Waterways and Water Transport in Different Countries / With a description of the Panama, Suez, Manchester, Nicaraguan, and other canals.

by J. Stephen Jeans

An increase and improvement of the waterways of Germany is looked upon as a pressing present necessity by many, and provision has been made for the commencement of three great canals—the connection of the Baltic with the North Sea, of the Spree with the Oder, and of the Ems with the Rhine. The first mentioned is to be built chiefly from military considerations, so that the German ironclads can get from Kiel to the Atlantic. The two others are to be constructed for commercial purposes. In connection with these there will also be canals built from the Rhine to the Elbe, and from the Oder to the Silesian Mountains. The agricultural interest very strongly opposed the Spree-Oder and Ems-Rhine Canal, because they feared the foreign grain would be more plentifully brought into the empire thereby, but their opposition was not successful.

Besides these works the river Weser is being deepened, and a new channel has been constructed between Bremen and the sea—a distance of about 50 miles.

The North Sea and Baltic Ship Canal.—This new ship canal is to be international as well as national in its character. It will reduce the sea passage, as compared to the Sound route, by 237 sea miles, shorten the journey of sailing vessels by at least three days, and that of steamers by about twenty-two hours in normal weather, and these advantages are to cost the shipowners 9d. per registered ton when the canal is navigable. About 35,000 vessels pass through the Sound annually. It is, moreover, intended to strengthen the offensive and defensive power of Germany. It may, however, be remarked that Count Moltke never from the first gave the plan his cordial support from a strategical point of view, maintaining then, as now, that the money which the canal is to cost would have been more judiciously spent if employed to strengthen the national navy.

The Baltic Ship Canal begins at Holtenau, a small village just north of the royal dockyard of Kiel, on the Baltic, and enters the Elbe 15 miles above the North Sea, near Brunsbütte. It will have a total length of 75 to 80 kilometres, as seen on the sketch-map at page 125. Its width is to be, on the water surface, 60 metres; on the bottom, 26 metres; its depth is to be 8½ metres, and its total cost 156 million marks, as estimated. The canal may be looked upon as a mere cutting, in which the water-level is to be that of the Baltic Sea, and there will only be flood-gates or sluices where it enters the river Eider and at its termination in the Elbe; these will be, as a matter of fact, open all the year round. For the convenience of the Royal Marine, rather extensive works will be carried out at the Elbe embouchure, consisting of large and small locks, and eventually a floating basin for at least four large armour-clads, besides coaling stations at either end of the canal. The four railways crossing the canal, as well as the two main post roads, will be carried over it by means of iron swing-bridges; and steam and manual pontoons will serve for the other various crossing-points of the canal. There are no engineering difficulties to contend with, excepting perhaps a boggy portion not very remote from the Elbe. The highest point of cutting is about 24 kilometres distant from the Elbe, and here it will be 30 metres distant from the bottom level of the canal, otherwise the ground to be removed is mostly sand or sandy loam.

This canal will unite the Gulf of Kiel with the mouth of the Elbe, and will run by way of Rendsburg to a point midway between Brunsbüttel and St. Margarethen, a few miles below Hamburg. It will, when completed, be 61 miles long, 196 feet broad at the water level, 85 feet broad at the bottom, and 28 feet deep, and it will have but two locks—one at each end. The canal will take in the largest warship that has been or will be constructed in Germany, and will, moreover, take her at all states of the tide and in less than eight hours it will be possible for her to proceed by it from Kiel to the Elbe, or vice versâ. The canal, therefore, will enable Germany to regard with some degree of indifference the possession of the mouths of the Baltic. She will always have her own entrance into that sea, and will be in a position at very short notice either to reinforce her squadrons there with ships from the North Sea, or to draw ships thence to reinforce Kiel and the Elbe. It is proposed to supplement this strategical waterway by means of a further canal, which shall traverse Hanover from Neuhaus, on the Elbe, opposite Brunsbüttel, to Bremerhaven, at the mouth of the Weser. It will then be possible for the whole voyage between Kiel and Wilhelmshaven to be performed in what are practically inland waters. This last section of canal is, indeed, necessary for the thorough completion of the scheme of coast defence; for the position of Great Britain at Heligoland renders a blockade by her of the mouths of the Elbe and Weser comparatively easy, unless provision be made for the safe concentration at will, either at Brunsbüttel or at Wilhelmshaven, of a fairly formidable fleet.

The Eyder, which divides Schleswig from Holstein, flows through territory to be regarded as permanently German into the North Sea at Tönning. From Rendsburg, to which place the Eyder is navigable, the Eyder or Schleswig-Holstein canal was dug towards the close of the last century to Kiel Bay, on the Baltic. It is from 10 to 11 feet deep, and has locks. Vessels, though of no great burden, can thus at present pass from the one sea to the other. As soon as Prussia occupied the Danish Duchies, proposals were entertained by it for an increase of the depth and width of this canal. Its maintenance, as it is necessitates a large expenditure on dykes, and the contemplated improvements, of which the charge would fall wholly or mainly on Prussia, must inevitably be exceedingly costly. When they were fully carried out, they might not answer the commercial needs of the chief centres of German trade, and might even divert custom from them. Hamburg wants a canal nearer to its end of the peninsula. It will be likely to attain its wish by the measure which has now been sanctioned by the Imperial Parliament. By this scheme the two German seas will be united at points most convenient for the accommodation of the entire Empire.

In addition to the Eyder Canal, a second but more indirect water communication between the Baltic and North Seas has existed for five hundred years in the Steckenitz Canal, by which the Hanse city of Lübeck connected the Steckenitz and Delvenau with the Elbe. But this is not the route which wins engineering or political favour. The line most strongly supported is from Kiel, south-westwards to Brunsbüttel, at the mouth of the Elbe, opposite Cuxhaven. It would satisfy the demands of Hamburg, which, though it seems to be jealous of Altona, practically embraces within the limits of its port the whole Elbe estuary. Kiel has a rising commerce which is likely to be greatly expanded by the undertaking. In the eyes of German statesmen, the plan has commended itself as giving the principal war harbour of the Empire an independent outlet to the North Sea. The Northern Powers might, as things now are, if hostile, seal up the German Navy in the Baltic. They hold the keys, and could convert the sea into a lake. Whatever the German naval strength at Bremerhaven, on the Elbe, and at Kiel, it could be cut in half, and prevented from co-operating at the discretion of Scandinavia.

This is, as we have seen, a reason of the highest State for undertaking the new waterway. German ships, unprovided with a waterway between the German Ocean and the Baltic, have been exposed to extraordinary risks. This fact alone is, in the eyes of Germany, a sufficient reason for such an enterprise. But there are also the equally cogent reasons of trade, and the preservation of shipping and human life.

Map showing the Route of the North Sea and Baltic Canal.