GERMANY'S NAVAL BASES.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1288, 25 August 1914, Page 4

GERMANY'S NAVAL BASES.

KIEL AND WILHELMS* HAVEN.

Germany has two naval harbours, Kiel and Wilhelmshaven. Kiel Harbour, or rather Kiel Fiord, on the Baltic, is a deep and well-sheltered natural inlet ot the sea which affords ample room to all warships of Germany present and to come. Wilhelmshaven, on the North Sea, is a small port laboriously dug out of the mainland. It is quite insufficient for Germany’s naval requirements as regards size, and the narrow entrance has to be kept at a proper depth by constant dredging. Thus, writes J. Ellis Barker, in the Nineteenth Century, Nature has placed the German war harbour in the inaccessible Baltic.

Kiel is Germany’s principal naval base. Germany’s naval battles have to be fought in the North Sea. Under these circumstances the precariousness of the connection between the Baltic and the North Sea by way of the Skager Rack and Kattegat, and through the Danish Archipelago, the length of the round-about journey, and the fact that in war time the German fleets would constantly have to pass to and fro under the eyes and under the guns of Denmark, were exceedingly irksome to Germany, especially as Denmark was not friendly to her mighty neighbour, remembering her spoliation of Qennany had to be prepared to fight either France or Russia, and perhaps both Powers simultaneously. Therefore, she had to maintain strong fleets in both the Baltic and the North Sea, and she had to be able to fight with her whole naval strength in either sea at short notice. To effect rapidly and unnoticed a junction of her fleets either in the North Sea'or in the ISaltic, Germany created an artificial link connecting the North Sea and the Baltic by the construction of the Baltic and North Sea Canal, The Baltic and North Sea Canal has been planned with great wisdom, and has been built without regard to expense. It leads from the interior of Kiel Harbour to Brunsbuttel, a town which lies on the Jojyer reaches of the Elbe 23 miles above the mouth of that river, and

the shallows surrounding it. Therefore the North Sea opening cf the canal is exceedingly well sheltered. It is neither easily accessible to a hostile fleet of warships and of transports carrying landing parties, nor can it easily be observed by hostile sea-keeping cruisers and naval balloons, because the distance which separates the canal opening from the open sea is too great.

The distance which separated Kiel and the mouth of the Elbe before the construction of the Baltic and North Sea Canal was 650 miles. The catting of the canal has reduced that distance to but 55 miles. As the canal has no gradients to be overcome by locks, as its banks are so very solidly built that the wash of ships passing through at speed will not damage them, as all along the route numerous commodious basins have been built where ships going in different directions may pass one another, and whereto disabled ships may be dragged in order not to block the passage, and as the fixed bridges leading across the canal are so high above the water level as to allow high-masted ships to pass easily underneath, warships are able to traverse the canal with great rapidity. The passage from Kiel to Brunsbuttel can, under favourable circumstances, be made in five hours or less. Therefore Kiel protects Hamburg very effectively, and it may be said that, thanks to the canal, Kiel has become a harbour on the North Sea as well as on the Baltic.