GERMANY'S NAVAL PROBLEM.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue LXVIII, 10 December 1914, Page 5

GERMANY'S NAVAL PROBLEM.

. BATTLESHIPS, BUT NO OFFICId^H The writer of the following artic^H L published in the London Express, w^H .formerly resident in Wilhelmsh'aye^H and has, ifc i s said, first-hand mform«M : ti-on about the German navy: Mr.. Churchill has said that the Bri^H ish Navy will be strengthened in tl^H course of the coming months by ti^H completion of new ships, but it mu^H not be forgotten that Germany also hs^H ships under construction. Three nel^H battleships—the Grosser Kurfurst thflH Markgraf, and the Koenig—are- a^H nearing completion, and ought to b^^| able to join the third squadron of th^B high seas fleet by the beginning o^H October. They have a displacement o^H 26,000 tons, and carry the same ai-ma^H 1 ment as the other ships of the thirc^H | squadron—lo 12-inch guns-but th^H armor belt is 14in. thick. As they have not yet run their trials^B it is impossible to say what actually i^H their spesd, but the Admirally m Ber-^H lm confidently expects them to toucfc^H 23 or 24 knots ' To man these ships with ccmpeten^H officers and men will be a d*if.cuU^H question. There are a number of ot i-^| cars and men stat.oned on shore, but^H they are not nearly sufficient to' pro-^H vide mil complements for these three^B new ships, the new battle-cruiser Den.^H ilmgDr, and the reserve battlsships^^M cruisers and light cruisers. r They will have to he manned by re-^H servists who do not know modern ships,, and are most probably peasants^! ■vv ho have only done their three ?ears*^H compulsory service in the navy, an]j^| have then gone back" to their farm^^H and endeavoured to forget that sucbTa^B tiling as the sea exists, The greatest difficulty, however, wU^H be to get senior executive officers foiP^H these ships. Those officers vho are in^^H shore billets, with the exception' of junior officers, are mostly men who^H have demonstrated their unfitness for^H the higher positions afloat. &nd are al-^H lowed to disappear gleefully from th^ H service by putting in a year or two in^^| a post ashore before retiring. ' -^^M To show how short of competent offi-,^B cers the German navy is, it may b&^^H mentioned that Captain Franck, of th»'^| light cruiser Ariadne, which was sunkJ^| in the Heligoland fight, bad retired ,^H from the navy on account of very bad^H health a few weeks -before war brok^^M out. i^M The German r.avy has the call on the >^| services pf a number of mercantile ma-~^H rine officers, but these men are only '^| given subordinate positions, and cannot attain higher rank than lieutenant- J^^ commander. - J^M It will further be extremely difficult, '^| if not indeed impossible, to find suffi-I^B cient engineer officers for these new <^M ships. When war broke out there werdc^B at most 30 naval engineers holding .^H shore appointments, and there is such^^B a scarcity of naval engineer officerai^^B that of late warrant officers have takext *>^| the place of engineers in all torpedo- '^M bore destroyers. Morev.ore, there aro very few reservist engineers to b^ called; up. - 4£T^l In th'. s coftiKction it may,be inter-* 'I esulng to record tKat the much-boomed German battle-cruiser Yon der Taun jj^A has proved a failure owing to her engines. When she was first commis-.^H sioned she made a speed of 27 knots, ifl but since then she has never donee |^B anything. Last year she had to boi refitt-ed twice, and the second time she -~^| tvas .in dockyard hands for three i^| months, and could not take part ia the summer manoeuvres. One of her iH engineers told me that every time they ' jfl tried to force her the engins brokeT^H Admiral voii IngenSni,. Wflo is lit 7-fl command of the High Seas Fleet, is *fl not thought' to be a genius by the of- V f 1 cers 6i the fleet, and his appointment fl two years ag^ caused considerable sur-'IH P'i>e except to those who knew that^T^fl he was a great favourite with th»| S K-di^er ■ !H Adn.iral yon. Pohl, who is now on c; M the Ailnirfclty Staff at Berlin, was to: jfl have been appointed to the command, but at the last moment he incurred ~^fl the Kaiser's displeasure, and as a punishment his appointment was cancelled. 9 Yon Pohi- is looked upon in German "■ naval circles as undoubtedly the clever- 'I est of all the German admirals, and *l before he went to Berlin was admiral \l of the First Squadron. This appoint-, fl ment is now held by Admiral yon fl Lanz. " -fl