Second option: due to big winds on the high seas and smallish motors, as well as a, by definition, lightweight, I figured it would be easier to get them tethered to boats. They still float, like birthday balloons.Interesting solution... but that does raise the question of why the Zeppelin is really nessicery if you have a railroad or shipping lane heading in that direction anyways. Or is it more of a method for transporting the airship from the point of construction to its airfield of use? (IE. from Europe to the colonies)?
If you don't want to go through the sea but through direct routes, you still need to refuel fairly regularly cause you can only take so much fuel onboard. Zeppelins are good for short-ish (regional) ranges, not intercontinental.
Sure, the Hindenburg but the Hindenburg was MASSIVE and a luxury, like Space tourism these days. Not for day to day military or civilian use
Well, a basic textile industry (no pretty printing, ''just'' bound leather) is a fairly basic industry, and just for military needs, it would be easier to get some repairs workshop going in the country, so you need some leather industry.But balloon factories? That would require major textile plants and metalworks to be erected in the colonies to provide the envelope and frame, which somewhat flies in the face of the basic economics if African colonization (They provide raw materials to the motherland, who refines them into finished goods which it can sell at a profit). A situation where the parts are made in Europe than shipped to an airship field for final assembly would better fit the policy of the time. Otherwise, the motherland is just stiffing their domestic industry and laborers
If it's for the military campaigns, civilian industry becomes slightly less of a concern, especially if it's not a strategic good (i.e: no secret involved, everybody can stitch a balloon)
Tangential question: did colonial troups ever get shoes from the colonies or were even these basic stuff all imported when they needed spares?