Pine Bluff daily graphic. (Pine Bluff, Ark.) 1893-1942, 1914-10-23
Competent and Satisfactory
Men for New Ships Not
at Hand.
FACE A PREDICAMENT
Three New Battleships Which Have a
Displacement of 10000 Tons and
Carry Ten Twelve.lnch Guns
Nearing Competitor.
(Ru Herbert Temnle.l

London, OCt. 2Z.-l learn lTOIH Is
former resident of Wilhelmshaven,
who has much first hand knowledge
of the subject, that the kaiser's navy
is going to be hard up to find COM
petent officers and satisfactory men
for its new ships. his dearth Of
personnel will handicap the Germans
considerably.
Both Great Britain and Germany
are rushing their ship-yards and will
soon be reinforced. 1t is known that
three new German battleships, the
Grosser Hurfurst, the Markgraf, and
the Koenig, are nearing completion
and perhaps have already joined the
fleet. They have a displacement OF
10000 tons and carrying twelve inch
guns Their armor bel. is fourteen
inches thick. The Berlin admiralty
is confident they will touch 90 CT "a
knots.
To man these ships with competent
officers and men will be diff cult
question. There are numbe ROT OF
ficers and men stationed on shore
but they are not nearly sufficient to
provide full ccmpements for these
eAi'sS uCW SHIPS, lHC HCW UdtliT-
cruiser Derfflinger, and the reserve
battleships, cruisers, and light aruis-
ers.
They will have to be manned by To-
servlsts who do not knew modern
ships and are mostly probably peas
ants who have only done their three
Gears compulsory service in the navy
and have then gone back to their
farms and endeavored to forget that
such a thing as the sea exists.
The greatest difficulty, hcwevsr,
will be to get competent senior ey-
ecutive officers for these ships.
Those officers who are in shore bill
let's, with the exception of the junior
officers, are mostly men who nave
demonstrated their unfitness for the
higher positions afloat, and are al
lowed to disappear gracefully from
the service by putting in year or
two in post ashore before ratirine.
To show how short of competent
officers the German navy is. it may
he mentioned that Captain Frank, OF
the light cruiser Ariadne, which was
sunk in the Heligoland fight, had re-
tired from the navy on account Of
very bad health few weeks before
war broke out.
The Carmen navy has the call on
the services of q number o. mercan-
tile marine officers, but these men
are only given subordinate positions
and cannot attain higher rank than
lieutenant commander.
Engineer Officers Scarce.
It will further pc extremely diff
cultfi if not indeed Impossible to Tad
sufficient engineer officers for these
new ships. When war broke cut
there were at most thirty naval engl
neers holding shore appointments
and there is such a scarcity of naval
engineer officers that of late warrar.
officers have taken the place of enyi-
neers in all torpedo-boat dastrcyers
Moreover, there are very few reServ.
ist engineers to be called up.
Rattle Cruiser is Failure.
In this connection it may ne inter
esting to record that the much bonn ,
ed German battle-cruised Won der
ann has proved failure owing to her
engines. When she was first conf
missioned she. made speed Of TWEEN
ty-seven knots, but since then sho
has never done anything. Last year
she had to be refitted twice, and tn
second time she was in dockya,d
hands for three months and could not
take part in the summer manoeu-ras.
One of her engineers told me that
every time they tried to force her the
engines broke down.
Admiral Won Ingenohl, who il in
command of the High Seas Fleet is
not thought to be genius by the
officers of the fleet, and his appoint
ment two years ago caused cons der
able surprise except to those who
knew that he was a great favorite
with the kaiser.
Admiral Won Pohl, who is now on.
the admiralty staff at Berlin was to
have been appointed to the command.
but at the last moment he incurred
the kaiser's displeasure, and as
punishment his appointment was can
celled. Won Pohl, is looked upon in
German naval circles as undoubtedly,
the cleyerest of all the German adj
mirals, and before he went to Ner-
lin was admiral of the First Squad
ron. This appointment is now held
by Admiral Won LAM. who had been
nominated to succeed Won Ingenopl
at expiration of his term of Office
. this October.