November 21, 1914. 
LAND AND WATER 
too much water to reach her. Tiiis, however, made no differ- 
ence to the result, for colliers were at once sunk ia the only- 
available channel, and the ship shelled from afar. By the time 
these lines appear she will probably hav& been captured or 
destroyed. 
THE MEDITERRANEAN AND BLACK SEA. 
The small Turkish success in the Black Sea mentioned last 
week has now been followed by a reverse which may have far- 
reaching consequences, both material and moral. 
The bare facts of the case are that the Russian Fleet, 
having engaged in a minor operation against a port of 
Saiiguldak, encountered and sank a Turkish transport full 
of troops. Presently three more transports — one of them the 
Mid/tat I'asha — were found and destroyed. All these three 
were full of ammunition, motor cars, guns and aeroplanes. 
On the material side, therefore, the Turkish loss ia consider- 
able, and some intended oversea operation has come to an 
untimely end. 
On the moral side, however, we learn a great deal more — 
learn things which may well have a bearing outside the Black 
Sea for the following reasons. 
In the old days it was learned by experience that if you 
attempted to move troops about in the neighbourhood of a 
" fleet in being," trouble was being asked for. This fact was 
elaborated by Colomb, Mahan, and others into a concrete 
doctrine which eventually became something to the effect that 
the indisputed command of the sea was essential to any over- 
seas movements of troops whatever. 
The present war, however, has seen us moving troops quite 
freely with our command of the sea being disputed, passively 
in Homo Waters perhaps, but fairly vigorously in distant seas. 
Wlience the obvious lesson that, given a sufficient defending 
force with the transports, the enemy " in being " may be 
neglected. 
Now comes the important point. We know that Germans 
control things with the Turlts, and supply the brain of all 
Turkish operations. We further know that German officers 
were present with the transports sunk in the Black Sea, be- 
cause the Russians made some of them prisoners. Add to this 
the fact that the transports were at sea without guard or 
protection of any sort. 
From these facts one assumption would be that German 
reading of recent events is that the old lessons of history hare 
lost all meaning, and tlidt it is quite reasonable to send trans- 
ports to sea undefended and regardless of the enemy. 
In that case, since German strategy is on cast-iron lines, 
similar attempts may be witnessed in the North Sea against 
our East Coast. It is the kind of thing which from its very 
boldness and foolhardiness might offer chances of success. It 
would be such an unexpected defiance of every law of naval 
strategy and common sense. 
Now that the North Sea has been made a closed area, those 
chances of success are materially reduced, but till then tlier 
may well have appeared alluring. And here we may find an 
explanation of those transports " full of soldiers " known ta 
have existed in Hamburg recently. 
Hence it comes about that the unexpected meeting between 
the Russian Black Sea Fleet and the undefended Turkish 
transports may have an importance altogether outweighing tbe 
material issues involved in tlie incident itself. 
THE MYSTERY SHIP. 
The Goehen still continues to afford food for speculation. 
Reported damaged in bombarding a Sevastopol fort, she is 
now reported badly damaged in the waterline by the fire of the 
Allied Fleet in the region of the Dardanelles. It may be so, 
but I am inclined to fear that just as every German observa- 
tion balloon brought down is a " Zeppelin," so every injured 
gunboat ia a Goeben. 
NOTE. 
THE WAR BY AIR. 
By FRED T. JANE. 
-Thli ArtlcU hti beeo igbmittel to th* Preii Bare&a, which doei n«t object to th« pabllcttlan ti ctntorel, and ttkei no 
reipondbditjr for the correctneii of the itatementi. 
GERMAN attempts to create a Zepj'jelin scare con- 
tinue with unabated vigour, and as some writers 
in our Daily Press have been simple enough to 
swallow the " facts " provided for their consump- 
tion, it seems necessary once more to state that tJio 
story of Zeppelins being turned out at tlie rate of 
one every three weeks is absurd, because it is of the nature of 
that " half truth wiiich is the greatest of lies " when taken as 
the Germans issue it. 
A Zeppelin is a very delicate organisation; indeed, only to 
be built by engineers and mechanics who have had a long 
and special training. A little before tJie war they were 
being built at all speed in order to make good losses which 
had been sustained, but nine months was the record time 
achieved. The capacity of the Zeppelin works was six ships 
at a time : the Schuttze-Lanz firm had a capacity of two at 
la time. Allowing for all possible emergency increases of 
plant, it would be a remarkable feat if Germany could pro- 
duce ten big rigid airships in nine months. 
Similarly, sheds cannot be materialised out of " ready- 
made" girders without the girders being constructed first; 
and buildings the size of Charing Cross station cannot be 
thrown together in a few days. The shed is as big an under- 
taking as the Zeppelin — if anytliing, bigger. 
Now, if we assume the trained men to have been found, 
it we assume all plant to be used to its utmost capacity, 
we arrive at a tlieo ret ic ally possible rate of one Zeppelin a 
month. But that only means that nine months hence Ger- 
many will perhaps possess nine more Zeppelins than she 
now does, and eighteen months hence (supposing the rate 
maintained), eighteen more, of which a large proportion 
would be replaces of existing ships, which, built and building, 
did not exceed eighteen when war commenced. It will prob- 
ably take Germany all her time to replace the wastage of war. 
There h, further, the question of training crews. The 
working crews average eight (the man-carrying capacity is 
between 30 and 40). Of the crew, ordinary motor mechanics 
would fill some duties : but the training of pilots, capable 
of hnndling the machines, is a very different matter. 
When war broke out there were only twenty-seven men in 
Germany who held certificates for m.inrruvring Zeppelins. 
No doubt there were others more or less qualified. Suppose 
that there were a dozen or so. Call the total thirty, which 
is a most generous estimate. 
Now the normal and nominal full speed endurance of 
Zeppelins varies from 25 hours in the oldest to 120 hour« 
in the newest. With the wind astern this endurance can 
be prolonged considerably by stopping some of the motors. 
In any case it is perfectly obvious that there cannot possibly 
be any such thing as one pilot, one Zeppelin. Three or four 
are needed for each ship. The rest can be worked out by 
matlicmatacs : but it clearly indicates why six is tlie largest 
number of Zeppelins we have heard about at any given 
moment: and even that rests on very doubtful authority. 
As for the revelations of the ex-German spy. Dr. Graves 
— his real name is apparently Baron Munchausen — these are 
mostly too absurd to need comment. They seem to be a 
hash-up of odd items collected indiscriminately from technical 
handbooks, from the sensational halfpenny Press, and from 
H. G. Wells's " War in the Air." 
His phrase about the " Parseval-Zcppelin " is about as 
sensible as who should say "a perfect mixture of oil and 
water," or, " a combination of positive and negative electri- 
city acting as one force." The designs are inherently 
different and opposed in every possible particular. 
His " metal much lighter tiian aluminium " is Duralumin, 
which is not lighter, but is a great deal stronger, and it 
was patented years ago by a British firm— Vickers Maxim. 
His "secret Zeppelins" he can only have written about 
wiUi his tongue in his chock. A Zeppelin is about as big as a 
Dreadnought, and about as easily hid as the Eiffel Tower; 
while his notion that an aeroplane can only rise to some 
6,000 feet is on a par with the estimation of land values 
made by the late Ananias. An aeroplane can always easily 
outrange a Zeppelin in altitude. 
A Zeppelin is a dangerous thing, because she can carry 
such a very large supply of bombs, and because she can 
remain up in the air for such considerable periods — also 
travel at night. Consequently, there is a real Zeppelin 
danger. But it is a molehill to the mountain which tTie 
Germans make out of it. In fact, unless defended by armed 
aeroplanes, a Zeppelin detected by a couple of British aero- 
planes would be in the position of a whale attacked by a 
swordfish. 
w 
