HOT ADMIRAL'S SECRETS

Otago Witness, Issue 3414, 20 August 1919, Page 61

HOT ADMIRAL'S SECRETS

REVEALED BY HIS WIDOW. SHIPS UNFIT IN 1914. ?By F. Sefton Deirner, in the Daily Mail. Just before I left Berlin it was revealed to me that shortly after war broke out the German naval authorities suddenly discovered that certain portions of the High Seas Fleet were incapable of fulfilling; the task expected of them. With the greatest secrecy, tnd with fear in their heart* lest the secret should leak out, they carried out the necessary reconstruction. The facts were stated to me in conver3ar tion with Frau von Pohl, the widow of the Chief of the Admiralty Staff, who carried out the reconstruction, and who, according to Frau von Pohl's account, killed himself with overwork in doing so. At the time von Pohl's death was shrouded in mystery, and there were even suggestions of suicide. "I have recently, with the profoundest interest, been reading Admiral Jellicoe's admissions about the conditions prevailing in the British fleet before the battle of Jutland," said Frau von Pohl, a smart, brighteyed, intelligent little woman of some 42 years, and an intimate friend of the exGerman Crown Princess. "The strange parallel between Germany and Britain struck me as almost comical, and as there is no harm in talking about these things now that the British have begun to discuss their own failings so openly, I should like to tell you the story. POOR CRUISER GUNS. "In the first month of the war we suddenly found out two vital faults in our fleet. Our destroyers . and cruisers were as good as useless. Our destroyers could not possibly run to England and back at full speed. The fuel system with which they were provided was obsolete and defective. It was found that they exhausted the coal, the only .fuel which they could burn, oh the outward journey alone. They therefore had to be refitted to burn oil fuel, a laborious undertaking. It was furthermore discovered that the guns of our cruisers were of no avail against British ships of the same class, being of too short a range. When these discoveries were made the Emperor summoned my husband, and commissioned him with the important task of reconstruction. "Admiral von Tirpitz, to whose unbelievable shortsightedness these deficiencies were due, at once fell into disgrace; but he was continued in office for some considerable time, lest the enemy should suspect from his fall that something serious was the matter and attack before the necessary reconstruction was carried out. "The German navy in those days, as my husband often explained to me, lived in a constant fever of trepidation. 'Why do the English not attack?' 'Will the English attaok to-morrow?' were the questions we asked ourselves hourly. We felt like crabs in the process of changing their shells. The freatest secrecy was observed in all our ockyards, and apparently our secret never oozed out." I said to Frau von Pohl that it seemed to mo incredible that Tirpitz and his staff of experts could have made such mistakes. "It is not incredible," she said, "When one remembers the egoism of Tirpitz, his self-confider.ee, his domination of the Emperor and the publio througii his special press, and his own shortsightedness in wishing to speed up the construction of his fleet for mere show purposes, so that he might bluff his enemies, stupid man, by the mere prestige of numbers and appearances. If any man deserves hanging it is Tirpitz. KAISER LEARNS THE TRUTH. "All the alterations were complete two months before the battle of Jutland, and my husband had even then drawn up the plan, which he showed me, and which_ I still have at home, afterwards followed by his successor in the battle of Jutland." Frau von Pohl, despite my reference to admitted British losses at Jutland, was relucts nt to be drawn to talk about what the Germans had suffered :n that fight. She went on to lament the gang which had surrounded the weak-minded Kaiser and isolated him from' all sound criticism and sober warning. She related how William II had remained in his illusions as to the real state of the war up to the very last minute. It was"* not until November 6 that any of his Ministers dared to reveal to him the fatal state of his armies and his throne. "A few days ago," said Frau von Pohl, "my friend, Frau Drews, the wife of the former Minister of ihe Interior, told me that her husband had taken upon himself the unpleasant duty on November 6 of opening his Majesty's eyes to the truth. The Emperor listened first with amazement, then with incredulity, and ultimately in a passion of rage, calling Dr Drews a madman and an arrogant fool, and drove him in fury from the presence."