British Secret Service During the Great War Part 3

[2] _Ibid._, February 12th, 1916.

[3] This gentleman subsequently died a glorious death in the service of his country. He was shot when on active service in South Africa.

[4] The author would not have felt at liberty to mention this gentleman by name except for the fact that his connection with the Secret Service was made public in the Press on the Trebitsch Lincoln affair.

CHAPTER II

SECRET SERVICE ORGANISATIONS, COMPARISONS, AND INCIDENTALS

ESPIONAGE IN PAST AGES--MODERN BRITISH SECRET SERVICE FOUNDED, 1910--POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS--COMPARISONS--JEALOUSIES OF BIG DEPARTMENTS--EXAMPLES OF RECKLESS EXTRAVAGANCE--BUSINESS MEN WANTED--ECONOMIES IN THE SECRET SERVICE--BUNGLING INCOMPETENCE--IMPa.s.sIVENESS OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE--GERMAN WAR METHODS--FRENCH AND DUTCH SECRET SERVICE--MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, B.C.--RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF GERMAN SECRET SERVICE--THE EFFICIENCY OF SCOTLAND YARD--DETAILS OF GERMAN FOREIGN PROPAGANDA AND EXPENDITURE--BRITISH SECRET SERVICE, ITS COST AND FRUGALITIES--MAJOR HENRI LE CARON--NATHAN HALE--SIMILITUDE OF THE LIFE OF A SECRET SERVICE AGENT.

Not until the reign of Henry VII. and the days of the great Cardinal Wolsey do we hear speak of organised systems of Secret Service. Cromwell encouraged the department, whilst Charles II. seems to have arranged grants for its continuance equivalent to 500,000 per annum. Pitt was a firm supporter of the service, and Canning is said to have paid 20,000 for the treaty of Tilsit.

In earlier times, British Intelligence Agents were attached to the Chancelleries of our Ministers abroad, as is the case to-day with nearly every nation, except our own. Remuneration was given commensurate with the risks and service. But from the 'sixties the pay diminished and the department faded away from being an a.s.set of much general valuable utility.

The present British Secret Service Department was founded about 1910 by an officer, a man of untiring energy, pluck, and perseverance, who has rendered n.o.ble service and willing sacrifice. Since its initiation this department seems to have been hara.s.sed, attacked, and shot at by petty jealousies, which, during the agony of the crisis of war were ign.o.ble and contemptible in the extreme. An observer behind the scenes can therefore admire the more the men who ignored this and worked on, unheeding all, with but a single thought, and that the welfare of their King and Country.

England never seems to have had any real organisation for Secret Service propaganda which can compare in thoroughness with the German effort. It has had no schools of instruction, nor does it send its members to specialise in any particular branch. It is an unwritten rule of the department that a naval or a military officer must be at the head of every branch or sub-division of any importance; and the service of civilians or of those from other professions than the Navy and the Army is neither sought nor welcomed, however capable or however clever the persons available may be. The exceptional civilian is soon made to feel this. Whether the idea is to instil discipline, or to impress upon the newcomer the superiority and importance of the right to wear a uniform, it is difficult to imagine. The main work of the department, however, is on a par with the collection of evidence, the unravelling of secret mysteries, and the study and handling of character--which any man of the world would have probably at once concluded was more fitted to the controlling influence of experienced Criminal and Commercial Investigators rather than to long-service officers who have been strapped to their stool by strict disciplinary red-tapeism from their teens upwards. Admitted that officers must be at the top of the Service to direct the information required, and to deal with it when obtained, nevertheless for the direction and control of ways and means of its attainment, the financial part, both inside and out, the selection of the executive staff, the tabulation of facts collected, and correspondence, a member of the Government of some standing and with experience of this cla.s.s of work should be commissioned as special Minister in full control of the department; because its importance to the State cannot be overstated or exaggerated.

Not only should this department have, as near its chief as possible, a man who has had an extensive experience of active criminal and commercial affairs, but he should also, if possible, be one who has specially qualified himself in the commercial world as a _thoroughly efficient business man_.

It may perhaps be added that it is by no means the only Government department which has suffered acutely for want of an efficient business man on its directorate.

So far as office work is concerned, a Service officer may understand book routine and discipline, but when it comes to rock-bottom business this war has produced overwhelming proof that a Service officer is lost against an efficient business man. Speaking broadly, the former has no idea of the general value of things, or of the worldly side of the business world. How can it be expected of him? He is trained, specially trained, in his profession, which has naught to do with the struggle of the money-makers. He is not accustomed to rub shoulders with the man in the street, whilst there are thousands of minor details which he would probably ignore when brought to his notice, but which a business man would recognise as floating thistledown showing the direction of the wind. The business man knows that a knowledge of his fellow-man is the most valuable knowledge in the world. He is not saddled with fastidious, obsolete forms of etiquette, the waiting for the due observance of which has cost millions of pounds sterling and thousands of much more valuable lives. He is not tied down to the cut-and-dried book routine, probably unrevised for years, which it is an impossibility to keep thoroughly up-to-date.

He is not afraid of the wrath of his immediate superior officers, which, unless being an officer himself he could modify or smooth it over, might put on the shelf for ever all chance of his future success in life. He is not shackled with incompetents whom he dared not report or remove because they hold indirect influences which might be moved to his disadvantage. He is not hampered by the importunities of brother-officers who are pushed at him continually by place-seekers, or by feared or favoured ones. He is not handicapped by the jealous spite of machination of other departments, because an efficient business man will have none of this from anyone, whether above or below him. Should it arise, he eradicates it root and branch at first sight, which an ordinary Service officer is generally utterly powerless to do; nor dare he dream of its accomplishment.

It is the existence of this terrible canker-worm of jealousy, false pride, petty spite, or absurd etiquette, which in the past has gnawed into the very vitals of our glorious Services, sapping away much of their efficiency and undermining future unity, which always tends to turn victories into defeats or colossal disasters. It is devoutly to be hoped that this world-war will level up the ma.s.ses and kill and for ever crush out of our midst this hydra-headed microbe, the greatest danger of which is that on the surface it is invisible.

Members of the Secret Service knew all along that the War Office and the Admiralty were like oil and water, because they would not or could not mix.[5] If one required anything of importance from the War Office it might have blighted the hopes of success to have blurted out that one came from, or was a member of, the Admiralty, and _vice versa_. These two mighty departments never seemed to work in harmonious unity. Hence, whenever Jim had business at the War Office he advisedly concealed that he had any interest in the Admiralty; and whenever he was at the Admiralty he denied all connection with the War Office. It saved so much friction and avoided so much unnecessary formality, trouble, and delay.

That this friction was bad for the country, detrimental to the shortening of the war, and most expensive to the taxpayer, goes without saying; but perhaps the fault lay with our system, which permits so many men over sixty years of age to remain in, or to be suddenly placed into positions of such terrible responsibility and such colossal and continual acc.u.mulation of work; men who hitherto had had a slack time and who perhaps had hardly ever been contradicted or denied in their lives; men who constantly demonstrated to those around them that their dignity and self-importance must be admitted and put before almost every other consideration; men who ought to have taken honorary positions and not for a single hour kept from the chair of office more efficient and younger officers; men who knew only the old routine, who were long past their prime, and who were consistent upholders of the greatest curse that ever cursed our island Kingdom--the Red-tapeism of the Circ.u.mlocution Office.

Volumes could be filled with examples of the pernicious results arising because this country has not adopted modern and up-to-date methods.

Volumes could be written to prove the reckless waste and extravagance that has been allowed to run wild and caused by our not providing for a department having a Minister of Conservation and Economy. Volumes could be written to prove that if jealousies could be stamped out, false dignity crushed, and red-tapeism abolished, our nation would rise far above the heads of all other nations in the world, and our taxpayers'

burdens, both now and in the future, would be materially reduced.

Although thousands of examples could be given it is submitted that for a book of this description an example from two or three departments should be sufficient to ill.u.s.trate the argument.

FROM THE ADMIRALTY.

Some time in the autumn of 1915, two fields were acquired by the Admiralty at Bacton, on the Norfolk coast, for use as an aviation ground. In order to give a sufficiently large unbroken and even surface for aeroplanes, it was deemed necessary to level a hedge-bank of considerable length, dividing the fields in question.

Within a few miles of these fields were stationed a thousand soldiers, who were chafing at and weary with the monotony of their daily routine, an unvaried one for over a year. The majority of these men would have welcomed the acceptance of such a task as this. But follow the events which happened, and it is proved convincingly that some silly, ridiculous reason prevented any approach, by those who sit in Chairs at the Admiralty to those who sit in Chairs at the War Office, to utilise this unemployed labour, or to save the nation's pocket in so simple a matter.

The expenditure of money seemed to be of no consideration whatsoever, although the House of Commons was at this particular period shrieking for economy in others, which they were quite unwilling to commence themselves; whilst the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) addressed a great economy speech to the ma.s.sed delegates representing 4,000,000 organised workers at Westminster on December 1st, 1915. So a contract was offered and entered into with a civilian to do the work. Owing to Lord Derby's scare-scheme system of recruiting instead of National Service (which ought to have been enforced immediately after the Boer War, as pressed by Lord Roberts and others), the unlucky contractor lost most of his young men and was quite unable to get more than a very few old men who were past the age of strenuous labour. His job progressed so slowly that the Admiralty realised the work might not be finished for months and months to come if permitted to continue on the then present line.

What was it that prevented the Admiralty, on this second occasion of necessity, from approaching the War Office, or even one of the officers in command of the thousands and thousands of troops stationed in Norfolk, a few of whom could and would gladly have completed the work in a few hours without a penny extra expense to the country?

Instead of incurring any possible suspicion of an obligation from the War Office, an appeal was made to the newly-formed City of Norwich Volunteers for their men to put down their names for this work. That loyal, energetic, and patriotic body of Englishmen, which was drawn from all ranks of society, although working at their various vocations all the week, immediately acquiesced, without stopping to reason why, and agreed to go to Bacton the next ensuing Sunday.

The distance from Norwich to Bacton is twenty miles, but the nearest station is about three miles from the fields in question.

By reason of the War Office having taken over control of the railways, these men could, by a simple request from the Admiralty to the War Office, have been provided with free travelling pa.s.ses. They had expressed their willingness to walk the remaining three miles of the journey, do the work gratuitously (although quite unaccustomed to any such rough manual labour), find their own rations, and walk the return three miles to the station afterwards. Such, however, was not acceptable, nor permitted.

At North Walsham, five miles from the aerodrome site, at least a thousand troops were stationed. They were provided with motor vehicles capable of travelling thirty miles per hour. A few of these vehicles could have carried the whole party from North Walsham station to the fields in under half an hour; or they could have fetched them from Norwich in about an hour. But no; such an arrangement might incur the obligation of a request and a compliance.

_So the Admiralty arranged to send some of their own motor lorries from Portsmouth to Norwich in order to convey this small party of civilian volunteer-workers twenty-one miles to the job_.

It was said that five lorries were ordered, but only three were sent.

They were of the large size, extra heavy type, which cannot, with general convenience, travel at a speed beyond ten miles an hour--if so fast; whilst their petrol consumption might be estimated at about a gallon per hour. They arrived at Norwich on Sunday morning November 28th, 1915, apparently after several days on the road. They took part of the small party of enthusiasts to Bacton, who worked all through the Sabbath; whilst other Admiralty motor-cars were ordered specially over from Newmarket which took the remainder of the party to and from the job.

The three lorries avoided London, thus the full journey of each must have approximated 500 miles.

Consider: the running expenses of a private two-ton motor-car would not be less than a shilling a mile; compare the petrol, oil consumption, and wear and tear. It is thus not difficult to estimate this absurdly unnecessary and recklessly extravagant waste of the taxpayers' money; and all because of some ridiculous personal prejudices, or of the sacred cause of red-tapeism; or the possible touching of some false sentiments of dignity or hollow pride, a.s.sumed by those who sit on Chairs on one side or the other of Whitehall, and who direct the details of war expenditure.

FROM THE WAR OFFICE.

Every Englishman must deeply regret the memory of countless examples of reckless waste, incompetent management, and riotous extravagance which particularly marked the first two years of the war; and which, alas, appeared much more flagrantly in connection with the Army than with the Navy.

During the progress of the war groans arose in this strain from every county. The Yorkshire 10 to 15 tent-pegs case, as recorded in the Press, December 18th, 1915, was never denied.

A motor trolley accidentally smashed about half a score of tent-pegs at ---- camp. Instead of replacing them at the cost of half a crown or less, the C.O. ruled that a report must be drawn up and submitted to the War Office requesting a new supply of pegs. In due course the answer arrived saying: "Loose pegs could not be sent, as they were only supplied with new tents, but a new tent would be sent, value 150, _with the usual quant.i.ty of pegs_." Which course in all seriousness was actually adopted.

In June, 1916, a chimney at a Drill Hall in the town of Lowestoft on the east coast required sweeping, and an orderly suggested to the commanding officer that he should employ a local man residing a few doors away, who offered to undertake the job efficiently at the modest outlay of 1s. But the commanding officer was shackled body and soul in red-tape bonds. Following his duty he reported the matter to headquarters. Further particulars were required and given and in the course of a few days the army chimney-sweep arrived, did the work and departed. _He came from and returned to Birmingham_, and stated that his contract price was 10d. The third-cla.s.s return fare from Birmingham is 26s. 7d. It probably meant two days occupied at an expense which could not have been much less than 30s. A total of 2 16s. 7d., plus payment, postages, paper and possible extras, to _save 2d._ and to do a local man out of a 1s. job in a town admittedly ruined by the unfortunate exigencies of the war!

FROM THE HOME OFFICE.

The Leicester correspondent of the _Shoe and Leather Record_, wrote on February 25th, 1916:

"The Government have intimated, through the medium of the usual official doc.u.ment, that they are willing to receive tenders for twenty-four emery pads, the total value of which would be one shilling and four pence. The tender forms are marked 'very urgent' and firms tendering are warned that inability of the railway companies to carry the goods will not relieve contractors of responsibility for non-delivery.

"The goods are presumably intended for the Army boot-repairing depots, but in view of the admitted 'urgency' it will, I think, strike most business men as strange that there is not an official connected with this branch of the service possessing sufficient authority to give the office boy sixteen pence with instructions to go and fetch the goods from the nearest grindery shop.

"Up to the time of writing I have not heard which local firm has been fortunate enough to secure this 'contract.'"

After this gigantic tussle of t.i.tanic races is over and the bill of costs has to be met, perhaps the nation will realise the cry, that for some years past has been lost like a voice crying in the wilderness--_We want business men_: business men in all Government departments which have to handle business matters. England's colossal financial liabilities, pyramided up during recent years, are practically all traceable to her lack of efficient business men in her business departments.