Arizona republican., 1917-06-17
EMBARRASSMENT N NAVAL CENTER
 IF B|C GROWTH

'Willhelmshaven, the scene of ter rife explosion, which is supposed to have wrought great damange to the | imperial docks and shipyards recently, | is one of the two most important naval stations of the German empire, says ! war geography bulletin issued by the National Geographic society from its Washington headquarters.
 "Only sixty five years ago the site of this now strongly fortified town of 35, 900 inhabitants given over chiefly to shipyards dry docks, fittinS-out har- bors. iron fOundries and boiler factor ies. was a. desolate, loWlying, marshy tract of land on the edge of a shallow inlet of the North sea, known as Jade busen. or Jade bay, which had been formed by inundations in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.
 Tn 1852. however, the nascent spirit of Prussianism awoke to the fact that the kingdom did not own a single inch of seacoast on the North sea In order
 to acquire a foothold on the western shore of Europe, the Prussian king pur- | chased from the Grand Duke of Oiden- l burg the marsh, four square miles, up- on which now stands Wilhelmshaven. | and the purchase price was 500,OOO 1 thaler (about S355,O ,O0O)
 For seventeen years a large body of | workmen was engaged at great expense in building the town. dredging the bay and sinking piles in the peaty soil upon which to erect the docks and shipyards. l It was a herculean task and frequently months of labor would be wiped out Tn a single hour by a high tide or violent storm In the end, however, the work
 was completed and the harbor was i formally opened by King William, afterward Emperor William I, in the presence of many British naval officers who little imagined what momentous ! ceremony they were witnessing, for with the dedication of Wilhelmshaven, | began in earnest the development of
 modern Germanys sea power.
 One of the odd difficulties with
 which Prussia had to contend in the 1 building of Wilhelmshaven was the un- | friendly attitude of the Kingdom (soon l thereafter to become a Prussian prov | ince) of Hanover, which refused to all l low the construction of railroad
 across it's territory from Prussia into Oldenburg, so that all the material for | the harbor had to be shipped from
 Prussia by the long sea route.
 "Wilhelmshaven is less than forty
 miles in an airline northwest of Bremen | and is only sixty miles by rail from
 this great commercial center. The 1 town is given over almost entirely tt
 the needs of the German navy. It has
 extensive arsenals and mine depots
 machine shops, iron Boundaries ant boiler shops. The imperial dockyards before being enlarged for the presen emergencies, included two large slip ways, five immense floating docks, foul
 smaller docks for the accommodation o1 1 torpedo boats and seven dry docks. The shipyards are surrounded by lofty wall! and access to the inclosure even priol
 to the outbreak of the war was very
 restricted. More than a third of the
 population of the town before the be- ginning of hostilities in 1914 was made 1 up of army and naval forces
 | ''The new harbor of Wilhelmshaver has an area of ITO acres and depth O.
 more than twenty six feet"