Paul DISLÈRE (1840-1928) naval engineer.... - Lot 194 - Ader

Paul DISLÈRE (1840-1928) naval engineer. L.A.S., Stockholm September 21, 1876, to an admiral; 4 pages in-8 filled with a small tight handwriting. Long letter on his mission in the ports of Northern Europe. "So far everything has been successful far beyond my expectations and I have been able to gather documents that I believe to be of interest. After Berlin, he visited Stettin, Wilhelmshaven, Bremen, Bremerhaven, Hamburg and Kiel: "I was, since the war, the first French officer to enter a German arsenal" . He gives details of "their new battleships in the works": corvettes which "are only shallow-draught coastguards for the Baltic, carrying 5 26 cm guns firing in barbette"; and "battleship gunboats built in place of the coastguards [...] They have a full battleship belt and a semi-circular shield at the front behind which a 305 cm Krupp gun moves on a rotating platform. ...] Five of these gunboats are built in Bremen ... The characteristic point to be observed on all the warships I meet is that their armament is stronger than ours ... I have also seen some interesting new weapons: machine guns and regulation magazine rifles in the Scandinavian navies ... Etc. He was well received in Denmark, Sweden and Norway, where he saw "some very interesting types of small ships for coasts and fjords," and witnessed torpedo experiments... Etc.