The voyage of the "Deutschland"

How did we come to join the "Deutschland"?

That is a long story which I shall leave the authorities to relate. The most important part of it, however, will be found related at the end of this book in the account given of our reception at the Bremen Town Hall after the return of the "Deutschland" from the United States.

To me, the idea of a submarine merchantman that has been built for long voyages is the tangible expression of the will of the German people to frustrate the effects of the English blockade of the coasts of Germany and America, and of the entire cutting off of our lawful commercial imports.

The Hanseatic enterprise, the technical ingenuity of German shipbuilding and the workmanlike activities of one of our greatest dockyards, have united in giving English domination on the sea the biggest blow it has ever had since the Union Jack fluttered over the waves.

At the same time we must not to-day overlook the changes and developments that are bound to follow in the construction and use of submarine merchantmen. Thus it is possible that the methods of sea warfare will be entirely revolutionised, that new conceptions and conditions of international law will be created, and that changes in the commercial relations of the world will follow which may influence the lives of peoples even more strongly than the present world-war is doing.

We may be proud of the fact that it is a German boat that has ushered in this new epoch.

Our achievement is not to be minimised by the fact that Canadian warships have crossed the Atlantic before us during this war. For they travelled in company, always changing, and accompanied by torpedo-boats, cruisers and auxiliaries. They contained only provisions and ammunition, and except for their armament had no dead weight to carry. But their greatest advantage was that they could defend themselves if necessary, whereas the only defence of the submarine merchant-trader lies in submerging. And that is not everywhere possible with a huge, heavy ship of nearly 2000 tons.

Well, I found myself faced with the problem of taking the "Deutschland" to America--an entirely novel and wonderful task. It would have been a new one to me, moreover, if I had not been as I was, an old North German Lloyd captain of a large clumsy steamboat, but a young U-Boat commander.

But to explain this I must first relate how I came across the "Deutschland." Events moved with surprising rapidity in connection with it. In the middle of October, 1915, I was in Berlin on business. I had then been obliged to leave my bonny steamer "Schleswig" for some time, but the North German Lloyd Company were well acquainted with my whereabouts.

One evening, whilst I was at my hotel, I received a communication, with an urgent invitation to visit Herr Lohmann in Bremen at the Hotel Adlon at the earliest possible moment.

I was surprised. I knew the name of the head of the famous Bremen firm very well, and had been personally acquainted at one time with Herr Lohmann in Sydney, where his firm had been agents for the North German Lloyd Company.

But what did Herr Lohmann want of me, now in these days of war when the "German merchant fleet had been swept from off the seas," as one read daily in the English newspapers? At that time it would have been exceedingly difficult to undertake the management of a German line to the Straits and Australia! And in the Baltic Sea the firm had no trade connections.

What, then, did they want with an old East Asia, America, and Mediterranean captain? Thus I ruminated as I made my way to the Hotel Adlon.

Herr Lohmann received me cordially and did not hold me long in suspense. He alluded to the fine old days in Sydney, asked me how I liked hanging about on dry land, and if I would care again to undertake a long voyage.

What could an old merchant captain say to this, a man who had been practically obliged to leave his ship in an enemy country, and lie about like a wreck on land, while on the other side of the Channel and off the Shetlands the cursed English cruisers lay in wait, and four miles from New York even the American post on neutral ships was overhauled?

I shrugged my shoulders and was silent.

Then it all came out.

Herr Lohmann told me straight away that he was thinking of starting a line of submarine traders to America, and asked me if I would be willing to take command of the first boat. He explained that the first voyage was to be to Newport-News, and asked me, as I had a knowledge through my voyages on the Baltimore line of the North German Lloyd ships, of the waters and depth conditions outside Chesapeake Bay, whether I thought I should be equal to taking such a submarine trader safely across the Atlantic, if the matter really came off.

It was a great plan.

I was never one for weighing pros and cons, and so I said "Yes" straight away. This was indeed a chance for a fellow of over forty-five years, in this war of "black lists" and daily postal robberies, to do something!

"Herr Lohmann," I said, "if the matter really comes off, you can count on me."

And the matter really did "come off."

Barely two months had elapsed when a telegram called me to Bremen for an important discussion. There I saw designs, sketches, and constructional drawings enough to make me open my eyes wide. And when, four months later, during which time I had been by no means idle, I travelled to Kiel, there rose before my eyes on the slips a strange steel object. Trim, comfortable-looking, and quite harmless she lay there, but nevertheless, hidden in its interior, was the realisation of all those detailed, overwhelmingly complicated figures and plans.

I cannot say that the completed reality even then helped to make more intelligible those blue papers with their endless network of strokes and lines, which had so dismayed and bewildered the mind and eye.

Any of my readers who have ever seen in illustrated papers sketches of the control-room or of the conning-tower of a U-Boat will understand this. Indeed, when they are face to face with such a wild medley of rudders, valves, screws, cocks, tubes and pipes, with such a bewildering conglomeration of levers and apparatus, each of which has a highly important meaning and purpose, let them take comfort. My impressions were just the same.

But when this tube-like monster was christened, and her giant grey-green body slipped majestically and silently into the water, she was suddenly transformed into a seafaring vessel, a vessel that swam in her rightful element, as if she had always done so. The first time I trod her narrow deck and climbed into the conning-tower and on to the navigation platform, it was only from her sides, where the green body swelled massively out of the water, that it was possible even faintly to realise how enormous her hull must be.

With proud delight my eyes travelled over the whole structure, as it swayed lightly beneath me, delicacy and strength symbolically blended.

Now I knew that what had hitherto appeared to me as a monstrous product of technical imagination, was a ship, in which I could travel the seas--a real ship--on which an old seaman could set his affections.

Then I laid my hand on the parapet of the conning tower of the "Deutschland" and swore to be true to her.

And in this manner I struck the "Deutschland" and became commander of the first submarine merchant-trader.