Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin (; 8 July 1838 – 8 March 1917) was a German general and later inventor of the Zeppelin rigid airships. His name became synonymous with airships and dominated long-distance flight until the 1930s. He founded the company Luftschiffbau Zeppelin.
Family and personal life
Ferdinand was the scion of a . Zepelin, the family's eponymous hometown, is a small community outside the town of Bützow, in Mecklenburg.
Ferdinand was the son of Württemberg Minister and Hofmarschall Friedrich Jerôme Wilhelm Karl Graf von Zeppelin (1807–1886) and his wife Amélie Françoise Pauline (born Macaire d'Hogguer) (1816–1852). Ferdinand spent his childhood with his sister and brother at their Girsberg manor near Konstanz, where he was educated by private tutors. Ferdinand married Isabella Freiin von Wolff in Berlin. She was from the house of Alt-Schwanenburg (located in the present-day town of Gulbene in Latvia, then part of Livonia). They had a daughter, Helene (Hella) von Zeppelin (1879–1967) who in 1909 married Graf Alexander von Brandenstein-Zeppelin (1881–1949).
Ferdinand had a nephew , who volunteered at the start of the First World War, after he was past military age, to become general staff officer assigned to the military airship LZ 12 Sachsen.Lehmann
Count Everhard von Zeppelin, Second Lieutenant in the German Lancers, married November 1895, Mary "Mamie" McGarvey, daughter of Canadian magnate William Henry McGarvey, owner of the oil wells of Galicia and his wife, Helena J. Weslowska. A former Count von Zeppelin married a granddaughter of the 1st Earl of Ranfurly.
Army career
In 1853, Count Zeppelin left to attend the polytechnic at Stuttgart, and in 1855 he became a cadet of the military school at Ludwigsburg and then started his career as an army officer in the army of Württemberg.
By 1858, Zeppelin had been promoted to lieutenant, and that year he was given leave to study science, engineering, and chemistry at Tübingen. Würtemberg's mobilising for the Austro-Sardinian War interrupted this study in 1859 when he was called up to the (Würtemberg engineering corps) at Ulm.
In 1863, Zeppelin took leave to act as an observer for the Union's Army of the Potomac in the American Civil War in Virginia. Later, he travelled to the Upper Midwest with a party that probably included two Russians. Led by Native American (probably Ojibwe) guides, they canoed and portaged from the western end of Lake Superior up the St. Louis River and across to Crow Wing, Minnesota, on the Upper Mississippi River. On reaching Saint Paul, Minnesota (via stagecoach and hired carriage), Zeppelin encountered German-born itinerant balloonist John Steiner and made his first aerial ascent with him from a site near the International Hotel in downtown St. Paul on 19 August. Many years later he attributed the beginning of his thinking about dirigible lighter-than-air craft to this experience.
In 1865, Zeppelin was appointed adjutant of the King of Württemberg and as general staff officer participated in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. He was awarded the Ritterkreuz (Knight's Cross) of the Military Merit Order of Württemberg. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 a reconnaissance mission behind enemy lines, during which he narrowly avoided capture, made him famous among many Germans.
From 1882 to 1885, Zeppelin was commander of the 19th Uhlans in Ulm and was then appointed to be the envoy of Württemberg in Berlin. In 1890, he gave up the post to return to army service and was given command of a Prussian cavalry brigade. His handling of this at the 1890 autumn manoeuvres was severely criticised, and he was forced to retire from the Army, albeit with the rank of .
Promotions 23 September 1858: Lieutenant (as of December 1871 Second-Lieutenant, as of January 1899 Leutnant) 22 September 1862: Ober-Lieutenant (as of December 1871 Premier-Lieutenant, as of January 1899 Oberleutnant) 31 March 1866: Rittmeister 4 May 1873: Major 18 September 1880: Oberstlieutenant (as of January 1899 Oberstleutnant) 12 January 1884: Oberst 4 August 1888: Generalmajor 18 November 1890: Generallieutenant (as of January 1899 Generalleutnant) 5 December 1905: Charakter als General der Kavallerie
Airships Ferdinand von Zeppelin served as an official observer with the Union Army during the U.S Civil War. During the Peninsular Campaign, he visited the balloon camp of Thaddeus S. C. Lowe shortly after Lowe's services were terminated by the Army. Zeppelin then travelled to St. Paul, where the German-born former Army balloonist John Steiner offered tethered flights. His first ascent in a balloon is said to have been the inspiration of his later interest in aeronautics.
Zeppelin's ideas for large airships were first expressed in a diary entry dated 25 March 1874. Inspired by a recent lecture given by Heinrich von Stephan on the subject of "World Postal Services and Air Travel", he outlined the basic principle of his later craft: a large rigidly-framed outer envelope containing a number of separate gasbags.Robinson 1973 p. 13 In 1887, the success of Charles Renard and Arthur Krebs' 1884 airship La France prompted him to send a letter to the King of Württemberg about the military necessity for dirigibles and the lack of German development in this field.Dooley 2004, p. 176
After his resignation from the army in 1891 at age 52, Zeppelin devoted his full attention to airships. He hired the engineer Theodor Gross to make tests of possible materials and to assess available engines for both fuel efficiency and power-to-weight ratio. He also had air propellers tested and strove to obtain higher purity hydrogen gas from suppliers.Dooley 2004, p. 177 Zeppelin was so confident of his concept that in June 1891 he wrote to the King of Württemberg's secretary, announcing he was to start building, and shortly after requested a review from the Prussian Army's Chief of General Staff. The next day Zeppelin almost gave up as he realized he had underestimated air resistance,Dooley 2004, p. 178 but resumed work on hearing that Hans Bartsch von Sigsfeld made light but powerful engines, information soon shown to be overoptimistic. Whereupon Zeppelin urged his supporter Max von Duttenhofer to press Daimler-Motoren-Gesellschaft for more efficient engines so as not to fall behind the French.Dooley 2004, p. 179 Duttenhofer wrote to Gross threatening to withdraw support, and Zeppelin shortly afterwards sacked Gross, citing Gross's lack of support and writing that he was "an obstacle in my path".
Despite those setbacks, Zeppelin's organization had refined his idea: a rigid aluminium framework covered in a fabric envelope; separate multiple internal gas cells, each free to expand and contract thus obviating the need for ballonets; a modular frame allowing addition of sections and gas cells; and the controls, engines and gondola rigidly attached. After publishing the idea in March 1892 he hired the engineer Theodor Kober who started work testing and further refining the design.Dooley 2004, p. 181 Zeppelin submitted Kober's 1893 detailed designs to the Prussian Airship Service,Dooley 2004, p. 187 whose committee reviewed it in 1894. In June 1895 this committee recommended minimum funds be granted, but withdrew this offer and rejected the design in July.Dooley 2004, p. 188
One month later, in August 1895, Zeppelin received a patent for Kober's design and described as an "airship-train" ( [Steerable airship-train with several carrier structures arranged one behind another].)Dooley 2004, p. 190 The patent describes an airship consisting of three rigid sections flexibly connected. The front section, intended to contain the crew and engines, was long with a gas capacity of 9514 cu m (336,000 cu ft): the middle section was long with an intended useful load of and the rear section long with an intended load of .Robinson 1973 pp. 15–16
In early 1896, Zeppelin's lecture on steerable airship designs given to the Association of German Engineers (VDI) so impressed them that the VDI launched a public appeal for financial support for him. This led to a first contact with Carl Berg who supplied aluminium alloys which Zeppelin had tested, and by May 1898 they, together with Philipp Holzmann, Daimler, Max von Eyth, Carl von Linde, and Friedrich Voith, had formed the joint stock company Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Luftschiffahrt. Zeppelin invested 441,000 Marks, over half the total capital.Dooley 2004, pp. 193–194 Actual construction then started of what was to be the first successful rigid airship, the Zeppelin LZ1.
Berg's involvement with the project later led to allegations that Zeppelin had used the patent and designs of David Schwarz's airship of 1897. Berg had signed a contract with Schwartz under the terms of which he undertook not to supply aluminium to any other airship manufacturer. He later made a payment to Schwartz's widow as compensation for dissolving this arrangement.Dooley 2004, p. 193 Claims that Zeppelin had been influenced by Schwartz were denied by Eckener in 1938Eckener 1938, pp. 210–211. "It is obvious at the first glance that the Zeppelin ship had nothing but its aluminium in common with the Schwarz machine, not to mention that Count Zeppelin had fixed the essential features long before Schwarz' ship appeared." and also rejected by later historians. Zeppelin's design was "radically different"Dooley 2004, p. 191 in both its scale and its framework from that of Schwarz.
On 2 July 1900, Zeppelin made the first flight with the LZ 1 over Lake Constance near Friedrichshafen in southern Germany. The airship rose from the ground and remained in the air for 20 minutes, but was damaged on landing. After repairs and some modifications two further flights were made by LZ 1 in October 1900, However the airship was not considered successful enough to justify investment by the government, and since the experiments had exhausted Count Zeppelin's funds, he was forced to suspend his work.Robinson 1973 p. 28
Zeppelin still enjoyed the support of the King of Württemberg, who authorised a state lottery which raised 124,000 marks. A contribution of 50,000 marks was received from Prussia, and Zeppelin raised the remainder of the necessary money by mortgaging his wife's estates. Still supported by Daimler and Carl Berg, construction of his second airship, the LZ 2, was started in April 1905. It was completed by 30 November, when it was first taken out of its hangar, but a ground-handling mishap caused the bows to be pulled into the water, damaging the forward control surfaces. Repairs were completed by 17 January 1906, when LZ 2 made its only flight. Too much ballast was jettisoned on takeoff, causing the airship to rise to an altitude of . Here a stiff breeze was encountered, and although the airship was at first able to overcome this, the failure of the forward engine due to cooling problems followed by the failure of the other due to a broken clutch-spring left the airship at the mercy of the wind. It was brought down near Kisslegg in the Allgäu mountains, with some damage caused by the stern's striking some trees during mooring, but was more severely damaged by high winds the following night, and had to be dismantled.Robinson 1973 p. 30