GERMANS' SIEGE GUN

Evening Post, Volume LXXXVIII, Issue 102, 27 October 1914, Page 7

GERMANS' SIEGE GUN

HOW THE REGRET WAS KEPT. Highly interesting information about tho Germans' big siege gun and the great secrecy that ' was maintained about it before the war, is contained in a Berlin message to the San Francisco Chronicle late in September. The message was as follows :— > It is still too early to base general predictions concerning war in the futuro upon the engagements of the present great 'European struggle. One prediction, however, does seem fairly justified already. It is that the day of fortresses has passed. The new forty-two-centimeter (sixteen and eighttenths inches) siege gun of the German forces appears to have demonstrated its ability to demolish the strongest fortifications ever made. Pictures of the demolition at Liege bear striking testimony to the power of this now arm. A single projectile demolished utterly walls of reinforced cement and steel, ripped open steel towers, and piled the mass upon the fort's defenders. j Tliis new siege gun has been the sur- j prise of the war. It has been repeatedly asserted that no nation has any military secrets that are not in possession of all other important nations, but events have proved not only that the existence of this terrible weapon was not known^ to foreign nations, but that only a limited number of high German army officials themselves had so much as heard of it. A member of tho Reichstag, whoee name is not given, is> quoted as follows in a German paper :—: — " The fact that the German army possessed such a gun was as much of a surprise to the German* as to foreigners, for its construction and nature were kept secret, .as the situation demanded, so that even in the empire only a limited number knew about it. When tlie trials were finished and all was ready to begin the construction of the new gun, the problem presented itself of making this wonderful work of war without attracting any attention. " More than forty officers participated in the preliminary discussion over the preparation of the military budget for the consideration of the Budget Commission of the Richstag. When the subjoct of ' amis * was reached the head of this department requested that this part of

the budget be not debated at that time. At the close of the session he told me confidentially that a new siege gun was in consideration. The general staff, he said, had urgently requested that not aword be said about the matter in the Budget Commission. Not even the officers, they declared, knew <*f what was being done." A Chicago message stated :— Loui« Gathmanft, a German resident of Chicago, is said to have invented the new German siege gun and shell used with such disastrous results against Bel gian and French fortifications in the pre* sent war. This Chicago invention is said to have been rejected by the United States Government except for coast defence, after a series of tests held at Sandy Hook Experiment. Station in 1898. The inventor i« said to have taken his device to Germany and later to have sold it to the Krupps. * Gathmann was at one time connected with the North-western University, and is said to have invented the gun shortly before tho Spanish-American war. The firat sheila Were made in a small Chicago machine shop. Latel' the United States Government appropriated 200,000 dollars to test the invention, and a special gun was built to hurl these gigantic projectiles, which wctclßin in diameter, weighed 18001b. and carried more tfian 6001b of guncotton or mlro-glycerine. - The first shells were 4ft long and built in two sections, which screwed together. In tho tests at Sandy Hook the projectiles were successfully hurled 12 milee.