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.
