The objection of inflammability of the lifting power has also been overcome. The power of the ordinary hydrogen gas in all its various forms has been multiplied threefold by a new dioxygen gas discovered at the Spandau government chemical laboratory. This gas has also the enormous advantages of being absolutely noninflammable. I have seen experiments made with it. It cannot be used for illuminating purposes. Dirigibles that are equipped with it are not liable to the awful explosions that have characterized flights under the ordinary system. The new gas has also the enormous advantage of having a liquid form. To produce the gas it is only necessary to let the ordinary atmosphere come in contact with the liquid. Carried in cylinders two feet long and with a diameter of six inches it is obvious that enough of this liquid can be carried aboard the big war dirigibles to permit their refilling in midair. So, you see, all the objections to the commonly known system of operation have been overcome by the War Office.
The last dirigible tried by the War Office in 1912, the mysterious Zeppelin X, made a continuous trip from Stettin over the Baltic to Upsala in Sweden, thence across the Baltic again to Riga in the Gulf of Finland, where it doubled and sailed back to Stettin. This was a journey of 976 miles. The airship had a complement of twenty-five men and five tons of dead weight. It traveled under severe weather conditions, the month being March, and snow-storms, hail and rain occurring throughout the voyage. The significance of this flight can be easily understood if you consider the distance from Strassburg or Düsseldorf to Paris or other strategical points to France is approximately 298 miles. A ship like the Zeppelin X could sail over the French border, dynamite the fortifications around Paris and return, the journey being roughly 900 miles--76 miles less than the actual trip made by the Zeppelin X. Moreover, the German military trials have shown the possibility of an aërial fleet leaving their home ports and cruising to foreign lands and returning without the necessity of landing to replenish their gas tanks or fuel.
Let me show you how the German aërial corps is made up. It is called the Luftschiffer Abteilung and is composed of ten battalions, each consisting of 350 men. They are all trained absolutely for this branch of the service. Only the smartest mechanics and artificers are selected. In the higher branches the most intelligent and bravest officers hold command. Considering the usual pay in continental armies, the wages of the men in the General aërial corps are exceptionally high. In fact they are the highest paid in the German army. They are not ordinary enlisted men, meaning that they serve only their two years' time. Most of them have agreed to serve a lengthy term. Married men are not encouraged to enroll in this branch of the service. It is obvious from the nature of the work that the hazards are often great. The wonderful system of the German War Machine has been installed with rare detail in the aërial corps. The equipment of the different stations is really marvelous. For everything human ingenuity has been able to devise concerning the dirigible you will find in application. Each station is fully equipped and is an absolutely independent center in itself. Take the base at Helgoland. It is the newest and the one that is always cloaked with secrecy.
At the extreme eastern corner of the island of Helgoland one sees, amid the sandy dunes, three vast oblong, iron-gray structures. At a distance they are not unlike overgrown gasometers. I say at a distance, for it is impossible for any visitor to get within a thousand yards of the station. The solitary approach is guarded by a triple post of the marine guard. If you walk toward the station, before you come within a hundred yards of the guard, you will find large signs setting forth in unmistakable and terse language that dire and swift penalties follow any further exploration in that direction. Not only English but German visitors to Helgoland have found out through their course that even the slightest infringement of the rules of these signs is dangerous. I shall however, take you a little closer.
Walking on until you are within fifty yards of the great balloon sheds, you pause before a tall fence of barbed wire, this connected with an elaborate alarm-bell system that sounds in the two guard houses. For instance, if an enterprising secret agent of France were to try to steal up on the station, if he came by night and cut through the barbed wire, a series of bells would immediately sound the general alarm. Having passed through the six strands of barbed wire a tall octagonal tower meets the eye. In this tower are installed two powerful searchlights as well as a complete wireless outfit. All the Zeppelins carry wireless. By means of elaborate reflectors, it is possible with the searchlights to flood the whole place with daylight in the middle of the night. Thus ascensions can be made safely at any hour of the twenty-four. The three oblong sheds stand in a row, the middle being the largest, having spaces for two complete dirigibles, while the other sheds house but one each. They are about 800 feet long, 200 feet broad and 120 feet high. The whole structure itself can be shifted to about an angle of forty degrees, this being worked on a plan similar to the railroad engine turntable. The reason for it is that with the veering of the wind the sheds are turned so that the doors will be placed advantageously for the removal of the airship from its place of shelter.
The whole layout and the vast area of space show that it is the Government's intention to still further increase the plant. In fact, on my last visit to Helgoland--and it was more than two years ago--I saw the evidence of another shed about to be built. At the station is the most efficient meteorological department of all the stations. The most up-to-date and sensitive instruments connected with this science are there in duplicates and the highest experts such as only Germany can produce are in charge of the department.
When I was at Helgoland I noticed a vast difference in the strength of the fortifications compared to what they had been. They used to be tremendous, but since the addition of the naval base they have become secondary. Half the soldiers on duty there have been transferred elsewhere; so with the big guns. There is no longer any need for them. As I stated, I saw a fourth big balloon shed in the course of construction. I have not been on the island for two years. Nobody has been near the extreme eastern end except those closely identified with the service. Considering that Germany has not built more than one extra shed, that means five dirigibles, and there is nothing on earth that could stand up against them. Helgoland does not need forts any more. The new forts float in the sky and can rain death.
Helgoland has always been a sore spot of British diplomacy. Originally England owned the island; now it is a menace to England. When Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister of England, he conceived what he believed to be a shrewd diplomatic move. He offered Bismarck the island of Helgoland in exchange for some East African concessions. Helgoland is now the key and guard of Germany's main artery of commerce, being the key to Hamburg. With the dirigible station of Helgoland to guard her, Hamburg is impregnable and on England's northern coast they have a way of looking out across the North Sea with troubled eyes, for who knows when those terrible cartridge-shaped monsters will rise into the air and sweep over the sea? Stranger things have happened, even though the countries have their secret diplomatic understandings.
Let us consider one of these new war monsters, the latest and most powerful, the X 15. The latest Zeppelins, charged with the newly discovered dioxygenous gas, giving these sky battleships triple lifting capacity; the perfecting of the Diesel motor, giving enormous consumption (fifty of these Diesel engines, their workings secret to the German Government, are stored under guard at the big navy yards at Wilhelmshafen and Kiel, ready to be installed at the break of war into submarines and dirigibles), have given the German type of aircraft an importance undreamed of and unsuspected by the rest of the world.
The operating sphere of the new balloons has extended from 100 to 1,200-1,400 kilometers. Secret trial trips of a fully equipped Zeppelin like X 15, carrying a crew of twenty-four men, six quick-firing guns, seven tons of explosive, have extended from Stettin, over the Baltic, over Swedenburg in Sweden, recrossing the Baltic and landing at Swinemunde, with enough gas, fuel, and provisions left to keep aloft another thirty-six hours. The distance all told covered on one of these trips was 1,180 kilometers. This fact speaks for itself. The return distance from Helgoland to London, or any midland towns in England, corresponds with the mileage covered on recent trips. In the event of hostilities between England and Germany, this statement needs no explanation. That is why I mentioned that the latter-day Zeppelins were a powerful factor in bringing about an amiable understanding between those two powerful countries. For neither the historic wooden walls of Nelson's day nor the steel plates of her modern navy could help England or any other nation against the inroads of the monsters of the air.