GERMANY'S PREPAREDNESS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 207, 6 October 1909, Page 4

GERMANY'S PREPAREDNESS

SAND DUNES TO FORTRESS. WONDERFUL TRANSFORMATION SCENES. For more than five years now the wind-swept sand dunes of Wilhclmshaven and the desolate Hats that almost isolate it from the North Sea have been overrun by an army of German engineers, contractors, builders, and their more humble workers, nil engaged in transforming this most unnatural port into the strongest naval base between Copenhagen and Cherbourg. The work is not completed, and another eighteen months will be 6pent in putting the finishing touches to the great port; but it is now completed sufficiently to warrant the transference thither of the entire German High Seas Fleet, including all the latest battleships, armored crimen, light protected cruisers, destroyers, and auxiliaries. Wilhelmshaven in future will quite overshadow Kiel, because it is tacitly understood that, once the fleet is in the North Sea, it will never return en masse to the Baltic, even -when the canal lias been sufficiently broadened and deepened to allow of the passage of ths Nassau and larger ships. The port has therefore been equipped with every modern ncccssory for the prompt execution of marine repairs, from the shipping ot a new tailshaft to the salving of a sunken battleship. Moreover, to this dockyard belongs the honor of having built the first German 18,000-ton warship. Detailed descriptions of Wilhelmshaven arc difficult to obtain, as the inquisitive foreigner meets with the chilliest of receptions in that dislrici. inspection from seaward is practically impossible, owing to the natural battlements of sand that overlap die tidal harbor mouth and present from a distance one long unbroken line of dunes. But these dunes, however, are no fewer than three immense dry docks capable of accommodating warships much larger than Dreadnoughts. The first was completed some months ago; the second is now ready; and the third, credited with being able to take 2.'>'.(lou-loii ships, will le rcu'dy Mi the spring of 11111. Thus in one port Germany has more docks of this) capacity than exist along the entire British east coast. The fortifications of Wilhelmshaven arc on a scale proportionate to its future strategical significance, two millions sterling having so fur been expended on them. The German, in spite of his newly-Hedged maritime aspirations, dearly loves brii-k-ond-morlur defences, and consequently his harbors fairly bristle with guns of all descriptions—witness the string of forts laced along his insignificant streteh of N'orth Sea coast: Borkum Island, with its guns of position and forty quickfirers; Emden, with its hidden butteries; Wilhelnishaven. guarded by 11-in'ch monsters in armored turrets;'Breinerhaven, almost surrounded by skilfully-con-structed earthworks and concrete defences; Brunsbuttel, where more batteries are no vv being 'built t 0 protect the new base and the Kaiser Wilhelm Canal: Cuxhaven. wilh its dummy obsolete guns showing 'their black muzzles over the sea-wall in an ingenious attempt to mislead possible attackers; and half-a-dozen other isolated batteries on xposed islands and shallow inlets. This chain of fixed defences has recently been augmented by a wonderful system of submarine mines Kid electric torpedo stations, so that, from all accounts, a hostile fleet would have to pick its wav vcrv carefully.