monster _L-I_, 525 feet long, 50 feet in diameter,
of 776,900 cubic feet capacity, and equipped with three sets of
motors, giving it a speed of fifty-two miles an hour. This ship was
designed for naval use and after several successful cross-country
voyages she was ordered to Heligoland, to participate in naval
manoeuvres with the fleet there stationed. One day, caught by a
sudden gust of wind such as are common enough on the North Sea, she
proved utterly helpless. Why no man could tell, her commander being
drowned, but in the face of the gale she lost all control, was
buffeted by the elements at their will, and dropped into the sea
where she was a total loss. Fifteen of her twenty-two officers and
men were drowned. The accident was the more inexplicable because the
craft had been flying steadily overland for nearly twelve months and
had covered more miles than any ship of Zeppelin construction. It
was reported that her captain had said she was overloaded and that
he feared that she would be helpless in a gale. But after the
disaster his mouth was stopped by the waters of the North Sea.

[Illustration: _A German Dirigible, Hansa Type._

(C) U.& U.]

This calamity was not permitted long to stand alone. Indeed one of
the most curious facts about the Zeppelin record is the regular,
periodical recurrence of fatal accidents at almost equal intervals
and apparently wholly unaffected by the growing perfection of the
airships. While _L-I_ was making her successful cross-country
flights, _L-II_ was reaching completion at Friedrichshaven. She was
shorter but bulkier than her immediate predecessor and carried
engines giving her nine hundred horse power, or four hundred more
than _L-I._ On its first official trip this ship exploded a thousand
feet in air, killing twenty-eight officers and men aboard, including
all the officials who were conducting the trials. The calamity, as
explained on an earlier page, was due to the accumulation of gas in
the communicating passage between the three cars.

[Illustration: _A Wrecked Zeppelin at Salonika._

Photo by Press Illustrating Service.]

This new disaster left the faith and loyalty of the German people
unshaken. But it did decidedly estrange the scientific world from
Count von Zeppelin and all his works. It was pointed out, with
truth, that the accident paralleled precisely one which had
demolished the _Severo Pax_ airship ten years earlier, and which had
caused French inventors to