The hardy and venerable hero of so many voyages and long continued experiments quite broke down at the sight of his grandest vessel in ruin. But an unlooked for and a sudden turn of events brought him the greatest triumph in his darkest hour. While the world expressed its grief and sympathy his loyal countrymen hastened to his relief in an admirable burst of enthusiasm. Within twenty-four hours the government had made him a grant of $125,000, and subscriptions offered in all parts of Germany brought the sum to over $500,000. By October, 1908, the total gift amounted to $1,500,000, which was paid to the Zeppelin Air Ship Company, formed for developing and building air ships on a large scale. A tract of 300 acres was secured at Friedrichshafen for an air ship factory. Here was erected the necessary shops, hydrogen plant, balloon harbor, and everything necessary to enable the company to construct several mammoth air ships each year. To these new grounds the Count’s former interests were gradually conveyed, while his old station, with its air ship dock on Lake Constance, was converted into a military post by the German government.
After the destruction of Zeppelin IV, its predecessor, the Count’s third air ship, was again prepared for service and for new triumphs. Her hull was lengthened by the addition of a cylindrical section having the length of one compartment, or about 26 feet. This alteration gave a considerable increase of net buoyancy with but slight increase of resistance. The dimensions now were: length 446 feet, diameter 38 feet, volume 423,768 cubic feet. The gas was contained in sixteen sacs, twelve in the cylindrical part and two at each end. The ship was propelled by two 85-horse-power engines, supplied with sufficient gasoline for a forty-one hour voyage at 25 miles per hour. The loss of gas by leakage was less by weight than the loss of fuel. The famous old cruiser, thus remodeled, was operated in the autumn of 1908 with her usual precision and grace; thus winning new distinction and renown. On one occasion she had as passengers the Crown Prince and the Kaiser’s brother, Prince Henry. The Emperor himself witnessed the demonstration, and decorated the Count, referring to him as “the greatest German of the century.” Soon afterward the ship was taken over by the government and assigned to the Prussian Battalion of Aëronauts, being christened Zeppelin I, since it was the first vessel of the kind taken into the military service.
Beginning with March 9, 1909, the military Zeppelin I was kept in active operation by the officers, and subjected to a wide variety of tests day by day. She was driven through rain and snowstorms, at all elevations up to a mile; she was anchored over land and over water, sometimes exposed for hours to a gale; she was steered in and out of her shed without the aid of her floating raft; she was sent on long trips, landed in the open country, by day and by night, and returned to harbor in safety. On one occasion she carried twenty-six passengers for over an hour and a half; again she made an endurance flight of thirteen hours. These maneuvers exhibited for the first time many capabilities of the ship, which all along had been stoutly affirmed by the inventor, but questioned by his critics.
On April 1, 1909, at four o’clock in the morning, the renowned Zeppelin I, with the Count as helmsman, started through the rain and wind on a voyage from Friedrichshafen to Munich, a hundred miles distant. The ship followed the railway as far as Ulm, guided by the station lights, which were kept burning all night to mark the route. As she approached Munich, at the appointed hour of nine next morning, her approach was announced from afar by the droning of her machinery and propellers, whereupon she was welcomed by loud music from many bands and the joyous ringing of all the bells in the city. The Prince Regent of Bavaria and a great throng of applauding citizens awaited her at the Teresenhohe park. Presently the swift cruiser approached, sailing over the steeple tops like a monstrous arrow. She halted before the Regent and dipped her bow three times, in graceful salute. Then she circled widely over the city, intending to land at the Oberwiesenfeld Parade Grounds, where part of the garrison troops were drawn up to receive her. But now, while so near the goal, she found it difficult to stem the increasing gale, and unsafe to land; so, with her bow pointed to the city, and propellers humming furiously, she gradually yielded to the storm, and drifted slowly backward toward the northeast.
The crucial hour had come for this stanch vessel and her audacious captain. They wrestled with the storm bravely and obstinately, but were beaten back steadily, with no port in view. The Count determined to weather the gale till it should spend its fury. He coolly sent an aërogram to Munich, saying that all was well and that he might reach the city late in the day. Observing a suitable place to land, near the village of Loiching, he pointed the prow of his ship downward, approached the earth and cast anchor. As the front car touched the ground it was grasped by the willing hands of thronging peasants and villagers. Presently the ship was taken in charge by a military relief party which the Count had hailed on the way, at Guendelkoven, and which had hastened to his aid in automobiles. Fifty soldiers, in regular shifts, that night held the bow of the vessel by a short leash. The anchor was firmly fastened, and additional ropes secured the bow to an unwheeled wagon loaded with stones. Thus all night long that mighty hull swayed to and fro in the passing storm, securely as a ship anchored at sea.
PLATE XI.
ZEPPELIN DIRIGIBLE RESTING ON THE WATER.
Photo E. Levick, N. Y.