British Secret Service During the Great War Part 4

In the Navy, in the Army, in the Transport, in the supplies, and throughout, let the head of each department be chosen from a member of its body, if believed best so to do; but let the business side thereof be presided over by an efficient and fully-qualified business man--a man who knows the purchasing power of a pound; more important still, who knows how hard it is to earn one. The men entrusted with such responsible positions should have full responsibility placed upon their shoulders; they should be highly paid and they should be free to act without being tied down by the fetters of "the book," by red-tape precedents, and by the counter-consents of so many others who in nine cases out of ten are men of no previous business training nor qualification concerning the majority of details which they are called upon to handle.

Recent Army and Naval administration, as the public have seen, requires little further comment here. The hundreds of thousands of pounds absolutely squandered in surplus rations, billeting, pay, and transport, etc., should have impressed the minds of observers in a manner that this generation is never likely to forget. A business man in each department, with a free hand to economise and arrange its details, in a business-like way, would have saved the country the salaries paid to them ten thousand times over, with a gigantic surplus to spare.

The British Intelligence Department probably suffered least of any in this respect. Its actual managing chief never wasted a shilling where he could personally see a way of saving it. To my knowledge he never overpaid anyone, whilst he was not at all adverse to using the persuasive argument of patriotism, in order to get a ma.s.s of useful work done for nothing at all. To quote an instance. It was the case of a man who, at his country's call, had sacrificed an income of considerably over 1,000 per annum, together with all his home and business interests, and who in the chief's absence had accepted a thankless and a dangerous task on the active foreign executive at a remuneration less than he had been paying a confidential clerk.

The chief on his return to office did not hesitate to ask him to waive altogether his remuneration, and to pay out of his own pocket twenty-five per cent. of his personal travelling expenses in addition!

Loyally he agreed, and for months he thus served, although those in authority above him showed no sign of appreciation or grat.i.tude afterwards for the sacrifice.

If other Government departments were half as careful over their expenditure as the Secret Service, the British public would not have much cause to find fault nor even to grumble. But what hampered its efficiency, and was neither fair, nor politic, nor economic, was the policy of the Foreign Office, which permitted others, in no way whatsoever connected with the Service, or with the Intelligence, to interfere (during 1914 and 1915) with its work and with members of its executive both at home and abroad. This was not the worst of it. Not only was the organisation of a whole and important branch of the department on two occasions brought to a complete standstill, owing to the interference of one vainly conceited incompetent who had collected a string of high-sounding qualifications behind his name, but he caused money to be scattered in thousands where hundreds, and probably tens, or a little judicious entertaining, would have been more than sufficient.

If these monies were debited to the Secret Service Department, such a wrong ought to be righted. In due course the colossal indiscretions of this interfering bungler involved matters in such a dangerous tangle that he apparently lost his head, and for a period of time was quite inaccessible for business. On recovery he coolly announced that he should wash his hands entirely of all Secret Service affairs. Imagine the feelings of the patient chiefs of the Foreign Secret Service Department. They had silently sat for months watching the efforts of their captured staff hampered at every turn whilst they were persistently building up a sound, practical, useful organisation, which a fool and his folly overturned, like a house of cards, in one day. They had been actually stopped from controlling the movements of their own men, yet they were responsible for their pay and their expenses; whilst possibly they had had a heavy load of extravagant outside expenditure heaped upon their department without any equivalent advantage. They had been compelled to endure this indignity, because, as Service officers, they dared not, for the sake of their then present position and possibly their future, openly remonstrate or criticise, or even report the bare facts concerning the all-too-palpable incompetence of this somewhat Powerful Gentleman who had insisted on poking his officious and inefficacious nose into a department which did not concern him, and the existence of which it was his loyal duty to ignore.

Without a word of complaint (except to members of his executive, to whom his language was as emphatic as it was sultry), our good old managing chief set to work afresh. Within a couple of months he had straightened out the line, when, to the astonishment of all concerned, the old enemy appeared once more upon the scene. Moved either by jealousy, or by vindictive spite at the success which followed where he had failed, he again attacked the department by hitting at individual members of its actively working executive! Remember, England was at war at the time; thus a more unpatriotic action could hardly have been conceived. Yet the Foreign Office, although impressively advised of the wrong-doing and the probable consequences, either dared not or would not trouble itself to investigate the details of the matter.

Yes, verily, my friends, _suppressio veri_ has much to answer for. It is well for some of those who sit in high offices that a rigid censorship and secrecy was maintained throughout the war; or the very walls of England might have arisen in fierce mutiny.

Mr. Le Queux touches the point in his book on "German Spies in England,"

page 92:

"We want no more attempts to gag the Press, no evasive speeches in the House, no more pandering to the foreign financier, or bestowing upon him Birthday Honours: no more kid-gloved legislation for our monied enemies whose sons, in some cases, are fighting against us, but st.u.r.dy, honest, and deliberate action--the action with the iron hand of justice in the interests of our own beloved Empire."

Whilst Burnod--"Maxims de Guerre de Napoleon"--quotes: "It is the persons who would deceive the people and exploit them for their own profit that are keeping them in ignorance."

Napoleon's greatness was achieved by employing only the best men obtainable for positions of the highest responsibility. His most important officer in the Secret Service Department seems to have been a German, by name Karl Schulmiester, who drew the princely salary of 20,000 per annum. Proved efficiency was the little Corsican's only pa.s.sport.

Germany has learnt well from this lesson. Soldiers, sailors, and business men waged her war. Not a lawyer or professional politician took part in it except in the trenches. Germany entrusted the administration of her affairs to experts. Blue blood, patronage, and reputation carried neither weight nor meaning. It was ruthless, but it was business--it was war. The magic of a great military name did not save Lieutenant-General Helmuth von Moltke from dismissal from the Head of the German staff when the Kaiser was convinced of his inefficiency. Vice-Admiral von Engenohl, Commander-in-Chief of the High Ca.n.a.l Fleet, had to retire in favour of Admiral von Pohl owing to failures; whilst the septuagenarian father of bureaucrats, Dr. Kuhn, had to vacate finance in order to make way for the professional banker, Dr. Helfferich, who although quite unknown to distinction was appointed Chancellor of the Imperial Exchequer.

From the very commencement, Germany appointed experts over each department of her colossal war machine--_expert business men_. Every solitary industry which has aught to do with war-making was linked up with the Government. By way of example there was a Cotton Council, a Coal Advisory Board, a Motor and Rubber Committee, a Chemical Committee, etc., etc.

That able journalist, Mr. F. W. Wile, has proved again and again by his articles that war is and always has been a scientific business with Germany. He argues that there is nothing hyperphysical or mysterious about the successes she achieved. They were essentially material. German soldiers are not supermen, or as individual warriors the equal to those of many other nations. Their victories have been due to a chain of very obvious and systematic circ.u.mstances: to organisation, strict discipline, thoroughness, and far-sighted expert management; in other words, making a business of their business and employing therein only business men who know the business.

Apologising for this partial digression from the main subject matter, the French Secret Service of modern times has been princ.i.p.ally conducted on the Dossier principle, which came to light in the Dreyfus affair. In the present war this system has seemingly been of little practical value, and France has had to depend almost entirely upon her Allies for foreign intelligence work. Eighteen months after the war commenced her foreign Secret Service department was said to have practically closed down for want of finances, so far as the north of Europe was concerned.

Harking back to before the South African War, we find that Paul Kruger, the late President of the South African Republic, was a great believer in an efficient up-to-date Secret Service department, and vast sums were expended by him with little, if any, inquiry or vouching. Messrs. D.

Blackburn and Captain W. Waithman Caddell, in their book on "Secret Service in South Africa," record how Tjaard Kruger, a son of the President of the Transvaal Republic, who was for a short time Chief of the Secret Service Bureau, paid 2,800 in one afternoon in 1906, out of the many thousands of pounds in gold coinage which he always kept in his office, to casual callers only, to men who came accredited by some person in authority as being able to supply valuable information.

Tjaard Kruger was succeeded in office by a most clever and interesting celebrity, Dr. Leyds, Secretary of State, who was the only man who made the department a success. He showed the unfailing tact of the born diplomat. He was a great reader of character and formed a pretty accurate estimate of a person in a surprisingly short time. He conducted his affairs so delicately and diplomatically that he won universal esteem and the staunchest and most loyal adherents. He would hand over disagreeable work to a subordinate so gracefully that it gave the impression that he was relegating the work, not because it irked him, but because he had found a man more capable than himself--the man whom he had long sought.

Dr. Leyds' letters of instructions to his agents were clear, precise, and exacting, and provided for every possible contingency; yet had they fallen into the hands of the unauthorised they would have conveyed little. These letters bespoke the diplomat. They would have come safely out of an investigation by a committee of suspicious spy-hunters.

When he required to "draw" any person he would instruct his agents to ascertain carefully that person's tastes, habits, prejudices, and amus.e.m.e.nts. These he would study to the minutest trifle, and by skilful play upon a weakness, or by the evidence of a similar taste, he would successfully penetrate to the most exclusive and jealously guarded sanctum sanctorum.

Mr. Hamil Grant is an author who may be congratulated upon his carefully-compiled work, ent.i.tled, "Spies and Secret Service," which contains the history of espionage from earliest times to the present day. He shows how the practice was used by Joshua, David, Absalom, and the mighty warriors whose deeds of valour are recorded in the Old Testament. He quotes Alexander Mithridates, the King of Pontus, who made himself the master of twenty-five languages and spent seven years wandering through countries he subsequently fought and vanquished. He traces developments from Alexander the Great, who lived 300 years before Christ and was the first known to start secret post censorship; from Hannibal, who could never have crossed from Andalusia over the Pyrenees and the Alps into the plains of Piedmont to fight the battle of Trebia (218 B.C.) without the a.s.sistance he received from the intelligence scouts who preceded him. He points out how Caesar and the great generals who conquered Europe invariably used scouts and intelligence agents. He quotes Napoleon's admission of indebtedness to Polyaenus for original strategic ideas of espionage; whilst he has much to say in proving that no war of either ancient or modern times was successful without it.

His most interesting chapters are those dealing with the rise of the Prussian empire, which he claims to have been built almost entirely upon such an unenviable foundation. The author has taken the liberty of quoting somewhat numerous extracts as follows:

"The Modern System of espionage seems to have been originally conceived by Frederick the Great of Prussia and subsequently elaborated into a kind of National Philosophy by writers like Nietzsche, Treitschke and Bernhardi. But a nation which is ruled as if it were a country of convicts actual or potential cannot fail inevitably to develop in a p.r.o.nounced degree those symptoms of character and predisposition which land its converts in the correction inst.i.tutions where they are most commonly to be found.

"Baron Stein, a well-known statesman of the Napoleonic period, was responsible for the practical application of the theories in the philosophy of Frederick the Great. He was followed by the celebrated Dr. Stieber, who had the handling of millions of pounds at his discretion and whose character had all those elements which were a.s.sociated with the criminal who operates along the higher lines. He was a barrister, born in Prussia in 1818, and he first curried favour with the officials by persuading his friends and relations to enter into illegal acts in order that he might betray them for his own advantage. The German word _stieber_ seems appropriate; in our language it means sleuth-hound. In appearance he represented an inquisitor of old. His eyes were almost white and colourless, whilst there were hard drawn lines about his mouth.

With subordinates he adopted the loud airs of a master towards slaves. In the presence of high authorities he was self-abasing and subdued, with a smile of deferential oiliness and acquiescence, with much rubbing of hands.

"He seemed to have commenced Secret Service work with a standing salary of 1,200 a year, in addition to which he received side emoluments. He organised an internal and external service with complete independence from all other official bodies, subsidised by full and adequate appropriations from Parliament. His system was thorough. He commenced by spying into the privacies of the Royal family and Court and Government officials, Army and Naval officers, and everybody of the slightest importance, down to the labourers'

and the workmen's organisations. In a very few years his nominal salary had risen to 18,000, but about 1863, in spite of his having been honoured with every German decoration conceivable, he was for a couple of years suspended from office, during which period he organised the Russian Secret Police.

"With Stieber's a.s.sistance, Bismarck struck down Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866, and France in 1870. Even Moltke, the great Prussian organiser of victory, was astonished and astounded at the vast amount of valuable military information by which Stieber had facilitated the rapid advance of his armies.

"As a preliminary journey into France in 1867, Stieber appointed 1,000 spies, within the invasion zone, with head centres at Brussels, Lausanne, and Geneva; and on his return he handed over to Bismarck some 1,650 reports which contained full military and original maps of the French frontiers and the invasion zone. Year by year this army of spies was increased, until in 1870 Stieber had between 30,000 and 40,000 on his pay-roll.

"In 1867 an attempt was made on the life of Alexander the Second of Russia when on a visit to Paris in order to create a closer Franco-Russian Alliance, which dastardly act was planned by Stieber in order to be frustrated by him. When the a.s.sa.s.sin was tried for his life the jury were bought by Prussian gold to acquit the accused in order that the two nations could be kept apart and the object of the journey thereby frustrated, but whether it was the fertile brain of Bismarck or Stieber who planned the scheme of the plot will never be known.

"In 1870 Stieber boasted that he controlled the opinions of some eighty-five writers in the French daily and weekly newspapers, furthermore that he had paid sympathisers on the Austrian, Italian, and English Press in addition.

"By 1880 Stieber and Prince Bismarck had extended their organised system materially as well as personally, which can be seen in the present day network of railway lines and stations controlled solely for militarist uses rather than for the development of the country; whilst the funds demanded yearly from the Reichstag for Secret Service work increased proportionately.

"No one but a native of Prussia was allowed to hold any responsible position in Prussia, yet in 1884 there were 15,000 Germans or semi-foreigners serving on the French railways, all of them more or less in the employ of the German Espionage Bureau and prepared to destroy the plant, the lines, the buildings, and to paralyse French mobilisation at the word of command.

"In addition to this, Stieber's plans embraced upheavals in all industrial cla.s.ses.

"It was German gold which instigated and carried through the Dreyfus agitation, also the a.s.sociation Bill which brought about the disestablishment of the Church of France and the so-called Agadir incident in the spring of 1911, which coincided so remarkably with the devastating strikes in Great Britain.

"It is a cry of the Fatherland that every good citizen is required to pay taxes, build barracks, and shut his mouth.

"The recent agitations in Ireland and practically all the strikes in England have been indirectly supported by German gold; to which the circulation of the extraordinary manifesto in August, 1914, was also directly traceable. 4,000 was used for the purposes of the French Railway Strike of 1893; in the same year a local subscription of 48 was raised for a bootmakers' strike at Amiens, whilst an alleged sympathetic 1,000 was sent from Frankfort.

"The English suffragettes are also said to have received thousands of pounds from unknown sources which in reality were German.

"Stieber died in 1892, possessed of over 100,000.

"As a part of his deep-rooted policy mult.i.tudes of Germans were sent to France, England, and elsewhere to establish small businesses, practically every one of which was subsidised by the German Secret Service Office; as also were German clerks and others who could obtain positions giving access to information of any value. Stieberism practically demoralised the entire German nation, whilst it inoculated its poison into other European countries in such a manner that their energies and sound judgment seem to have been paralysed in more ways than one.

"Stieberists follow the same creed as Jesuits, 'All is justifiable in the interests of the future of the Fatherland.'

"Major Steinhauer succeeded Stieber, and the present Secret Service Bureau of Berlin was in his hands when this war started. He also was a past master in the art of organisation. The entry into Brussels of 700,000 men without inconvenience or mishap was practically entirely due to his organisation. Over 8,000 spies had been placed on the various routes between Aix-la-Chapelle and Saint Quentin, whilst those in the Belgian capital had some two or three years previously actually worked out on paper the billets and lodgings for all those troops in advance.[6]

"The ordinary German Secret Service agent started with a salary of 200 a year and 10s. a day expenses, with a bonus for each job to an unlimited amount. Whilst abroad or on any matter of delicacy, out-of-pocket allowances were increased to 2 a day, but 33% of all current monies owing was kept back as a safety-valve until he left the service.

"Amongst the members were to be found Princes, Dukes, Counts, Barons, Lawyers, Clergymen, Doctors, Actresses, Actors, Mondaines, Demi-Mondaines, Journalists, Authors, Money-lenders, Jockeys, Printers, Waiters, Porters; practically every cla.s.s of society was represented.

"The remuneration cannot be considered high when compared with the dangers undertaken, and since no official countenance was ever given (nor indeed expected) on the part of the agents once one of them fell into the hands of the enemy, the game was far from being worth the worry and strain it entailed.

"The training and examination before efficiency was reached were far more difficult than our cadets would have to pa.s.s at Woolwich or Sandhurst, or even officers for a staff college appointment."

The head offices of the German Secret Service Department, which was presided over by the Kaiser himself, were situated in Berlin at Koenigergratzerstra.s.se No. 70. So far as callers were concerned the same routine was followed as at our War Office and Admiralty: the portals were guarded by commissionaires who kept records of every visitor, with such particulars as they could gather. Army or Naval officers were in charge of all departments. They planned the work, but they never or very rarely executed it. The secretaries and general a.s.sistants were all civilians. No Amba.s.sadors, Ministers, secretaries of legation, envoys, plenipotentiaries, consuls, or recognised officials were permitted to interfere in any way with the work of this department, although they undoubtedly gave it every material a.s.sistance whenever they could.

History has clearly proved this. No jealousies or acts of favouritism to relatives and the nominees of indirect influences were countenanced.

For such an offence the very highest in office would at once be deposed and punished, whilst there was no appeal to a Parliament, Congress, Chamber of Deputies, or political newspapers, against the Kaiser's decision. He was not only the supreme head of what he himself described as "My army of spies scattered over Great Britain and France, as it is over North and South America, as well as the other parts of the world, where German interests may come to a clash with a foreign power," but he took a very keen interest in their individual work. Efficiency and obedience only counted in his estimation.

The persons selected for this work were specially trained in preparation for the prospective tasks ahead of them. For days, weeks, and months, as the case may be, they were grounded in topography, trigonometry, mechanics, army and naval work; with a ma.s.s of detail which might be of service, possibly when least expected. Their studies embraced visits to the big Government construction works and yards; they were made familiar with all necessary knowledge concerning war-ships, submarines, torpedoes, aircraft, guns and fortifications; silhouettes of vessels; uniforms of officers; secret surveys of interesting districts; signals, codes, telegraphs and mult.i.tudinous other matters which the thorough-going German considered absolutely essential to the training of an efficient Secret Service agent.