AN IDEA IS BORN

The zeppelins about which Commander Looff had been questioned were the invention of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin. We was born on July 8, 1838 in Constance, a pleasant, small town on the lake of the same name in Southern Germany. His family was of old Wurttemberg nobility, comfortably situated and well-connected.

The count's career began in the manner traditional to the sons of German nobility: service with the armed forces. He entered the military academy and was commissioned a lieutenant in the Wurttemberg army when he was 20. He quickly tired of the dull garrison duties assigned to junior officers in peacetime and obtained leave to study engineering at the University of Tubingen. Graduating in 1859, he chose to join the Corps of Engineers. It was an unusual move. Nobility traditionally chose the fighting services; cavalry and infantry were preferred. The technical branches were for the others. Apparently Count Zeppelin had no second thoughts about his self-imposed social demotion.

In 1863 the Wurttemberg army published new regulations for the training of junior officers. To Zeppelin, they promised more of the boring routine that was the lot of junior officers on peacetime garrison duty. To escape, he seized upon the idea of visiting the United States. A great civil war was raging there and Zeppelin proposed to observe the Union army in the Field to see what the American experience could contribute to the debate then current in Germany whether militia-type armies, of the type deployed by the Americans, could replace the standing, Prussian-type armies to which Europe was accustomed. He had another object in mind. "The Americans are especially inventive in exploiting technology for military purposes", he wrote. Perhaps something could be learned there, too.

Family connections secured the necessary leave. On May 7, 1863, Count Zeppelin reached New York on the Cunard Liner "Australasian".¹ The Shipping News Reporter on the "New York Herald" did the best he could with the complexities of the Count's name. He reported the arrival of the "Comte de Zepplen".

In Washington, the Prussian Ambassador arranged for an introduction to the President. On the morning of May 22, 1863, in morning coat and top hat, Zeppelin presented himself to President Lincoln at the White House. For a man who had absorbed court protocol with his mother's milk, Zeppelin was unprepared for the informality with which the President of the United States and his Secretary Reed (in another place Zeppelin said it was Seward) received him. He was later to describe the scene in great detail for his German readers, including the moccasin clad feet of Reed swinging rhythmically back and forth as he sat on the President's desk. He rounded out his impressions of the President in an interview with an American newspaper correspondent in 1915 in which he said: "The President made the impression on me that the Kaiser always makes on me when I see him." If Zeppelin was referring to Emperor Wilhelm II, one might take that statement with a grain of salt. There was little love lost between the two men regardless of their "correct" behavior in public. However, considering that Zeppelin was then speaking to a still neutral America and no doubt meant to stress the ties that existed between the two countries, one can accept this statement as a suitable expression of high respect for President Lincoln.

The President seemed to have liked the young man and granted him a pass to accompany the Union armies in the field. There is no official record of the President receiving Zeppelin. Lincoln undoubtedly had more pressing problems on his mind; the siege of Vicksburg, the threatening rebel moves opposite Joe Hooker's army and the politicians descending on Washington to demonstrate against published reports "reflecting upon the Eleventh Corps of General Hooker's army which is hurtful to the whole loyal German population of the country".² Even before Zeppelin had met the President, he had taken the precaution of obtaining a letter of introduction to General Robert E. Lee from his niece in Philadelphia. He carried it with him, sewn into the flaps of his field coat, to make things easier if he were captured by Confederate troops.

With Lincoln's pass in his pocket, Zeppelin left Washington for the battlefield. A steamer took him down the Potomac to Aquia Creek. From there a narrow gauge railroad carried him to General Hooker's headquarters near Falmouth. He rode on an open flat car, his legs dangling over the side, and thought this odd, but great fun, as were so many of his other experiences in this curious country. When he arrived on May 28, 1863, Zeppelin had to delay presenting his letter of introduction to General Hooker. The General was in Washington, perhaps to repair some of the damage which the recently lost battle of Chancellorsville had inflicted on his reputation. zeppelin made himself at home in the camp.

At the time, Zeppelin was a slight, trim young man. He sported a small mustache which, in later life took on walrus proportions in keeping with the more patrician girth which he had by then acquired. He possessed a pleasant, clear voice. The Hanseatic ambassador in Washington thought that fora cavalry officer, Zeppelin had an unusually inquisitive mind. Zeppelin wore his blue Wurttemberg uniform and his silver lieutenant's insignia resembled those of a lieutenant general of the Union Army. Zeppelin seldom took pains to clear up any confusion arising out of the resemblance. He got on well with the Union army officers. He was impressed by the West Pointers but disliked the military ignorance and pomposity of his fellow countryman, Carl Schurz.

After joining the Army of the Potomac, Zeppelin witnessed some minor engagements along the Rappahannock and later participated in the fighting between J.E.B. Stuart and General Pleasonton around Aldie, further north, in the early stages of the Gettysburg campaign. He indulged himself in the thrill of riding in one of the Union cavalry charges against Stuart's troopers without, however, drawing his sabre since this would have jeopardized his status as a neutral observer. Zeppelin later admitted that this legal nicety might not have protected him against rough treatment at the hands of the Confederates, had they captured an officer in a foreign uniform fighting on the Union side. In fact, it was a fate he only narrowly escaped on that occasion. His interest in observing the war soon flagged and he left the Army of the Potomac about June 22. His father had opposed his trip to America, apparently questioning his son's seriousness of purpose. He may have been right.

Since Zeppelin did not join the Army of the Potomac until May 28, it seems likely that he missed a sight that would have appealed to his curious, technically trained mind, that is, the use of balloons over the battle field for observation purposes. The U.S. Balloon Corps had last used one of its hydrogen filled balloons in the Battle of Chancellorsville which had ended on May 6th. If nevertheless Zeppelin did see one of the chance ascents made by its balloons after the Corps had become inactive and before it was finally dissolved on August 1st, he never mentioned it in his journal.

The U.S. Balloon Corps, which sent its gossamer observation platforms aloft in the Battle of Chancellorsville, as well as in a number of other engagements in the Civil War, was the child of a man with the unlikely name of Thaddeus Sobieski Coulaincourt Lowe.

By profession, Lowe was a travelling science lecturer. His handsome French wife supported him by staging puppet shows. Whenever there was enough money on hand, Lowe returned to his real passion, the building and piloting of balloons. He believed that the upper air flowed in a steady current From west to east and he saw in this the means of using balloons to rapidly send mail and newspapers to Europe. To test this notion, he contracted for a very large balloon, "City of New York", to be built. He was persuaded by friends to first try his idea over land with a smaller balloon. It was good advice because it was not until August 1978 that a technically far more refined balloon, the "Double Eagle II", managed the hazardous journey across the Atlantic.

Lowe selected Cincinnati as the starting point for his test flight. When the wind was right, he made his departure. Lowe's eastern wind theory proved to be correct and within a Few hours he found himself on the ground in South Carolina. Unfortunately, he had, like many others, paid little attention to the news from Charleston where Southern guns had forced the Union garrison to evacuate Fort Sumter, and he now found himself looking into the muzzle of guns brandished by suspicious and angry rebel farmers. Fortunately, Lowe had with him copies of a Cincinnati newspaper, which had been printed while Lowe's balloon was being inflated, ana which announced the impending departure of the intrepid aeronaut. These papers helped to persuade local officials that Lowe's unlikely story was true and that he was not a Union spy. He was permitted to pass through the Rebel lines into Northern territory whereupon he promptly presented himself to Union authorities to try to interest them in the military use of balloons. He staged a successful balloon ascent from the White House lawn which persuaded President Lincoln that the army should avail itself of Lowe's services.

As a civilian contractor, with the grand title of Chief Astronaut of the Army of the Potomac, Lowe established the U.S. Balloon Corps on October 1, 1861. It consisted of five balloons and fifty men. Mobile gas generators,which Lowe had designed, made the use of balloons on the battlefield possible. The Morse telegraph and a simple code was used to send intelligence to the ground. The Balloon Corps proved itself very effective in scouting, observing enemy dispositions and directing Union artillery fire. The Confederacy was to pay Lowe the compliment of hasty imitation. It is said that a number of patriotic ladies in Petersburg sacrificed their silken finery to the manufacture of a balloon, but despite such well bred origins, it came to an undistinguished end. As it was being brought to the front on board a Confederate tug, the ship went aground in the James River where the Federals captured both the water-borne and the airborne ships.

The view which a civil war balloon observer enjoyed has been preserved for us by G. M. Osborne, a correspondent, in a dispatch which he sent to the "New York Herald" on May 20, 1863. He may well have participated in one of the last ascents made by the Balloon Corps and it was more likely set in motion by Mr. Osborne's energetic quest for interesting news than military necessity.

"Finding nothing on earth to write about, your correspondent determined to quit the sublunar sphere and take observation from a point in heaven. How to plan it so as to leave this planet was only the work of a few minutes. He asked and received, and at a later hour yesterday afternoon took advantage of, the courteous permission of Captain E. S. Allen, the aeronaut in charge of the balloon Washington, to accompany him in one of his aerial flights. The ascension was made from the ground in front of Major General Newton's quarters, and the view to be obtained at an altitude of one thousand feet, embracing the major portions of two mighty armies, was beautiful as well as grand. Suspended at this height, we leisurely surveyed the camps beneath us, the rivers winding toward each other on either side, and the broad expanse of territory within a diameter of thirty miles. We could plainly see in the rear of Fredericksburg and along the Rappahannock the rebel camps which are hidden from earthly vision ov the long range of hills.

Opposite our extreme left Lee seems to have congregated a larger force than he had prior to the last movement, and it is estimated that in the vicinity of the 'Fitzhugh House' not less than twenty-five thousand rebels are now encamped. At intervals of two or three miles, as far as the eye could reach, the smoke of their campfire curled upwards, but only in isolated spots was there anything to be seen of their dingy shelter tents. In this regard, the rebel army fares much worse than our own. The rebels were bivouacked as best they could, while the canvass houses of the Union soldiers glittered in the evening sun for miles around us...."

"The broad acres of fallow ground which the troops have stripped for fuel, the deserted brown mud chimneys, the patches of forests, the green oases here and there, the hard clay trails worn white with the constant journeying of wagon trains, the scattered camps, the little squares of men in regiments and brigades at drill, and the curious gazing at our little car, made up the figures of this mammoth pattern, and constituted a scene of mingled grandeur and minuteness. North of us were the waters of Aquia Creek and the Potomac River, glistening like silver in a sheen of the setting sun, and in the opposite direction the widening Rappahannock flowed silently down to meet them. Fredericksburg lay almost beneath us, dark and gloomy in the shadow of the forbidding hills beyond."

Soon after the battle of Chancellorsville, on May 8th, Lowe resigned from the Balloon Corps. The army persisted in refusing the Chief Astronaut an officer's commission and Lowe was tired of the petty jealousies and the bickering among his balloonists, some of who felt that the command of oe should have been theirs. With Lowe's resignation and the failure of the higher echelons of command to recognize the usefulness of the Balloon Corps, it quickly fell apart and was disbanded on August l, 1863.

It has often been said that after joining the Union army, Zeppelin became an observation officer on one of the balloons of the Union army and that in the course of these duties he conceived the idea of building an airship. Typical is the account of one of the most respected encyclopedias: "(The) designer (of the rigid airship) was Count von Zeppelin, who, while serving as a balloon observer with the Union Forces in the American Civil War, conceived the idea of placing a number of balloons in line with a streamlined structure which could be propelled and steered".

As appealing as the story may be to some, it is probably false, though, as will be seen, his trip to the United States was indeed the source of his aeronautical inspirations. Zeppelin specifically disclaimed that he had served as a balloon observer with the Union Army: "I made my first balloon ascension at St. Paul and not on the Civil War firing line as has been stated". Nonetheless, like old generals, some stories never die, they don't even fade away.

After leaving the Army of the Potomac, Zeppelin began to travel about the United States. He was a welcome guest in military messes, he tried American beer which he found too strong, flirted with the ladies, and joined an amateurish expedition to discover the sources of the Mississippi.

On August 17, 1863, Zeppelin checked into the "International Hotel" in St. Paul, Minnesota, a large five story brick structure at 7th and Jackson Streets. Across the street, a travelling balloonist was preparing to provide balloon rides to such of the public as were more daringly inclined. It was "Professor" John H. Steiner, professor being an honorific title freely used then, particularly by balloonists. Steiner was a German who had served as a balloonist in Lowe's Corps. He had seen action along the Potomac, at Cairo, Illinois and on Island Number 10 on the Mississippi. Steiner had left the Corps in December, 1862. The reason was probably the constant lateness of pay which was one of the chronic difficulties afflicting the Corps.

Ascensions were made on August 19 and on the morning of the 20th. Among those who availed themselves of this unusual opportunity was the rotund Governor Alexander Ramsey. But owing to his "specific gravity", the balloon would rise no higher than the housetops and he soon was forced to descend. His place was taken by his anxious looking, ten-year old daughter Marion. "I have no reason whatever to doubt that Count Zeppelin was a passenger on one of the ascensions made that day," she said many years later, "Yet I cannot now seem able to remember anything about the other passengers". She had found the trip "not altogether pleasant" and what had impressed her much more vividly was "how horrified (her) mother was on learning that (her) father had permitted her to go up in the balloon".

Zeppelin took to the idea of a balloon flight with great enthusiasm. However, he desired something more exciting than the tethered flights which Steiner was offering the public. He made his arrangements with the balloon captain and bought 36,000 cubic feet of gas from the St. Paul Gas Works for an extended, free flight in the balloon. As it was, the gas Zeppelin purchased was of such poor quality that he had to settle for a less ambitious tethered flight.

With Steiner as his pilot, Zeppelin rose to six or seven hundred feet. The prospect spread before him led Zeppelin to an immediate appreciation of the military potential of balloons. Parallel to the Mississippi River, to the west, he saw a range of hills. They provided an excellent, natural defensive position to any troops intending to halt the advance of any enemy marching up the valley. There were no natural elevations, no towers or anything that would have permitted the attacker to observe the dispositions of defending troops, waiting behind the crests of those hills. From as balloon, however, they could have been easily seen and effective artillery fire directed upon then. "No method is better suited to viewing quickly the terrain of an unknown, enemy occupied region."

Zeppelin and Steiner talked about the military use of balloons. Steiner had some ideas of his own. At Edward's Ferry in Maryland, he said, he had taken a balloon on a free flight across the enemy lines before landing again safely behind the Union lines. Such flights, however, were dependent on the caprices of the wind. Steiner said that he had designed a balloon that could better deal with the risks of free flight. He envisaged a balloon of a very long, thin shape, equipped with a "strong rudder".

Later, in the 1915 newspaper interview already referred to, Zeppelin said "While I was above St. Paul I had my first idea of aerial navigation strongly impressed upon me and it was there and then that the first idea of my zeppelin came to me." This seems inconsistent with what he wrote earlier in a biographical sketch for the 1911 edition of the German "Who is Who". There he stated that it was the speech of the German Postmaster General in 1873, in which he suggested the construction of dirigible balloons for speedier international mail service, which had inspired him to make his first plans for the construction of a rigid airship. Perhaps the statements are not inconsistent. The inspiration may have come over St. Paul, the impetus for action later. Too much can be read into such fragmentary statements. There is no doubt, however, that the flight over St. Paul made a lasting impression on Zeppelin. In this same "Who is Who" sketch, as he enumerated the many occurrences of a long and eventful life, he took pains to mention that "... near St. Paul,"³ he made his first ascent in a captive balloon. Zeppelin left New York on November 19, 1863 on the steamship "China". The ship's name could have no particular meaning for Zeppelin. When he returned to Wurttemberg, he sent a report of his observations to the king. It dealt mostly with the use of militia armies which he felt were unsuitable for European conditions. Balloons were not mentioned. He made some derogatory remarks about the lack of improvement in tactics of both armies during the war. In this view he was not alone. Count Helmuth v. Moltke, the Chief of Staff of the Prussian army, dismissed the war as "two armed mobs chasing each other round the country, from which nothing could be learned". Other observers of the war did not share this view. Nevertheless, it is interesting to speculate about the extent to which the Kaiser's disdainful views of the American "mob" could be traced back to such reports.

In 1866, Prussia went to war with Austria, a war engineered by Bismarck to free the Germany he was building from Austrian domination. Wurttemberg sided with the Austrians and for his wartime services, Zeppelin was promoted to captain and Adjutant to the King of Wurttemberg. In 1870, he took the field again, this time on the side of the Prussians in their war against the French, the war which was to lead to the founding of the German Empire. Zeppelin led a reconnaissance in force deep into French territory. While his troops rested in a farmhouse, Zeppelin put out only one sentry and French cavalry was able to take the detachment by surprise. Zeppelin alone escaped and made his way back to the German lines. The exploit made Zeppelin of a national hero. Later, he was stationed at Villiers, near Paris, while the Germans besieged that city. There he must have seen many of the balloons which the encircled Parisians sent across the German lines with mail and important passengers. The operation was quite successful; 63 balloons rose of which only two were lost and five captured. Though no doubt the sight reminded Zeppelin of his St. Paul adventure, his diary was silent on this point but then, Zeppelin was never a satisfactory diarist or correspondent.

Yet during his military service, thoughts of aviation did not leave him entirely. On April 25, 1874, he wrote down some details as to what he required of a "balloon vehicle". To provide safe conveyance, he wanted a number of separate gas cells so that a flight could be continued safely even if one or more cells were punctured. Zeppelin specified 18 cells which were to be housed within a rigid, covered framework. Combining a number of lifting cells in this way was an important innovation as up to that time designers had thought only in terms of single cell balloons and this put practical limitations on the size of the aerial vehicle. The ship was to carry twenty passengers, freight and mail and this necessarily meant a large ship, about 700,000 cubic feet, Zeppelin calculated. Steering would have to be dynamic and the space for freight, engines and passengers would be arranged under the lifting body. The form of the hull would be that of the body of a bird. Except for the bird shape of the body, it was an accurate forecast of the shape the rigid airship was to take. At first, his army service did not encourage Zeppelin to give his aeronautical ideas practical shape. Then in 1890, the situation changed. After the unification of Germany in 1871, the Wurttemberg army was integrated into the Prussian army. This meant that the welfare and promotion of Wurttemberg officers was in the hands of Prussian generals. To Zeppelin this was unfair and he finally sent a memorandum to Berlin to protest this arrangement.

The German Emperor considered Zeppelin's memo to be a provincialism which could not be tolerated. Probably as a consequence of the displeasure his memorandum had provoked in Berlin, Zeppelin was informed shortly after he had been given the command of a cavalry division, that he could expect no further promotion. Zeppelin resigned from the army and in the 52nd year of his life began a new career, the development of the airship. Fate had intervened. Zeppelin was not to be another retired general; he was to become a hero to millions and a household word around the world.

The time was ripe for the dirigible⁴ airship. The military potential of the balloon had been recognized immediately after the Montgolfier brothers had first flown their hot air balloon in 1783. Benjamin Franklin observed that balloons might be used for "elevating an engineer to take view of the enemy's army and for conveying intelligence into a besieged town". The Revolutionary French army successfully operated a hydrogen balloon in its campaign of 1794 but they gave little satisfaction to the Prussian and Austrian armies and when the French army used them again in Italy in 1859. The Austrian used balloons in 1849 to drop bombs into besieged Venice, but stopped using them when it became apparent that the vagaries of the wind were as likely to carry their explosive loads over the Austrian siege lines as over their intended targets.

With the successful use of balloons in the American Civil War, interest in the military use of balloons quickened. In 1870, the English army started to experiment with the use of balloons and aerial photography and by 1878 had established an Army Balloon School at Woolwich. The work of two French army captains, Charles Renard and Arthur Kreps, however, brought the development of the balloon to a decisive point. In 1884, they had built a balloon of elongated, teardrop shape and suspended from it a long gondola on which the ship's rudder and a 8 h.p. electric motor and its propeller was mounted. It was christened "La France".

The ship differed in one important respect from what Zeppelin had sketched out in 1874. Zeppelin's ship had its several independent gas cells housed within a rigid, fabric covered frame, eventually made out of duraluminum. This not only gave the airship its fixed outer shape but also formed the skeleton to which the ship's control surfaces, gondolas and engines were attached. It was the hull structure which caused airships built on Zeppelin's principles to be called rigid airships. The body of "La France", on the other hand, was formed by a single large gas cell which relied on the gas pressure within to maintain its outer shape. It was the ancestor of the so-called "non rigid" airship, the blimp.⁵ On August 9, "La France" made its first flight at Chalais in which its inventors demonstrated that their balloon could be steered to a target and back to its starting point. Several more flights followed in which "La France" indeed proved itself dirigible and if the flights, because of the inadequate power plant, had to be made in practically windstill weather, the idea of a dirigible airship had been proved feasible. The lesson was not lost upon the Germans. They at once established an experimental airship detachment.

Meanwhile technology was laying the necessary foundation for further aeronautical developments. Steam and electricity were not suitable power sources for aerial vehicles but in 1876, the German firm of Otto and Langen started the production of the first modern gasoline engines. In 1886, a practical method for producing aluminum had been invented. When Zeppelin took his leave from military service in 1890, interest in aviation was active and the necessary technical foundation was being established.

Zeppelin now seriously set out to develop and promote his airship. In 1892, he hired a young engineer, Theodor Kober, to develop detailed plans. Zeppelin, however, found that his ideas. were still too grand to be readily accepted. He sent a memorandum on mililtary airships to the King of Wurttemberg, who took no action on it. The Prussian army was equally cool to the idea. A commission which the German Emperor appointed in 1894 to examine Zeppelin's design found the design "very notable" but impossible to execute. The German public turned a deaf ear to Zeppelin's appeals.

The door was opened a crack in 1895 when the German Engineering Society issued a favorable report on Zeppelin's plans. He was now able to form a corporation and raise enough funds to launch a floating hangar on Lake Constance. In it, he built his first airship, "LZ 1". The "L" in the designation stands for "Luftschiff" (airship); the "Z" needs no explanation.

The ship had a rolling pin shape with parabaloid shaped ends. Two open gondolas hung under the hull. They were connected by a narrow cat walk which was suspended from the hull by wires. The crude ship had the hallmarks of all Zeppelin designs - a rigid hull formed by aluminum girders containing a number of separate gas cells; engines rigidly attached to the hull and a system of steering the ship in three dimensions which did not rely on the wind, the dropping of ballast or the discharge of gas as did aonveneionad balloons. Displacing 388,400 cubic feet, "LZ 1" was almost six times larger than the "La France". It was no less than 420 feet long.

It was a venture into many unexplored fields. Nothing was known about the proper shape For the propellors and the four Finally mounted resembled ships' screws. They were too small and ineffective. The design of the control surfaces was equally problematic. The rudders were small and mounted at the side of the hull. No elevators were provided and the altitude of the ship was controlled by shifting a weight back and forth under the ship. The engines zeppelin was able to obtain were feeble. Each of the two engines which he installed in "LZ 1" rated only 14 h.p. and the ship's best speed was just short of 20 m.p.h.

On July 2, 1900, the ship rose from the lake with five persons aboard and made an eighteen minute flight. After two more flights, the available funds were exhausted and the ship was broken up.

Zeppelin was determined to see his idea fully developed but the German Engineering Society refused further help and another public appeal also proved fruitless. Zeppelin finally prevailed upon the King of Wurttemberg to authorize a public lottery for his benefit. With the proceeds and much of his own fortune, Zeppelin constructed "LZ 2". It was damaged beyond repair after only two flights.

Although the German army had bought "LZ 3"⁶, it was only the success of the fourth ship which awakened any serious military interest. The army now laid down specifications for a military airship. While Zeppelin was attempting to demonstrate that his "LZ 4" could meet these specifications, the ship was forced to land at Echterdingen for euereremnny repairs. A squall drove the ship into a high tension line and it was totally destroyed by fire. This calamity and Zeppelin's bulldoggish persistence in the face of insufficient funds, inadequate technology and the caprice of fate, caught the imagination of the German people. A great, voluntary outpouring brought zeppelin 6,000,000 Marks with which he established the Deutsche Luftschiffahrts Aktiengesellschaft, (German Airship Transportation Corporation), or DELAG for short. Through this corporation zeppelin continued his efforts.

Zeppelin's trials were not over. More crashes, more frustrations followed. But Zeppelin would not be daunted. "LZ 5" landed at Göppingen and, through an error in handling, smashed its bow into a pear tree. Hops trellises were gathered from nearby farms, nailed together to form an improvised bow and the ship was flown back to its base. Impressed by the 38 hour flight "LZ 5" had made, the German army bought the repaired ship, only to see it strand within the year. Two more ships, each named "Deutschland", came to quick and embarrassing ends.

Bankruptcy now stared Zeppelin in the face again but the next ship, the "Schwaben" (Swabia) was his lucky ship. It successfully completed 234 flights. The DELAG built three more ships which were used for pleasure cruises and for training army and navy airship crews. By the time the First World War broke out, the DELAG shins had completed 1588 trips, carried 10,197 passengers and flown 107,231 miles without injury or fatality.

The war which broke out in Europe in August 1914 was the bloodiest ever fought. It was to basically change the life and institutions of Europe and leave few countries in the world unaffected. Germany, Austria, Turkey and later Bulgaria formed the "Central Powers". Britain, France, Russia, Serbia Belgium which, through the German invasion was given little choice in the matter and a relatively inactive Japan rallied as the Allies, later to be joined by Italy, Romania, Portugal, the United States and others.

When Germany mobilized, the DELAG ships and their crews were taken into military service. The "Hansa" went to the army as a training ship, the "Victoria Louise" trained naval crews and the "Sachsen" was used first as an army training ship and later was turned over to the navy. The army already had six "frontline" ships in service; the navy had only "L 3".⁷ The war pushed Zeppelin out of the leadership of the Zeppelin Company. Neither the army nor the navy had been satisfied with the performance of their zeppelins. The old man, however, strongly resisted all suggestions for the improvement of his ships when they conflicted with his ideas of what constituted sound design. In a number of respects, the zeppelin airships were technically less advanced than those created by his rival in the rigid airship field, Dr. eng. Johann Schütte. Fortunately from Zeppelin's point of view, the Schütte-Lanz ships (Lanz provided the bulk of the financing) suffered two disadvantages. Their geodetic frames were built of wood. The wood soaked up moisture and the glue available could not adequately withstand the influence of the sea air. Schütte stuck' to his ideas with even greater stubbornness than Zeppelin and it was only towards the end of the war that the first Schütte-Lanz with a metal skeleton was built. The second drawback which the rival airshios suffered was the personality of their constructor. Dr. Schütte antagonized everyone with whom he worked including Admiral Tripitz, the chief of the German navy.

Zeppelin's relations with the navy were not happy either. Tirpitz thought little of airships, particularly of their ability to operate in foul weather. The conflict came to a head with the crash of the navy's second airship, "L 2". The first navy zeppelin had gone down in the North Sea in a storm a few weeks earlier. Fourteen men of her crew had been drowned, the first loss of life suffered through a zeppelin. "L 2" had been built just as the navy wanted it, under the direction of its best naval architect, Felix Pietzker. He incorporated into "L 2" a number of his ideas on how the performance of a zeppelin could be improved. The engineers of the Zeppelin Company, and zeppelin himself, were skeptical of some of these innovations, including the idea of equipping the gondolas with windshields which extended up the hull. Airship captains should always have the feel of the wind in their faces, the count felt. Nevertheless, he felt obliged to congratulate the navy on constructing a handsome ship. On October 17, 1913, "L 2" took off for acceptance tests. About two hundred meters above the ground, a long spurt of flame shot out of its forward engine car. There was an explosion, the gas cells, one after another, caught fire and the ship crashed, tearing itself apart in another explosion. None survived. The fire was attributed to the design of the gondola windshields which Zeppelin had disliked. The partial vacuum, which had formed behind them in flight, had sucked hydrogen into the engine gondola where it exploded.

At the public funeral, the old count encountered Grand Admiral Tirpitz and in public bitterly reproached him for the deaths.

Once the war had started, the navy could dictate to zeppelin what he had to do. The airship construction facilities were greatly enlarged and many men, most of them new faces to Zeppelin, were now building airships. Zeppelin disliked this new order of things and began to withdraw from the active management of the company and began to pursue a new interest - the construction of long range bombers.