It is a far cry from
Lilienthal's glider to the last word in a?«rial construction such as
the mysterious Zeppelin-Parseval sky monster that, carrying a
complement of twenty-five men and twelve tons of explosives, sailed
across the North Sea, circled over London, and returned to Germany.
Lilienthal's glider kept aloft four minutes, but this new dread-naught
of Germany's dying navy was aloft ninety-six hours, maintaining a
speed of thirty-eight miles an hour, this even in the face of a storm
pressure of almost eighty meters. Such feats as these are
significant. They are at the same time the outcome and the cause for
the development of this part of the War Machine.
It is my purpose here to tell you how far Germany has advanced and
progressed in this struggle for mastery of the sky. I shall disclose
facts about her system that have never appeared in print--that have
never been heard in conversation. They are known only to the General
Staff at Berlin, not even in the cabinets of Europe.
Germany without doubt has the most up-to-date a?«rial fleet in the
world. The Budget of the Reichstag of 1908-1909 allows and provides
for the building and maintenance of twelve dirigibles of Zeppelin
type. As far as the knowledge of the rest of the world is concerned
this is all the sky navy that Germany possesses. It is a fact,
though, that she has three times the number which she officially
acknowledges.
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