The amazing ramifications of the German spy system in England are, unfortunately, not even to-day fully realised by the British public, or admitted by the Government.
In face of the hard facts contained in this book, in face of the serious statements of Members in the House of Commons, and in face of what the public are themselves daily reporting to the “authorities,” the present apathy of the Government, and its refusal to admit the peril and deal with spies with a firm hand, is little short of criminal.
Seven years before the outbreak of war, by a mere accident while in Germany, I was able to place before the Intelligence Department of the War Office certain facts which, on being thoroughly investigated, resulted in the establishment of a department for contra-espionage. Therefore, however lightly the Government may to-day affect to treat the question, the fact remains that they have, all along, known of the existence of a horde of German secret-agents in our midst.
Nevertheless, even as recently as March 3, the Government, in response to urgent appeals, blankly refused to vest in one Minister powers to deal with enemy aliens and spies, in place of the present divided policy.
Truly deplorable it is to think that to-day, while we are fighting for our very existence as a nation, spies are permitted entire freedom, and are nobody’s business. This most vital question has been shuttle-cocked between the War Office and the Home Office until it is now impossible to say where the responsibility really lies. The one fact, however, which cannot be disguised from the public is that, if the Germans made a raid upon our shores, the Government, so self-satisfied, would suddenly awake to find, as France and Belgium did, an army of spies busily assisting in our undoing.
“Ex-Intelligence Officer” has, within the covers of this book, plainly shown how systematic espionage is, and that it has been for many years a most cherished part of German war administration, developed with much forethought, and with characteristic Teuton cunning. That a settled and widespread system of spies exists in Great Britain at the present moment is well-known, both to the Government and to the public, yet certain Ministers would have us close our eyes and accept the extraordinary assurance given by Mr McKenna, early in the war, that the spy-peril has been stamped out.
But is it stamped out? I here assert that at no moment of our national history have we been confronted by a graver peril from within, than that with which we are confronted to-day. The public are daily realising more and more that they are being hoodwinked and bamboozled by this shuttlecock policy, which is playing so completely into the enemy’s hands, and is allowing dastardly preparations to be made to hasten our downfall. The inflamed state of public opinion is only too apparent by the mass of correspondence which I have received from all classes, from peers to working men, regarding the publication of my book “German Spies in England,” and, further, by its phenomenal sale. Every letter of the piles before me as I write, complains bitterly of the apathy and disregard with which the authorities treat the reports made to them of the doings of spies, and all express disgust at the refusal to stir in a matter which so closely affects our national security, or even to institute the smallest inquiry.
Over the whole subject mystery and mystification brood.
The present policy—in face of what the Government know, and what I myself know, as one who has spent the past seven years in studying the German Secret Service system and patiently watching its agents—allows, for example, Baron von Bülow, brother of the German ex-Chancellor, to live comfortably at Putney, in the full enjoyment of a telephone; it mysteriously reverses many military orders for the removal of alien enemies from prohibited areas, providing always that those persons are of the better class; it allows signals to be sent nightly from our shores to the sea, and vice versa; it releases about 1,000 aliens monthly from the internment-camps; it has attempted to gag the Press, and is, to-day—as I will presently prove—stifling all inquiries into the doing of spies among us.
In no other capital in the world, save London, would such a disgraceful scandal be for one moment tolerated, as that which any reader may investigate for himself, providing he is careful not to obtrude his British nationality, namely, the toasting of the “Day” of Britain’s downfall by these self-same enemy aliens, who, recently released from the internment-camps, now nightly meet and plot in the various little foreign restaurants in the neighbourhood of the Tottenham Court Road. Here, round the small tables in the underworld of London, sit enemy men and women, openly expressing the most intense hatred of us, gloating over their own piratical deeds and barbarities, and declaring that in England, ere long, there is to be repeated the same savagery and unbridled lust with which poor Belgium was swept from end to end. This is no idle statement. I have been present, posing as an Italian and a neutral, and I have seen and heard. Indeed, in those places, news from Germany is known hours before it is known to our military or naval authorities, and I have heard it declared openly that the vanguard of spies among us are ready to act at a given signal—which is to be the appearance of Zeppelins over London—to blow up bridges, water-mains, and railways, destroy telephones and telegraphs, and commit the most widespread havoc, incendiary and otherwise, for the purpose of creating a panic, and preventing the movements of troops.
Naturally, one asks, where are the police? On discovering this scandalous state of affairs I went to New Scotland Yard to ask that same question. I had interviews with various officials, and after over an hour’s prevarication and elusive replies to my rather disconcerting questions, I succeeded in eliciting the very illuminating fact that they were unable to act without the consent of the Home Office! Why, one may ask, is it withheld? Why should we risk our well-being by allowing these hot-beds of conspiracy and crime to be officially protected, while a man may be hauled before the magistrate for the heinous offence of not having a rear-lamp to his cycle? What a comedy!
Mr Justice Ridley has rightly said: “We must make an end of spies.” Yet the fact that spies are being officially winked at can no longer be doubted. Before me, I have fully two hundred cases reported by responsible citizens in various parts of the country in which the “authorities”—who seem, by the way, to have no authority at all—have refused even to make the most superficial inquiry, or else a constable in full uniform has been sent to interview the person under suspicion!
Let us calmly consider the present situation. The mystery of the official protection afforded to spies has been greatly increased during the month of March, and the public confidence has been further shaken in consequence of the statement of Mr Bonar Law in the House of Commons, who not only declared that there were, on March 1st, 600 male alien enemies still residing on or near the coast, but also made a most interesting revelation. The Admiralty, he said, in order to test whether signalling was really going on from the shore, sent a trawler to sea with instructions to show German signal-lights. And these were instantly answered!
What was done? Nothing! And, judging from the experience of the public, this is hardly surprising. Perhaps a case in point may be of interest. In the middle of February, from an officer in His Majesty’s Service, I received information that certain highly suspicious signals were being made nightly between the Kent coast and London. Therefore I went forth at once to investigate, in company with the officer in question, who is a qualified signaller and wireless expert, and a non-commissioned officer also qualified in signalling, while I myself know something of signalling and wireless. For a fortnight we were out nearly every night in a motor-car—sometimes watching from the tops of hills, a cold and weary vigil from dark to dawn—until we had established, beyond all shadow of doubt, the houses whence the mysterious lights emanated. These houses—several of them being residences of well-to-do people, and all in high commanding positions, had, in each case, an alien living in them, whose name and calling I succeeded in obtaining. Then, one night, while posted on a hill commanding nearly the whole of Surrey, and having taken down their code-messages on many occasions, we resolved to make a test, and with a powerful signalling-apparatus, I suddenly replied to one of the signals, repeated part of the code-message, and in pretence of not understanding the remainder, asked for its repetition. At once it was flashed to me and read by all three of us! In the message, which, later on, was submitted to an expert in ciphers, occurred the numeral five. It was more than a coincidence, I think, that only an hour before that message had been flashed, five German aeroplanes had left the Belgian coast on their way to England!
On three separate occasions, from various high positions in Kent and Surrey, we flashed German signals, which were at once responded to. Then, having fully established that messages were being nightly so exchanged, to and from the metropolis, always with the same three code-letters as prefix, and having definitely fixed those houses harbouring the spies, I considered it my duty, as an Englishman serving his country, to call in the assistance of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, and to them I furnished a full report, together with the signals sent and received.
Though my facts were vouched for by three officers and a signaller, and four civilians. I, at first, did not even receive the courtesy of a reply to what I had declared to be a matter of extreme urgency.
Two nights after sending in my report, some officers of the Royal Naval Air Service discovered a powerful car containing two men reconnoitring certain main roads in a Surrey valley actually beneath the residence of one of the enemy signallers, and they naturally stopped it. The strangers were questioned, so suspiciously were they acting, while in the meantime one of the officers reported by telephone to the Admiralty and asked for instructions. But the amazing reply received was that they had no authority to stop the car! As for myself, I again wrote to the Intelligence Department of the War Office, but after eleven days all they would deign me was a mere printed notice informing me that my report had been received. To this I replied, asking that immediate steps might be taken to investigate and arrest the signallers as dangerous to the State—more dangerous perhaps even than the cyclist without his back-lamp—but to that letter I have not even received an acknowledgment! Another instance may perhaps be of interest. I discovered that, among the Belgian refugees from Antwerp who had received charitable aid in one of our biggest seaports, were two men upon whom considerable suspicion had fallen. One posed as a smooth-tongued priest, and wore that garb, while the other was a “friend,” apparently somewhat lower in the social scale. The priest asserted that he had been head of a college near Antwerp; and in consequence of his pious profession, he was, as was but natural, made much of by the ladies in the city in question. One day this priest, who it had been noted had been unusually inquisitive, and had been constantly strolling round the extensive docks and quays, and had watched the military preparations in case of a raid, suddenly applied to the local Belgian Relief Committee for money to return to Antwerp. Questioned, he told rather a lame story about some of his pupils having returned, while his friend, who also applied at the same time for leave to return, gave as excuse that he had to go to look after his cows! One wonders how many the Germans had left him. Or, perhaps he was a humorist, and meant the Black Cows—those mystic signs employed by Von Kluck’s spies. The Relief Committee, apparently, were not exactly satisfied with the stories; nevertheless, they eventually granted the pair money for their journey back to Belgium.
A report of this I furnished immediately to the Intelligence Department, offering to send them information when the pair left the seaport, in order that they might be met on arrival in London and questioned, and I also supplied them with the time of the train by which they were to leave London for Flushing. The whole matter was ignored, and an official acknowledgment, printed, of course, was sent to me three days after the fair had gone across to Flushing—full of most important information, as was afterwards discovered! Here is yet another instance. In Liverpool the special constables were performing most excellent work in hunting out alien enemies and sending them to internment-camps, when, of a sudden, an order came—whence nobody appears to know—to arrest no one further, for, as the order put it, “such action may create public alarm.” Why is it, too, that men of wealth and influence, bankers, brokers, financiers and Birthday-baronets, German-born Privy Councillors, and other alien enemies who happen to possess money, are caressed and given such latitude to exert any evil influence they may like upon us? Why, also, was Baron von Ow-Wachendorf, a lieutenant in the Yellow Uhlans of Stuttgart, just under thirty years of age, permitted to practise running in Hyde Park so as to fit him for his military duties: and why was he—on March 1st—allowed to leave Tilbury for Holland to fight against us?
These are questions upon which the public should demand satisfaction, and to arraign those responsible.
I here wish to state, most emphatically, that I am not a politician, neither am I criticising, for one moment, the splendid military administration of Lord Kitchener. If the spy-peril were placed in his capable hands—with complete power to act, to arrest, and to punish—then I would, at this moment, lay down my pen upon the question. Yet, as one who was among the very first—perhaps the first—to discover the secret plans of Germany and to report them, I consider it my duty, as a lover of my country, to warn the public.
The time has passed for mincing matters, or for the further protection of traitors in our midst. I here cast no reflection upon any single person, and further, any person mentioned in this article is beyond the pale of my statement, but I here assert that I have had, in my possession, a list—actually shown to me by a friend at Wilhelm-strasse, who was their paymaster—of persons in England and America who have been in receipt of German money, and who, by dint of it and of secret influence, have risen to high degree, and, in some instances, to places with fat emoluments. Motives of patriotism alone prevent me from revealing that list at this hour of our national crisis.
The many truths contained in the following chapters of this book must surely reveal to the reader the edge of the volcano upon which we are now sitting. Notwithstanding all the false official assurances, the sleepiness of the much-vaunted Intelligence Department, and the fettered hands of the police—both Metropolitan and Provincial—must surely give the man-in-the-street to pause. Spies are to-day among us in every walk of life, and in almost every town in Great Britain. Every single man and woman among them is impatiently awaiting the signal for the destruction of our homes and the ruin and massacre of our dear ones, and yet we are actually asked to believe that no danger exists!
The same kid-gloved policy which, at a cost of 13,000 pounds has provided a pleasant mansion with charming grounds, and a staff of valets, servants, etc, for German officers, many of whom were responsible for the barbaric outrages on innocent women, and the massacre of children in Belgium, has also placed a protecting hand upon our alien enemies. Assuredly this is an injudicious policy, for it has already created a very grave suspicion and distrust in the public mind.
The “authorities”—whoever the persons in real authority may be—know full well how, with every outgoing mail to Holland or Scandinavia, there goes forth a mass of information concerning us, collected by spies, and forwarded to neutral countries, where it is again collected by German secret-agents, and forwarded to the German Secret Service in Berlin.
These letters are generally written, either in invisible ink or in cipher-ticks, upon newspapers or magazines, which are merely placed in unsuspicious-looking wrappers addressed to somebody, usually with an English name, in Holland, Denmark, or Sweden. I have before me two such letters posted in Hertfordshire. Further, we have undoubted communication existing nightly from the sea to London by means of the line of signal-lights which I have described, and further, these, it has lately been proved, extend north, from the neighbourhood of Harrow, right up to Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool. There are other fixed lights, too; brilliantly-lit windows and skylights, which show each night, and are intended as beacons for the guidance of the enemy’s aircraft. Yet, all the time, we pursue the foolish policy of trying to hide London by darkening it, and, at the same time, shine searchlights at the self-same place and at the same hour each night—apparently to betray to the enemy our most vulnerable points.
It was not long ago that, in this connection, my friend Mr Geo. R. Sims pointed out the existence of a line of these guiding-lights, extending from Willesden across to Buckingham Palace, and happily, through the exposure he made, those of our “friends” who maintained them have now been forced to leave them unlit.
Germans have been found in possession of hotels and mansions in strategic positions all over the United Kingdom, and to-day numbers of alien enemies—thanks to the order which has released them from the internment-camps—are actually employed at the various great railway termini in the Metropolis! Fancy such a state of affairs being permitted by Imperial Germany—a country in which British prisoners of war are half-starved, as evidenced by a cleverly composed letter before me from one who is unfortunately a prisoner, and which passed the German censor, whose knowledge of English was not so extensive as to cause him to suspect.
When the reader has digested the pages which follow—chapters which give a very lucid, calm, and first-hand idea of the low-down methods of German espionage, he will, I venture to think, agree that it is of no use to cross the barbarian’s sword with a peacock’s feather. Germany intends, if she can, to crush and to humiliate us, to devastate our homes, to outrage and massacre our dear ones, and by every subtle and dastardly means, to bring upon us a disaster so stupendous as to stagger humanity. Shall we remain lulled to sleep further by assurances which are not borne out by facts? Germany’s advance guard of spies are already here, rubbing shoulders with us, many of them smug and respectable citizens passing among us entirely unsuspected, members of our churches, honoured, and believed to be Britons. Some are alien enemies, others are traitors, who have imperilled this country’s safety for the lure of German gold.
In another place I have fully explained how the German Government held out an alluring bait to myself. If this was done to me, then surely it has been done to others.
We are Britons, fighting for our King and our Country. Our fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers, have gone forth to battle for the right and hurl back the barbaric Teuton-tide which threatens to overwhelm us. Some, alas! already lie in their graves. Is it therefore not our duty to those we hold dear to see that spies shall not exist in our midst? If the Government are so utterly incapable of dealing effectively with the problem, as they are now proved to be, then why do they not allow the formation of a Central Board, with drastic powers, to end at once this national danger, which grows more acute with the dawn of every day?
I am no alarmist, nor am I affected with spy mania. I am merely here writing a plain and bitter truth, the truth which I have learnt after years of experience and patient inquiry. If space permitted, I could relate a hundred stories of espionage, all supported by evidence; stories which would contain as much excitement as any I have ever written in the guise of fiction. But my only object in this preface is to urge the public to read this book, to inquire into and study the problem for themselves, and to assure them that the words of “Ex-Intelligence Officer” are full of very grave truths, which cannot be ignored or refuted.
It is for the public themselves to demand satisfaction in a very determined and outstanding manner. The voice of the country is unanimous that we are being trifled with, and surely it is a thousand pities that mistrust should thus arise, as it is rapidly arising, at this grave crisis of our national history.
The public have been told definitely by Mr Tennant that “Every enemy alien is known, and is now under constant police surveillance.” If the public, in face of the mass of evidence accumulating to the contrary, will still believe it, then let them rest in their fool’s paradise until the Day of Awakening. If not, then they, through their representatives in Parliament, have the matter in their own hands.
William Le Queux.
Devonshire Club, London S.W.
April 1915.
British and other official circles know more of the German secret service than the public are aware of, and there is little that is done by German agents without the cognisance of the countries affected by their work, at the present time. The following pages make no attempt at unveiling all the secrets of the German system, for that would involve not a book, but a library. What has been done is to present such evidence with regard to the system as can be verified from unquestionable sources—the book given here in no case goes beyond the truth, and is capable of proof, with the exception of the chapter on agents provocateurs, of whose work no direct proofs are available to the general public. In this case the writer has been careful to state facts in such a way that they carry their own proof.
Further, as an ex-member of the Intelligence Staff, the writer has had access to information respecting the British secret service which is not generally available, but patriotic motives would alone be sufficient to withhold this information. All that is said with regard to the British methods of counter-espionage, or with regard to the measures adopted by any other Government against German spying, is compiled from information available in the columns of the Press to all who care to read. The book is written in the earnest hope that it may do something toward revealing the nature of the German spy system to incredulous folk, for by opening the eyes of the public to such a definite danger one is a step nearer to the crushing of German militarism.
The Author.
In all things pertaining to the conduct of war Germany of to-day has copied as far as possible the methods of Napoleon the First. In military strategy, German experts have fallen far behind their model—or rather, they have never approached his methods, because they have never fathomed the secret of his success. Von Clausewitz, the greatest German military writer, planned his “On War” on Napoleonic lines, but left out the greatest factor of Napoleon’s work. As he saw the work of the great conqueror, Napoleon made use of accident: in reality, Napoleon made the accident, and this Von Clausewitz could not comprehend. French genius rediscovered the Napoleon strategy, but even unto this day German military methods leave out the idea of making circumstances instead of being limited by them.
Thus, in striving to attain the Napoleonic ideal in things military, Germany has failed. But Napoleon established a new branch of military organisation when he codified and arranged a system of espionage, and, in adopting from him this systematisation of what had hitherto been a haphazard business, German builders for a world-empire have gone far beyond their model, so that to-day the German spy system is the most perfect ever organised, not even excepting the system of Venice in its palmy days, where all was written and nothing spoken, nor that of Russia in comparatively modern times.
The German system falls naturally under several heads. To take them in reverse order of importance, there is first the commercial system of espionage, which takes the form of sending out men who accept posts as clerks in foreign (to Germany) business firms. These men come, especially to England, ostensibly to learn the language, but in many cases they have received thorough tuition in idiomatic and commercial English from some member of the British colonies existing in such centres as Berlin and Dresden. They accept a very low wage for what are in reality services far beyond their pay in value. They gain access to books and price-lists, and to lists of customers, by means of which they are able to give exact details of the markets to which British goods are sent, and the prices, rates of freight, discounts, etc. These particulars are transmitted in full to Germany, and with them the German competing firms are able to undercut British firms in foreign markets, and to secure British trade by always making their estimates a little lower than those of the competing British firms. Since in commerce all is legitimate in the interests of one’s employer, the only comment to be made on this method of spying is that it is despicable in that it involves the deliberate abuse of hospitality, and thus no code of ethics can be found to justify it; but business and ethics are two different things.
This commercial spying, however, is but an offshoot from the great espionage system perfected by Stieber, chief of German secret police and privy councillor, of whom more anon. The main system is concerned with military and naval matters, and various points discovered in connection with this main system show that Germany has for many years made up its mind to embark on a war of aggrandisement—whether or no the War Lord of popular conception was fully in agreement with the idea is another matter, and one that history will probably show.
The superiority of the German system to that of other and what may be termed competing nations is evidenced by one apparently unimportant fact. When French and British spies have been caught in Germany, and sentenced to terms of imprisonment in German fortresses, in a great number of cases it has transpired that the offenders were military officers still on the active list. They had been specially chosen for their work, perhaps; they had undertaken it with the highest of motives, also, perhaps; and they had understood the grave risks they ran in that their Governments would afford them no direct protection in case of their being detected. But they were officers on the active list, soldiers by profession.
Now, on consideration, the calling of a spy reveals itself as one of doubtful honesty, no matter what the motives prompting the spy may be—and the soldier is at all times supposed to be a man of honour and strict integrity—which he usually is. Whether the spy be a British, French, Russian, or German subject, he is engaged in abusing the hospitality of the country on which he is spying, and, from a military point of view, is not playing the game. So little is he playing the game, in fact, that in time of peace his government refuses to recognise him if he fails, and in time of war he gets no combatant rights, but is shot out of hand by the enemy into whose hands he falls. The formality of a trial is unnecessary, if the fact of espionage, accomplished or attempted, be apparent. Guilty of what cannot be called other than a mean act, attempting to endanger the lives of soldiers by unsoldierly methods, in revealing himself as a spy a man condemns himself and passes his own sentence—which is as it should be. And yet two of the Great Powers permit commissioned officers to undertake this dirty work, as it must be called!
Germany has realised that special men ought to be employed for this special, necessary, but at the same time despicable business. Your perfect spy is a man of criminal impulse, a moral pervert of sorts, and, recognising this, Stieber and his followers in the government of the system have organised a separate branch of the Great German General Staff, a branch made up of chosen men and women, of whom the men may at one time have held military or naval commissions in this warlike nation, but very few are officers on the active list. It has been realised in this land of nearly perfect espionage that the duties of a spy and those of an officer of the services—of either service—are not compatible.
The German secret-service corps which Stieber organised is a matter of three main departments: the military, the naval, and the diplomatic spy corps. Under the last-mentioned head must be grouped the work of Germans in foreign countries, notably in France and to a certain extent in England, with a view to influencing labour by means of strikes and industrial unrest, a system of influence which often approaches closely to and sometimes interlinks with commercial espionage, though it is primarily directed to the paralysis of a possible enemy in case of war, and the facilitating of a German attack on the country in which the work is being done. For always German strategy has been that of attack; whatever protestations of peaceful intents the German nation may make, there can be no doubt of its real designs when one considers the trend of all its policy in recent years, the nature of its naval and military increase of effort, and, as far as revelations show, the methods pursued in its espionage system. Germany as a whole has meditated attack with a view to extension of territory and commercial advantage for years, and no apologist can adduce evidence to justify, on the score of a defensive policy, such preparations for war as the country has made. One instance of the methods pursued by the espionage department will illustrate this.
The fortifications of Maubeuge, the French fortress which fell to the German attack in so marvellously short a time, were proof against anything short of the heaviest siege-artillery, and, before this class of artillery can be mounted for use against a town or fortress, gun-platforms levelled and supported by masonry equal to the strain imposed in firing the guns must be constructed. The construction of these platforms involves much calculation and measurement, and is not a matter of such time as was involved in the fall of Maubeuge, but of a much longer period. The explanation of the use of siege-guns against Maubeuge, and the rapid reduction of the fortress, is said to lie in the purchase of about 600 acres of the woods of Lanières, about four miles from Maubeuge, by an agent for Frederic Krupp, the builder of the siege-guns with which Maubeuge was reduced. The firm of Krupp, for whom this purchase was made as far back as 1911, announced its intention of building a locomotive factory on the ground acquired; but, long before the present war was declared, Krupp constructed the platforms on which siege-guns could be mounted to command Maubeuge, and totally neutralised the value of the fortifications as well as turning out locomotives.
Here is evidence, if evidence were necessary, of Germany’s deliberate intent to make war in its own good time; not merely to defend German frontiers, but to attack and reduce a neighbouring State by the use of methods which any nation save this one would regard as too dishonourable for use. Since the system of espionage has reached to such lengths as this, it will be seen that the stories of spies and their work, in which the public delights, are built up out of the doings of comparatively innocent agents, who are credited with dangerous tendencies and many melodramatic and impossible actions. That minor plans and persons do exist is certain, but for the most part the spying of which the public hears is merely incidental to the great whole—a whole composed for the most part of far different elements from the clerks, hotel-waiters, and other minor incidentals on which the imagination is fed, in order that the reality may more easily escape detection.
There are in existence many books purporting to tell the actual work of spies and to expose the system under which these spies work, but it may be said at the outset that no full exposure of the spy system of Germany has ever been made. Stieber, in his Memoirs, told exactly what it suited him to tell, but he did not give away any essential secrets of organisation, nor has any other writer done this, up to the present. All that we have in the way of real evidence consists in things as well attested by fact and result as the incident of Maubeuge and the gun-platforms, related above; in selections from the Memoirs of spies of those portions which bear in themselves evidence of truth, and in reports of police-court proceedings in England and France. From these sources we can piece together a fairly accurate conception of the whole business of the spy; but, as regards books purporting to detail the experience of spies, or the character of the organisation under which they work, we must accept these experiences and the rest with all possible reserve, remembering that, the more melodramatic and the more plausible they may be, the more they should be questioned as regards accuracy.
Moreover, there is sufficient evidence to show that the system is so extensive, and that its ramifications are so far-reaching, that no one book could contain all details of the various kinds of work entailed on the German spy system. It is possible only, in a book dealing with the system, to indicate the main lines on which spies in connection with military and naval matters work, and to give some concrete examples of their failures and successes. Naturally, there is far more material available as regards failures, for the work of the successful spy is of such a nature that it rarely comes to light; it is more often unheard of until, as in the case of the gun-platforms constructed in time of peace about Maubeuge, the work itself is put to use.
Those who label Stieber as “von” in speaking of him are about on a level with any who would choose to confer on Crippen, of unlamented memory, the title of baronet, for the two pretensions are about equal, so far as right to them is concerned. Karl Stieber was born at Mersebourg, a town of Saxony in Prussia, in the year 1818. His parents were people of the middle class, good and inconspicuous Prussians who destined their son for the profession of the law, in which he qualified as a barrister, but in which he achieved no distinction. It was not until 1847, when he was nearly thirty years of age, that Stieber first came to notice. In that year he obtained employment in the factory of Schoeffel Brothers in Silesia, where the Socialistic movement that has gained so great a hold on modern Germany was even then beginning.
Stieber, seeming to throw in his lot with the workmen, was in reality waiting to see which way the cat would jump before he compromised himself beyond withdrawal from either side. In the meantime, he won the heart of a daughter of one of the directors of the firm, and displayed his abilities in the matter of espionage by compromising the other director—his future wife’s uncle—in the Socialistic movement to such an extent that the unfortunate man was accused of plotting against the Government and inciting the workmen to revolt. By his denunciation of Schoeffel, who was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment for acts which Stieber himself had committed, Stieber procured employ in the police service, entering the ranks of the revolutionary workmen ostensibly as one of the warmest adherents of the popular movement, but in reality its worst and most insidious enemy.
In this guise he succeeded, in the course of popular and excited demonstrations in Berlin, in attracting the attention of Frederick William, the then King of Prussia. The year 1848 was a time of revolutionary movements, and Stieber chose the right side. When, in 1850, the Prussian Government began the measures of repression which have been continued in the case of the Socialist element down to the present day, Frederick William appointed Stieber to the post of Polizierath, a position in which he was superior to and beyond control of the Commissioner of Police.
This was the inauguration of the system which Stieber perfected. Hitherto, military espionage had been in the hands of the military themselves, and, with their customary reverence for precedent, the military were inclined to resent this appointment of an outsider to the control of what had been especially their department. Further, the regular police viewed Stieber with disfavour—it was not to their liking that an informer such as he should be set over them, and able to work independently of their control. It speaks much for Stieber’s genius for organisation that he combated both these influences successfully, and established himself—with the aid of royal patronage and protection, of course—at the head of a special organisation which was quite independent of either military or police control.
Up to 1853 the system grew—in his Memoirs Stieber tells, with a conceit quite in keeping with his other qualities, how he worked on the confidence of his sovereign with minute reports concerning the doings of court personages. He seems, in fact, to have taken pleasure in the recital of his meannesses, which his perverted moral sense caused him to see as exploits worthy of pride. It was as if, having nothing of moment on which to exercise his cunning, he kept himself in practice on anything or anybody that might be at hand. Thus until, in 1854, he was charged with the work of extending into neighbouring countries the system he had already perfected in Prussia. The cost of the business was charged against “service of the interior,” and, in addition to the sum expended on internal espionage, a sum of 12,250 pounds was set aside for the campaign which prepared the way for the wars in which Prussia rose to the standing of a first-class European Power.
Through the severity of his measures in Prussia itself, Stieber caused such a popular outcry that he was relieved of his post as chief of police, but Bismarck, then coming to power, employed his hound in equally useful work outside the bounds of the kingdom by sending him through Bohemia, where, by establishing spies all along the route that the army would have to traverse later, Stieber laid the foundations for the campaign that was to end so disastrously for Austria at Sadowa. By 1866, when the Prussian campaign against Austria opened, Stieber had Bohemia so thoroughly planted with spies that every step of the Austrian forces was known to their opponents before it was taken, every village had its informer ready for the Prussian troops when they entered, and, though the system of mapping out posts of defence and military positions had not then reached to the perfection it has since attained, it may be said that the campaign against Austria was half won by Stieber before it was entered on by the Prussian army. These things have so far passed into history that they have become general knowledge; but how Stieber enlisted and placed his spies—the actual routine and full secret of the work—he is careful not to tell. It may be assumed that, among other qualities, he possessed the power of reading his fellows; he was a genius in psychology, and knew his spy when he saw one. Hence his success, for which he was made chief of the “active service police,” a force never recognised in this way up to his time, and a post created practically by his own ability in his special line of work.
From his years of exile he had learned the lesson of dealing as lightly as possible with the people of his own country, and henceforth he associated himself with the development of systems of espionage in other countries, notably in France, where he made all preparations for the war of 1870, and made them so thoroughly that it is common knowledge now how the German invaders knew the country in which they were fighting better than did Napoleon’s own troops. He worked quite independently of the diplomatic corps, established his own agencies in France, and set up his “fixed posts,” in a manner which has survived to some extent up to the present day both as regards France and other countries. At this time the work which he was in process of organising was a thing so new that it received little attention from the French authorities of that day, and the system may be said to have reached its zenith of perfection with the war of 1870, when in every French town and village of the north-east was a “fixed post,” or, in plain English, a spy in the pay of the German secret service. So complete was the information furnished that the personal histories of individuals, their failings and eccentricities, were catalogued, and scandal was tabulated in the archives of Berlin for use in case it should be required, while fortifications and districts were mapped out with a thoroughness such as the military surveyors of France could not excel. When the war came the Prussian troops marched through the country and knew its resources and difficulties even better than the inhabitants themselves. How this was accomplished will be shown later in detail.
Meanwhile Stieber, as privy councillor and confidant of Bismarck, gradually overcame the antipathy of the military caste—an antipathy which his useful work in Bohemia had gone far to allay. According to the account given in his own Memoirs, he discovered that an attempt was to be made on the life of the Czar Alexander when the latter attended a grand review in company with Napoleon at Longchamps. It was Bismarck who conceived the idea of not only letting the attempt take place, but of frustrating it and having the would-be assassin arrested, since, as Bismarck planned, French justice would not impose the capital sentence for the merely attempted crime. The result justified the forecast, for the assassin was not executed—and Alexander remembered, when 1870 came, that France had let off lightly (from a Russian point of view) the man who would have murdered him. In consequence, Prussia had nothing to fear and Napoleon had nothing to hope from Russia when the war began. Stieber could have stopped the attempt at assassination, had he chosen; but, by allowing things to fall in the fashion that they did, Bismarck made certain that there would be no Franco-Russian alliance. It was characteristic of Prussian diplomacy and Prussian methods, and it was a trick after Stieber’s own heart, as his Memoirs show.
With this brief and necessarily incomplete sketch of his career up to 1870 the personal history of Stieber as a man may be said to end, as far as the present German spy system is concerned, for from that point onward the system became of more account than the man. So far, his work was all personal in character; he conducted his own campaign in Bohemia, and he organised the French espionage by personal work, but after 1870 he became so great a power that the system went on and expanded with him as its head—it was no longer a matter of a man and his work, but a department and its control. Its efficiency is largely due to him, even now, and there is no doubt that he brought into working the most perfect methods of espionage ever known.
His Memoirs must not be taken too literally; it is necessary to read between the lines, for Stieber was a man of inordinate vanity—though this never interfered with the efficiency of his work—and, if he is to be believed, there was nobody in all Prussia of so much importance as himself. He had no moral sense—it was a quality missed out from his composition altogether, and the Memoirs show him as a criminal by instinct, able to gratify criminal impulses by protected acts. For in no other way can be explained his obvious pleasure in the commission of what, under any other circumstances, would rank as crimes, fraudulent and despicable to the last degree. The “syndicalism” of the present day is a realisation of a dream that Stieber dreamed—not for the purpose of benefiting the working classes, though, but with a view to rendering an enemy powerless against Germany in case of war; the division of the German secret service into two branches, known respectively as the department of political action and the department of espionage proper, was intended by Stieber to set up a section, under the former title, which should take advantage of the working classes in France—and in England as well—by causing them to act innocently against the best interests of their country in the belief that they were following out their own ideals and winning freedom for democracy. Espionage proper is concerned with more purely military enterprise, and was the earlier creation of this arch-spy.
Stieber died in 1892, full of honours, and much regretted by those whom he had served. He had done more than any other man to sow dissension between France and Russia; he had contributed largely to the humiliation of France, and had made possible the subjugation of Austria in a seven weeks’ war; he had served his country well, having given it the most effective system of espionage that the world has ever known. If the principle that “the end justifies any means” be accepted, he had done well for Prussia before 1870 and for Germany after—but his place is among the criminals and perverts of the world, not among its great men.
The selection of the higher class of spy, in these days, is very largely a matter of chance. Almost in every case the man selected must be bi-lingual, while, if he has three languages at his command, so much the better for him—and for his employers. In purely military espionage, that which concerns plans of fortifications, estimates of strength and movements, topographical surveying, ascertaining the character of officers, and the possibility of influencing them either by bribery or blackmail, and general secret-service work likely to be of service to the Great German General Staff, capable and clever men must be selected. The “German waiter” of melodramatic fancy has little part in this class of work; for one thing, a waiter has to perform stated work at stated times, and he is liable to suspicion being cast on him if he is a man of irregular habits or is in any way unable to account naturally for his spare time. The clerk in an office is subject to the same disabilities, and as a whole it may be said that the clerk and waiter class, if they are engaged in espionage at all, are the small fry of minor supernumeraries, agents acting on behalf of the spies who pay them, instead of spies in the direct employ of the German Government. They are not given such work as would involve their possessing enough knowledge to make them dangerous in themselves, and are not the class whose work need cause uneasiness. The real spy needs all his time and all his freedom of movement, and he is placed in such a position that he has these to the full.
His training is a hard schooling of months. To be efficient for his work, he must be a qualified surveyor, able to make plans of areas of ground from observation and often without instruments; he must, at the same time, be a capable photographer, for obvious reasons. He must be able to judge distances under all conditions of weather and light—as an instance of this may be mentioned the fully authenticated case of the spy who was set to study the Forth Bridge, and who was expected to supply his Government with full details of the bridge, of how men could be placed with a view to its instant destruction at a given signal, of the geological nature of the land into which the foundations of the bridge were built, and of the quantities of explosive required to reduce the structure. The man selected to obtain this information had to accomplish his task without arousing suspicion; he had to judge his distances solely by pacing, observing angles, and subsequent triangulation, and in this respect his work was perfectly accurate, for he judged the distances to a matter of yards and heights to the foot. Though these coincided with information at the disposal of any member of the public, apparently the Great German General Staff placed no faith in published information, or at least wanted it confirmed.
Further, the military spy must know units of the British Army at sight, and must have at hand if not actually in his mind the code-word by which each unit is tabulated at Berlin. He must know the code-words, also, for various patterns of gun, must be conversant with classes of explosive and patterns of shell, and must be able, if luck and his own ingenuity should favour him, to carry in his mind sufficient of the nature and plan of a fortification to be able to draw a map of the work to scale, as nearly as possible, from memory.
In all purely technical details of his work the military spy is trained in matters military before he sets out on the smallest piece of work, and he passes examinations just as a member of the military service would, except that his examinations are stiffer than those of the officer, and he is required to know all where the officer is only asked to acquire a part. For, in technical matters, the military spy must never be at a loss; he must be able to place guns and men, works and engineering details, with accuracy, since misinformation is worse than none.
In the actual method employed in obtaining information much is left to the judgment of the spy. It is a platitude that no two battles are ever identical in character, and thus the plans of military commanders must vary with the line of country, the strength of the forces engaged, and many other points: in the same way the spies who pave the way for Germany’s soldiers are never confronted by the same conditions twice, and they must adapt their methods to fit the circumstances of each case. In this, the more delicate and difficult part of their work, no amount of training can avail them, but all depends on their natural ability to make use of men and circumstances, a quality which is more to be classed as work than as training, since it is either part of the composition of a man, or is definitely lacking and not to be imparted by any training.
Naval spying is practically analogous with military work in character, except that all the training must be devoted to familiarity with the details of naval work and construction—in the matter of coast fortifications, the work of naval and military spies overlaps to a certain extent. But, in addition to coast defence works and dockyards, which call for the activities of both naval and military spies, there are the details of every class of battleship to be learned. Topography is the first point, common to both branches, and trigonometry is an accessory to this, practically. But naval construction and drawing are peculiar to the naval spy, who is handed on to the care of an expert officer of the German Naval Intelligence Department, as a rule, and so familiarised with the details of various classes of torpedoes, mines, submarines, and guns, that he is able to recognise any one of these things at a glance, and tell the particular class and power which it represents.
Further, the naval spy is made acquainted with the build and outline of every class of naval vessel in the world. He is first schooled in the details of the various battleships, cruisers, and smaller craft belonging to the Great Powers, and, later, is taught to recognise these vessels by silhouettes, from which he gains sufficient knowledge to recognise any ship either by day or night—assuming that the night is of such a character that the ship is at all visible. He studies uniforms and insignia of rank, signals and codes, and at the end of his training is a fully qualified naval officer so far as the theory of naval matters goes. In the yards of Wilhelmshaven and Kiel is opportunity of putting his knowledge to the test, and he has to satisfy his examiners on all the points on which he has been coached.
With regard to diplomatic espionage, the coaching bestowed on the two branches already mentioned is not undertaken, for the diplomatic spy—in the narrower sense of the phrase, since all spies must be extremely diplomatic—is chosen, as a rule, from among the ranks of naval and military spies. In order to undertake diplomatic missions, and supplement the work of the German embassies in the various European centres, a spy must be a very good man indeed, as far as his work is concerned. He must be as was Stieber, absolutely ruthless and without scruple; he must be a good linguist, a man of good presence and address, and a tactful man as well. The corps of diplomatic spies is a small one, for this work is the best paid of all, the most delicate and intimate of all, and it is not a class of work of which there could ever be enough for a large staff, even in the state of European politics that existed at the outbreak of this last German war, since the diplomats of Germany are themselves sufficient, as a rule, for all needs of this kind. The diplomatic spy is called in for services which a diplomat is unable to undertake, and also as a check on the work of diplomats—he is, as it were, a member of a system which assures the efficiency of the diplomatic system.
His training lies in the commissions entrusted to him in military and naval capacities: by super-excellence in the performance of his duties in these departments, he shows himself sufficiently able and efficient to warrant his being trusted with less obvious and more confidential tasks. He works, as do all the members of the German spy system, independently of all other workers for the good of the State. For in every case the spy works alone, lest in compassing his own downfall he should bring about that of others as well. This was a principle inaugurated by Stieber, who believed in trusting no man more than was absolutely unavoidable.
It must not be thought, from these few details of the training given to the official spies of the German system, that every member of the espionage corps is thus trained. Training such as is detailed here is only for the chief spies, the picked men who accomplish great things; few men could come out satisfactorily from the examinations set to these military and naval spies—few men, that is, of the class from which spies are recruited. The spies at “fixed posts,” for instance, get very little training, since their duties do not involve nearly as much technical work as do those of the travelling members of the fraternity. Since much of the total of about 780,000 pounds per annum known to be distributed among the members of the German secret service (in addition to the probably larger sum of which no records are available) goes to the occupants of these fixed posts, it is obvious that the highly trained spy is in the minority. The highly trained spy, however, forms the nucleus and head of the system—he is a superior officer to the fixed post man or German tutor in a foreign family.
The military and naval branches of the service are controlled by the Great German General Staff, while the diplomatic branch is controlled direct by the German Foreign Office, and, although recruited from among the military and naval branches, is independent of General Staff control.
These divisions of the system must be taken as only approximate, for they interlink and work in and out each other to such an extent that no definite line can be drawn between them as regards actual work. They are all extensions of the plans that Stieber planned, and in all that pertains to the work of German espionage his hand is evident, his work persists, more than twenty years after his death.
Here a word on the influence of Prussian militarism may well be spoken, for the influence of that cast-iron administration is evident even in the organisation of the secret service of Germany. It is now twenty-two years since Stieber passed out from the system, but so unimaginative is the militarist rule of German statecraft that Stieber’s ways have not been improved on. They have been altered in minor details, but the plan has been retained, and, though it may be urged that since Stieber’s system was the most perfect known there was no need to change it, yet the passing of years has revealed many of the details of that system, and it would have been better for Germany if the espionage system had been more flexible, more experimental. Though the very inner workings of Stieber’s system are secrets from ordinary people to this day, they are no secrets from other Governments; the German methods have been copied and improved on by more than one Government, and in some things Germany, which had the only perfect system of espionage in 1870, is actually behind the rest of the world now. For craft has been met with craft, and while the protective measures of other nations have advanced, Germany has stood still.
With regard to matters military, Beyerling emphasises this fully in his book, “Jena or Sedan?” but, of course, no emphasis has been possible in the case of the spy system. Yet evidence is afforded in the trial of Karl Gustav Ernst at Bow Street, to which further reference will be made later, and in many other cases which prove that German spies are known and their methods known to the Governments of other countries, where ample protective measures have been taken. The character of the spy himself is such that changes in the system which controls him are necessary—constant changes—but the mould in which the German mind is shaped is such that this fact has never been sufficiently appreciated, even by the Great German General Staff. The German spy system is still a dangerous organisation, but there are others equally well planned and equally efficient. Had there been another Stieber to take control, Germany might still have had the only perfect system of espionage; but such genius as he displayed only comes once to a people in a century, and a second Stieber has yet to be found in Germany to make its secret service as efficient as in the days when Stieber maintained control.
The German system of military espionage can best be studied by an analysis of the working of the system in France from the year 1870 onwards. So far as the outside world is concerned, the military invasion of France by Germany began at the end of July 1870, but in reality the invasion began in the latter half of 1867, when Stieber, chief of the German secret police, began the placing of his fixed posts throughout the country. No less than 30,000 spies were placed in the departments of Northern and Eastern France, and the feats of this army made possible the work accomplished by Von Moltke.
In his Memoirs Stieber relates how Bismarck, when informed that Jules Favre wished to negotiate for the surrender of Paris in 1871, sent for Stieber and instructed him that Favre was to be kept under observation while negotiations were in progress. Bismarck and Favre met at Versailles, where, on Favre’s arrival, he was escorted to a carriage driven by one of Stieber’s men, and was driven to an establishment on the Boulevard du Roi. This, though Favre was ignorant of the fact, was the headquarters of the German active service police. Favre was courteously received, and presented with a body-servant to whom the highest accomplishments were accredited. The body-servant was none other than Stieber himself.
Favre lodged in this house throughout all the negotiations for the surrender of Paris. So far as Favre knew, the owner of the house was a good Parisian and a resident of Versailles; in reality the place was the headquarters of the German secret-service system, and its owner was one of the fixed spies placed by Stieber before the war began, and thus ready to afford all information with regard to his own district to the German forces on their arrival. For the period of Favre’s stay, Stieber waited on him hand and foot, attending to his meals, to his bedroom and clothing, and performing all the duties of a valet. Under this pretext it was perfectly easy for Stieber to ransack all Favre’s clothing luggage, and personal equipment, and the arch-spy claims in his Memoirs that much of the information he obtained in this way was extremely useful to Bismarck during the negotiations on which the conclusion of peace was based.
Certain proposals made by the Minister of the Interior during this period in which Stieber was at the head of the secret police are worth quoting with regard to the establishment of spies throughout France, subsequent to the war of 1870, in order that strict watch might be kept on the conquered country. The proposals were as follows:
“All the fixed agents must hold not merely salaried positions (that is, in offices, workshops, etc), for they might at any time be dismissed from their posts, and in that case would no longer have any plausible reason for remaining at their points of observation. Such positions, too, possess considerable disadvantage for our agents, in that they restrict their actions and hamper their freedom of going and coming, and bring them too much under notice.
“For these reasons, it must be laid down as a condition of the employment of a spy that he shall be obliged to keep some kind of an establishment, which he may select so long as it is, at least externally, thoroughly in keeping with the commercial or other requirements of the country in which he is engaged. Whatever establishment it be, whether an office for the settlement of disputed claims, or a property register, or a business of a purely commercial land, such as groceries, cafés, restaurants, hotels, etc, it must be soundly established and possess a substantial good-will.
“It must be borne in mind that it is necessary for our agents to inspire confidence in circles where they have their centre of action, and to inspire that confidence by outward indications of a commonplace bourgeois existence; by tactful charity and by making themselves useful in societies, associations, communities, and so forth; and by acquiring strong social positions, so that they may be well received and regarded in all quarters.
“While we must limit the expenditure which our agents are permitted to incur, it is necessary that we should give them absolute assurance that any deficit of the undertaking which they carry on would be made good by the service under the head of general expenses.”
Since the annual expenditure of Germany for work of this kind is admitted to amount to 780,000 pounds a year, it may be gathered that the espionage service is a complete one. The sum stated is admittedly spent; how much more is spent it is impossible to conjecture. The spies placed at fixed posts are given salaries varying between two and four pounds a week according to the importance of the post and the duties which the spy is expected to perform. To this is added any out-of-pocket expenses to which the spy may be put in the maintenance of his business or position. These spies at fixed posts are under the control of headquarters at Brussels, Lausanne, and Geneva, whence their salaries are paid monthly under the form of business remittances. There is also a system of inspectorship by means of which each fixed post is visited at regular intervals, either by women or by professed commercial travellers, who collect the written reports in order to avoid possible inspection of these reports by the French postal authorities. Further, this system admits of instructions being given verbally by the travelling inspector to the spy at each fixed post. At the outbreak of the present war the number of fixed spies known to exist in France was over 15,000.
The recruiting of this army of spies was begun by Stieber in 1870, when he requested that there should be sent, to the fourteen departments of France in which occupation was essential to the success of a German attack, about 4,000 farmers, agricultural labourers, and others who should be permanently employed in the several districts, together with an even larger number of women servants to be placed among the various classes of the French population. These, however, were to receive pay from ordinary French commercial sources, and were to be under the control of the higher grade of spies established in businesses or otherwise independently employed at the fixed posts. The latter were specially chosen from among people of Teutonic origin, not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland and Belgium, whence they were sent to take up their posts after receiving the necessary preliminary training to fit them for their work. The occupant of a fixed post at the present time, whether in France or any other country, is nearly always a German, and has at his beck and call a host of other emigrants from Germany, who are legitimately employed in various capacities, have had no government training, and expect no fixed salary for their work. They are the small fry of the business, and do not come into contact with any higher officials than the fixed agent, who enables them to supplement their legitimate salaries by retailing bits of slander and gossip. The absence of one or more of them would make no difference to the system; as a matter of patriotism, they simply retail what they hear to a fellow-countryman, and, in this sense, every German in a foreign country may be reckoned as a spy, though for official purposes only a certain number of secret-service agents exist.
The recognised agent is placed at some point at which he is able to maintain espionage over a garrison, a military post, or something connected with the defensive or offensive organisation of the country concerned. His business at the outset is to be thoroughly agreeable and make himself well liked in the circle in which he moves. Assuming that he is located in a small garrison town, he sets up a business of some kind which will give him admittance to military circles, and, no matter how bad times may be, his business goes on. In the meantime he contributes unostentatiously to charities, attends all entertainments, and does his best to make himself and his business known in the community of which he is a member. Sooner or later, he makes friends out of one or two of his acquaintances; so far as can be seen he leads a benevolent, open, harmless sort of existence, and is a thoroughly good fellow, and eventually he gains close contact with some member of the garrison, either officer or non-commissioned officer. In the latter case, the spy will take care that the non-commissioned officer is in some position of trust where he is able to obtain useful information.
So far as his friends are concerned, the spy proves to be not entirely ignorant of matters military. He manifests a mild interest in drill, formation of troops, fortifications, guns, etc, but he is not in any way keen over these matters. Like any other inhabitant of the country in which he resides, he is willing to discuss the “shop” matters of his associates, and will even indulge in mild arguments, making mistakes and submitting to correction from those more experienced. Gradually he gets more and more into the confidence of his friends, who, while they reveal nothing of importance, let fall a word here and a word there in his hearing, knowing him to be thoroughly trustworthy; out of these various words a fairly detailed report can be compiled. In the meantime, the small fry of the business are constantly bringing gossip. If a new gun is to be mounted, the spy hears about it; if the strength of the garrison is to be altered, the spy is cognisant of the fact; sooner or later, he gets to know domestic details with regard to the officers of the garrison. A certain lieutenant drinks too much, or a captain is very fond of a hand at cards; in the former case the spy is quite willing to drink level with the lieutenant, and in the latter he is willing to lose money to the captain, such money being put down to special expenses, and accounted for in his monthly statement.
It will be seen that in such simple ways these the fixed agent is able to obtain an immense amount of personal and other information by perfectly simple methods. It may be urged that the greater part of this information could be obtained in legitimate ways and with no expense to the German Government; but the system which Stieber inaugurated is above all things thorough, and there is a system at Berlin of tabulating and card-indexing all information received from fixed posts; of analysing, checking, and comparing, until absolute certainty is reached with regard to the accuracy of detail. For instance, a certain newspaper may announce that the armament of certain fortifications has been increased by a new four-inch gun. A fixed agent will add to this information the position of gun, weight of shell, rate of fire per minute, name of officer in control, and the fact that it is mounted on a disappearing platform—details which are noted and checked with a view to their possible usefulness in the future. The extent of this usefulness may be estimated when the fall of Namur or Maubeuge is recalled. The officers in control of the attacking German batteries knew exactly how many guns they had to silence, the position, bore, and rate of fire of these guns, and the points at which their own batteries could best be placed, with a view to fire effect and invisibility. In the case of Maubeuge they knew more: they knew where to find the necessary concrete platforms on which to place their own heavy artillery, in order to silence the French guns—and this must be attributed to the development of the system of fixed posts.
Not only does the Great German General Staff know details of fortifications and technical matters, but it is also kept posted up in the character and abilities of officers who come under the observation of the fixed agent. Reports sent in to headquarters are concerned with personal peculiarities and scandals to an extent undreamed of by the persons concerned. If any officer is open to bribery, the fact is ascertained; if any officer’s wife is open to blackmail, the blackmail is instituted, and the price of silence in every case is information with regard to matters of which the husband is cognisant. Further, the topographical information supplied includes details of the nature and state of roads, telegraphs, bridges, depths of rivers and streams, positions of fords, nature and condition of every building and farm, supplies of forage and food, horses available, and every detail which is likely to be of service. The ordnance-maps supplied to German officers are marvels of map-making; every insignificant cottage, stile, clump of trees, and peculiarity of the landscape is indicated, and, by the use of maps of this kind, the march on Paris in 1870 was carried through without a hitch.
In like manner, all preparations for the Prussian advance through Belgium, and the projected victorious march on Paris, were made and completed years ago, with the assistance of the fixed agents. The German entry into Brussels, when 700,000 men marched through a strange city without the slightest confusion, has been described as a triumph of organisation. This it undoubtedly was; but the credit did not lie with the military commander, for the agents who had been busy through many months preparing the way of the army were responsible for that army’s successful advance. Officers had only to follow detailed instructions presented to them by headquarters.
With equal care the entry to Paris was planned: quarters were assigned to each regiment of the invading army; each officer knew exactly the part that would be his in the spectacle, and every step of the entry to the French capital had been arranged in detail by German fixed agents, who had resided for many years in Northern France, and in Paris itself, as peaceful citizens. Reports of German occupation of French towns and even photographs from the theatre of war draw attention to various houses on which has been chalked—“Spare this house.” In many cases, doubtless, this is intended as a return for unexpectedly hospitable reception, but in many other cases it indicates that the house in question was the residence of a fixed agent, to whom German officers came on their entry to the place in order to learn all that was possible with regard to resources of the town or village, and all that could be told of the movements of the enemy.
It has been urged, and with apparent reason, that the value of espionage ceases as soon as armies take the field, since the work of the spy can only concern preparations for hostilities, and, when war has begun, actual strength decides the issue. This, however, is not the case when German military espionage is in question; in many cases the fixed agents have been so long established at their posts that they rank in the eyes of normal inhabitants as a part of the life of the place, and, by maintaining their positions, they are able to ascertain for the benefit of their own commanders particulars of the dispositions of hostile forces. Elaborate systems of signalling are in use; carrier pigeons are used, but only to a limited extent; the ways of the Red Indians, who made the most perfect spies ever known, are copied in indicating events by the movement of stones, chipping of bark on trees, breaking branches, and other ways little likely to be detected, while the more civilised method of lamp-signalling is also practised. Altogether, the German military spy forms a very efficient and formidable part of the German military force, both before and after the opening of hostilities. His value decreases to a certain extent when action has been entered on, and, in a definite battle like those along the line of the Meuse and the line of the Aisne, he is practically useless, but in case of an advance on the part of the German forces he is invaluable, by reason of the information he can give with regard to the nature of the country and the dispositions of the retreating army.
The routine of naval espionage is very similar in character to that followed by military spies. The naval spy, however, must be a rather more intelligent and highly trained man than his military confrère, and cases that have come to light prove that his position is one of more responsibility, and that he is entrusted with more funds for the carrying out of his work. It is an interesting fact that, for many years past, officers and men of the German naval service have been employed along the East coast of England in compiling extremely detailed plans of places and fortifications. The accuracy of these plans is ascertained by persistent redrawing done by new members of the naval espionage staff, and all changes in building, roadmaking, bridge-construction, and as far as possible the interior work of fortifications, are duly recorded on the Berlin maps. Not that this information is of definite working value at the present time, but the principle of secret-service headquarters is that no item is too trivial for record, and information is acquired without regard to its direct uses, but in view of the fact that it may possibly be of some use at a future date. The adoption of such a principle involves an immense amount of work in checking and sorting the masses of information obtained, but beyond doubt the principle itself has gone far to assure such successes as German arms have obtained, either on land or at sea.
In addition to the work of fixed naval posts, stationed at dockyards and harbours, the work of spies at sea must not be overlooked, either in time of peace or in war. In the former case an innocent-looking trawler or private yacht is useful for taking soundings, ascertaining channels, and even locating naval mines used for purposes of harbour defence and fired by land contact. In time of war the services which may be performed by such vessels are even more valuable; the reports of the sinking of three British cruisers by German submarine attack are fairly unanimous with regard to the presence of a trawler in the vicinity of the spot at which the engagement took place. All that can be definitely learned with regard to this trawler is that she was not a British boat, and it is reasonable to assume that her business consisted in signalling to the submarines particulars which they may have been unable to obtain themselves, or in shielding them from sight during their approach towards the cruisers. Although there are no substantial proofs of this assumption, it is hardly likely that the vessel was a trawler engaged in usual and legitimate business.
The work of the naval spy in time of peace is best illustrated by the record of cases which have actually come to light through actions taken in the courts. One noteworthy case is that of Sub-Lieutenant Ullmo, a gifted naval officer of the French service, serving in the Republican warship Carabine. Ullmo was an officer of undoubted ability, but he came under the influence of a female spy, known to him and his fellows as Lison, who persuaded him to set up an establishment for her and managed to secure his assent to a plan by which this establishment, maintained at his expense, was to be converted into an opium-den. So great an ascendancy did Lison gain over her victim that in a period of two years he had spent 3,000 pounds, which was all that was his in the way of capital and income apart from his pay. His position in the service rendered money a necessity, and, once his private fortune was gone, Lison pointed out to him that more money could be obtained. As soon as she spoke of the means by which he could obtain money he repudiated the suggestion, but, by working on his jealousy with regard to her acquaintance with a brother officer, she secured his consent to a bargain by which he was to give up the secret documents kept in a safe on board his ship, in return for a price which was fixed at more than ten times his previous competence. The bargain was to be arranged by the medium of advertisements, and it was through the wording of these advertisements that the plot was detected by the French secret service. Ullmo’s reward for his treachery was degradation from his rank and imprisonment for life, and Lison put in an appearance at his trial in order to watch the proceedings as an uninterested spectator.
The system of counter-espionage thus evidenced on the part of a foreign Government has its counterpart in the British service. Since Britain is the most powerful enemy Germany has to fear in a naval sense, it follows that German naval espionage is principally directed against Britain, and that the establishment of naval spies is greater in this country than in any other. It is safe to say, however, that the majority of the fixed posts of the German naval service in Britain are known to the police, and that, as soon as information which, in the opinion of the British naval authorities, is of value, is in danger of being communicated to Germany, action is taken to prevent the transmission of the spies’ reports to headquarters. A case in point is that of Doctor Max Schulz, who, charged with espionage at Devon Assizes, was sentenced to a year and nine months’ imprisonment for acts attempted rather than acts committed.
According to his own account, Schulz became implicated in the work of the military branch of the German secret service in 1910, when he was engaged to obtain reports about British military and naval affairs for statistical purposes. Although no more was said, there can be no doubt that Schulz realised quite well the nature of the work he was undertaking, especially as, on the evidence of Sir Rufus Isaacs, who prosecuted at the trial, he was able to offer 500 pounds a year to a British subject for continuous information of a confidential character. He began his career as a spy by ineffectual work in Ireland, following up this by a visit to Toulon, still in search of information. After various adventures, he returned in 1911 to Plymouth, and thence went for a trip up the River Yealm on a yacht called the Egret; here, according to the evidence of Crown witnesses for the prosecution, he was visited by a Mr Duff and a Mr Tarrant, to whom he made overtures with regard to the obtaining of information concerning naval matters.
The charges against Schulz, as outlined by the Attorney-General in opening the case, were four in number. The first charge was that, in the summer of 1911: “He, at the borough of Plymouth, having possession or control over knowledge which had been obtained by means of an act which constituted an offence against the Official Secrets Act, communicated or attempted to communicate the same to a person to whom the same ought not in the interest of the State to be communicated at the time.” The second charge amplified the first in that Schulz was accused of having intended to communicate his illegally gained knowledge to the Government of a foreign State. The third and fourth counts against him were that he had “endeavoured to procure Samuel Hugh Duff and Edward Charles Tarrant respectively to communicate to him information relating to the naval affairs of His Majesty which ought not in the interests of the State to be communicated to any person.”
Sir Rufus Isaacs stated, in his outline of the case for the prosecution, that Schulz had offered Duff a salary of 500 pounds a year, with a possibility of this sum being doubled, for confidential information. Schulz alleged that the confidential information in question would be published in a German newspaper, but, at the time of Schulz’s arrest, there had been found in his possession a letter which proved the purpose for which the information was required. One passage of the letter which was read in court is enlightening as regards the detailed information required of German naval spies. The passage is as follows:
“How do matters stand with the commander and lieutenant respectively? Can nothing at all be expected from them? Reserve officers are no use. They do not procure any valuable secrets because they do not have access to them. Confidential books and reports are what is wanted, and what you must procure at all costs if our relations are to continue.”
Sir Rufus Isaacs stated, and the evidence proved, that a man named Tobler, who did not visit England, kept Schulz supplied with money. A number of telegrams were produced, written in code, of which the prosecution had found the key. The deciphered telegrams read: “In greatest danger. Wire immediately 50 pounds.”
“In greater trouble and danger. All prepared for departure. Wire immediately 50 pounds and date of meeting.” Instructions from Tobler to Schulz included a list of questions which Schulz was to put to Mr Duff, and the list included the following:
I. Are officers or men granted leave, or have those on leave possibly been recalled?
II. Is there any sign of coals, stores, ammunition, etc, being accumulated?
III. What is the feeling in naval circles?
IV. How do officers and men discuss the situation?
V. Are crews being increased, are ships being prepared, or has commissioning of ships suddenly taken place?
These questions, the Attorney-General pointed out, were intended as tests for Mr Duff. Other questions, put apparently with more serious intent, included the following:
I. What is the opinion of officers of the British Navy as to the result of war between England and France, on the one hand, and Germany on the other, and the likelihood of the same over the Morocco question?
II. What ships of the Third Division were put out of service on July 23, or about the end of July, or have reduced their crews, and the reasons for so doing?
III. How many officers and men are still on board, and why was the programme altered after it was stated that the Third Division should be full up?
Before answering these questions Mr Duff communicated with the police, and it was stated in the initial proceedings against Schulz that, if British people usually acted in the way that Mr Duff and Mr Tarrant had done, and in the way that Detective-Sergeant Martin, whom they consulted, had acted, England would have nothing to fear from any system of espionage.
The evidence given by Mr Tarrant went to show that Schulz had offered him a salary of 50 pounds a month for acting as “Military and Naval Correspondent” to a German paper, for which Schulz was to act as agent and intermediary. The only defence set up was to the effect that Schulz was a bona-fide journalist, and had no ulterior motive in attempting to obtain information. The Tobler correspondence was too strong evidence to the contrary, and the well-merited sentence of a year and nine months’ imprisonment in the second division was imposed. It is characteristic of the German spy system that, after his release from jail, Schulz was disowned by his previous employers.
Later cases, like that of Ernst, to which reference will be made later, go to prove that both in England and France a system of counter-espionage has been organised, which goes far to neutralise such efforts as that detailed above. So persistent is the German thirst for information that one man who came into the British courts as defendant had actually received payment from German sources for information which he was virtually proved to have obtained from Whittaker’s almanac and like sources. This, however, only goes to show that the object of the German secret service is to check such information as it may receive, by means of duplicate and triplicate reports.
There is little likelihood of the system of German naval espionage having any definite effect in England until an invasion has been successfully accomplished, for there is a wide difference between learning the strength of a coast defence and overcoming that defence. Both in naval and military matters, also, the plan has long since been adopted of changing orders at irregular intervals, so that, in case of active service requirements, the strength and dispositions of the forces vary from month to month and even from week to week. Signal and telegraphic codes are changed, routine is altered, and, altogether, such differences are effected in various ways that information supplied by spies one week may be quite valueless the next. Not that it is advisable to underrate the spy peril or the value of the German system, but at the same time it is equally unwise to overrate the possibilities of the system. Were another Stieber forthcoming, Germany might yet accomplish all that it set out to do with the assistance of its secret service; but, under present conditions, such success is extremely unlikely.
The way in which Stieber, as body-servant to Jules Favre, was able to assist in the negotiations for the surrender of Paris in 1870 has already been detailed, and this forms a fair sample of what can be done in the way of diplomatic espionage, as distinctly apart from the gaining of purely military information or details of a definite naval character. But it is only one instance; the spy in the employ of the German Foreign Office is capable of making himself useful in many ways, and into this class of work also the influence of women enters to a very large extent.
The woman spy of fiction, though not absolutely a myth, is very rare indeed. The siren of beauty and wit, mysterious as she is fascinating, makes a very pretty picture for a sensational melodrama; but it must be fairly obvious, on reflection, that she would defeat her own ends by the very mystery that is popularly supposed to surround her. Further, diplomats entrusted with confidential and delicate tasks are hard-headed men of the world, capable of seeing through the wiles of such dames of mystery as the fiction-writer would have us believe in, existing in the highest society and able to subjugate a man by a glance. A story has recently been told to the effect that one of these charming adventuresses was able to spoil the work of no less a person than a Russian Ambassador, the said Ambassador being a man of mature years and such judgment as one would expect in the holder of the power that he represented. The spy alleged that the lady in question was able by her charms to throw the Ambassador entirely off his guard, so that his mission was spoiled and he incurred imperial displeasure and lost his post.
It is a pretty story, and would pass well as an effort of imagination; the only trouble is that the alleged confessions of the spy include this pretty story as truth, which it most distinctly is not. The affairs of nations are not conducted in such a manner as this, for there is sufficient wisdom in the various Courts of Europe to recognise the existence of all dangers, and to impose on their representatives such safeguards as shall neutralise the attempts that may be made at spoiling treaties and sowing discord by means of pretty women and susceptible men. The reason for the telling of such stories lies in their being extremely plausible, extremely attractive, and extremely saleable.
Real diplomatic spying is a much more sordid and much meaner business than the fiction-writer places before his or her readers. It consists in listening at doors, reading and replacing letters, and tricks of the kind which would be perfectly obvious if the person spying were not so thoroughly trustworthy—to outside appearance. The diplomatic spy may be a servant, a military attaché, a courier in the ostensible service of a Government—he may be anything, but always he is a supremely trustworthy person, one who has no need to conceal the fact that he is highly intelligent and well fitted for his post, whatever that may be. His reputation among the people with whom he is brought in contact may be and usually is a matter of years’ standing, for only the absolute assurance of his honesty enables him to carry on his work.
It is the recognised duty of all ambassadors, military and naval attachés, and consuls, to collect information in any possible way, and to pay for it, and it may be guessed that their staff of informers is a large one. Further, under the heading of diplomatic spies must be included the internal espionage of Germany, by means of which all the various members of the Royal Family at Berlin are kept under surveillance and reported on. Potsdam neglects nothing in this way, as the Memoirs of Louise of Saxony prove beyond dispute.
Some time ago the head official of the system of internal espionage in Germany was exposed at the height of his success, and thus an idea of the actual working and extent of the system was rendered obtainable. The person in question, Colonel Baron von Tausch, established on his own account a bureau d’espionage, and carried his investigations to such a point that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, after having made representations to the Kaiser, took action against Von Tausch for libel and conspiracy.
From evidence made public at the trial it appeared that Von Tausch, who wished to obtain information for his master with regard to the nationalist movement in Prussian Poland, had ordered Baron von Luetzow to win the affections of the daughter of a Polish noble who was in the front of the nationalist movement, and, by this means, to gain the confidence of the girl’s father. Luetzow complied, won the heart of the girl and the confidence of her father, and then returned to Berlin, leaving the girl behind. This was one instance of the methods used to obtain information.
Correspondence, produced in court, introduced into the case the name of Count Philip zu Eulenberg, sometime German Ambassador at Vienna. Eulenberg, one of the boy-friends of the Kaiser, developed into a moral degenerate, and the whole of the Berlin Court—at least, all that part of it which had the best interests of the Kaiser and the Empire at heart—deplored the retention of Eulenberg in the imperial favour. In 1907 Eulenberg’s degeneracy was exposed by Maximilian Harden, editor of Die Zukunft, who was prosecuted for his audacity in attacking one of the Emperor’s friends, and forced the prosecution to withdraw by stating that he had enough correspondence in his possession to ruin the reputations of members of the Imperial family and half the officers of the Imperial Guards.
The correspondence produced at Von Tausch’s trial was chiefly noteworthy for a letter addressed by the chief of the secret police to Eulenberg, in which the former claimed that he had successfully accomplished espionage work which, he hoped, would have the effect of mining the Foreign Minister for good. Shortly after, as evidence showed, Eulenberg sent to Von Tausch the ribbon of a high Austrian Order which had been presented by the Austrian Government, evidently as recognition of services performed in connection with the German Foreign Minister.
Numerous scandals were brought to light, all proving that no trick or subterfuge had been too low for Von Tausch’s stooping. It was shown, for instance, that Prince Egon Hohenlohe, as bad a character as Eulenberg, had conceived a dislike for one of the chamberlains employed in the establishment of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. He therefore set Von Tausch to work at ferreting out this man’s humble antecedents, which were then published anonymously in various German papers. The result was a public scandal, and the unfortunate man had to resign his post in consequence.
Various other people had discovered that Von Tausch was equal to practically any task of spying with which they cared to entrust him, and, as each one rewarded his efforts with some kind of decoration in addition to more substantial payment, he appeared in court loaded with insignia of various Orders. Naturally, his appearance as defendant in a libel case caused consternation in Berlin, for there was no telling where the revelations concerning his doings would end. Eventually the matter was brought to the notice of the Kaiser himself, and, when the intolerable pride of Wilhelm is taken into account, it is easy to understand that he took all possible steps to prevent further revelations concerning the internal espionage maintained on his Court and relatives from coming to light. Von Tausch was, in the first place, under the orders of the Kaiser himself, and, were more revelations to be made, there was no telling how much of the servant’s doings would be attributed to orders from the master. Conviction was impossible, for Von Tausch knew too much to permit of his being made the enemy of the Imperial Court by imprisonment, or in fact by any punishment. Still, after dismissal from the bar of the ordinary tribunal, he was tried as a Bavarian before a court of honour, and was adjudged to have been guilty of conduct so unbecoming to one in his position as to render him unfit for further service. As a man unfit to associate with gentlemen, he was expelled from the service in disgrace.
But Wilhelm remembered his faithful servant after the court of honour had finished with him. Von Tausch was retired into private life with the honours of a diplomatic servant on the retired list; that is to say, he was at liberty to enjoy his very adequate pension, together with such fortune as he had contrived to amass during his term of service as chief of the secret police.
Von Tausch is typical of the German service of internal espionage; there is nothing romantic about his work, nothing that is worthy of memory or that shows him in other than a detestable light—and yet the German Courts are constantly under such supervision as he maintained, and with the full concurrence and encouragement of Wilhelm, who believes in vigilance at the cost of honour and of everything that normal men hold as compatible with honour. The private diary of Louise of Saxony has details of the pettiness and meanness of these agents of discord and destroyers of confidence among the highest personages of German Courts.
“The King’s spy,” says the diary, “constituted herself post office of Villa Foschwitz—a duty appertaining to her rank, and I wager that she works the black cabinet to perfection. (Cabinet noir. The secret-service headquarters of the German post office.) Of course, I am now careful in all that I write, and advise my friends to be. The spy planted in my household has been permitted to see much of the innocent correspondence passing between me and Leopold. She has reported that I have turned over a new leaf. Result: my debts have been paid. Further result: a gracious letter from the King’s House Marshal praising me for the good influence I am exercising over Leopold. Truly, the world wants to be deceived.”
Another extract states: “Caught the Tisch stealing one of my letters. Happily there was nothing incriminating in it, though addressed to Ferdinand—just the letter the Crown Princess would write to a Privy Councillor. But the petty theft indicates that she suspects. Prince George, I am told, receives a report from her every day.”
The note of the diary emphasises the littleness of life that permits of the existence of such a system as this, a perpetual sowing of discord by means of the repetition of tittle-tattle which can have no real bearing on affairs of moment. The lady designated “Tisch,” by the way, was but a clumsy exponent of her art, for, discovering that her royal mistress kept a diary, she reported the fact to Frederick, Louise’s husband, who taxed his wife with the existence of the diary and its indiscretions. Thereupon Louise turned upon the Tisch, and informed her that, since she was planted in the royal household for the purpose of playing the serpent, she must confine her work to reporting on comings and goings, on external conduct, so far as Louise herself was concerned.
In every royal household of the Empire similar spies are placed, and in every government office as well. Every government office is kept open in Berlin at all hours of the day and night, and, when the Emperor wishes to assure himself that all is working as he would have it, he rings up the particular office from which he requires assurances of efficiency. Or, by means of one of the many telephones that are at the disposal of the War Lord at all hours, he turns out a garrison at the dead of night, in order to be certain that there is full watchfulness and efficiency there. The idea of being always on the alert, always prepared, is at the root of these tricks, and the secret service for internal espionage is maintained for the same purpose—that the people of the Empire and their rulers may be always ready against “the day.”
An instance of indirect diplomatic espionage is afforded by the publication of one of the plans for the invasion of England, drawn up by Baron von Edelsheim, a few years ago. Edelsheim proposed to turn into England a force of about two hundred to three hundred thousand men, commanded by officers who have a perfect knowledge of the country. He says: “The preparation for landing operations must be furthered in time of peace to such an extent that in time of war we may feel sure of having the advantage of surprising the enemy by our celerity in mobilising and transporting our troops. The troops which are to be mobilised must be determined in time of peace, their transport by railway, their harbours of embarkation, and the preparations for embarkation, must be prepared in order to ensure the greatest possible celerity. The aim of our operations must be kept entirely secret, and attempts should be made to deceive the enemy, at least with regard to the purpose for which the first operations are undertaken.”
Now, the publication of such a paragraph as this, with the certainty of its being translated and republished in English, could serve no useful German purpose on the face of it. Edelsheim was no theoriser speaking without Imperial sanction, or devising a plan apart from the plans of the Junker party. He stated the obvious, and moreover stated an obvious thing which on the face of it was not a wise one for the Junker party to confess, for, if absolute secrecy were an essential, then the very declaration that such a thing as invasion of England was remotely contemplated was against the spirit of the plan. The publication of the paragraph, we may rest assured, was not decided on without good reason, and Edelsheim must rank as a diplomat rather than as a diplomatic spy, for the act comes scarcely under the heading of espionage, widely as that term must be interpreted in the case of the German secret service.
As for the diplomatic spy abroad, he is to be found—but not to be recognised—in official circles. It is extremely doubtful whether his pay comes out of the 780,000 pounds set apart annually by Germany for secret-service purposes, for the pay of such men as are employed in hunting out the secrets of foreign diplomatic circles is necessarily extremely high. With regard to the work itself, very little is known. In the other branches of the German secret-service failures are usually conspicuous by their appearances in police-courts and criminal trials; but this disability seldom enters into the life of the diplomatic spy. In the first place, being a man specially selected from among the ranks of naval and military spies, the diplomatic spy seldom makes mistakes—seldom, that is, in comparison with members of the other two branches, who also are remarkably careful to avoid errors of judgment; consequently, there are very few chances of detecting diplomatic spies through their failures. In the second place, diplomatic spies, by reason of the nature of their work, do not come into the criminal courts when they make mistakes and get caught—the nature of their work precludes this possibility, for usually their tasks do not involve any infringement of the penal code as this refers to the spy and his work. Again, diplomatic spies are so highly placed, and so thoroughly trusted, that to bring on them the punishment of normal criminals would cause too much outcry and scandal; their work is neutralised as far as possible by systems of counter-espionage, and in case of one being detected he simply ceases to be employed by his own Government, which disowns all responsibility for his acts.
These things render details of the work of diplomatic spies almost impossible to obtain. Several books have been published, purporting to detail the work of diplomatic agents, but their contents may be discounted as far as accuracy goes; they make good reading as fiction, and that is all they are, for the most part. If in any stories detailed in them the writers have told the truth, it may be considered a matter of accident. One case, which may be regarded as authentic, is narrated by Von Blowitz, but it is dated so far back that all the participators in the incident are dead, and it may be said as a whole that the world grows wiser as it grows older, so that the case of which Von Blowitz speaks is no guide to the doings of to-day. Further, that particular case concerns a woman spy, of which class more anon.
Such reports as the German agents at fixed posts have to make to their employers are communicated, whenever possible, by means of the travelling inspectors, for the postal service is not to be trusted where espionage is concerned. During the French Revolution there was originated what was known as the “Cabinet Noir,” or secret service of the post office in France, of which the duties were to intercept, open, and where desirable destroy or replace, such letters as were deemed unfit to reach their senders, in the best interests of the State. Berlin, with its genius for developing other people’s inventions, adopted this idea, and made of it one of the regular weapons of the secret service. It operates not only internally, but also internationally, and any suspected letters are freely opened and read; sometimes they are suppressed altogether from their recipients; sometimes false letters, giving contrary instructions, are substituted, and suspected spies of other Powers are caught by this means.
The idea has been generally adopted by most countries; but, in practically any country but Germany, the idea of personal and national honour is sufficiently strong to keep absolutely secret the doings behind official doors. For instance, at the trial of the spy Ernst at Bow Street, it came as a surprise to many people to learn that the British postal authorities possessed powers under which they might open any suspected missives, with a view to ascertaining their contents when deemed essential for the safety and well-being of the State. It is common knowledge in Germany that no letter is safe from being opened, and the powers which the British post offices exercise only in case of genuine suspicion are utilised in Germany to a far greater extent. Further, the officials at the Berlin post office “Cabinet Noir” do not always maintain the absolute secrecy that their work demands, and sometimes there creep out details of other things as well as espionage. Apparently, every German official has his price in his own country, and the habit of spying is so ingrained in the race that commercial secrets are bought and sold not only in the interests of German firms as a whole, but in the interests of one rival German firm which desires to steal a market from another firm of Teutonic name and standing. It appears that Stieber, by organising his colossal system of espionage, laid the foundations of national pettiness and deceit—the German character as a whole has been undermined by the knowledge that nobody is safe from espionage, and all acts are liable to be reported, while blackmail is a flourishing industry.
In the event of active service, the German system of communication between spies and the army in the field is very largely on the lines laid down by Klembovski, whose “Military Espionage in Peace and War” is one of the recognised textbooks on espionage. So clearly and well does Klembovski indicate the methods to be followed, that certain passages of his work with regard to this matter of communications are worthy of reproduction as they stand in his original work, in order to assist in a conception of the means employed.
It is not always possible, he says, for the spies to report personally to their chief about the results of their investigations; therefore it is of interest to consider the methods of communication by means of which they can forward the required information to the stipulated place. These methods of communication are to be grouped in three divisions, according to their nature: 1. Optical signals; 2. Agreed communications by writing; 3. Despatches in cipher.
1. Optical signals.—In operations in heavily wooded districts which obstruct reconnoitring by cavalry, or in the operations of detachments which consist only of infantry, the assurance of guarding against danger which is obtained by means of the despatch of patrols in the direction of the enemy embraces no especially broad stretch in the front of the troops. In such cases the duty of reconnaissance can be allotted to spies, who should collect the simplest and fullest possible information about the enemy. For example: presence or absence of the enemy in certain directions and at certain distances; the approximate strength of his troops; whether the enemy is on the march, at rest, or occupying a position. Such information is especially of importance to such detachments as possess cavalry, for the commander of the detachment can, if he has fresh knowledge of the presence and dispositions of the enemy, execute cavalry reconnaissances far better than he could without the knowledge to be obtained by spies. He can estimate the number and strength of the patrols which he intends to send out, and can give them the correct direction of marching to achieve their purpose, etc.
For communicating such information the simplest signals are desirable. Signals should be employed which on the one hand will not arouse the suspicions of the enemy, and on the other hand will not require special instructions and explanations, and will not occupy too much time either in preparation or sending.
If the country to the front of the troops offers a wide view, a spy sent on in advance can make fires, whose number and arrangement has a previously agreed meaning. Among the enemy’s outposts the making of fires will seldom be practicable, since it would at once arouse suspicion. In these cases the spy can make use of houses which can be seen from a distance on all sides, since the appearance and disappearance of a light in the windows, or the opening and shutting of the shutters, can have a recognised sense and meaning for the troops from whom the spy is sent.
Optical communication of news is seldom possible in wooded country, or at any rate only if the troops advance, and not if they retreat or remain stationary. In these cases the spy sent in advance can inform the troops by various agreed signs, such as breaking or tying together small trees and branches, moving turf, writing agreed-on signs with chalk on bark of trees, fences, houses, and big stones or rocks. Smugglers in some Russian districts use little stones, which they put down by the way on single big stones, heaps of earth, and leaves; as the number and position of the stones with regard to one another varies, so the smugglers mutually impart valuable information to each other. This method should be borne in mind for adoption by an army in the field.
2. Agreed communications by writing.—In many cases secret communication by writing can be carried on in the guise of quite ordinary correspondence, in which the speech is of trade and family matters, etc, so that a stranger, who was not initiated into the secret meanings of the special words, would attribute no special meaning to them. Such letters would be addressed to persons who are prominent through their business in official positions—lesser state officials and merchants, for instance.
In July 1887, at the Imperial Court of Justice at Leipzig, the trial took place of the Alsatians—Klein and Greber for espionage. In the indictment of the public prosecutor it was said, among other things, that the defendant Klein had never been directly in correspondence with the Bureau at whose head was Colonel Vincent, but he knew that his despatches had been communicated to the War Office from which Colonel Vincent took his orders. In order to arouse no suspicion, the correspondence was given the appearance of letters which passed between relatives; herein lay the reason for the constant repetition of Christian names, and the good wishes for Uncle, Aunt, and other persons who certainly did not exist, or under whose names personalities would be understood that were very well-known to the French secret service.
Usually the sender of such correspondence agrees with the recipient as to the way in which the communications shall be read. For example, in 1650 Prince Condé, who lay in prison on account of participation in the plot against the Guises and Catherine de Medici, received a letter which, perused in the ordinary way, could arouse no suspicion. But, in reading it, Condé missed out every other line, obtaining by this means a perfect meaning to fit the situation in which he was placed.
There is also a mechanical method of conducting a secret correspondence, for the deciphering of which both sender and recipient must have “castings,” or small metal plates exactly similar, which are divided by lines into squares. Some of the squares are cut out, the two plates being kept exactly similar and then the sender lays the square plate on the paper and writes his message in his usual writing on the cut-out squares; then he takes the plate from the paper and fills in the empty squares with casually chosen words, taking care, however, that some meaning is made from the double writing, so as to replace the real meaning when the plate is applied. On receipt of the letter the addressee lays his square on it, and comfortably reads everything that interests him, since the superfluous words which the sender wrote later are covered by the squares in the plate which have been left by the cutting-out.
All complex codes and similar means of communication occupy much time, so they are not for spies to use in time of war, though one can employ them in peace time. Certain solutions can be employed as inks, so that, when dry, they leave no trace on the paper; then one has only to warm the paper over a lamp, and the writing stands out clearly. This method, however, has been very largely used, and a blank sheet of paper is always an object of suspicion. And, in view of the meaning which an apparently simple letter may bear to eyes that can decipher the hidden meaning, it should be a rule in war to destroy all captured correspondence of the enemy. This rule should also be observed on the arrest of any suspected person.
3. Cipher correspondence.—There are a great number of systems of cipher-writing; one of the simplest is described in the following letter of Marshal Soult to General Neil, dated September 26, 1806, in which Soult writes: “His Majesty advises me to agree upon a cipher with you, which you will have to use in future in your correspondence with the Chief of Staff of the Army. In the execution of this you can, in my opinion, best make use of a pamphlet (of which the title is given in the letter). The first figure will give the number of the page; the second figure the line, reckoned from above, not counting the heading. The third number will serve as indication of the required word or letter, and give its position in the line indicated by the second figure: if the figure means a whole word, you will underline it; if it only means a letter, you will not do so. Commas must be put between the indicating figures.”
The disadvantages of this system consisted in the slowness of construction and deciphering of the message, since it would almost always be necessary to indicate not whole words, but each letter separately, for which three figures are necessary each time. To avoid the latter disadvantage a dictionary can be employed for the execution of the cipher, whereby in most cases one could succeed in giving the whole word with two figures.
A certain officer proposed to set up for this purpose a special military dictionary, similar to the marine signal-books existing in all countries. In this dictionary one could enter in alphabetical order all figures, letters, constantly occurring syllables, and complete military expressions. The officer in question was of the opinion that 3,000 ciphers would be quite enough to form a complete code. Thus all figures, letters, words, etc, would be numbered in the book in succession from beginning to end. In the preparation of reports one could then indicate by one cipher a figure, a letter, a syllable, and sometimes a whole word or even a whole phrase.
The disadvantage of such a system consists in that its foundation is always the same, and that the printed dictionary could easily be secretly obtained from all neighbouring States. In order to obviate this, a few alterations were subsequently proposed. One alteration was to the effect that one could take a given number to serve as a key; in preparing reports the key-number would always be added to the number under which is designated the required word in the dictionary. It may be assumed that the word “regiment” is required to be coded, and this word is number 500 in the dictionary; the key-number is 25; so in the report the word is indicated by 525. It is of course obvious that one could subtract, instead of adding, the key-number.
Another alternative consists in having two different key-numbers. In the report the words are indicated by figures always changing, first in the case of the one, and then of the other key-number. In this way one and the same word, indicated twice in the report, may each time be indicated differently. For instance, the word “division” is number 765 in the word-book; the key-numbers are 5,000 and 6,125. The first time the word “division” is indicated by the number 4,235 (that is, 5,000—765) and the second time by 5,360 (that is, 6,125—765).
The main disadvantage of all these various means of communication lies in that a book is essential, from which the deciphering will have to be done. The book in question is easily lost, or is not at hand at the required moment, and then the cipher is not only useless, but the work caused in obtaining the message is wasted.
An instance of this occurred in 1870, when one of the German generals received a message which he could not decipher at once, since the dictionary which the headquarter staff had arranged with him as a code-book was in a wagon which had been left behind. The same misfortune befell the commander of a French territorial division at Châlons-sur-Marne, who could not decipher a telegram, since by an oversight he had sent his cipher with the archives to Château Thierry.
For the ciphering of messages by spies the above systems are also disadvantageous because most spies can carry no books with them on their missions.
Thus writes Klembovski, who made a study of espionage on active service, but was unable to arrive at any method of transmitting messages which should be free of marked disadvantages. As to his contentions regarding the use of ciphers, it has been stated—though on what authority is hard to ascertain—that the German secret service will decipher any message in any language in a given space of time, no matter what code may be used. In one of Edgar Allan Poe’s stories there is a means shown of deciphering practically any code in which the characters are constant—that is, in which the same sign represents the same letter each time it is used—and it is quite probable that one used to the deciphering of code-messages could work out any code. For a code must be built up on some system, and therefore some reversal of the system must exist by means of which the message can be deciphered without the aid of a key.
Berlin recognises the uses of pseudo-clergy in time of war, for quite a number of German village clergy are impecunious and of a distinctly low class, and thus the army is not averse to their imposture. Men of this kind are selected for service in the field, where it is anticipated they can make themselves useful, under the pretext of ministering to the wounded, by extracting information about the movements of troops, etc. It is arranged that, in the event of a retreat, the clerical spy shall convey to the pursuing force detailed information regarding the losses in men and guns of those retreating, the numbers of men still unwounded, and the moral of the troops, by means of signals as detailed above—broken branches of trees, specially placed stones, and other things.
One favourite system of espionage on active service, from the German point of view, consists in the use of the Red Cross van. Under the rules governing international war, the Red Cross van may go anywhere, even into the enemy’s lines, to pick up wounded, and the German forces, “making war by all the violent means at their command,” have not scrupled to make use of Red Cross vans both for espionage work and as shelter for machine-guns—authentic cases are reported in which treacherous fire has been opened on the troops of the Allies in this way. Another method of obtaining information consists in sending two scouts out with a coil of wire, when in the presence of the enemy. The scouts, bearing one end of the wire, are instructed to approach the enemy’s lines, at night, and of course, when they have approached within sight, they are shot. The wire no longer “pays out” from the end kept in the lines, and the length unrolled, when hauled back and measured, gives the artillery-range almost to a nicety.
Communications in times of peace are never made direct to headquarters. The fixed spies, as already remarked, employ such agents as they may choose and their rate of pay allows. Their reports are collected by the travelling spies, who are under the control of agents of sections, stationed in Belgium and Switzerland (up to the outbreak of war) but not in Germany. From the agents of sections reports go to the Central Bureau of the secret service at Berlin, where sorting and classification of news supplied is pursued, and all that part of the world which could possibly be inimical to Germany is card-indexed. It is a sordid, sorry, mean business, utterly devoid of the romance and glamour with which the spy of fiction has invested it, and, whatever the fate of German armies in the field may be, the secret service of Germany has done more than anything else to pervert the moral sense of the nation.
In any account of the German spy system one invariably harks back to Stieber when passing to a review of any fresh branch of the system. Psychologist as he was, Stieber recognised that such a system as he proposed to establish in France prior to the war of 1870 could be rendered more effective if women were employed in conjunction with men. Thus he requested that there might be sent from Prussia to France a certain number of domestic servants, governesses, women-workers, and others who might, by gaining access to the family life of the French people, pass on to the fixed agents information which might be useful. Further, he requisitioned the services of a smaller number of attractive-looking girls who were to be placed out as barmaids, and in similar positions, where they could incite men to talk a little too freely for the benefit of the Grosser General Stab of Berlin. Stieber reckoned that women could learn what men would miss, in many cases, and the event proved him right.
He was careful, however, not to employ his women spies in positions of extreme trust, for he had learned, by the time that he was ready to organise his system, that the Prussian woman—it is unwise to include more—was not to be trusted with a secret. Out of the many failures to be credited to spies, most of all are laid to the accounts of women, mainly through the women in question having lost control of their heads through their hearts, and having become more or less infatuated with men whom they ought to have regarded as their prey, but whom they would no longer betray. It seems that the temperament in a woman which best fits her for spying also renders her likely to fall victim to her own affections, as far as her efficiency in espionage is concerned, for the German secret service, though it may overlook one mistake—no more—on the part of a male agent, disowns a woman spy as soon as she errs, without any exception.
The case of Lison, who ruined Lieutenant Ullmo, is partly a case in point. Not that this vampire lost her head in the things she did, or acquired any undue affection for Ullmo; but she bungled her case after having rendered good service to the German secret service. The mistake was not overlooked—the German secret service no longer knew that such a woman as Lison existed when once the trial of Ullmo had opened. Her error put her out of the spy system for ever, and, no matter what became of her, she never received another pfennig from her former paymasters.
The woman spy is largely utilised in the matter of internal espionage; in Berlin, for instance, society women are able to form salons, more or less worthy of that historic title, at which they can hold gatherings of men and women and gather up the tittle-tattle from which scandals are constructed, and consequent pressure can be brought to bear on various persons as desired. In another circle, women keep houses at which men congregate, and here the charmer of fiction is dimly reflected, for personal attraction on the part of the female spy plays a large part in her power of acquiring useful information. Still lower in the scale are domestic servants, who overlook correspondence, overhear conversations, and in many other ways act as bearers of news which would otherwise go unheard by the Berlin headquarters.
On foreign service women spies in responsible posts are rare, but dangerous in reverse proportion to their numbers. One of Stieber’s women learned all the secrets she sought, simply by supplying a young French officer with as much cocaine as he asked. Had the officer in question discovered other means of procuring as much powdered cocaine as he wanted, the spy in question would have been forced to offer some other reward for information. But he relied on the spy, and, in common with most drug-takers, was sufficiently morally enfeebled to be persuaded to give up all the information at his command.
Some of these foreign service female spies are artists in their profession. One may take the case of such a one who keeps a discreet establishment, say, in a garrison town. She welcomes visitors, and is a very tactful sympathiser with hard-worked officials in government offices. She offers encouragement, advice, and sympathy as regards work and worries, and sides with the complainant in any grievance regarding the arrogance of superiors. Her introductions, in the first place, give her a definite social standing, and, like the male fixed agent, she is so connected with the life of the place as to seem quite a part of it—she is above suspicion in every way. It follows, given the type of woman who attracts men, that men talk to her far more than to members of their own sex; they find her companionship restful and soothing—especially the younger men—and are easily led on to talk of themselves, their hopes and their work. They talk in all innocence, and are encouraged by the listener to talk always more and more; and, after a month, or two or three months, perhaps, there falls one sentence which is as a straw that marks the direction of the wind—and that sentence finds its way to Berlin, where it is card-indexed. Acquaintance ripens to friendship; to the outer world’s sight two people talk of things that interest them, but in reality the spy, having completely won the confidence of the man she set out to make her victim, leads him to talk of his work in a manner that he would have deemed impossible when first he met this attractive woman.
There is on record one failure among women spies which illustrates the danger of employing them. The spy in question was sent out to win the affections of a young attaché at a French Embassy, and this she accomplished through the simple expedient of teaching him the German language. In a regular course of lessons which the young diplomat underwent at the hands of the lady he found out that he was not so much attracted by her, after all; but she fell in love with him in earnest. Thenceforth she was not only useless, but a danger to the German headquarters, since she was in a position to impart information instead of to extract it as Berlin desired.
It must be obvious, when one considers the extent of the organisation that Stieber set up, and the nature of the reports furnished by the staff, that an enormous amount of service work is done to no purpose; but this is inevitable, like the keeping-up of a navy which remains idle for fifteen or twenty years, but must still be maintained at full strength. Thus this corps of women spies is maintained and its reports are received and studied and tabulated. Much of the information sent in by women is, of course, hopelessly useless; but out of the mass of chaff sufficient grain is sifted to make the continuance of the work worth while—in German estimation, at least. It is a known fact that the Government of Berlin have not only overlooked but favoured the establishment of houses of ill-repute in the city, simply because through the keepers of these houses valuable information is to be obtained. Young men were lured to a certain notorious establishment in Berlin from the foreign Embassies, and even from departments of the Berlin Government itself. In the first case the object was information with regard to the procedure at the Embassies, and in the second case information was desired as to the integrity or lack thereof on the part of those entrusted with the control of German national affairs. The woman who ran this establishment had laid to her own count many ruined reputations and ruined lives in the course of her career.
It is known that the permanent spies, known in the vernacular as “post offices,” have to send in to headquarters certain information. This information is tabulated as follows:
All possible information relating to general officers and their equals in the country concerned, including personal as well as official details.
Particulars of all who pass from military colleges to commissions, and all who pass from naval colleges to the navy.
Particulars of all directors and examiners of military and naval colleges.
Particulars of the official duties add personal habits of all officials in charge of arsenals, powder factories, store depots, and other works connected with military and naval organisation.
Staff officers, aides-de-camp, and generals’ orderlies—particularly concerning the lives and habits of these.
Officers or officials employed in the Ministry, secretaries and under-secretaries in government offices, especially those whose circumstances are low or whose affairs are in disorder.
If the varied nature of this work is borne in mind, and the many opportunities a woman would have for learning details of the personal side are considered, it will be seen that the work of the woman spy can be invaluable. As already remarked, Germany wants to know not only the things that are of immediate use, but also the little things that may be of use in certain contingencies—possibly useful as well as certainly useful and probably useful information is welcome. And, in the average French or English household of the official class, either in France or England, a German domestic, perfectly capable at her work and in every way above suspicion on the part of her employers, can render enormous service to the German secret service, simply by keeping her ears open. For the servant, whether spy or honest employee, knows nearly everything there is to be known about her employers. If the master’s financial affairs are in such a state that bribery might be tried with a remote chance of success, she is aware of it; if the mistress has compromised herself in any way, and is open to blackmail, the domestic is more likely to know of it than any one else, for she has unquestioned access to letters where even the husband is ignorant of their existence—nobody thinks of suspecting her of more than mere curiosity, at the worst. The object of the system inaugurated by Stieber is to work along the lines of least resistance, to ensure safety and efficiency by choosing means so obvious as to be negligible—and that system has produced great results, past question. More especially is this method noticeable in the case of the German spy: it is not the adventuress of fiction who does most of the useful work, but the inconspicuous and apparently thoroughly trustworthy woman, who, whatever her station, has an obvious reason for occupying it, and is above reproach or suspicion.
Not that the adventuress has not her share as well. A woman carried out most of the underground work connected with the Morocco loan; a woman stopped the clandestine marriage of one of the imperial princes, and another woman arranged a marriage between a Bourbon king and a member of the house of Hohenzollern. Yet another, according to Von Blowitz, brought off as skilful a coup in connection with the theft of documents as has ever been known. But these things are exceptions to the regular work of women spies, which is for the most part unromantic, petty, and mean—as is most espionage work, whether man or woman be concerned in its accomplishment.
In active service the woman plays a very small part, for the endurance of a man is required to undergo such rigours as usually fall to combatants and spies alike once the armies have taken the field. Here, however, women are of use in carrying messages and in similar minor capacities. Such of them as manage to keep their places in civilian establishments may be of great use in learning projected plans—though plans are usually kept too secret, since the organisation and extent of the German system of espionage is fairly well-known in official circles of other countries.
During the siege of Liège men masqueraded as women in order to obtain information for the German commander. In one particular case four ladies were observed in the town, and certain small points of make-up and attire caused the police to entertain suspicions. The ladies were seized and examined, and very few inquiries were sufficient to settle the question of their sex, while further inquiries certified them as German spies—and they paid the penalty of their daring. Before execution, spies captured in the present war have stated that they have been forced to take on their tasks; certain persons are selected by lot out of the army, and are given choice of the disguise with which they must go out to the front. In many cases the disguises are hopelessly inadequate, and all the men who go out know that they are going to almost certain death. But the man who, without some rehearsal, goes out disguised as a woman, is not only facing death, but looking for it—as do these German soldiers in like case.
Cases have come to light in Belgium in which wearers of the Red Cross have proved to be spies; women have been caught acting as nurses, keeping to their posts simply for the purpose of obtaining such information as shall be useful to the German forces. Such cases are rare, for the Red Cross nurse is usually well authenticated and deservedly above suspicion, but the rarity of the cases and the very small likelihood of detection renders them correspondingly dangerous. From their positions and duties they are in the very heart of things, and are able to get more information than those in other positions, though the transmission of news, after it has been obtained, is by no, means an easy business.
Eastern and Northern France, before the war, were full of women spies, planted under the fixed post system. They were mainly auxiliaries, for it was seldom that the charge of a fixed post was entrusted to a woman, for the simple reason that it is not easy for a women to set up in any kind of business and maintain it—at least, not so easy as it is for a man. The majority of these women spies in French departments were domestic servants, teachers, or less reputably engaged as waitresses in establishments for the sale of alcoholic liquors. For the last-mentioned class, the chief requirements in every case were that they should be decidedly attractive, unscrupulous, and able to make men talk. For remuneration, they depended mainly on their legitimate employers; the fixed agent, at his own discretion, paid out sums to them which made it worth their while to gather information, but they were expected to five on the country which they had come to betray to the staff at Berlin.
Since this treachery characterises the groundwork of all German espionage, and the plans of the military organisation are built on espionage, it follows that in the nature of things the German Empire must end: treachery is an ill foundation on which to build.
The nature of the work undertaken by spies of the higher orders places them, at times, in possession of a good deal of information which, should the spies choose to use it improperly, becomes a danger to the German Government. This is not good for the spies concerned; in some cases they are trusted too far—for even such an organisation as the German secret service can make mistakes at times—and then they vanish. One case was that of an ex-service officer on the Russian frontier, who, unfortunately for him, fell in love with a Russian lady, and found that his duty was not so strong as his love: it was ascertained that not only was he lax in his espionage, but that he was actually making his work of benefit to the Russian service rather than to his own people. A noted duellist was sent to the spot, with orders to challenge the recreant spy—and as a result the spy was killed.
The instance is not an isolated one, and in some cases the headquarters at Berlin, realising that a man or woman knows enough to be dangerous, deliberately betrays the person concerned to the authorities of some other Power, with a view to removing dangerous evidence, by means of imprisonment, until such time as the evidence shall be no longer dangerous. Such a case, undoubtedly, was that of the man Graves, whose arrest was largely due to a wrongly addressed letter sent to him from his headquarters—or at the instigation of his headquarters. The system pursued at the German headquarters is such that mistakes are not made by accident, but, if they occur, there is a definite purpose behind them. Graves knew too much, and suffered for it; he was a clever man and a good spy—but there were others equally good, and, since he had come to know more than the heads of the German secret service thought fit, he was removed, by being imprisoned in an English prison, to a point where his knowledge was no longer available for his own use.
It may be urged that, in view of the nature of the work involved in espionage duty, it would be hard to find people to undertake that duty, at least, to the extent alleged in the case of the German Empire and its secret service. Such a contention as this, however, proves ignorance of the German, and especially of the Prussian character and way of viewing moral problems. In this connection it is worthy of note that Herr Richter, the leader of the Opposition in the Reichstag, once raised a protest with regard to “the more than doubtful morality of the individuals employed” in the police service of the country; that is, the persons employed in secret police work. In reply, the Minister for the Interior, Von Puttkamer, stated that “it is the right and duty of the State to employ special and extraordinary methods, and even if that honest and estimable functionary, Police-Councillor Rumpff, has employed the methods of which he is accused, in order to secure for the State the benefits of useful intelligence, I here publicly express to him my satisfaction and thanks.”
The methods to which Herr Richter took exception included the suborning of high officials in magisterial, political, and industrial circles, more especially by the temptations afforded by the keeping of such disorderly houses as the woman Krausz made infamously notorious; the engaging, as secret agents, court officials, Reichstag deputies and their wives, and all who could in any way help on the business of information without regard to the moral or social degeneracy that might be brought about by these “honest and estimable” methods. Since the responsible Ministers of the country countenance rank immorality and vice in the search for information, it follows inevitably that the life of the nation as a whole is lowered in tone by the existence of the spy system; things that, to people of normal view-point appear detestable, become things that all may do without shame. Here in England a spy is given his real value—he is looked on as no true man: in Germany, on the other hand, the business of a spy is as honourable as any other; the outlook of the nation has become perverted by the system that Stieber set in working—Stieber himself was Germany’s greatest enemy, but the country has not yet realised this. And, with this perverted morality, this condoning of evil for the sake of the good that may accrue, there is no lack of material from which to fashion spies. The German Empire has become not only commercialised, but debased; the German view of solemn treaties, and the German justification of broken oaths on the ground of expediency, are typical of the German view-point in all things. Nothing is dishonourable, except to be found out, is a fairly accurate way of expressing the German view-point as regards rules for the conduct of life.
With this much understood, it is easy to understand that, in dealing with a German—with any German—one is dealing with a potential spy, for the whole nation is subject to espionage and attuned to it, regarding it as a part of daily life. From money-lender and social hanger-on down to workman and loafer, spies may be made out of all grades of the social scale, and are made. Through the medium of a workman spy, the plans of the Lebel rifle were in German hands before ever one of the rifles in question was handed out for the use of French troops. At the other end of the scale is Von Puttkamer, Minister of the Interior, sanctioning anything and all things, irrespective of the harm they may do to the moral nature of the German race, so long as “information” is obtained. The taint is in the race, so permeating all classes that neither man nor woman can be regarded as free of it. The actual word “spy” is capable of various interpretations, and the real and acknowledged spies of the German system, numerous though they are, do not form nearly as large a total as the people who help the espionage system to maintain its efficiency.
The spy par excellence is one who has in him or in her a decidedly criminal instinct. Men and women of this class make the best spies, from the point of view of their employers; and by reason of this the German system, since Stieber passed out from it, has been more effective in the elucidation of details than of large essentials—something is missing from the moral pervert who makes the best spy, or it may be that there is no longer at the head of the secret-service organisation such a genius as Stieber, who could make his small creatures accomplish large designs. Stieber, Zerniki—one may choose out half a dozen or so of names just as in criminal records one may choose out the names of Peace and Crippen, or even of the Borgias, as capable of great things in crime. But the spies of later days in the German secret service have not been put to great uses, or the temper of the British people would not have been misunderstood to the extent that led to Ireland being looked on as “a revolting province,” or the colonies of Britain as only waiting for a chance to escape from British rule. The general work of the spy seems to have degenerated along with the nation that founded the system, down to petty ends and inconsequent results; we have seen, in this present war, that the occupation of Brussels was carried through without a hitch owing to the machine-like perfection of the German spy system—there was cause for congratulation, from a German point of view. But we have seen none of the great coups that made the campaign of 1870 as great a triumph for Stieber as for Bismarck and his royal master.
The anti-espionage system of British secret service is worthy of note in connection with the decline of the German system of espionage. In this connection the Scotsman report of the trial of Graves bears quotation, more especially the deposition of Inspector Trench, who described the effects found on Graves at the time of his arrest.
“The prisoner, on being arrested at his hotel, had in his possession a doctor’s book, apparently empty. This was found, on inspection, to contain two leaves stuck together. In the middle were sentences and figures—a code which had been subsequently deciphered by a process of subtraction from the A.B.C. code.
“He also had... cartridge cases of the latest Army pattern. The code-notes contained phrases like ‘clearing practice,’ ‘have lowered defending nets,’ ‘land fortifications are manned,’ etc.”
Further, Graves had lived in Edinburgh as “a medical student taking his last degree in science,” but had not been near any hospital, and had used the paper and envelopes of a well-known English firm for his correspondence, in order to avoid inspection of his letters by the post office.
The statement in court of facts like these points not so much to the cunning of the man Graves, but to the way in which, from the time of his taking up residence in Edinburgh as “a medical student,” he must have been shadowed and kept under observation. The deciphering of the code, the certainty as to paper and envelopes used, and other things that came out at the trial, are small points in themselves; but they go to show that, if the German secret service were relatively as good to-day as in the days when Stieber used his intelligence to keep the system ahead of all others, Graves would never have come to a British jail; for, in the first place, the German secret service would not have employed a man who already knew too much, and, in the second place, as soon as any methods were known to the British police they would have been changed for others, even to the code which could be interpreted without the aid of a key.
With regard to the quality of treachery, latent in all spies, the German secret service does its best to overcome this difficulty by the retention of a certain portion of the pay with which the spies are credited. When once a man or woman has fairly entered on the work of espionage a proportion of the pay is held back by the paymaster, so that there is always a considerable sum owing. This is supposed to act as an incentive to loyalty, and in most cases it undoubtedly has that effect, for no man likes to commit an act which will involve the forfeiture of a sum of money really due to him. Bearing in mind the cupidity of the average spy, it will be seen that no stronger deterrent of treachery could be devised.
In the case of the military spy, the French service affords more opportunities for the German agent than does the British. In the British service the officers of commissioned rank have many faults, but they are in nearly every case gentlemen, in the best sense of that much-abused word. In the citizen army of France, on the other hand, an officer may be anything—and in this is intended no disparagement on the brave Army of our present allies. The Republican system admits all to its ranks—perhaps it would be better to say that it compels all to enter its ranks—and the Republican ideal places a commission in the reach of all, without regard to birth or social standing. In many ways this is to the good, for it fosters the Republican spirit in the Army, and at the same time makes an efficient fighting machine; but it admits to the commissioned ranks, perhaps once in five hundred times, a man who is sufficiently unworthy of his country and its uniform to be guilty of acts which point to his openness to corruption. The case of Ullmo, though it concerns a naval officer, was one in point; it is not to be alleged that a British officer, enslaved by drugs and otherwise debased, would not have done as Ullmo did; but it is to be alleged that the debasing of Ullmo, which brought him down to the point at which subsequent corruption was not only possible but easy, is almost impossible in the British service—such a man would have been cashiered before he reached the point at which Ullmo fell to actual treachery and crime. The Republican system has its drawbacks, and a retention of the laws of caste to an extent which compels all commissioned officers to an acknowledgment of caste, is not altogether undesirable—except from the view-point of the spy. On the confession of a French writer on the subject, there are officers in the French service who form a “class of officers whose private life is no better regulated than their professional conduct.” In such the spy finds comparatively easy prey; but their counterparts do not exist in the British services, for the caste laws of Army and Navy alike forbid ill-regulated lives, and officers of both services must be above suspicion when off parade. The universal service of France renders such a state of affairs almost impossible in the Republican Army. Where every man is a soldier, the staff of officers is so much greater that the presence of a few black sheep is practically unavoidable—and it must be said in common fairness that the French officer is more sternly supervised than his British confrère—yet lapses on the part of commissioned officers are more common than in the British services.
Yet one other point must be borne in mind in connection with the general work of the spy. Happenings in 1870, combined with Stieber’s Memoirs, make clear that the hanging of peasants in the later stages of the war excited even the criticism of stone-hearted Bismarck, who saw in these occurrences a policy which might some day bring retribution. But to this Stieber answered: “In war one must take the measures of war. It is the duty of our soldiers to kill the soldiers of the enemy who from motives of duty oppose our march. We spies claim the right to hang those who spy on us.”
The declaration is illuminating. Here were the members of the German secret service facilitating a conquest by dastardly measures, by abuse of the hospitality of the country which the Prussian troops subsequently invaded. Yet, if the inhabitants of that country dared to attempt to give information to their own countrymen, they were to be hanged. Espionage is responsible for many evils: Stieber shows here that it is responsible for the blunting of the moral sense of his fellow-countrymen, and that the espionage system of 1870 laid the foundations of the Prussian disregard of human life, and the utter brutality and savagery displayed by Prussians in this present war of 1914.
“A peasant was caught in the act of watching a Prussian convoy,” Stieber writes in his Memoirs, “and was falsely accused of having fired upon it; he was hung up by ropes under his arms in front of his own house, and was slowly done to death with thirty-four bullets fired in succession. In order to make an example, I decided that the body should remain hanging for two days, under the guard of two sentries.”
A thing like this is worth memory to-day, in view of what has happened at Louvain and Aerschot and other scenes of Belgian outrage. The germ of Prussian barbarism must have been in the race, but Stieber and his kind have fostered it and caused its growth to the extent that has made of Germany a name of shame among the nations of the earth.
This subject of political work, apart from espionage proper on the part of German agents, is a delicate one, for proof is not only hard to come by, but direct proof is practically non-existent, owing to the nature of the work. The most that can be done is to take cases of political work which, on the face of them, are such that no honest citizen would attempt: by a process of mental elimination one may arrive at the source of such work, though the result of the process is little more than conjecture. Still, half a dozen or so of results, all pointing the same conclusion, are of value, and, in spite of the absence of definite proof, police-court and criminal-court trials and the like, there can be no reasonable doubt that the work of the agent provocateur goes on, and that the central office at Berlin pays in order to keep it going.
Harking back once more to Stieber, it will be remembered that, at the outset of his career, he took service in a mercantile firm, and identified himself with German Socialism of the revolutionary kind. He learned at first hand the power which Socialism has among the working classes; he learned that, with very little reality behind the promises, it is easy to make a workman do nearly anything, if only the promises as regards the future of the working class are large enough. He came to his own as a master in espionage and treachery—by betraying the men to whom he posed as a leader—at almost the first beginnings of the German Socialistic movement, and he watched that movement grow as the years went on. He saw that working men had a passion for organising in defence of their rights, and that they could be led by nearly any appeal which proclaimed their rights, no matter how extravagant the proclamation might be.
Further, he saw that in Germany, under the Empire, workmen’s rights would never win them anything—repression was too efficiently conducted, and there was no good in the workmen’s movement for him; so he joined in with the forces that unto to-day (1914) govern Germany and suppress all that makes for real democratic government. Stieber was an opportunist, and knew well which side would best reward him.
Later on in his career he gained opportunities of studying the social conditions involved in the political constitutions of other countries; after 1870 the constitution of France interested him, and, studying it as he studied all things, with a view to the furtherance of his plans, he saw that much nominal power was placed in the hands of the people—illiteracy and ignorance were no bars to the free expression of opinions, and, further, a man might agitate and stir up discontent among the working people to his heart’s content, compared with what might be done in Germany, and there was no aristocracy nor any bureaucracy to say him nay. Now, said Stieber, if these workmen could be stirred up in a way that would make them distrustful of the governing classes: if class could be set against class, unions formed, and the men led to strike and paralyse industry at a given time—say, at a time when Germany wanted to make war—the benefits accruing would be immense; but not to France.
We have no definite proof that modern Syndicalism and its evils arose out of Stieber’s efforts. We have certain evidence, and certain coincidences, that are nearly as good as definite proof. For instance, there is no actual proof of this contention in the fact that the incident of the Panther and Agadir, which so nearly precipitated the whole of Europe into war, was practically coincident with one of the worst strikes that the history of British industry can show; but there is proof that, for years past, German agitators have been teaching both British and French workmen the way to organise “in defence of their rights,” and have been advocating Syndicalism and the weapon of the general strike as a panacea for all evils to which the classes subject the masses.
With the economic aspect of the question we are not concerned for the purpose of this book, and lest we be misunderstood let us pay tribute to the fine loyalty of the leaders of labour in this country; to such men as Will Crooks, who have helped to bring the nation into line in the hour of national peril, and are men worthy of all honour and all praise. We are concerned more with certain coincidental happenings, like that of Agadir and our own great strike, and certain other happenings which point to the same conclusion—that Germany has tried, by means of industrial unrest, disaffection, and other means, to weaken the hands of potential enemies in the hours when strength was most needed.
First of all, it must be noted that the two chief essentials to the mobilisation of troops for war, and the placing of a navy on a war footing, are an efficient railway and transport system, and the assurance of an adequate coal supply. We may call it a coincidence, and no more, that the two industries which have made most progress towards Syndicalism and the use of the general strike, both in England and France, are those of transport and coal-mining. The first piece of evidence may be regarded as coincidence pure and simple, and it is only when the coincidences mount up that they may be accepted as evidence of weight.
In order to render effective the railways of the country, which as far as France is concerned are on strategic plans toward the western frontier, Germany has increased its establishment of railway engineers to fifty-four military companies. That is to say, no matter what sympathetic action might have been taken by German railwaymen in case of an international strike, the German railways could still have run with full staffs, and every man was trained to his place on the lines that would be concerned in the mobilisation and placing of troops on the western frontier of the country, to act against France. No Syndicalist movement could shake German power—the defensive action was too strong for that. Further, the railways of the state system, organised with a view to mobilisation of troops rather than peace requirements, are controlled not by capitalists, nor by political figures, but each by a colonel of the German Army, at the head of his military division of railway engineers, and the officers, non-commissioned officers, and men of these railway engineers are qualified railwaymen; their military duties consist in the efficient performance of railway work. For it is no use forging a weapon that will, in time of need, prove as dangerous to the holder as to the one it is aimed against.
As a final guard against trouble of this kind, Stieber laid down as a definite rule in 1884:
“That no native of Alsace-Lorraine, even though performing his military service in Germany, should be either recruited or admitted in any capacity whatever for employment on the said railways.”
As to general offensive action, the first sign thereof lies in the vote, in February of 1893, of a credit of 80,000 thalers “to defray the expense of foreign publications useful to the policy of the Empire,” combined with the appearance, in France, of the famous “Mesnard pamphlet” five months later. The pamphlet in question was a deliberate incitement to the men employed on French railways to take matters into their own hands and carry Republicanism on to sheer anarchy. “If you want your employees to be attentive and polite to the public,” says the author, “try to give those employees a somewhat better idea of whom it is they toil and sweat to benefit. At present all that we know is that our work is not done precisely for the love of the thing, nor does it result in any improvement for ourselves. This being so, our sole object is to keep our situations and get through with our tasks. As far as the public are concerned, we take no notice of them, while they for their part behave in the most abusive manner toward us...
“The employees should elect their chiefs themselves in accordance with the principle of universal suffrage... It would be merely logical if the employees had the right to choose who should give them orders, and to turn out those who proved unjust or incapable...
“The last resource of railway workers in search of justice is a strike. A strike is a legitimate weapon, and the fact cannot be contested. If it is suppressed, its suppression constitutes an abuse of the rights of the stronger party. With the organisation which the syndicate cannot fail to have in a short time, we shall have arrived at a position at which we can contemplate the possibility of a general strike of all the railways and of similar institutions if necessary. It is highly important that everybody should think over this problem. No partial strikes, but patience and then a general strike...”
Then, fearing lest mobilisation of the Army of France should defeat the ends to which this pamphlet was designed, its authors went on to say that railwaymen would not be forced to mobilise to prevent a strike. “We know our duty as patriots, and we know when we must be soldiers; but if you gentlemen, you officers, do not know it, then leave us alone to manage our own affairs, or we shall call in the Prussians.”
These extracts from the pamphlet itself show its general tenor, but though one may search through all its pages there will be found no definite and legitimate ground for the proclamation of the general strike which “Mesnard” advocates so stirringly. The whole publication, which must certainly rank among the “foreign publications useful to the policy of the (German) Empire,” is an attempt to stir up class hatred, to get the men to mobilise against military service at a given word of command, and to paralyse the railway services of France when German aggression should consider such a step necessary. For the evidence has become too strong for us to take this as mere coincidence, nor did the French Government regard it as such. Even the railwaymen’s unions of France repudiated the document, and one of the heads of a trade union in France stated openly as his opinion that it was the work of Germany and an attempt at the establishment of German influence. The pamphlet itself, which was widely circulated among railwaymen until government action stopped its distribution, came from Geneva, one of the headquarter stations of the German secret service, and the residence of one of the most highly placed officials in the espionage system.
The direct effect of the Mesnard pamphlet was small, but evidently the policy that it outlined was found worth following. The first great demand of the Syndicalists on behalf of the railwaymen of France was made at the time that the Dreyfus trial was causing definite friction between France and Germany in official circles. On this occasion a general strike was actually declared, but it was a fiasco. Yet again, railway troubles in France grew ever greater as relations grew strained between the two countries toward the dawn of the second decade of this century. The Agadir incident was coincident not only with labour troubles in England, for if the railways of France could have been paralysed at the time of a declaration of war by Germany, the result would have been equivalent to a decisive German victory over French troops in the field.
Inquiry into Syndicalist work in France and England alike will show that the funds of the Syndicalists have benefited, if they have not been mainly supported, by German contributions. Then, again, if one examines the career of the average fiery, anarchistic orator, who declaims against law and order, and does his best to stir up men irrespective of national rights, it will be found in many cases that the orator in question is in some way connected with Germany. He may not be a German, but he is in such a position that German influence is at least possible—and Stieber himself was apparently heart and soul with revolutionary German workmen, while in reality he was busy betraying his associates to the secret police whom he subsequently governed. The working man himself is disinterested, and believes that he is acting for the best in his own behalf, and in that of all oppressed humanity. But his leaders cannot always be regarded in an equally charitable light.
German efforts do not stop here. Almost simultaneously with the outbreak of hostilities a placard was distributed broadcast in Ireland, with a view to ensuring the desired action on the part of the “revolting province.” The placard in question has been attributed to the few Fenians still remaining in Ireland; but such an aspersion on the character of these men is the rankest injustice, for even the most rabid of the anti-English in Ireland have realised that a world-war transcends domestic affairs, and Irishmen of all shades of opinion have shown themselves ready to fight the battles of freedom against Prussian militarism. The placard in question is decidedly a “foreign publication useful to the policy of the (German) Empire,” and it reads as follows:
Irishmen—FOOLS!
Have you forgotten that England is your only enemy?
Have you forgotten Kathleen-ni-Houlihan, that you are willing to shed your blood to win England’s battles?
Have you lost your wits, that you believe all the ridiculous lies published against the Germans in the Jingo papers?
Have you forgotten how the English treated the Boers?
Have you forgotten ’ninety-eight?
Have you forgotten the Manchester Martyrs?
Have you forgotten the K.O.S.B. murders?
Have you forgotten that the Future lies in your hands?
Have you forgotten that England’s difficulty is Ireland’s opportunity?
God save Ireland!
Thus the agent provocateur at his very worst. Germany has confessedly set out to make war by “all the violent means at her command,” but not by violent means alone. Such work as this placard makes evident, though, shows plainly how Germany has mistaken the temper of a people, for the Munsters and the Irish Guards have given their answer to the questions put. The flagrant error and waste of effort is like that of Von Holeben, who, when German Ambassador to America, strove to stir up strife between America and England until his efforts became common talk in Washington, and Berlin was forced to recall the blunderer. Yet more efforts of the same kind have been made in America since the outbreak of war, and at least one highly placed German official has received definite notice from Washington that he must either stop his work of sowing discord or leave the country.
These are but instances. The whole history of Syndicalism, the whole history of setting class against class in the case of industrial unrest, and of Irish disturbances in recent years, point to some influence working independently of the rights and betterment of the classes concerned in the agitations. In the case of Ireland, we may assume that the majority of Irish patriots have the best interests of their countrymen at heart; but the placard of which the contents are quoted above never emanated from any Irish patriot; it was a definite and ineffectual attempt to stir up the worst passions of which humanity is capable in the hour of England’s greatest need, at a time when all Irish patriots were voicing unity and support to their Government, whether they were Home Rulers or Orangemen—the action of Ireland has proved that. In the case of working men’s unions, the action of the men themselves has always been to a definite end, both in England and in France; to the end that they might obtain better conditions of life, just laws to govern their work, and the elemental rights of man. But, in addition to these things, there have been of late years agitators who would claim for the working men of the two countries that Germany had most cause to fear, not only the rights of their class, but a right to disregard the rights of all other classes, and take absolute power into their hands at a signal from some leader. Efforts have been made to induce men to strike for little, for nothing; to cause them to render a whole country powerless by their action, and to do indirect injury to themselves. Such action as this points to the working of a force not necessarily beneficial to the workmen themselves, but certainly inimical to the country to which the workers happen to belong. And, always keeping in mind Stieber and the debasement of aim he has brought on his own country, together with the fact that industrial unrest is in the first place a German product, we may say that coincidence does not account for all the Syndicalist efforts that have been contemporary with rumours of war.
The trials of Schulz, Graves, and others who have made appearances in the British criminal courts recently—or comparatively so—showed us the spy at work in extricating information; they demonstrated one phase, and a dangerous phase at that, of the business. No recent trial, however, has proved of such importance in connection with a study of the system as that of Ernst, which, quite apart from the doings of the accused man, shows the work of Steinhauer, the Potsdam director of the fixed agent, or “post office,” as the fixed spy is designated in the slang of espionage. Since the case of Ernst is still sub judice at the time of writing, only the bare official report can be given, at least as regards the conduct of the accused; but even with this limitation there is more to be learned from the case of Ernst and his alleged doings than from any other recent case, for the allegations of the prosecution involve evidence as to the headquarter office at Potsdam managed by Steinhauer, who supervises the working of the fixed agent as well as that of travelling spies and secret-service headquarter methods—evidence which is sufficiently plain and complete to substantiate all the statements made as regards the foreign work of the German secret service in the course of this book.
Karl Gustav Ernst, hairdresser, of Caledonian Road, Islington, was first charged on August 4, 1914, with contravening the Official Secrets Act with a view to his being dealt with under the Aliens Restriction Act. He denied knowledge of the charge against him, which he described as “ridiculous,” and, after remand, was ordered deportation. Conveyed to Brixton prison, to await a suitable opportunity for his being sent to Germany, he appealed to the Home Office for release. His appeal included claims to the effect that he was absolutely innocent of any crime, that he had nothing whatever to do with the Official Secrets Act, and that, since the police had produced no documents in court, they had evidently discovered nothing of an incriminating nature at his place in Caledonian Road, where he had carried on business as a hairdresser for sixteen years, with a Pentonville official among his customers. Inquiries proved the truth of a claim that he made to the effect that he was a British subject, which rendered it impossible to detain him under the Aliens Restriction Act. He was consequently released, and rearrested outside the prison gates as a spy on the country in which he had voluntarily become a citizen by means of naturalisation. The charge against him now is that is he traitor as well as spy.
His position with regard to the original charge and sentence of deportation is worthy of note. For sixteen years he had been in business in Caledonian Road; that is to say, he had resided in his place for such a length of time that there were no grounds for suspicion against him on the part of the inhabitants of the district. He was a part of the life of the place, almost an old inhabitant, when his doings rendered him worthy of the notice of the police. This is characteristic of the fixed agent in French centres, as already stated here.
On September 28, 1914, the present case was opened against Ernst by Mr Bodkin, who appeared for the Director of Public Prosecutions at Bow Street Police-Court. The charge was to the effect that Ernst had “obtained and communicated, and attempted to obtain and communicate to one Steinhauer, certain information calculated to be useful to an enemy.”
Mr Bodkin stated that the prisoner first came under the suspicion of the authorities in October of 1911, and it was evident that from then until January of 1914 he had been a spy in the pay of the German secret service. The man who was practically Ernst’s master was one Steinhauer, a member and organiser of the German secret service, whose name had figured in practically every espionage case investigated in this country for the past three or four years.
Acting under Steinhauer’s orders, the prisoner was alleged to have been deputed to accomplish certain duties which fell under two heads. In the first place, it was alleged that he was to receive from Steinhauer, who was located in Germany, letters enclosed in envelopes which gave them the appearance of ordinary business communications, and to post them in England to various members of the organisation. In the second place, it was alleged that he was to make inquiries on his own account with regard to persons and places which, in the opinion of Steinhauer, would be useful to the German secret service. His salary consisted of out-of-pocket expenses and a retaining fee of one pound a month, which, when Ernst pointed out the risk attaching to what he was doing, and the importance of his work, was increased to one pound ten shillings a month. Mr Bodkin stated that “the system was perfectly well-known from the commencement in 1911, and the hairdresser’s shop in Caledonian Road was accordingly kept under observation.”
The observation included the opening of letters addressed to the accused, which were traced and the tracings filed before delivery of the originals to Ernst. There were included among these letters a large number of communications from Germany, chiefly from Potsdam, and Ernst himself sent many communications to Potsdam and Berlin. His letters were posted in different districts of London, while the letters coming from Germany to him were written on English note-paper and enclosed in English envelopes, which the prisoner had forwarded to Steinhauer for use—in one instance the paper and envelopes had been sent as “samples,” the package being so weighty that Steinhauer had to pay excess postage at the other end. By opening both outgoing and incoming correspondence the authorities were placed in possession of a mass of valuable information as regards not only Ernst, but also other members of the system in England.
For the purpose of the correspondence with Ernst, Steinhauer was alleged to have adopted the alias of “Mrs Reimers,” and Ernst himself, the prosecution stated, changed his name from time to time, having letters addressed to his shop as to “J. Walters, care of K.G. Ernst,” and sometimes to “W. Weller.” These two names were the prisoner’s own suggestion to Steinhauer. The latter sent letters not only to Ernst himself, but also missives to be forwarded to various places, including Chatham, Sheerness, and Portland Harbour. These letters were opened by the authorities under powers which they possessed for dealing with such cases, and tracings were taken before the letters were delivered.
Ernst was requested by Steinhauer to find out all that he could about certain persons named, on the ground that they were connected or believed to be connected with the Intelligence Department of the War Office. One of the firms upon which he was called to make inquiries and report had an office in the City opposite to the office occupied by the late Captain Stewart, who figured in the German courts in an espionage case, and subsequently was imprisoned in a German fortress. In one of the envelopes sent to Ernst by Steinhauer were two letters, one of which was addressed to a British sailor, and the other to a German located at Portland Harbour. Further, the prosecution alleged, Ernst was in constant communication with persons named Kruger and Krumer, in connection with espionage work, while one of his letters referred to a magazine article which described the defences of the East Coast. Another letter contained reference to the espionage case against Parrott, which took place in the autumn of 1912. After January of 1914, Steinhauer requested Ernst to make inquiries about a person living in Somerset, and to this Ernst replied that he could not spare the time to do so, though he had previously gone up to Sheffield on business of a similar nature.
Here, with the taking of some formal evidence, the first hearing of the case closed, and at this point Mr S.Y. Tilly, who had been retained for the defence of the prisoner, said that if he had been in possession of the information outlined by Mr Bodkin it would have made a difference in his procedure in the case. He had been assured by the prisoner and the prisoner’s friends that Ernst was a perfectly straightforward British subject: but, in the circumstances revealed by Mr Bodkin’s statement, he felt compelled to withdraw from the case. The act was sufficiently unusual to excite comment on the part of the court authorities; but Mr Tilly withdrew.
The second hearing took place on October 5, 1914, when the first witness called, a clerk in the secretary’s office at the General Post Office, deposed to having opened and copied the letters which bore as postmark either “Potsdam” or “Berlin.” These letters were written in German, and many of the envelopes contained letters which were to be reposted by Ernst to other addresses. Some of the letters to Ernst were signed “St.,” and one of them, bearing the postmark “Berlin 6-1-12” contained an envelope addressed to “Mrs Seymour, 87, Alexandra Road, Sheerness.” Mr Bodkin explained that this was the pseudonym and address of the man Parrott, who figured in an espionage case in the autumn of 1912.
Another letter to Ernst, the witness further deposed, was dated “Potsdam, January 25, 1912,” and signed “St.” It contained a request that envelopes, bearing the printed name of the makers, should be sent to the writer. Then, on February 12, the same correspondent addressed Ernst: “Please post the enclosed letters at once, and send me, if you please, fifty envelopes as sample which you sent. Then write me a letter, if you please, a letter in good English, in which a customer asks for letters to be forwarded to him on the Continent addressed to ‘Poste Restante, etc.’”
There were enclosed with this missive two letters, addressed respectively to “F. Ireland, Mess 2, H.M.S. Foxhound, care of G.P.O.,” and “A Schutte, 5, Castletown, Portland Harbour.” Another letter produced, bearing date of January 23, 1912, signed “St.,” and dated from Potsdam, contained the following:
“According to information from newspapers, a fireman has been arrested on the English cruiser Foxhound. If that is Kr’s nephew, then it is certain he was dragged into it through the carelessness and stupidity of Kr. Perhaps you can get into communication with K., but by all means be cautious. If my suspicions are correct, then Kr. will be watched. Above all—caution. Should you have an opportunity to speak to him then ask him at the same time respecting a certain Schmidt he once recommended to me. He (Kruger) must be cautious, and especially show no address. That is to say, only go there when you know there is no danger to you. I mean, he must not start speaking German to you in the presence of others. Please let me hear something soon.”
Mr Bodkin explained that Ireland of the Foxhound was a nephew of a man named Kruger, who took the name of Ireland when he joined the Navy.
Another letter addressed to the prisoner from Potsdam, and dated February 11, 1912, contained the following:
“Many thanks for your valuable letter. In future it will be done so. Do you also desire that the letters I send you be sent ‘care of’? Please reply to me as to this. Please deliver at once enclosed letter addressed to Kronan. Expenses please charge. Best greetings.—St.”
A letter sent to the prisoner for reposting was addressed to “H. Graves, Esq, B.M., B.Sc., 23, Craiglea Drive, Morningside, Edinburgh,” and in this were three five-pound Bank of England notes. On March 7, 1912, Steinhauer signed his name in full, and enclosed 100 marks, requesting Ernst to obtain for him a copy of a London daily paper, which contained a detailed article on espionage, published a little time before the close of the Stewart espionage case. Copies of the letters sent through Ernst to “Mrs Parrott, Alexandra Road, Sheerness,” and to “H. Graves,” at Edinburgh and later at Glasgow, were put in as evidence, but these were not read in court. One of Graves’s letters was enclosed in an envelope which bore the name of a well-known firm of chemical and drug manufacturers, as detailed in the evidence at the trial of Graves. Mr Bodkin, commenting on this, said that the envelope was probably stolen.
On March 23 “St.” (Steinhauer) wrote from Potsdam to Ernst: “K. has excited himself for nothing. The youth is free. I will tell you the story orally next time.” Mr Bodkin remarked, by way of explanation, that the youth Ireland had been discharged.
Another letter addressed to Mr Graves, at the Central Hotel, Glasgow, dated April 9, 1912, and forwarded through Ernst, contained bank-notes for 15 pounds—this was very nearly the last letter ever sent to Graves, judging from the time of his arrest and trial. On March 2 a letter from Potsdam contained a request for the prisoner to inquire whether a certain person living near Hyde Park was a busy man, and whether he was connected with the English Government. Then, in July of 1912, “St.” must have grown suspicious of the correspondence having been examined, for he wrote: “There is another point that I wish to impress on you, and that is, always to post registered letters in different post offices or districts. But you do that probably on your own accord.” Yet again, in a letter dated September 1, from Potsdam, Steinhauer emphasised the need for caution. “You can imagine,” he wrote, “for yourself that we need in all directions only good, sure, and trustworthy people. We must be safe from surprises on the part of the women. Will you take another name instead of Walters?”
Evidence of another travelling spy was afforded by letters addressed to “F. Gould, Queen Charlotte Hotel, Rochester,” and to “Charles Graham, care of Mr Gould,” at the same address. The one directly addressed contained two five-pound notes, and the “care of” letter contained three of these.
So far, the evidence had concerned letters addressed to Ernst, and then the witness went on to tell of the letters sent by Ernst to Steinhauer. Witness had from time to time opened these letters, acting under his official instructions, and had found they were posted in London to Mrs or Miss Reimers, care of Steinhauer, at a Potsdam address. They were all in handwriting which he recognised as that of the prisoner, when given the opportunity of comparing the writing, and were variously signed “G.E.,” “W. Weller,” and “J. Walters.” Certain extracts from these letters were read in court by Mr Bodkin, and the following passages may be quoted:
“Dear Mr Steinhauer,—Allow me to make a few suggestions which came into my head while reading the case of Grosse. You will be able to see that your agent Grosse had not the slightest consideration for your other agents. No more could be expected from a man who has already done ten years’ penal servitude. Therefore, I beg that when you give any one my address, you give a different name, such as W. Weller.
“I have immediately posted both letters. (To Schutte and Ireland.) Herewith enclosed two sample letters. I should also like to mention that the papers are making a gigantic row respecting the Stewart affair. To-day several papers had the interview and confession which he has made. W. Weller.”
The “sample” letters referred to may be judged from the following, read in court from one of them:
“Dear Sir,—My business has caused me to go to Switzerland for a short time, and, as I shall not be back in London for about two months, I should like you to send on my letters, marked Poste Restante. Any expenses you might incur I will make up on my return to London.”
Another letter was as follows:
“Dear Mr Steinhauer,—I should be very pleased if you would address letters to J. Walters, care of Ernst. In future I shall sign my letters J. Walters, so that no mistake can be made... With regard to your other order, I beg you to excuse me, as I don’t at all wish to meet Kruger. I have seen him once, and he does not please me. I myself got a letter for somebody, care of the Foxhound. I did not post the letter in my vicinity, but in the West End. The newspapers have the sailor’s photograph, and he is said to be named Ireland, and to have been born in Germany. I shall have nothing to do with it.”
Another letter was mentioned in which the accused was alleged to have referred to what he described as “a fine article” in a monthly magazine with regard to the East Coast defences, and he also enclosed a cutting from a newspaper which detailed the arrest of Doctor Graves of Edinburgh. Ernst’s comments on this, as read in court, were: “It shows how dangerous it is to have letters addressed Poste Restante. I only say of myself that for one pound a month I will not live in fear, as I have indeed a good business which maintains me. In April I shall end my second year in your service, and I should like to ask that my salary be increased. A confidential post such as mine is worth 30 shillings a month.”
Further letters produced referred to the Parrott case, and one of these contained a cutting from a paper giving a report of the evidence against Parrott in the police-court. When asked if he wished to question the witness, Ernst replied that he was unable to employ a solicitor, and had determined to reserve his defence until he appeared on trial. With that the hearing of the case was adjourned for a week.
The detailed evidence, summarised above, is extremely interesting and enlightening, in that it outlines, with a few gaps, the working of the fixed post system, and further discloses that, in addition to the headquarter stations established at Brussels, Lausanne, Berne, and other places outside Germany, a headquarter station exists by means of which the fixed agents are enabled to communicate direct with Berlin. Moreover, this case demonstrates very forcibly the measures taken for counter-espionage, and shows that Germany needs another Stieber if the secret service of the present day is to be made as efficient as in the time of the first Franco-German War. Since the alleged treachery of Ernst was in the knowledge of the police from the beginning of the time stated as his period of work, and since the alleged effect of his establishment as a fixed agent was to produce more arrests by the English and Scottish police than useful news for Germany, one is at liberty to entertain very grave doubts of the efficiency of a system which includes such establishments as this. The capture of letters, and their opening and tracing, is worthy of note, especially when it is remembered that not only were the post office authorities able to capture incoming letters—a comparatively simple matter, once their suspicions were aroused—but also were able to trace and find the letters that Ernst was alleged to have posted to Potsdam—not so simple a matter, when it is remembered that he is alleged to have posted his missives from all over London. The chief feature of the case, as reported, is the credit it reflects on the British system of counter-espionage, and the way in which German efforts are neutralised.
The length of time the prisoner had resided in England was in accordance with the system pursued at Berlin, of planting men for use when they had passed out from chance of suspicion by reason of their having become to all intents citizens of the country on which espionage is required. The fact of naturalisation is proved to have no significance—nor, since a German retains his nationality if he wishes it, in spite of having been naturalised in any other country, should naturalisation be held as a bar to suspicion. The position held by the defendant, in which he was able to carry on an independent business of his own, is quite in accordance with secret-service methods—these are the men Berlin wants for its fixed posts. The only discrepancy with known methods lies in the rate of pay known to be allowed to fixed agents in French centres, but this may be accounted for by the fact that Ernst is alleged to have completed only a short period (two years or so) in the employment of the Berlin secret service.
Such evidence as the prosecution gave, as shown in the foregoing report, is worthy of very careful attention with regard to the working of the espionage system. For such a post as that which Ernst is alleged to have filled is but a link in a chain, and the chain is a long one.
The work of the supply ship captured recently in a port on the east coast of Scotland hardly comes within the limits of this book, but it is significant as showing the daring of German methods, which apparently include the obtaining of supplies from an enemy’s country by means which endanger neutral shipping—so long as the neutral ships can be found to take the risks. It was noted by the naval authorities that German submarines had been displaying activity at such a distance from their legitimate ports of supply as to render probable and almost certain the existence of other sources of supply. A watch was consequently kept for suspicious neutral shipping, and in the end a capture was made.
A vessel came into port and proceeded to load for departure, and the customs officers could find nothing wrong with her. Her papers were in order, her cargo contained nothing in the nature of contraband of war, and there was no cause for detaining her, as far as could be seen. But there were noted on the deck of the vessel, neatly coiled, cables and cables, enough to furnish a whaler on a three-years’ sailing voyage and leave over sufficient to start a ropemaker in business. All over the decks bulky coils of hawser lay, and though, at any other time, the hawsers might have passed without notice, it was felt by the customs men that the superabundance of rope justified further investigation than had already been bestowed on the boat.
So one of the coils was unfastened, its wrappings removed, and the cable itself was uncoiled. Then was it found that there was merely a shell of rope, which served as covering for a steel drum containing oil fuel suited for the use of submarine engines. And there the story ends.
The other case which I propose to quote shows equal audacity. At the Guildhall Court there appeared, on October 5, George Newton Spencer, who described himself as a clerk, and gave his address as Lubeckerstrasse, 33, Hamburg, Germany. He was charged with “unlawfully inciting Mr Frank Henry Houlder (Houlder Brothers, Limited, Leadenhall Street and Liverpool) to trade with the enemy.”
Mr Humphreys stated in opening the case for the prosecution that the charges against the accused were based on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1914. The accused was a British subject (as they all seem to be) who had been long resident in Germany, and had been clerk to a shipping company with a rather long name, but which might be translated as the Transport Shipping Company of Hamburg. The accused appeared to have been sent over to this country by his employers towards the end of September for the purpose of negotiating what, from their point of view, was a most important transaction. Although an Englishman, and of the age of thirty-two years, no difficulty was made by the German military authorities over the accused obtaining a pass to travel in Germany and leave the country. There was little doubt that the object of his visit was known to the authorities, who gave him that permission, although, from the German Emperor’s point of view, he was an alien enemy.
The prisoner arrive in London on September 22, and on the next day he called on Mr Houlder. He introduced himself by producing a document in English, signed by his employers, which contained the proposal which had been made the subject of the charge. The proposal was as follows: There were six ships owned by the company at Hamburg, on which Messrs Houlder had mortgages amounting to about 30,000 pounds. These ships, on the outbreak of the war, and certainly in September—were either in neutral ports, and therefore temporarily lost to their owners, or were prizes of war, and as such temporarily—and probably finally—lost to their owners. The proposal to Messrs Houlder—to whom was payable 20,000 pounds on November 11, and 13,000 pounds on November 15, was to the effect that they should pay over 15,000 pounds to the Hamburg firm, and take over three of the steamers. The result would be that the mortgages on all six of the vessels would be wiped off, and Messrs Houlder would become the owners of them, while the steamship company at Hamburg would have 15,000 pounds in cash to enable them to carry on their business. The fact that one of the steamers was a prize of war in Gibraltar, and would probably be sold as such, made the proposal still more remarkable. Since, under these circumstances, Messrs Houlder could have no title, the Hamburg firm were virtually, asking for cash for nothing.
Mr Houlder did not seriously consider the proposition, but, having made up his mind what to do, told the defendant he would have to consult his solicitors, and mentioned the existence of the proclamation which he assumed would prevent them from carrying out the transaction. Defendant replied to the effect that his employers had communicated with the German Foreign Office—as they had no proclamation—and had received permission to carry out the transaction. He handed Mr Houlder a bundle of documents in German, which showed that the defendant’s employers in Hamburg, before ever they attempted to put this transaction in form, obtained leave from their own authorities, to whom they stated their own frank view-point with regard to the matter. It was set out that monetary benefit to a certain amount would accrue to the Hamburg company as a result of the transaction, and that the vessels were all old freight steamers, of no possible use to the German Navy—neither were they fit for transport purposes. The Berlin Secretary of State for Home Affairs replied that no objection would be taken to the transaction.
Mr Houlder communicated with the Admiralty instead of with his solicitors, and in the meantime the defendant went to a firm of marine insurance agents and made a similar proposal—this time to the extent of about 13,400 pounds cash benefit to the Hamburg firm. In neither case was any application made to the authorities in England for a licence to break the law regarding trading with the enemy. The total effect of the proposals, had they been carried through, would have been to place the Hamburg company in possession of about 28,000 pounds, with no compensating advantage whatever to the British firms—and the defendant was committed for trial. He received sentence of imprisonment for his treachery on October 14, 1914, after due and proper trial.
The only point worthy of comment in connection with this case is the doubtful morality, in a business sense, of German firms. We may set aside the fact that a contravention of an enemy’s law was attempted, for no country would consider or regard the laws of a country with which it was at war, unless they involved principles of definite conduct and were the laws of civilisation rather than the laws framed for the protection of the said enemy in time of war. The point at issue is that a shipping company of Hamburg, by its offer of valueless titles in exchange for hard British cash, was attempting such a form of sharp practice as would land any British trader in the criminal courts for fraud. One is forced to the conclusion that among many Germans, and even among German firms whose standing ought to guarantee the cleanliness of their hands in business, there is no such thing as honesty, at least where dealing with a foreign firm is concerned. These people asked two London firms to break British law, and to be swindled. By German ethics, evidently, this is fair play and just dealing. It is an effect of the spy system on the moral fibre of the nation, rather than an instance of the working of the spy system itself—though the British subject who passed out from Germany at an acute point of the war between the two countries, without being questioned by German authorities, looks perilously like a spy at work, and the nature of his other missions in England, had he been left at liberty, calls for some speculation.
Much may be learned with regard to the present working of German spies by intelligent perusal of the war reports, especially those coming from France, for the Russian theatre of war is so tremendous and so far off that the small details seldom come through—the details small in themselves, but of far-reaching import. As an instance may be again mentioned the way in which German troops, occupying a town, chalk on certain doors “Spare this house”—there is a world of enlightenment in the three words. Similarly, in advance and retreat the Germans have their agents with them or near them, and often the report makes tacit admission of the fact, in such a way that it is clear to one who reads with the espionage system in mind. The work of these agents is as endless as it is dishonourable and deadly—a poison that works just as efficiently as the legitimate weapons of war—and often more efficiently, since one can guard against an open weapon, but against the treachery that uses naturalisation and all things to further the ends of the monster trampling across the earth, there is no guard that soldiers can use as they use their weapons against troops opposed to them.
The bibliography of espionage—German espionage—is a brief one, so far as books of value are concerned. First and foremost stand Stieber’s Memoirs, which tell all that Stieber chose to tell—and that is a good deal. The work has been translated into French, but not into English. There is the “Indiscretions” of Wollheim, a book which gives some idea of the system, but is mainly concerned with incident. The Memoirs of Busch, Bismarck’s friend, afford further light on the system, but only in a fragmentary way. “Military Espionage in Peace and War,” by W.N. Klembovski, a Russian Staff Officer, is more a manual of what ought to be done by purely military spies than a book descriptive of the German system. “Espionage Militaire,” by Lieutenant Froment of the French Army, is open to the same class of criticism, as is to a certain extent “Espionage,” by N. de Chilly, though the last named is a more informative book. “The German Spy System in France,” an English translation of Paul Lanoir’s book on the subject, is a brief but well-compiled review of what Germany has accomplished in the way of espionage since 1870 in France, and although rather pessimistic in tone as regards French counter-measures, ranks as a work of value.
As a rule “confessions” of spies may be disregarded, though they make good melodramatic reading. The nature of the subject is such that those who would tell the whole cannot, and those who can will not. Bearing in mind the effect of thorough espionage on the German nation as a whole, it is to be hoped that in the near future the whole system will be swept away, together with the form of government that gave it birth and room to grow.
Since the preceding pages were written, and as proofs are being passed for press, the following statement has been issued for publication by the Home Office with regard to British counter-espionage measures:
“In view of the anxiety naturally felt by the public with regard to the system of espionage on which Germany has placed so much reliance, and to which attention has been directed by recent reports from the seat of war, it may be well to state briefly the steps which the Home Office, acting on behalf of the Admiralty and War Office, has taken to deal with the matter in this country. The secrecy which it has hitherto been desirable in the public interest to observe on certain points cannot any longer be maintained, owing to the evidence which it is necessary to produce in cases against spies that are now pending.
“It was clearly ascertained five or six years ago that the Germans were making great efforts to establish a system of espionage in this country, and in order to trace and thwart these efforts a Special Intelligence Department was established by the Admiralty and the War Office which has ever since acted in the closest co-operation with the Home Office and Metropolitan Police and the principal provincial Police Forces. In 1911, by the passing of the Official Secrets Act, 1911, the law with regard to espionage, which had hitherto been confused and defective, was put on a clear basis and extended so as to embrace every possible mode of obtaining and conveying to the enemy information which might be useful in war.
“The Special Intelligence Department, supported by all the means which could be placed at its disposal by the Home Secretary, was able in three years, from 1911 to 1914, to discover the ramifications of the German secret service in England. In spite of enormous efforts and lavish expenditure of money by the enemy, little valuable information passed into their hands. The agents, of whose identity knowledge was obtained by the Special Intelligence Department, were watched and shadowed without in general taking any hostile action or allowing them to know that their movements were watched. When, however, any actual step was taken to convey plans or documents of importance from this country to Germany the spy was arrested, and in such case evidence sufficient to secure his conviction was usually found in his possession. Proceedings under the Official Secrets Acts were taken by the Director of Public Prosecutions, and in six cases sentences were passed varying from eighteen months to six years’ penal servitude. At the same time steps were taken to mark down and keep under observation all the agents known to be engaged in this traffic, so that when any necessity arose the Police might lay hands on them at once, and accordingly on August 4, before the declaration of war, instructions were given by the Home Secretary for the arrest of twenty known spies, and all were arrested. This figure does not cover a large number (upwards of two hundred) who were noted as under suspicion or to be kept under special observation. The great majority of these were interned at or soon after the declaration of war.
“None of the men arrested in pursuance of the orders issued on August 4 has yet been brought to trial, partly because the officers whose evidence would have been required were engaged in urgent duties in the early days of the war, but mainly because the prosecution, by disclosing the means adopted to track out the spies and prove their guilt, would have hampered the Intelligence Department in its further efforts. They were, and still are, held as prisoners under the powers given to the Secretary of State by the Aliens Restriction Act. One of them, however, who established a claim to British nationality, has now been formally charged, and, the reasons for delay no longer existing, it is a matter for consideration whether the same course should now be taken with regard to some of the other known spies.
“Although this action taken on August 4 is believed to have broken up the spy organisation which had been established before the war, it is still necessary to take the most rigorous measures to prevent the establishment of any fresh organisation and to deal with individual spies who might previously have been working in this country outside the organisation, or who might be sent here under the guise of neutrals after the declaration of war. In carrying this out the Home Office and War Office have now the assistance of the Cable Censorship, and also of the Postal Censorship, which, established originally to deal with correspondence with Germany and Austria, has been gradually extended (as the necessary staff could be obtained) so as to cover communications with those neutral countries through which correspondence might readily pass to Germany or Austria. The censorship has been extremely effective in stopping secret communications by cable or letter with the enemy; but, as its existence was necessarily known to them, it has not, except in a few instances, produced materials for the detection of espionage.
“On August 5 the Aliens Restriction Act was passed, and within an hour of its passing an Order-in-Coundl was made which gave the Home Office and the Police stringent powers to deal with aliens, and especially enemy aliens, who under this act could be stopped from entering or leaving the United Kingdom, and were prohibited while residing in this country from having in their possession any wireless or signalling apparatus of any kind, or any carrier or homing pigeons. Under this Order all those districts where the Admiralty or War Office considered it undesirable that enemy aliens should reside have been cleared by the Police of Germans and Austrians, with the exception of a few persons, chiefly women and children, whose character and antecedents are such that the local Chief Constable, in whose discretion the matter is vested by the Order, considered that all ground for suspicion was precluded. At the same time the Post Office, acting under the powers given them by the Wireless Telegraphy Acts, dismantled all private wireless stations; and they established a special system of wireless detection by which any station actually used for the transmission of messages from this country could be discovered. The Police have co-operated successfully in this matter with the Post Office.
“New and still more stringent powers for dealing with espionage were given by the Defence of the Realm Act, which was passed by the Home Secretary through the House of Commons and received the Royal Assent on August 8. Orders-in-Council have been made under this Act which prohibit, in the widest terms, any attempt on the part either of aliens or of British subjects to communicate any information which is calculated ‘to be or might be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy’; and any person offending against this prohibition is liable to be tried by court-martial and sentenced to penal servitude for life. The effect of these Orders is to make espionage a military offence. Power is given both to the police and to the military authorities to arrest without a warrant any person whose behaviour is such as to give rise to suspicion, and any person so arrested by the police would be handed over to the military authorities for trial by court-martial. Only in the event of the military authorities holding that there is no prima-facie case of espionage or any other offence tryable by military law is a prisoner handed back to the civil authorities to consider whether he should be charged with failing to register or with any other offence under the Aliens Restriction Act.
“The present position is, therefore, that espionage has been made by statute a military offence tryable by court-martial. If tried under the Defence of the Realm Act, the maximum punishment is penal servitude for life; but if dealt with outside that Act as a war crime the punishment of death can be inflicted.
“At the present moment one case is pending in which a person charged with attempting to convey information to the enemy is now awaiting his trial by court-martial, but in no other case has any clear trace been discovered of any attempt to convey information to the enemy, and there is good reason to believe that the spy organisation crushed at the outbreak of the war has not been re-established.
“How completely that system had been suppressed in the early days of the war is clear from the fact—disclosed in a German Army Order—that on August 21 the German Military Commanders were still ignorant of the despatch and movements of the British Expeditionary Force, although these had been known for many days to a large number of people in this country.
“The fact, however, of this initial success does not prevent the possibility of fresh attempts at espionage being made, and there is no relaxation in the efforts of the Intelligence Department and of the Police to watch and detect any attempts in this direction. In carrying out their duties, the military and police authorities would expect that persons having information of cases of suspected espionage would communicate the grounds of the suspicion to local military authority or to the local police, who are in direct communication with the Special Intelligence Department, instead of causing unnecessary public alarm, and possibly giving warning to the spies by public speeches or letters to the Press. In cases in which the Director of Public Prosecutions has appealed to the authors of such letters and speeches to supply him with the evidence upon which their statements were founded in order that he might consider the question of prosecuting the offender, no evidence of any value has as yet been forthcoming.
“Among other measures which have been taken has been the registration, by Order of the Secretary of State, made under the Defence of the Realm Act, of all persons keeping carrier or homing pigeons. The importation and the conveyance by rail of these birds have been prohibited; and, with the valuable assistance of the National Homing Union, a system of registration has been extended to the whole of the United Kingdom, and measures have been taken which it is believed will be effective to prevent the possibility of any birds being kept in this country which would fly to the Continent.
“Another matter which has engaged the closest attention of the police has been the possibility of conspiracies to commit outrage. No trace whatever has been discovered of any such conspiracy, and no outrage of any sort has yet been committed by any alien—not even telegraph-wires having been maliciously cut since the beginning of the war. Nevertheless, it has been necessary to bear in mind the possibility that such a secret conspiracy might exist or might be formed among alien enemies resident in this country.
“Accordingly, immediately after the commencement of hostilities, rigorous search was made by the police in the houses of Germans and Austrians, in their clubs and in all places where they were likely to resort. In a few cases individuals were found who were in possession of a gun or pistol which they had not declared, and in one or two cases there were small collections of ancient firearms, and in such cases the offenders have been prosecuted and punished; but no store of effective arms—still less any bombs or instruments of destruction—have so far been discovered.
“From the beginning, any Germans or Austrians who were deemed by the police to be likely to be dangerous were apprehended, handed over to the military authorities, and detained as prisoners of war; and, as soon as the military authorities desired it, general action was taken to arrest and hand over to military custody Germans of military age, subject to exceptions which have properly been made on grounds of policy. About 9,000 Germans and Austrians of military age have been so arrested, and are held as prisoners of war in detention camps, and among them are included those who are regarded by the police as likely in any possible event to take part in any outbreak of disorder or incendiarism.”