _Zeppelin IV._ met with a disaster by a storm
which dragged it from its moorings, the stored electricity in her
frame was suddenly released by contact with the trees and set fire
to the envelope, utterly destroying the ship.
The balloon frame was divided into seventeen compartments, each of
which held a ballonet filled with hydrogen gas. The purpose of this
was similar to the practice of dividing a ship's hulls into
compartments. If one or more of the ballonets, for any reason, were
injured the remainder would keep the ship afloat. The space between
the ballonets and the outer skin was pumped full of air to keep the
latter taut and rigid. Moreover it helped to prevent the radiation
of heat to the gas bags from the outer envelope whose huge expanse,
presented to the sun, absorbed an immense amount of heat rays.
Two cars were suspended from the frame of the Zeppelin, forward and
aft, and a corridor connected them. A sliding weight was employed
to raise or depress the bow. In each car of the first Zeppelin was
a sixteen-horse-power gasoline motor, each working two screws, with
four foot blades, revolving one thousand times a minute. The engines
were reversible, thus making it possible to work the propellers
against each other and aid materially in steering the ship. Rudders
at bow and stern completed the navigating equipment.
In the first Zeppelins, the corridor connecting the two cars was
wholly outside the frame and envelope of the car. Later the perilous
experiment was tried of putting it within the envelope. This
resulted in one of the most shocking of the many Zeppelin disasters.
In the case of the ship _L-II._, built in 1912, the corridor became
filled with gas that had oozed out of the ballonets. At one end or
the other of the corridor this gas, then mixed with air, came in
contact with fire,--perhaps the exhaust of the engines,--a violent
explosion followed while the ship was some nine hundred feet aloft,
and the mass of twisted and broken metal, with the flaming envelope,
fell to the ground carrying twenty-eight men, including members of
the Admiralty Board, to a horrible death.
But to return to the first Zeppelin. Her trial was set for July 2,
1900, and though the immediate vicinity of the floating hangar was
barred to the public by the military authorities, the shores and
surface of the lake were black with people eager to witness the
test. Boats pulled out of the wide portal the huge cigar-shaped
structure, floating on small rafts, its polished surface of pegamoid
glittering in the sun. As large as a fair-sized ocean steamship, it
looked, on that little lake dotted with pleasure craft, like a
leviathan. Men were busy in the cars, fore and aft. The mooring
ropes were cast off as the vessel gained an offing, and ballast
being thrown out she began to rise slowly. The propellers began to
whir, and the great craft swung around breasting the breeze and
moved slowly up the lake. The crowd cheered. Count von Zeppelin,
tense with excitement, alert for every sign of weakness watched his
monster creation with mingled pride and apprehension. Two points
were set at rest in the first two minutes--the lifting power was
great enough to carry the heaviest load ever imposed upon a balloon
and the motive power was sufficient to propel her against an
ordinary breeze. But she was hardly in mid-air when defects became
apparent. The apparatus for controlling the balancing weight got out
of order. The steering lines became entangled so that the ship was
first obliged to stop, then by reversing the engines to proceed
backwards. This was, however, a favourable evidence of her handiness
under untoward circumstances. After she had been in the air nearly
an hour and had covered four or five miles, a landing was ordered
and she dropped to the surface of the lake with perfect ease. Before
reaching her shed, however, she collided with a pile--an accident in
no way attributable to her design--and seriously bent her frame.
The story told thus baldly does not sound like a record of glorious
success. Nevertheless not Count Zeppelin alone but all Germany was
wild with jubilation. _Zeppelin I._ had demonstrated a principle;
all that remained was to develop and apply this principle and
Germany would have a fleet of aërial dreadnoughts that would force
any hostile nation to subjection. There was little or no discussion
of the application of the principle to the ends of peace. It was as
an engine of war alone that the airship appealed to the popular
fancy.
But at the time that fancy proved fickle. With a few repairs the
airship was brought out for another test. In the air it did all that
was asked for it, but it came to earth--or rather to the surface of
the lake--with a shock that put it out of commission. When Count
Zeppelin's company estimated the cost of further repairs it gave a
sigh and abandoned the wreck. Thereupon the pertinacious inventor
laid aside his tools, got into his old uniform, and went out again
on the dreary task of begging for further funds.
It was two years before he could take up again the work of
construction. He lectured, wrote magazine articles, begged, cajoled,
and pleaded for money. At last he made an impression 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.
[Illustration: _The Death of a Zeppelin._
Photo by Paul Thompson.]
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
for war, and never concealed the fact that the enemy he expected to
be the target of his bomb throwers was England. What the airships
accomplished in this direction, how greatly they were developed, and
the strength and weakness of the German air fleet, will be dwelt
upon in another chapter.
But, though building primarily for military purposes, Zeppelin did
not wholly neglect the possibilities of his ship for non-military
service. He built one which made more than thirty trips between
Munich and Berlin, carrying passengers who paid a heavy fee for the
privilege of enjoying this novel form of travel. The car was fitted
up like our most up-to-date Pullmans, with comfortable seats, bright
lights, and a kitchen from which excellent meals were served to
the passengers. The service was not continued long enough to
determine whether it could ever be made commercially profitable,
but as an aid to firing the Teutonic heart and an assistance in
selling stock it was well worth while. The spectacle of one of these
great cars, six hundred or more feet long, floating grandly on even
keel and with a steady course above one of the compact little towns
of South Germany, was one to thrill the pulses.
But the ill luck which pursued Count von Zeppelin even in what
seemed to be his moments of assured success was remorseless. In 1912
he produced the monster _L-I_, 525 feet long, 50 feet in diameter,
of 776,900 cubic feet capacity, and equipped with three sets of
motors, giving it a speed of fifty-two miles an hour. This ship was
designed for naval use and after several successful cross-country
voyages she was ordered to Heligoland, to participate in naval
manoeuvres with the fleet there stationed. One day, caught by a
sudden gust of wind such as are common enough on the North Sea, she
proved utterly helpless. Why no man could tell, her commander being
drowned, but in the face of the gale she lost all control, was
buffeted by the elements at their will, and dropped into the sea
where she was a total loss. Fifteen of her twenty-two officers and
men were drowned. The accident was the more inexplicable because the
craft had been flying steadily overland for nearly twelve months and
had covered more miles than any ship of Zeppelin construction. It
was reported that her captain had said she was overloaded and that
he feared that she would be helpless in a gale. But after the
disaster his mouth was stopped by the waters of the North Sea.
[Illustration: _A German Dirigible, Hansa Type._
© U.& U.]
This calamity was not permitted long to stand alone. Indeed one of
the most curious facts about the Zeppelin record is the regular,
periodical recurrence of fatal accidents at almost equal intervals
and apparently wholly unaffected by the growing perfection of the
airships. While _L-I_ was making her successful cross-country
flights, _L-II_ was reaching completion at Friedrichshaven. She was
shorter but bulkier than her immediate predecessor and carried
engines giving her nine hundred horse power, or four hundred more
than _L-I._ On its first official trip this ship exploded a thousand
feet in air, killing twenty-eight officers and men aboard, including
all the officials who were conducting the trials. The calamity, as
explained on an earlier page, was due to the accumulation of gas in
the communicating passage between the three cars.
[Illustration: _A Wrecked Zeppelin at Salonika._
Photo by Press Illustrating Service.]
This new disaster left the faith and loyalty of the German people
unshaken. But it did decidedly estrange the scientific world from
Count von Zeppelin and all his works. It was pointed out, with
truth, that the accident paralleled precisely one which had
demolished the _Severo Pax_ airship ten years earlier, and which had
caused French inventors to establish a hard and fast rule against
incorporating in an airship's design any inclosed space in which
waste gas might gather. This rule and its reason were known to Count
von Zeppelin and by ignoring both he lent new colour to the charge,
already current in scientific circles, that he was loath to profit
by the experiences of other inventors.
Whether this feeling spread to the German Government it is
impossible to say. Nor it is easy to estimate how much official
confidence was shaken by it. The government, even before the war,
was singularly reticent about the Zeppelins, their numbers and
plans. It is certain that orders were not withheld from the Count.
Great numbers of his machines were built, especially after the war
was entered upon. But he was not permitted longer to have a monopoly
of government aid for manufacturers of dirigibles. Other types
sprung up, notably the Schutte-Lanz, the Gross, and the Parseval.
But being first in the field the Zeppelin came to give its name to
all the dirigibles of German make and many of the famous--or
infamous--exploits credited to it during the war may in fact have
been performed by one of its rivals.
It would be futile to attempt to enumerate all these rivals here.
Among them are the semi-rigid Parseval and Gross types which found
great favour among the military authorities during the war. The
latter is merely an adaptation of the highly successful French ship
the _Lebaudy_, but the Parseval is the result of a slow evolution
from an ordinary balloon. It is wholly German, in conception and
development, and it is reported that the Kaiser, secretly disgusted
that the Zeppelins, to the advancement of which he had given such
powerful aid, should have recorded so many disasters, quietly
transferred his interest to the new and simpler model. Despite the
hope of a more efficient craft, however, both the Gross and the
Parseval failed in their first official trials, though later they
made good.
The latter ship was absolutely without any wooden or metallic
structure to give her rigidity. Two air ballonets were contained in
the envelope at bow and stern and the ascent and descent of the
ship was regulated by the quantity of air pumped into these. A most
curious device was the utilization of heavy cloth for the propeller
blades. Limp and flaccid when at rest, heavy weights in the hem of
the cloth caused these blades to stand out stiff and rigid as the
result of the centrifugal force created by their rapid revolution.
One great military advantage of the Parseval was that she could be
quickly deflated in the presence of danger at her moorings, and
wholly knocked down and packed in small compass for shipment by rail
in case of need. To neither of these models did there ever come such
a succession of disasters as befell the earlier Zeppelins. It is
fair to say however that prior to the war not many of them had been
built, and that both their builders and navigators had opportunity
to learn from Count von Zeppelin's errors.
Among the chief German rivals to the Zeppelin is the Schutte-Lanz,
of the rigid type, broader but not so long as the Zeppelin, framed
of wood bound with wire and planned to carry a load of five or six
tons, or as many as thirty passengers. No. I of this type met its
fate as did so many Zeppelins by encountering a storm while
improperly moored. Called to earth to replenish its supply of gas it
was moored to an anchor sunk six feet in the ground, and as an
additional precaution three hundred soldiers were called from a
neighbouring barracks to handle it. It seems to have been one of the
advantages of Germany as a place in which to manoeuvre dirigibles,
that, even in time of peace, there were always several hundred
soldiers available wherever a ship might land. But this force was
inadequate. A violent gust tore the ship from their hands. One poor
fellow instinctively clung to his rope until one thousand feet in
the air when he let go. The ship itself hovered over the town for an
hour or more, then descended and was dashed to pieces against trees
and stone walls.
The danger which was always attached to the landing of airships has
led some to suggest that they should never be brought to earth, but
moored in mid-air as large ships anchor in midstream. It is
suggested that tall towers be built to the top of which the ship be
attached by a cable, so arranged that she will always float to the
leeward of the tower. The passengers would be landed by gangplanks,
and taken up and down the towers in elevators. Kipling suggests this
expedient in his prophetic sketch _With the Night Mail_. The airship
would only return to earth--as a ship goes into dry dock--when in
need of repairs.
A curious mishap that threatened for a time to wreck the peace of
the world, occurred in April, 1913, when a German Zeppelin was
forced out of its course and over French territory. The right of
alien machines to pass over their territory is jealously guarded by
European nations, and during the progress of the Great War the Dutch
repeatedly protested against the violation of their atmosphere by
German aviators. At the time of this mischance, however, France and
Germany were at peace--or as nearly so as racial and historic
antipathies would permit. Accordingly when officers of a brigade of
French cavalry engaged in manoeuvring near the great fortress of
Luneville saw a shadow moving across the field and looking up saw a
huge Zeppelin betwixt themselves and the sun they were astonished
and alarmed. Signs and faint shouts from the aeronauts appeared to
indicate that their errand was at least friendly, if not
involuntary. The soldiers stopped their drill; the townspeople
trooped out to the Champs de Mars where the phenomenon was exhibited
and began excitedly discussing this suspicious invasion. Word was
speedily sent to military headquarters asking whether to welcome or
to repel the foe.
[Illustration: © U. & U.
_British Aviators about to Ascend._
_Note position of gunner on lower seat._]
Meantime the great ship was drifting perilously near the housetops,
and the uniformed officers in the cars began making signals to the
soldiers below. Ropes were thrown out, seized by willing hands and
made fast. The crew of Germans descended to find themselves
prisoners. The international law was clear enough. The ship was a
military engine of the German army. Its officers, all in uniform,
had deliberately steered her into the very heart of a French
fortress. Though the countries were at peace the act was technically
one of war--an armed invasion by the enemy. Diplomacy of course
settled the issue peacefully but not before the French had made
careful drawings of all the essential features of the Zeppelin, and
taken copies of its log. As Germany had theretofore kept a rigid
secrecy about all the details of Zeppelin construction and operation
this angered the military authorities beyond measure. The unlucky
officers who had shared in the accident were savagely told that they
should have blown the ship up in mid-air and perished with it rather
than to have weakly submitted it to French inspection. They suffered
court-martial but escaped with severe reprimands.
The story of the dirigibles of France and Germany is practically the
whole story of the development to a reasonable degree of perfection
of the lighter-than-air machine. Other nations experimented
somewhat, but in the main lagged behind these pioneers. Out of Spain
indeed came a most efficient craft--the Astra-Torres, of which the
British Government had the best example prior to the war, while both
France and Russia placed large orders with the builders. How many
finally went into service and what may have been their record are
facts veiled in the secrecy of wartime. Belgium and Italy both
produced dirigibles of distinctive character. The United States is
alone at the present moment in having contributed nothing to the
improvement of the dirigible balloon.