The Washington herald., 1914-10-18
GERMANY navy
LACKS OFFICERS
Problem Of Manning Three
New Dreadnoughts Con-
fronts Berlin Admiralty.
COMPETENT MEN SCARCE
Latest warships Probably VIII Have
to Be Manned BY Peasant Re
servists Instead of Seamen.
~ RERBERF TEMPLE.

SPECIAL Cable TO ne Washington Herald
London. Oct. III learn from former
resident Of wnhelmshaven, who has
much frst-hsnd knowledge of the sub
5ect that the Kaiser's navy is going TO
be hard up TO find competent ofieers and
satisfactory men for its new ships. This
dearth Of personnel will handicap the
Germans considerably.
Both Great Britain and Germany are
rushing their shipyards, and their navies
soon win be REINFORCED 1t is known
that three new German battleships the
Grosser Hurfurst, the Markgraf, and the
Koenig. are nearing completion. and per-
haps have already Joined the fleet They
have q displacement of 1900 tons and
carry ten twelve-inch guns. Their
arrnor belt is fourteen inches thick. The
Berlin admiralty Is confident they viii
touch twenty-three or twenty-four knots.
PrObIsnn a DimcuIt one.
To man these ships with competent Of
hcers and men win be difacult question.
There are a number Of officers and men
stationed on shore, but they are not near
ly suficient to provide full Compliments
for these three new ships, the new bat
tle-cruiser Derfiinger, and the reserve
battleships, cruisers, and light cruisers.
They VIII have to be manned by re-
serEists, who do not know modern ships,
and are most probably peasants who
have only done their three years COM
pulsory service in the navy and have
then gone back to their farms and en-
deavored to forget that such q thing as
the sea exists.
The greatest difficulty, however, will
be to get competent senior executive Of
ficers for these ships Those officers who
are in shore billets, with the exception
of the Junior officers, are mostly men
who have demonstrated their unhtness
for the higher positions afloat, and are
allowed to disappear gracefully from the
service by putting in q year or two in a
post ashore before retiring.
To show how short of competent on
GERS the German navy is, it may be men
toned that Capt Franck, Of the light
cruiser Ariadne, which was sunk in the
Heligoland fight, had retired from the
navy on account OF very bad health a |
few weeks before the war broke out
The German navy has the call on the |
services Of a number Of mercantile ma |
rine officers, but these men are only |
given subordinate positions and cannot |
attain higher rank than lieutenant COM
mander.
It will further be extremely difficult, II |
not indeed impossible, to find sufficient |
When war broke out there were at most |
thirty naval engineers holding shore ap- !
pointments, and there is such a scarcity |
Of naval engineer officers that of late |
warrant officers have taken the place OF
engineers in all torpedo-boat destroyers. |
Moreover, there are very few reservist 4
engineers to be called up
Great Cruiser n Failure.
In this connection II may be interest
ing to record that the much-boomed Ger
man battle-cruiser Von- der Tam has
proved a failure owing to her engines. |
When she was first commissioned she
made a speed Of twenty-seven knots, but
since then she has never done anything.
Last year she had to be refitted twice,
and the second time she was in dock
yard hands for three months and could
not take part in the summer maneuvers.
One Of her engineers told me that every
time they tried to force her the engines
broke down.
Admiral Won Ingenohl. who is in COM
mand of the high seas feet, is not [
thought to be genius by the officers Of
the feet, and his appointment two years
ago caused considerable surprise except
to those who knew that he was a great
favorite with the Kaiser.
Admiral Won Pohl, who is now on the
admiralty stan at Berlin, was to have
been appointed to the command, but at
the last moment he incurred the Kaiser's
displeasure, and as a punishment his ap-
pointment was cancelled. Won Pohl is
looked upon in German naval circles as
undoubtedly the cleverest of all the Ger
man admirals, and before he went to
Berlin was admiral Of the first squadron.
This appointment is now held by Admiral
Won LAM, who had been nominated to
succeed Won Ingenohl at the expiration
of his term Of ofice this October.