PRECHNIC

When Stosch reali; ports in the autumn torpedo section and c< and these he read hi tention to me. In the to Fiume to deal with wmtencciu which we did not consider of an> in getting rid of half our order, whic. elsewhere.1

From May onwards I led the torpedo commander of the Zieten. I began, so to sp-w~, «*M* nothing at all, and often worked partly like a mechanic with my own hands, making myself an apparatus. When the Crown Prince and the Emperor inspected the navy in 1879 and 1880 I was allowed to demonstrate in torpedo-firing, and the unexpected and certain success of this helped to strengthen Stosch's position again, which had been shaken by the Grosser Kurfurst catastrophe.

I proceeded with the torpedo section, just as I did later with all new inventions, whether airship, submarine, or anything else. I refrained from the premature

1 On this occasion the threatening war between Britain and Russia in 1878 (in which I was ordered to support the Russians as far as I could) produced a peculiar impression of Hungary's relations with Austria. Whitehead, who was a thorough Englishman, refused to supply the Russians; the Hungarian Government under Tisza prohibited the export of torpedoes, so that we were compelled to try to take the torpedoes, which we had already bought, across the Austrian frontier, which was only an hour distant, on the recommendation of Austrian gentlemen, although they were German property. The Hungarians then set up honved outposts, so that the matter had to be settled diplomatically.