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Title: The German Spy in America - The Secret Plotting of German Spies in the United States and the Inside Story of the Sinking of the Lusitania
Author: Jones, John Price
Language: English
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THE GERMAN SPY IN AMERICA
The Secret Plotting of German Spies in the United States and the
Inside Story of the Sinking of the Lusitania
by
JOHN PRICE JONES
With a Foreword by
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
and an Introduction by
ROGER B. WOOD
Former U.S. Assistant Attorney in New York_
London: Hutchinson & Co.
Paternoster Row :: :: 1917
Copyright 1917
by
John Price Jones
Agnes C. Laut
432, Fourth Avenue, New York.
Office of
Theodore Roosevelt.
February 27, 1917.
MY DEAR MR. JONES,
I have read the galley proofs of your book, and I wish to say, with all
emphasis and heartiness, that you are doing this country a great service
in publishing it.
Your statements are evidently for the most part based on official
Government records, happening in the course of prosecuting the various
criminals, who by the direct instigation of the German Government, have
for the last two and one-half years been using this country as a base
for war against the Allies, and more than this, have in effect been
waging war on us within our own boundaries, no less than on the high
seas. Our people need to know certain of the facts that you set forth.
They need to understand that Germany has waged war upon us, and has
waged war against our property, and has waged war against the lives of
non-combatants, including women and children, and therefore a far more
evil war than one waged openly. Our people also need to understand what
you so clearly set forth that very much of the pacifist movement has
been directly instigated by German intrigues, and paid for by German
money, and that the entire pacifist movement in this country, during the
past two and a half years, has really been in the interest of German
militarism against the rights of small nations, and against our own
honour and vital national interests.
You have done a capital work, and I wish it could be put in the hands of
all good Americans.
Sincerely yours,
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
Mr. John Price Jones,
_The Sun_, New York.
FOREWORD
There have been two kinds of German propaganda. One, devoted to setting
before the American people Germany’s side of the war, may be classed as
legitimate. The other has been illegal and criminal. While both are set
forth in this narrative, the greater space has been devoted to illegal
activities.
The author claims for this book no other distinction than a plain
unvarnished statement of facts—vital, dramatic, absorbing facts of the
manner in which secret agents of the Teutonic governments, acting under
orders of authorized directors, have attacked the very integrity of our
national life, commercial, social and politic. It contains facts
arranged from an American viewpoint by an American who considers it his
duty to present them to his fellow Americans.
These facts were obtained by the writer as a reporter on the _New York
Sun_ who devoted a year to no other work. _They were derived by a
painstaking investigation and where flat statements are made they are
based on knowledge obtained by the author from various authorities and
from the examination of documents some of which have never been
published._ They show how German agents sought to subvert the aims of
our government to the advantage of the Central Powers. They furnish a
glimpse of the manner in which these men and women sought to make
America the hinterland for the European War; how they planned and
executed bribery, arson, felonious assaults; how they plotted
destruction of property and even murder on American territory.
These facts emphasize the need of a new kind of preparedness. They prove
that not only does the nation need preparedness in arms on both land and
sea against a foreign foe but also defence against those within our
bounds, who are eager to betray us. No true American, whether he be
pro-Ally, pro-German, or strictly neutral, can read this book without
realizing the thoroughness and the perfection of the German espionage
system and being convinced of the way in which Germany’s spies have
overrun the entire country, nor can anyone doubt the necessity for
preparedness to cope with these men and this system in a different guise
in the event of still graver issues.
JOHN PRICE JONES.
INTRODUCTION
When the German note announcing that the Imperial German Government
intended to resume with greater vigour its ruthless submarine warfare
was handed to the Secretary of State of the United States, a crisis in
the affairs of this nation was abruptly precipitated. The President met
that crisis with courage, with promptness and in a way that merits, and
has, the unqualified support of every American who is proud of his
citizenship.
After the receipt of such an insulting note it was unthinkable that the
United States could longer remain on friendly terms with a nation that
deliberately returned to wanton murder of innocent non-combatants,
including women and helpless children.
The conduct of the Imperial German Government in striving to win a war
by means (which barbarians would hesitate to use) begun by that
Government without just cause and pursued by riding rough-shod over a
much smaller and much weaker nation, has been condemned by every
civilized country, and it will be many years before the German people
recover from the shame and degradation into which they have been
plunged.
Germany will have to repent in sackcloth and ashes for a long, long time
before it is received again into the Family of Nations.
In prosecuting the war, Germany and her allies have proceeded from the
beginning upon the theory that “the end justifies the means” and acting
upon that theory have held in supreme contempt the rights of neutral
nations.
From the beginning of the war, subjects of Germany, resident in the
United States, have continuously violated our laws in the most
outrageous and flagrant manner.
At the very threshold, they sought to use the United States as a base
from which to supply the German raiders in the South Atlantic, and to
that end, by fraud, obtained from the collectors at various ports of the
United States legal clearances, thus subjecting every ship which
lawfully cleared from any United States port to seizure by the Allies.
Next, they sought and obtained, by fraud, and false swearing, passports
to be used by German reservists in returning to Germany, travelling
under the guise of American citizens; thus placing in danger the lives
and liberty of honest Americans travelling with legitimate passports and
entitled to the protection of this Government.
Because the Allies were able to purchase in the United States munitions
of war, foodstuffs and all other supplies they might need, and were able
to transport them, and because the United States did not at the behest
of the Imperial German Government, stop the sale and transportation of
the supplies, which its citizens had a perfect right to sell and
transport, German residents devised the inhuman scheme of making
chemical fire bombs and infernal machines to be placed on ships carrying
passengers and supplies, with the deliberate intent and purpose that the
ships should be crippled or sunk in mid-ocean—it mattered not to them
that all on board might find a watery grave.
Numerous attempts have been made to equip men of the most desperate
character with necessary explosives and other implements of death and
destruction and have them go from the United States into Canada, our
friendly and respected neighbour, to destroy railroads, canals, ships,
warehouses and factories without regard to human life.
Agents have been sent to the United States with unlimited money at their
command to engage gunmen and thugs to blow up our munition plants and
factories—many explosions have occurred—many lives have been lost—much
damage has been done—I cannot say who caused such wholesale murder to be
committed, but I have the right as you have, to suspect.
It is a matter of record that the German Military Attaché, Captain Franz
von Papen, and the German Naval Attaché, Captain Boy-Ed, knew of and
sanctioned some of the conspiracies above referred to—_perhaps_ the
German Ambassador did not know of them; but it will be hard to convince
a hard-headed, common-sense American citizen that he did not know what
his right hand and his left hand were doing in such a crucial period.
Murder has followed murder on the high seas, one crime came fast upon
another in the United States, and now we are told that this Government
must do as the Imperial German Government directs; or murder on a more
colossal scale will be the result. The people of the United States have
not taken orders from any Government since 1776, and the German
murderers ought to have known we would take none now, least of all from
a Government that had forfeited its right to the respect of any
civilized nation.
“The German Spy in America” will give you some small conception of what
the Germans in the United States have been doing since August 1, 1914.
Its author has followed their nefarious plots very closely and he has an
intimate knowledge of his subject.
Its purpose is to let the American people know the danger that lurks
within; to sound the alarm so that every man may be on his guard; to
show the grave necessity for preparedness against a foreign foe, and
particularly numerous alien enemies within our borders.
If it serves in a small measure to accomplish its high aim, its author
will be amply repaid because he will have rendered a great service to
humanity, and above all to our country, which we love more than all
else, save God.
ROGER B. WOOD.
CONTENTS
CHAP. PAGE
I.—AMERICA: THE BACKGROUND OF THE WAR 13
II.—CAPTAIN FRANZ VON PAPEN, DIRECTOR OF GERMANY’S MILITARY
ENTERPRISES ON THE AMERICAN FRONT 27
III.—CAPTAIN VON PAPEN, BUYER OF PASSPORTS AND PROMOTER OF
SEDITION 70
IV.—VON IGEL AND KOENIG, TWO OF THE KAISER’S FAITHFUL WORKERS 88
V.—CAPTAIN KARL BOY-ED, THE EMPEROR’S SOCIAL DANDY AND VON
TIRPITZ’S TOOL 113
VI.—CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER 144
VII.—CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN (concluded) 168
VIII.—THE STORY OF THE “LUSITANIA” 186
IX.—DR. HEINRICH F. ALBERT, GERMANY’S BAGMAN AND BLOCKADE
RUNNER 204
X.—AMBASSADOR DUMBA, GERMANY’S CO-CONSPIRATOR 229
XI.—GERMANY’S LOBBY IN CONGRESS 242
XII.—CHANGING THE SYSTEM 252
THE GERMAN SPY IN AMERICA
CHAPTER I
AMERICA: THE BACKGROUND OF THE WAR
America has been the great background of the European War. Though far
removed from the trenches with the play of artillery and the heroic
charges, this country has been the scene of an equally dramatic, though
silent struggle—a battle not visible to the eye. It has been a conflict
of wits, of statesman pitted against statesman, of secret agent striving
to outdo his opponent of a belligerent nation; for in America, agents of
Germany have been striving for a two-fold aim. They have sought to
enmesh the United States in an international conspiracy and to use this
country as the means of a rear attack on the Entente Allies.
And New York has been the centre of it all. In several of the huge
office buildings that make the thoroughfares of the city seem like
canyons, Germany had, and still has, the headquarters of a vast
nerve-like system radiating throughout the country. The nerve coils are
composed of thousands of secret agents located in every city and town.
These men have worked under orders from Berlin in the execution of a
series of campaigns designed to be of service to the Teutonic Allies.
Against these men have been pitted agents of the American government,
all aiming to detect the schemes and frustrate any plans for the
violation of our neutrality laws.
A diplomat, famed for his finesse and grace of manner, was at a
reception given to distinguished statesmen, talented business men and
attractive women. The conversation was turned to the topic of spies. One
woman wished to know if the diplomat had encountered any spies.
“Well,” remarked the diplomat, “I used to stop at the Hotel Grandeur,
but Count ——” (mentioning the name of a diplomat of a nation with which
his country was at war) “persisted in having my baggage searched every
day. So I moved to the Hotel Excellency; but I found things no better
there.”
“Didn’t you complain to the management?”
“Ah, no,” answered he gravely, “but every time the Count stops at the
Hotel Elaborate, I have his baggage searched, too.”
Perhaps the diplomat was not serious, but in days when the destiny of
nations was at stake, it was likely that he was speaking none too
lightly of a game that had doubtless cost him many an hour of the
keenest anxiety.
Of all the secret service systems, the German is the most elaborate and
machine-like. It has been organized not merely to gather information,
but to trample upon the laws of the United States, in order to hinder
any project of the Entente Allies. Constructed in the hours of peace
with the utmost care and foresight, it was easily expanded in the United
States at the outbreak of the war into such a vast network that if a
representative of the Allies suddenly retraced his steps or halted
suddenly when around a corner, he was almost sure to bump the shins of a
German spy. Germany, always methodical and thorough, possessing a genius
for moulding a multitude of details into an effective whole, had
prepared her secret service system with the same efficiency with which
through scores of years she had equipped her military forces for battle;
indeed, her secret service was a part of her military forces.
The system is based on the principle of “Lass die linke Hand nicht
wissen was die rechte tut”—“let not the left hand know what the right is
doing.” _So thoroughly is this maxim followed that two German spies may
be working side by side and not be aware of the fact._ Though groups of
Germans may engage in some activity with a thorough understanding of the
aims of another, still the order of silence is rigorously enforced. The
agents hand their information to a superior, who in turn transmits it to
somebody higher up. _One spy knows only the person or group of persons
with whom he directly deals, sending information along devious and
hidden routes up to the final assembling point._
Germany’s spy system has been the sword hand of her statesmen and her
diplomats. When this war is over and the world learns of the moves,
counter-moves, and Machiavellian methods of German diplomats, with their
intrigues, secret understandings, and their daring attempts to force
this country into dangerous situations, people will realize more clearly
than to-day what a marvellous system has been behind many seemingly
casual developments in this country. It will be shown how German agents
have violated our laws in order to gain secret information for the
benefit of Germany; how her secret agents have committed crimes in order
to coerce diplomatic negotiations.
RAMIFICATIONS OF UNDERGROUND PLOTS
So perfectly organized and so responsive to the slightest suggestion
from Berlin is the American branch of the Kaiser’s secret service that
vast undertakings—some legitimate, many in violation of American
laws—were carried out.
The magician, who invented the wireless, enabled the German General War
Staff to move to New York. The splash and splutter of electricity over
oceans and continents virtually transported Germany’s leading statesmen,
tacticians, and scientists at will to hold sessions in Manhattan on
matters arising in America and bearing on the battle-front in the many
theatres of actual warfare. For instance, how many people know that the
secretary to one of the generals on the Western Line was a brother to
one of the most notorious woman plotters in America? Germany had
foreseen the possibilities of the wireless in war and had developed
secret methods of sending code messages by radiogram, when apparently
only ordinary messages were being transmitted, and she had also, some
way or other, got possession of the code ciphers of other nations. Every
night messages have been sent out from Germany, apparently blindly,
addressed to no one and have been picked up by hidden receiving stations
in America and other countries.
While Germany calls her spy system “a bureau of intelligence,” its
purpose is confined not merely to the gathering of information, but to
the carrying out of any campaign that will be harmful to her enemies. In
the United States, Germans—reservists, army officers, representatives of
the German Government—have been indicted for crimes against Federal
laws. These violations were committed without doubt in a
self-sacrificing spirit with the aim of helping the Fatherland. Germans,
or German influences, have been behind schemes in violation of
neutrality laws and restraint of trade. _They have attempted arson,
bribery, forgery, engaged in military enterprises, caused explosions in
ships and factories, resulting in many deaths, and have set fires in
ships and factories._
They have participated in plots against Canada, Ireland and India, all
developed in the United States under the supervision of the German
representatives of Berlin, though often ostensibly carried out by
anarchist tools. _The activities of the German agents_, multitudinous in
detail and variety, _all have been designed to hinder the Allies_ in
their prosecution of the war, _to cause a breach between the Allies and
the United States, to embroil this country in a war and to accomplish
other secret aims of the General War Staff_. In all the propaganda,
German secret agents and official representatives of the German
Government have not only worked with utter disregard to American laws,
but have endeavoured to place the United States in a position of being
secretly unneutral.
But the German Government has officially denied that she ordered any of
her subjects to undertake any act in violation of American laws. Shortly
after President Wilson in his message to Congress bitterly attacked the
activities of Germans and German-Americans in America, accusing the
latter of treason, the German Government authorized the statement that
it:
* * * * *
“_Naturally has never knowingly accepted the support of any person,
group of persons, society or organization seeking to promote the cause
of Germany in the United States by illegal acts, by counsels of
violence, by contravention of law, or by any means whatever that could
offend the American people in the pride of their own authority. If it
should be alleged that improper acts have been committed by
representatives of the German Government they could be easily dealt
with. To any complaints upon proof as may be submitted by the American
Government suitable response will be duly made.... Apparently the
enemies of Germany have succeeded in creating the impression that the
German Government is in some way, morally or otherwise, responsible for
what Mr. Wilson has characterized as anti-American activities,
comprehending attacks upon property in violation of the rules which the
American Government has seen fit to impose upon the course of neutral
trade. This the German Government absolutely denies. It cannot
specifically repudiate acts committed by individuals over whom it has no
control, and of whose movements and intentions it is neither officially
or unofficially informed._”[1]
* * * * *
Footnote 1:
Berlin despatch in the New York _Sun_, Dec. 19, 1915.
To this official disavowal of German propaganda in America, there are
two answers that stand out with dramatic force. First, the extent to
which the subjects of Germany are expected to go in war time is shown by
excerpts from Germany’s War Book of instructions to officers, which says
in part:
* * * * *
“_Bribery of the enemy’s subjects with the object of obtaining military
advantages, acceptances of offers of treachery, reception of deserters,
utilization of the discontented elements in the population, support of
the pretenders and the like are permissible; indeed, international law
is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the crimes of third parties
(assassination, incendiarism, robbery and the like) to the prejudice of
the enemy. Considerations of chivalry, generosity and honour may
denounce in such cases a hasty and unsparing exploitation of such
advantages as indecent and dishonourable, but law, which is less touchy,
allows it. The ugly and inherently immoral aspect of such methods cannot
affect the recognition of their lawfulness. The necessary aims of war
give the belligerent the right and imposes upon him, according to
circumstances, the duty not to let slip the important, it may be
decisive, advantages to be gained by such means._”[2]
* * * * *
Footnote 2:
The War Book of the German General Staff, translated by J. H. Morgan,
M.A., pp. 113–114.
Secondly, since Germany sent out that semi-official proclamation from
Berlin concerning propagandists, many steps have been taken by the
American Government, both administrative and judicial. Captains von
Papen and Boy-Ed, military and naval attachés respectively, have been
dismissed from this country for “improper activities in military and
naval affairs.”
There was no favouritism in the German secret service. Every German,
high or low, was open to assignment, disagreeable and dishonourable, in
getting information, and to orders to commit crimes—for Germany stops at
no crime—that may be necessary to circumvent the enemy.
Captain von Papen showed his feeling keenly one night at a dinner of a
few men where the wine flowed freely.
“My God, I would give everything in the world,” he exclaimed, “to be in
the trenches where I could do the work of a gentleman.” In his work,
there was no public reward for work well performed according to the war
code. That man’s sentiments were echoed by von Rintelen, who, when among
friends, fairly shook with emotion at the thought of the work in which
he was engaged.
“How loathsome I feel,” he said. “How this dirty work sticks to me! When
this war ends, I shall take a bath in carbolic acid.”
THREE EXECUTIVES IN THE UNITED STATES
Over all the thousands of reservists, trained agents, and other spies
were the men in charge of the centres of information to whom they made
their report; and the three or four chief lieutenants in charge of the
various and distinct line of activities into which these matters of war,
finance and commerce automatically were divided. There were practically,
outside of the Chief Spy, three important executives in this country,
supervising respectively the commercial, military and naval lines of
information and activity. Each one of these men was surrounded by a
group of experts who had charge of a sub-division of the work. All had
their legal advisers, their bankers, and every sort of an expert that
their special work required. Upon them fell the task of sifting and
analysing the mass of facts gathered by the spies and making reports to
Berlin. Upon each one of them also fell the duty of carrying out any
orders that might come from the General War Staff in Germany.
First and foremost of the three lieutenants was Dr. Heinrich F. Albert,
Privy Councillor to the German Embassy in America and Fiscal Agent of
the German Empire. He directed the gathering of a huge mass of
information of value to Germany concerning the financial, industrial and
commercial activities of this country, and was the chief instrument
through whom money reached the army of spies. Though he was the director
of many activities, nothing criminal, it must be asserted in justice to
him, has been traced to him.
The military agent was Captain Franz von Papen, the attaché of the
German Embassy. His work was confined specifically to the procuring of
information that would be of aid to the Imperial German army and to the
military tasks that might be peculiarly helpful to the army.
The naval expert was Captain Karl Boy-Ed, another attaché of the German
Embassy. He had under him experts who made a speciality of various lines
of naval matters, fortifications, coast defences and explosives.
The headquarters of the entire system were and are yet in New York. Dr.
Albert had his offices in the Hamburg-American Steamship Company’s
building, and he utilized at times a good part of the Hamburg-American
Company’s staff—a concern in which the Kaiser himself owns a large
percentage of the stock. In the same building was the office of Paul
Koenig, the business manager of part of Germany’s spy system in America,
though nominally the Superintendent of Police for the Hamburg-American
line. Captain Boy-Ed had his headquarters in Room 801 of 11, Broadway,
and Captain von Papen had his on the twenty-fifth floor of 60, Wall
Street.
This narrative seeks to show as definitely as possible the work of these
three agents of Germany in America and of others co-operating with them.
It sets forth the enterprises that they plotted and the ramifications of
their organization. It reveals how countless agents, unaware that they
were parts of a vast system and often innocent of any intentional
wrongdoing, acted their parts. It shows how that part of the machinery
engaged in legitimate propaganda was linked at places with the machinery
executing illegal acts.
While the conspiracy has been manipulated, the American Government has
been very active. To the skill of the United States secret service,
headed by Chief William J. Flynn, always alert and apparently unruffled
in the most trying crises, and to A. Bruce Bielaski, head of the special
agents of the Department of Justice, and William M. Offley,
Superintendent of the New York Bureau of the special agents, has fallen
the task of seeing that the representatives of the different countries
followed the American maxim, “Play fair; play according to the rules of
international law and the laws of this country.” Upon Police
Commissioner Woods, his deputy, Guy Scull, of New York, and his
enthusiastic and clever aid, Police Captain Thomas J. Tunney, has
devolved also the hazardous and difficult task of combating the schemes
of those spies. Those men, by courageous and skilful detective work have
unearthed and foiled some of the most daring bomb plots of the Germans.
To Messrs. Flynn and Bielaski, at times, have come secrets of intrigue
and conspiracy that must have made them, even as it has the President,
almost tremble with the import of impending events that had to be
forestalled.
CHAPTER II
CAPTAIN FRANZ VON PAPEN, DIRECTOR OF GERMANY’S MILITARY ENTERPRISES ON
THE AMERICAN FRONT
“I always say to these idiotic Yankees they had better hold their
tongues.”
So wrote Captain Franz von Papen, German military attaché in America, to
his wife in Germany—a letter which he entrusted to Captain James F. J.
Archibald, American newspaper correspondent and bearer of secret and
confidential messages from Teutonic representatives. The German word
which the Captain used was “bloedsinnig,” meaning silly, stupid,
idiotic. It has a sneering ring, truly typical of the Prussian warrior’s
contempt for Americans. It suggests the disdainful feeling which the
military attaché had for the loyalty of Americans. One can imagine his
sly laugh as he handed to an American that letter and code messages to
the War Staff. With a similar feeling of contempt for the British, when
dismissed from this country and assured of safe conduct as to person, he
carried on board the steamer _Noordam_ a portfolio of papers from
friends reflecting the same disgust for America and outlining his own
unlawful and criminal acts in America. But in both instances his
arrogant self-confidence brought exposure.
This attitude of arrogance was Captain von Papen’s chief characteristic.
Joined to it was the brother trait, bluntness. He believed that the
American people were not only stupid but also weak-sighted and that he
could do anything he wanted without detection. So he put his heart and
soul into military and criminal enterprises upon American soil. The
Captain apparently thought that the American authorities would not
suspect his machinations, for, unlike Captain Boy-Ed, he made
comparatively few efforts to cover up the trails of his activities. That
carelessness proved his scorn for American detective methods, for with
all his haughtiness and bravado he had been trained in a school of
craft. He had been drilled under instructors who placed a prize on
cunning, deceit, intrigue, reckless disregard of the rights of others,
and the destiny of Prussia as a conqueror. The Captain presumably
believed that craft and cunning were not necessary in America.
CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACY
Confident that he was eluding the watchful eye of the United States
authorities with more skill than his associates, he sent a telegram one
day to Captain Boy-Ed, warning him to be more careful. Whereupon the
latter, smiling cheerfully to himself, wrote this letter: “Dear Papen: A
secret agent who returned from Washington this evening, made the
following statement: ‘The Washington people are very much excited about
von Papen and are having a constant watch kept on him. They are in
possession of a whole heap of incriminating evidence against him. They
have no evidence against Count B. and Captain B.-E. (!)’” Boy-Ed, a
little too optimistically, added: “In this connection I would suggest
with due diffidence that perhaps the first part of your telegram is
worded rather too emphatically.”
Wrapped in that sense of contempt the military attaché began immediately
upon the outbreak of war, even as he had planned before it, to make the
United States “the hinterland” of the European battlefield. In the
Embassy at Washington, the German consulate in New York, the
Hamburg-American Building, an office in 60, Wall Street—which he
secretly leased—and on board German merchantmen tied up in New York
Harbour, he gathered about him German officials and German reservists,
outlining plots in violation of American law, all designed to injure the
Allies and help the cause of Germany. In those conferences, _his
arrogant disregard of America_ and his determination _overruled the
hesitating dissenters_. His was the Prussian spirit of aggression. In
those gatherings, he was both the dominating and the domineering factor:
tall and broad-shouldered, with a commanding attitude, energetic in
speech, and lightning-like in the development of bold plans. He has the
strong forehead, the long, firm nose, and the heavy underjaw of a
commander, but the large ears that denote recklessness and eyes blue and
hard as steel.
UNDER ORDERS FROM BERLIN
He had been selected in his youth for secret work because of an aptness
which he early displayed. He had been trained especially for the work
which he undertook in other countries under direction of the German
General Staff and for the tasks that devolved upon him in America both
before and after the war. As a young officer he was sent out from
Germany, travelling as a civilian, making special studies of the
sentiment of the people, the topography of the country, and getting in
touch with other secret workers. One of the countries which he studied
with remarkable care was Ireland. He tramped and rode every foot of the
land and knew it thoroughly. He displayed something of the knowledge he
had acquired when riding in Central Park, one day after the war started,
he stopped to chat with an acquaintance who had bought a mare. Waxing
enthusiastic over the animal he quickly showed his acquaintance with
Ireland by giving the breed of the mare and telling exactly the counties
in Ireland where that breed could be found.
How well he disguised himself in those various expeditions when he rode
horseback simply as a sightseer, is indicated by his horsemanship.
Though he was trained in a riding school at Hanover, where ostensibly
they teach the French method, nevertheless in Central Park, where many a
morning he could be observed, he displayed perfect English form. They
say that when one learns the French style, one invariably clings to it
above all others. Naturally, a horseman travelling through Ireland
revealing every characteristic of the French school would attract
attention.
As the military attaché of the German Embassy, Captain von Papen was
under orders, not of Count von Bernstorff, but of the military head in
Germany. Appointed personally by the Kaiser as the representative of the
German Army in America and Mexico, he had the commission that falls to
every military attaché of a foreign government, namely, to make a study
of the army of the nation to which he is accredited.
Captain von Papen, always striving for praise and preferment from the
Kaiser, was a most enthusiastic gatherer of military information.
Knowing that no phase of military activity throughout the world escapes
the watchful eye of the Chief Spy or the German General Staff, von Papen
was always on the alert for any invention, new method of warfare, or
germ of an idea that might be developed into an important advantage for
Germany; just as the War Staff got their suggestion for the modern
trench warfare from the Indians and later from the Civil War. For
instance, shortly before the great war started, Captain von Papen,
addressed as “Royal Prussian Captain on the General Staff of the Army,”
was directed by R. von Wild, of the Ministry of War’s office, to proceed
to Mexico and there investigate the attacks on railroad trains by means
of mines and explosives. He made a thorough investigation and though he
reported: “I consider it out of the question that explosions prepared in
this way would have to be reckoned with in a European war,” he
nevertheless sought to utilize that method in blowing up tunnels and
railroads in Canada.
AT WORK IN MEXICO
How well von Papen, as an organizer and military investigator, acquitted
himself in the interest of the Kaiser is set forth in Rear Admiral von
Hintze’s own language in a report which he made from Mexico to the
Imperial Chancellor recommending von Papen for a decoration. That letter
is striking; for it suggests the work which von Papen afterwards did in
America, if he had not already made the arrangements for it prior to the
outbreak of the European conflict. The admiral wrote that von Papen
“showed special industry in organizing the German colony for purposes of
self-defence and out of this shy and factious material, unwilling to
undertake any military activity, he obtained what there was to be got.”
While von Papen had a staff of experts and of secret agents prior to the
war, he did not then have the perfectly developed system at his command
which he used afterwards. That he had his plans well mapped out for any
contingency and that he knew the situation thoroughly is vividly
illustrated in a draft of a cable message which he sent to Captain
Boy-Ed from Mexico City on July 29, 1914, saying:
“If necessary, arrange business for me too with Pavenstedt. Then inform
Lersner. The Russian attaché ordered back to Washington by telegraph. On
outbreak of war have intermediaries located by detective where Russian
and French intelligence office.” The latter part of the message,
referring to intermediaries, is open to two interpretations: first, that
Boy-Ed was to have detectives locate the Russian and French intelligence
offices; second, Boy-Ed was to place spies in the Russian and French
intelligence bureaus.
Hurrying to Washington, the military attaché immediately took charge of
the military part of Germany’s spy system. He began to weld together
into a vast organization scientists, experts, secret agents and German
reservists who would gather information for him and who would be ready
at the command of the General War Staff, to undertake any military
enterprise. The entire organization of German consuls and
representatives in America work in unity in war as in peace. How quickly
von Papen got his staff together is shown in a statement made by Franz
Wachendorf, alias Horst von der Goltz, alias Bridgeman Taylor, who
became one of Papen’s aids in spy work and military enterprises.
Wachendorf, who was a major in the Mexican army at the outbreak of war,
said under oath: “The 3rd of August, 1914; licence was given me by my
commanding officer to separate myself from the service of the brigade
for the term of six months. I left directly for El Paso, Texas, where I
was told by Mr. Kuck, German consul at Chihuahua, Mexico, who stayed
there, to put myself at the disposition of Captain von Papen.”
CALLING RESERVISTS
The military attaché also had help from Germany and from German
reservists coming from other countries. The War Office in Berlin sent
him men. Captain Hans Tauscher, the husband of Mme. Gadski, was in
Germany when war was declared. A reserve officer of the German Army, he
immediately offered himself for duty. His order was to return to America
at once and report to Captain von Papen. Likewise, soldiers and secret
agents with special equipment, who were in different parts of the world
and who had no definite work, were ordered by wireless or through secret
channels to hasten to Captain von Papen’s assistance. After a time, the
Chief Spy in Germany detailed some of his aids to America to help in the
upbuilding of a still more effective system of espionage.
Though remarkably skilled and trained to a high degree in a number of
different lines, Captain von Papen made it his business to gather around
him experts on every phase of military affairs, giving definite
assignments to each and thus dividing the work so that greater speed and
efficiency were obtained. He chose Captain Tauscher, agent of the Krupps
and other big and small gun manufacturers in Germany and Austria, as one
of his aids in gathering information. Captain Tauscher is an expert on
ordnance and as such he was of invaluable assistance to Captain von
Papen in obtaining facts regarding the manufacture of heavy ordnance and
explosives for the Allies. _Tauscher was on most friendly terms with
U.S. Ordnance officers._
Von Papen selected George von Skal, a German journalist and former
Commissioner of Accounts of New York, as a paid assistant in his office;
and as a matter of fact every one of the big German agents in America
had on his staff at least one trained newspaper man. He took as his
secretary Wolf von Igel, a young man of distinguished appearance, and
through him secretly rented a suite of offices in Wall Street “for
advertising purposes.”
Another man upon whom he could call for help was Paul Koenig, lent by
the Hamburg-American Steamship Company. Through Koenig, von Papen could
reach out to countless Germans and select men for any sort of task.
Sometimes, however, von Papen met with a refusal. He asked Captain
Tauscher to perform a certain piece of work of questionable character
and received in substance this answer: “I am ready to do anything within
the law but I will not attempt this task.” Experts in the chemistry of
explosives, scientists of various sorts, lawyers and other advisers were
on the military attaché’s staff, all having special tasks and all
working for the Kaiser with or without pay.
FOREIGN ARMY ON U.S. SOIL
Von Papen sought to protect his Wall Street suite of offices from public
investigation by installing therein a safe bearing the seal of the
Imperial German Government. That safe, protected by time-locks and by
electrical devices against the curiosity of other secret agents or the
prying eyes of policemen, is said to have contained the plans of the
military phases of German propaganda. When the Federal agents suddenly
descended upon the office one day to arrest von Igel, they found the
safe open and the documents neatly laid out on the table preparatory to
shipment to Washington. From those papers the State Department and the
Attorney-General have learned much of the history of von Papen’s
activities—the inner workings of the German spy system. In that office
von Papen kept the full list of his various secret agents, German and
American, working for him, their addresses and telephone numbers;
various code books for the deciphering of messages sent to him and for
sending word to agents in this country or making reports.
Accordingly, when von Papen’s plan for espionage was perfected, he had
not only a staff of experts at his elbow, but thousands of reservists
and the help of German and Austro-Hungarian consuls and channels of
information. He had men at his disposal for dangerous and delicate
missions to other countries. The ramifications of the system, the
collecting agency and activities which he supervised for the good of the
Fatherland were so finely organized and so comprehensive that von Papen
in reality was the head of the military division of the German spy
system of the entire world, outside of the countries belted by the
Allies with a ring of steel.
Facts to prove the details of von Papen’s organization and deeds were
obtained from the von Igel papers, from the letters and secret documents
taken from Captain Archibald; from documents and check stubs found in
von Papen’s possession when searched at Falmouth, England; from von der
Goltz’s confession; from scores of witnesses and from facts dug up by
the Secret Service and the Department of Justice. The trials of various
offenders against neutrality laws have given the public more evidence.
United States District-Attorney H. Snowden Marshall, in New York, his
assistants, Roger B. Wood, in charge of the criminal division; Raymond
H. Sarfaty, John C. Knox, and Harold A. Content, all set forth before
the public many phases of the ingenious underground methods of spying
and violating the law. Upon the evidence found by those officials and by
United States District-Attorney Preston, of San Francisco, the following
facts are presented:
Once the spies were selected and assigned to their duties, von Papen
sought first, to glean information bearing on the great war. He was
interested, naturally, in the amount of shrapnel shells and high
explosives which the Allies were purchasing. He was eager to ascertain
what American Army officers were learning about the military operations
on the Continent and what the American Government was doing to develop
its army to cope with the new problems arising from the war. He was
watching the officers of the Allies in this country. He was seeking
lines of communication with the racial elements in America that were
allied with the insurrection forces in the colonies of the Entente
Powers. The varied results of his investigations are shown by extracts
from reports which he sent to Berlin by Captain Archibald. One letter
told, for instance, that the Norwegian and Dutch governments were in the
market for war materials. Von Papen asked if there were any objection by
Germany to the sale to those governments of war products purchased by
him in America, adding:
“I could probably dump on the Norwegian Government a great part of the
Lehigh Coke Company’s toluol which is lying around useless.”
In a cipher despatch to the chief of the General Staff in Berlin, he
noted a conversation overheard in Philadelphia between two Englishmen.
One British army officer, he said, was explaining a method for conveying
military information by photographs. Likewise he gathered news of the
Spanish Government seeking supplies, and sifted the facts assembled from
factories, banking houses, diplomatic sources and transportation offices
about the Allied war orders.
SECRET AGENTS BLOCK OUT AMERICA
Captain von Papen’s cheque counterfoils are a veritable diary of some of
his criminal—or if you please, military—activities in America. They give
the names and the aliases of his secret agents; and day after day are
recorded therein the payments made by von Papen to the persons working
for or with him. The counterfoils tell the story of the purpose of the
payment and by means of the endorsements on the cheques one can gather
in skeleton form the story of a part—but not all—of the propaganda which
the military attaché supervised. The stubs show the receipt of money,
almost immediately after the beginning of the war marked for “War
Intelligence Office.” The interesting thing is that money for war
intelligence work came from von Bernstorff and that funds for salary and
expenses came from Dr. Fr. Adler, the Ambassador’s secretary. To the
fact that Captain von Papen kept such an accurate diary—an instance of
German efficiency—is due in part the exposure of his varied activities
in this country.
To Anton Kuepferle, another German spy captured in England and suspected
after a confession to have shot himself, he gave $100. To Wachendorf he
gave funds that the latter might go both to Berlin and England in the
service of the Kaiser. To Paul Koenig, he handed many accounts for
secret service work, paying also the expenses of Koenig’s agents on
trips to Montreal and Quebec in hunting information about enlistments of
soldiers in Canada and the shipments of supplies from Canadian ports.
The stub book also shows that he sent agents to investigate ammunition
factories in different parts of the country, and that he paid the
expenses of von Skal in getting “photographs for the War Intelligence
Office.” He constantly was sending cheques to consuls in various parts
of the country to pay the expenses of reservists and agents.
TO INVADE CANADA
The diary, too, tells us of Captain von Papen’s plan to invade Canada.
Scarcely had he arrived in this country from Mexico, a few days after
the Germans had invaded Belgium, than, as general-in-chief of the German
reservists, he began to mobilize his forces for a military enterprise in
Canada. If you look at the Captain’s diary you see these entries:
“September 1, 1914, Mr. Bridgeman Taylor, $200;” “September 16, for
Buffalo, Taylor, Ryan, $200;” “September 22, for Ryan, Buffalo, $200;”
“October 14, for Fritzen and Busse, Buffalo, $40,00.”
These are the earmarks of an unsuccessful military enterprise; for just
as soon as Captain von Papen saw reservists gather in New York and
assembling in other points he laid his plans for a concerted move on
Canada. He discussed the details with his majors, captains and
lieutenants assembling in New York. He met them in secret at night in
the German Club and with maps and other detailed plans he set forth his
mode of attack.
_Captain von Papen’s scheme—as they talked it over at the German
Club—was to create such a reign of terror among Canadians that the
provincial governments would deem it absolutely necessary to keep all
the troops in Canada for defence rather than hurry them to the European
battle-front._ The plan, while it entailed explosions and fighting, was
largely for psychological effect. One part of the scheme was to send an
expedition to blow up the Welland Canal, a waterway that runs around
Niagara Falls on the Canadian side and is a most important avenue of
transportation for freight and passengers. _The second part was to have
an invasion by German reservists upon various parts of the Canadian
border._
Captain von Papen aimed to create a panic among the Canadians, to put
such fear into them that they would say to England, “We need our troops
for self-protection against the Germans in the United States”—thereby
putting the United States in a position of being unable to preserve its
neutrality. The destruction of the canal by a tremendous explosion, or
the detonation of a carload of dynamite on some railroad, or any sort of
explosion in the Dominion, believed to have been supervised by Germans,
would have had a tremendous effect upon the people. Doubtless this was
what Captain von Papen sought; for that was the way he outlined the
scheme to his assistants.
It has been stated that Wachendorf was one of the men whom von Papen
gathered for secret conference in the German Club. “Von der Goltz” in a
confession made to the Federal authorities said that he was asked to
give his opinion about a proposal made to the German Embassy, the writer
of which, a certain Schumacher, had asked for financial support in order
to carry out a scheme by which _he would be able to make raids on towns
situated on the coast of the Great Lakes. He proposed to use motor-boats
armed with machine-guns._ Though the proposal was rejected on account of
the Embassy receiving unfavourable information about the writer, “von
der Goltz” next was requested to aid in a scheme of invasion of Canada
with a small armed force recruited from the reservists in the United
States. The scheme, which was proposed by von Papen and Boy-Ed, was
abandoned as objections to it were made by Count von Bernstorff. “Von
der Goltz” says he was told so by Captain von Papen.
BLOWING UP CANALS
Captain von Papen next asked “von der Goltz” to see at his hotel two
Irishmen, prominent members of Irish associations, both of whom had
fought in the Irish rebellion and who had proposed to Captain von Papen
to blow up the locks of the canals connecting the Great Lakes, main
railway junctions and grain elevators. “Von der Goltz” says he received
the gentlemen at his hotel, the men bringing with them a letter of
introduction written by Captain von Papen. After having taken them to
his room he got further details of the matter, maps and diagrams
evidently cut out of books.
“Von der Goltz” also tells of going to Baltimore to enlist a number of
German reservists who were staying on a German vessel there. In that
scheme, he says, he had the aid of Karl A. Luederitz, German consul. He
brought them to New York, but believing that his movements were being
watched by Federal agents, he sent them back. Continuing his story of
the conspiracy, von der Goltz writes:
“I saw Mr. Tauscher and he gave me a letter of introduction to the
Dupont Powder Company, recommending B. H. Taylor, and the company
supplied me with an order to the bargeman in charge of the dynamite
barges lying on the New Jersey side near the Statue of Liberty. Captain
Tauscher told me he would send the automatic pistols by messenger to
Hoboken, to be delivered there to one of my agents at a certain
restaurant, as he would be liable to punishment if he delivered them in
New York without having seen my permit. The reasons why I did not apply
to the police for a permit are obvious.”
SCATTERING DYNAMITE
“In order to get the dynamite it was necessary for me to hire a
motor-boat at a place near 146th Street, Harlem, and to put the dynamite
on board in suit-cases. After returning to the dock, where I had hired
the boat, I went in a taxicab, having two suit-cases with me, to the
German Club to see von Papen, who told me to call for the generators and
then wire again at the club. I took the dynamite to my rooms, where I
kept also a portion of the arms packed in small portmanteaus ready to be
moved, the rest of the dynamite and arms being in the keeping of two of
my agents, one of whom was Mr. Fritzen, discharged from a Russian
steamer, where he had acted in the capacity of purser; the other one
being Mr. Busse, a commercial agent, who had lived for some time in
England. The only other agent I employed was C. Covani, who attended to
me personally, Tucker not being entrusted with any of those things.”
Going to Buffalo with his men and equipment, “von der Goltz” was unable
for some reason to receive definite instructions from von Papen, who was
supposed to communicate with him under the name of “Steffens.” He says:
“Being thrown on my own discretion, I determined to reconnoitre the
terrain where I wanted to act first, but to do nothing further till I
should receive orders.
“On 25th September received notice from Ryan to come to Buffalo. Having
meantime received private information that the 1st Canadian Contingent
had left Valcartier Camp, I knew that I should be recalled, the object
of the enterprise being removed. I received from Ryan the telegram
agreed upon in that case, but as I had spent most of the money furnished
to me I asked whether Ryan had not received money to enable me to pay
off the men. Ryan said he had not, but gave me some of his own
initiative, and said he would wire ‘Steffens.’ On the 26th September I
received telegram from ‘Steffens’ telling me to do what I thought best,
and asking whether I had received the $200. Thinking it best to return
to New York, all the more as funds were insufficient, I discharged Busse
and Fritzen, who went to Buffalo, left dynamite and other materials in
the keeping of an aviator who was manager of a restaurant at Niagara
Falls, to be used again when necessary, and left with Covani for New
York by way of Buffalo.”
The trial of Captain Tauscher on the indictment charging him with
conspiring with von Papen, von Igel and others to blow up the Welland
Canal resulted in the acquittal of the German reservist; but it was
admitted that von Papen and von der Goltz had developed a plot to
destroy the Canal.
The evidence presented by Prosecutor Wood made a case, corroborated by
details of testimony and documents, that delighted legal experts. The
jurors, several of whom were of foreign birth, acquitted the captain
apparently on the theory that, though he had furnished the dynamite,
fuses and automatic revolvers to von der Goltz, he knew nothing about
the plot, but simply had followed the orders given him by his superior
officer, Captain von Papen.
OBEDIENCE IN AMERICA EXACTED
Captain Tauscher, in the witness-box, testified that he was in Germany
at the outbreak of the war; that he had proffered his services as a
reservist officer and that he had been directed to return to America and
report to Captain von Papen. He said he knew von Papen as the head of
the German secret service and that he was compelled to obey him. He
protested, however, that he had exacted a promise from von Papen to the
effect that he would not be asked to do anything contrary to American
laws. He said he was an ordnance expert under von Papen.
Many documents, revealing the manner in which von Papen and his
assistants worked, had been taken from von Igel’s office, formerly von
Papen’s New York headquarters, and were presented as evidence by
Prosecutor Wood. One document was a piece of paper in von Papen’s own
handwriting directing that a cheque in payment of the ammunition,
pistols and dynamite, be drawn in favour of Captain Tauscher and that
the same be charged to the account of William G. Sichols. Still another
document was a copy of a letter written to a preacher in March, 1916,
saying that Tucker, one of the witnesses in the Canal expedition, must
be sent away for a time and remain quiet. The amount, $100, was enclosed
for that purpose. Tucker was arrested in Texas. Although Captain
Tauscher was freed, practically every charge of the prosecution was
admitted except that Captain Tauscher had any knowledge of von Papen’s
criminal intentions.
RECKLESS ADVENTURERS HIRED
Without doubt, according to facts gathered by the Federal authorities
and developed in Canada, Captain von Papen and reservist German army
officers in the country did plan a mobilization of German reservists to
attack Canadian points. Hundreds of thousands of rifles and hundreds of
thousands of rounds of ammunition that were to be available for German
reservists were stored in New York, in Chicago, and different places
along the border. While the Canadian and the American officials
developed evidence concerning this plan of invasion, Max Lynar Louden,
known to the Federal authorities as “Count Louden,” a man of nondescript
reputation, who had secret communications with the Germans in the early
part of the war, has confessed that he was party to the scheme for quick
mobilization and equipment of an army of German reservists. Many persons
insist that Louden is a fabricator, nevertheless his secret activities
were of such a character that he was under suspicion by the Federal
authorities. At one time, he succeeded in getting himself invited to a
Government House Ball, when the Duke of Connaught was the host. His
bizarre costume attracted attention. The moment it was rumoured that he
was supposed to have two or three wives, a State investigation was
commenced, which resulted in the imprisonment of Louden. His story,
therefore, is interesting.
Through German-American interests the plans were made in 1914, he said,
and a fund of $10,000,000 was subscribed to carry out the details.
Secret meetings were held in New York, Buffalo, Philadelphia, Detroit,
Milwaukee, and other large cities, and at these meetings, Louden
asserted, it was agreed that _a force of 150,000 men, German reservists,
was available to seize and hold the Welland Canal_, other strategic
points and munitions centres.
“We had it arranged,” said Louden, “to send our men from large cities
following announcements of feasts and conventions; and I think we could
have obtained enough to carry out our plans had it not been for my
arrest on the charge of bigamy. _The troops were to have been divided
into four divisions, with six sections. The first two sections were to
have assembled at Silvercreek, Michigan. The first was to have seized
the Welland Canal. The second was to have taken Wind Mill Point. The
third was to have gone from Wilson, N.Y., to Port Hope, Canada. The
fourth was to have proceeded from Watertown, N.Y., to Kingston, Canada.
The fifth was to have assembled near Detroit and land near Windsor. The
sixth section was to leave Cornwall and take possession of Ottawa._”
After the enterprise on the Welland Canal failed and Count von
Bernstorff, according to von der Goltz, disapproved of the Canadian
invasion, there was a lull in any concerted move upon Canada.
By referring again to Captain von Papen’s diary it is evident that he
had other matters to absorb his attention. The counterfoils of the
cheque-book record payments such as the following payment dated July 10,
1915, “H. Tauscher (Preleuther’s bill for ‘Res. Picric Acid’) $68.” The
busy attaché, fighting here in the interests of the Fatherland had other
plans.
BUYS UP EXPLOSIVES
Captain von Papen was keenly alive to the production of explosives in
America for sale to the Allies. He was watching closely the product of
the different ammunition factories. He was locating the source of the
ingredients for such explosives, and he was naturally concerned in any
method for preventing the export of arms and ammunition to the Allies.
He possessed an unusual mind for economic data—a quality which aroused
the admiration of Dr. Albert. The two men were much in conference over
industrial matters that might be managed in the interest of the Teutonic
Allies. Under Dr Albert’s guidance he took up the project of acquiring a
monopoly in toluol, a constituent of the deadly explosive T. N. T., and
for buying picric acid, and liquid chlorine.
How he made recommendations on these things to Dr. Albert was shown in
connection with the fiscal agent’s activities. Other secret letters and
reports prove that he and his associates had control of the Lehigh Coke
Company, which turned out a large amount of toluol, and that he was
studying to control the supply of picric acid in this country. Still
further, he devoted much time to the Bridgeport Projectile Company in
Bridgeport, Connecticut. This company was organized shortly after the
outbreak of the war, and its promoters were prevailed upon to sell out
to German buyers who, after an exposé of their activities, disposed of
their holdings to still another group. Carl Heynen, an able German
organizer and expert in Mexican affairs, had charge of the plant and
supervised construction work and the placing of contracts for steel,
ammunition and presses. The money was furnished by Hugo Schmidt and Dr.
Albert.
Von Papen, Heynen, Dr. Albert, frequently in conference, planned, as
excerpts from memorandum prepared by them prove, to utilize the company
in several ways: (1) _to turn out supplies that could be used by Germany
and her Allies, or by countries planning to make trouble for the United
States_; (2) to take the Allies’ orders and fail to fill them; (3) to
use the company as a means of getting information from the War
Department.
One of Captain von Papen’s own letters reveals the importance of these
enterprises. Writing to his wife about the so-called Albert papers, he
says:
“Unfortunately they stole a fat portfolio from our good friend, Dr.
Albert, in the elevated. The English secret service, of course.
Unfortunately, there were some very important things from my report,
among them such as buying up liquid chlorine and about the Bridgeport
Projectile Company, as well as documents regarding the buying up of
phenol and the acquisition of Wright’s aeroplane patent. But things like
that must occur. I send you Albert’s reply, for you to see how we
protect ourselves. We composed the document to-day.”
STOPPING SHIPMENTS FROM AMERICA
This search for information of military value and these plans for
acquiring monopolies on certain ingredients for high explosives, carried
on during the winter and spring of 1914–15, were but preliminary to a
much more extensive campaign in which, as will be shown later on, Dr. C.
T. Dumba, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, assisted by von Papen and
Boy-Ed, worked with the idea, first, of controlling the arms and
ammunition factories in this country, and next, of preventing the
shipment of such products from America.
Naturally, during the winter and spring, Captain von Papen, Captain
Boy-Ed, Dr. Albert and Count von Bernstorff, all along various lines,
had been struggling to help the Fatherland, each eagerly hoping for
success and some preferment extended by the Kaiser as a reward for tasks
well performed.
Attacks were planned upon the Canadian Pacific Railway in the east, the
Welland Canal, the St. Clair tunnel, running under the Detroit River
from Port Huron, Michigan, to Sarnia, Ontario, and tunnels of the
Canadian Pacific Railroad in the Selkirk mountains. It is also stated in
indictments handed down by a Federal Grand Jury in San Francisco that
_the conspirators in the West planned also to blow up trains carrying
munitions of war, horses, arms and the like, and also to attack trains
carrying soldiers_. By a study on the map of the points thus mentioned
it will be observed that these enterprises were planned with the utmost
care to break into sections of the Canadian transcontinental railway
system and to paralyse it absolutely. It can be seen at a glance that
such plots, if carried out, would have prevented soldiers and munitions
of war from travelling East to ship for the Western front, or from going
West to cross the Pacific, thence through Siberia to the Eastern front.
_To this land scheme was added the additional plots of destroying docks
by incendiarism, ships by explosions and fire._ Furthermore, _agents_ on
land under the direction of other men _were studying the munition
factories in the western part of the United States preparatory to
causing explosions and fires_.
For the execution of these campaigns against munition industries and
railroads in the West and North-west, Captain von Papen had special
lieutenants. The persons who have been convicted in San Francisco on the
charge of conspiring to blow up railroads and to wreck the
transcontinental railway system in Canada are: Franz Bopp, German consul
in San Francisco; Baron Eckhart H. von Schack, German vice-consul;
Lieutenant Wilhelm von Brincken, attaché of German consulate; Charles C.
Crowley, detective for German consul; and Mrs. Margaret W. Cornell,
secretary to Crowley. They were sentenced to two years’ imprisonment
each.
The question may justly be asked: “Why is it asserted that von Papen was
behind and directed all these enterprises?” The Federal authorities have
established a connection between von Papen’s headquarters in 60, Wall
Street, and the German Consulate in San Francisco, whence, according to
United States District-Attorney Preston of that city, ramifications led
out to the different angles of the conspiracy in the West. So strong is
the evidence that the San Francisco officials have accused the
defendants of using the mails to incite murder, arson and assassination.
It is stated that the defendants planned to destroy munition works at
Aenta, Indiana, at Ishpeming, Michigan, and at Gary and other places in
the West. Among the evidence is one letter among several which has to do
with the question of the price which would be paid for the destruction
of a powder plant at Pinole, California, and in it reference was made to
“P.” The letter follows:
* * * * *
“DEAR S.,—Your last letter with clipping to-day, and note what you have
to say. I have taken it up with them and ‘B.’ (which the Federal
officials say stands for Franz Bopp, German Consul) is awaiting decision
of ‘P.’ in New York, so cannot advise you yet, and will do so as soon as
I get word from you. You might size up the situation in the meantime.”
* * * * *
While this and other letters show, in the opinion of the Government
officials, that von Papen was concerned with the defendants mentioned in
the western indictment, still other facts have been gathered against von
Papen. He has been traced from Washington and New York to a number of
points in the United States, his visits coinciding with remarkable
closeness to the time that meetings of the alleged conspirators were
being held. Captain von Papen sauntered from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in
New York one afternoon about 3.30, down Madison Avenue to 42nd Street,
where he wavered for a moment as if deciding whether he would turn over
for a jaunt on Fifth Avenue or drop into the Grand Central Station to
buy a magazine.
After a moment he walked slowly into the station, glancing casually at
his watch, and moving just before the gate closed toward the entrance to
the track where stood the Twentieth Century Limited, was soon safely on
board. The next day he was observed in Chicago, where he announced that
he was on his way to Yellowstone National Park—and he disappeared. For
several weeks he was lost to the sight of the zealous agents who were
hunting him; but one day he was observed sauntering through the lobby of
the Palace Hotel, San Francisco. In the course of his absence, he is
said to have swung down along the Mexican border, where he caught up
with Captain Boy-Ed, conferred with a number of secret agents from
Mexico, with spies scattered throughout the country, and then hurried up
to San Francisco, where he was busy before the agents of the Department
of Justice picked him up again.
CONSPIRACIES ON LAND AND SEA
_One indictment_ against the five defendants, phrased in legal terms, is
vivid and forcible though barren of details. _It accuses the German
representatives and their hirelings of plotting to blow up railway
tunnels, railroads, railroad trains, and bridges, already mentioned._
Over this vast system of transportation, the indictment explains,
supplies were being shipped westward for transportation on the ships
_Talthybius_ and _Hazel Dollar_. The defendants, it is stated, hired
Smith to help them gain information about the sailings and the cargoes
of ships leaving Tacoma bound for Vladivostok; that after Smith went to
Tacoma, Crowley sent him money. Crowley and Smith came to New York,
where they had conference with Germans who were in touch with von Papen.
They next went to Detroit, where they were working out plans for the
blowing up of the tunnel when they were arrested. Smith, who was working
on the shipping and the tunnel end of the scheme, confessed, while van
Koolbergen also has made a statement to the authorities which is of
great interest, showing the workings of the defendants.
“On different occasions in his room,” says van Koolbergen, “von Brincken
showed me maps and information about Canada, and pointed out to me where
he wanted the act to be done. This was to be between Revelstoke and
Vancouver on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and I was to get $3,000 in
case of a successful blowing up of a military train, or bridge, or
tunnel.
“There are many tunnels and bridges there, and military trains pass
every three or four days; he also knew when a cargo of dynamite would
pass. He then informed me how I could get hold of dynamite, and
explained to me that on the other side of the river on which the
Canadian Pacific ran (I believe it was the Fraser River) the Canadian
Northern Railway was in course of construction, and they had at
intervals powder and dynamite magazines and that it would be very easy
to steal some of the dynamite.”
Several ships were blown up on the Pacific; others were disabled under
circumstances that suggested conspiracies. There were schemes also to
destroy docks on the Pacific coast. In view of these plots, it is
striking to observe in von Papen’s cheque counterfoils this entry: “May
11, 1915, German Consulate, Seattle (for Schulenberg), $500.” An
explosion in Seattle Harbour occurred on May 30, 1915.
Another excerpt from the counterfoil is dated February 2nd, 1915,
recording the payment of $1,300 to the Seattle, Washington, German
Consulate marked “C. Angelegenheit,” a very vague word for “affair.” He
also paid to A. Kalschmidt, of Detroit, who is accused by the Canadian
authorities of plotting to blow up armouries and factories in Canada,
$1,000 on March 27, 1915, and $1,976 on July 10, 1915.
While this enterprise was being mapped out in the West, a second project
against the Welland Canal was in the making in New York. Paul Koenig,
the intermediary between von Papen and reservists and others, had
charge, it is alleged, of selecting assistants who would carry dynamite,
fuses, and other equipment to the Canadian waterway. Koenig selected as
his assistants Richard Emil Leyendecker, retailer of art woods, a
naturalized German-American, Fred Metzler, Koenig’s stenographer, George
Fuchs, a German, who after a quarrel with Koenig turned State’s
evidence; as also did Metzler, and one or two other men. The party went
to Buffalo and to Niagara Falls, being trailed all the time by agents
under direction by William M. Offley, chief of the Federal investigators
of New York.
EXPLOSIONS IN FACTORIES
While these plots in the West were developed in vain and some of the
culprits have been convicted, still other enterprises were conceived and
set in motion in the East. A great number of explosions and fires have
occurred in factories in the eastern part of the country. Though many of
them were due to natural causes, yet suspicions seem to show that bombs
were manufactured and placed in various plants and that incendiary bombs
were hidden in other factories. The men believed to have committed the
crime have been traced. They invariably proved to be Germans who, under
assumed names, had obtained work in the factory; and then, shortly after
the fire or explosion, had disappeared. But Federal agents following
them learned that they had hurried back to Germany or skipped away to
Mexico or South America. Bombs for their purposes were manufactured in
various places in New York and Brooklyn; and in fact the authorities
have obtained statements from men who made the bombs, but thus far they
have not located the chief man. A German officer skilled in the
manufacture of explosives spent a number of months in New York, living
on board one of the German merchantmen and conferring frequently with
Germans. He disappeared one day and was not heard of until a wireless
message announced his arrival in Berlin.
Into this general scheme for preventing supplies from going to the
Allies fits the conspiracy of Robert Fay and his associates. Fay, a
tall, military-looking man, who has told many stories, some of which are
true, some of which are lies, fought in the trenches for Germany and
then obtained leave of absence and a passport to come to America. He had
an inventive bent, and _he conceived the idea of manufacturing high
explosive mines which could be attached to the rudder posts of ships,
and which would be so regulated by a detonating device that explosions
would occur far out at sea_. Fay says that he sought to blow off the
rudder, disable the ship, but not to sink the vessel or injure her
passengers.
His aim was to frighten steamship owners, and insurance underwriters, so
that the insurance on munition ships would be raised to an almost
prohibitive rate. Experts, however, have testified that so great was the
amount of high explosive in the mines, that it would have blown off the
stern of the ship, and detonated the cargo of explosives. In other
words, had Fay’s scheme worked, nothing of the cargo and ship would have
remained but a few chips floating upon the waves. But through the
vigilance of Chief Flynn, of the secret service, and Captain Tunney, of
the bomb squad of the New York Police Department, Fay’s plan was
detected and John C. Knox, Assistant United States District Attorney,
presented the evidence so thoroughly that Fay and his brother-in-law,
Walter Scholz, and Paul Daeche, a German reservist, were found guilty.
They were sentenced respectively to eight, four and two years in the
penitentiary. Fay admitted on the witness stand that he laid his plan
before Captain von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed, that he had more than one
conference with Captain von Papen; but he asserted that both men warned
him not to undertake the scheme. It will be remembered that Fay escaped
from the Atlanta Penitentiary within a short time after his sentence,
and he is believed to be either in Mexico or back in the trenches. He
undoubtedly secured aid from German sympathizers.
FIRE BOMBS
Another part of this vast conspiracy against the export of arms and
ammunition was the scheme to manufacture the so-called fire bombs, which
could be placed in the holds of ships and which, exploding after a
certain time, would set fire to the cargoes. _By this means,
thirty-three ships were stealthily attacked, with New York as a basis of
operation, and damage of $10,000,000 was done._ Vessels sailing not only
from New York, but from Boston, Galveston, and even from Pacific ports,
carried these bombs stowed away in their holds. Sugar ships especially
were an object of attack, for sugar forms an ingredient of a certain
explosive. These ships especially were adapted to this method, because
once a fire started, the bomb itself would be destroyed, and as water
had to be poured into the hold, the sugar would be destroyed.
Several bombs would be placed in the same hold, as has been shown by the
fact that one fire was started in a vessel before she had left port. The
fire was extinguished and more sugar loaded on the boat. Scarcely had
the boat got out of port when another fire started. Among the ships
attacked by bombs were _La Touraine_, of the French line, the
_Minnehaha_, of the Atlantic Transport Line, the _Rochambeau_, the
_Euterpe_, _Strathtay_, _Devon City_, _Lord Erne_, _Lord Ormonde_,
_Tennyson_ and many others.
The man accused of having charge of these bombs is a chemist, named Dr.
Walter T. Scheele, formerly of Brooklyn, later of Hoboken, and still
later a resident of some foreign country, whither he fled. He
developed—or it was suggested to him by German officers—a scheme for
taking a small metal container divided into two parts. Into one part
would be put sulphuric acid; into another part, chlorate of potash. The
sulphuric acid eating through the partition between the two sections
made of aluminium, would unite with the chlorate of potash, causing
combustion. Thus started, a fire so intense would be created that the
container made of lead would be destroyed, and the cargo would be set on
fire. Dr. Scheele, it is charged, made hundreds of these bombs, and
received a large amount of money from German sources. One story is that
von Rintelen paid him $10,000. Another story is that Wolf von Igel, von
Papen’s assistant, paid him money after von Papen left the country.
Still further, Captain Otto Wolpert, Pier Superintendent of the Atlas
Line, is charged with having received some of these bombs. The metal
containers were manufactured on board the steamship _Friedrich der
Grosse_, tied up in the North German Lloyd pier in Hoboken. The chief
engineer, Carl Schmidt, who spent some time in collecting money for a
monument to commemorate the part Germans have taken in the present war,
is said to have been directed by a German officer to turn over the
workshop of the ship as a bomb factory. At any rate, Ernst Becker, chief
electrician, who has turned State’s evidence, and three assistant
engineers have been arrested as co-conspirators in this ship plot. Dr.
Scheele’s assistant, Captain Charles von Kleist, also has been arrested.
It was through information unwittingly supplied by him that Captain
Tunney and Detective George Barnitz, assisted by extremely keen members
of the bomb squad, unearthed the whole conspiracy.
Captain von Papen, as an organizer of a part of Germany’s secret service
in America, as the schemer who sought to control a monopoly in certain
high explosives and as a director of military enterprises—has been
revealed by the Federal authorities as an extremely able servant of the
Kaiser. These activities, however, were only a part of the task assigned
to him by the German General Staff. He had still other plans which will
be set forth in the following chapter.
CHAPTER III
CAPTAIN VON PAPEN, BUYER OF PASSPORTS AND PROMOTER OF SEDITION
Three other phases of Captain von Papen’s campaigns against the Allies
upon American territory as a base of operations remain to be set forth.
They are his supervision of a bureau for obtaining fraudulent passports
for German reservists ordered home to fight for the Fatherland, the
fomentation of insurrections in the colonies of the Allies and of war
between Mexico and the United States.
PASSPORT FORGERIES
The passport bureau is a striking instance of Germany’s disregard of the
rights and laws in a neutral country. With the sending of Great
Britain’s ultimatum to Germany, the cable between Germany and the United
States had been cut. The United States forbade the use of wireless for
the transmission of messages in code to Germany, or the use of the cable
for cipher dispatches to the warring countries. The Allies’ war vessels
began at once to search all passenger ships for German citizens, taking
them off and sending them to concentration camps. Meantime, von Papen,
Boy-Ed and the other German officials realized the utmost necessity of
transmitting to their respective home offices information concerning the
developments in America. They knew also the vital necessity of sending
back to Berlin, army and naval officers who had been selected and
trained for special commissions in the event of war.
But they had been taught in their early days the value of fraudulent
passports, and to these they turned at once. The Germans had at first no
regular passport bureau for the aid of German reservists. Every German,
left to his own resources, did the best he could under the
circumstances. Carl A. Luederitz, German consul in Baltimore, has been
indicted on a charge of conspiracy in connection with obtaining a
fraudulent passport for Horst von der Goltz under the name of Bridgeman
Taylor. The young German has confessed that with the aid of Herr
Luederitz he applied for a passport and on August 31, 1914, obtained one
bearing the signature of William J. Bryan, then Secretary of State. To
get that document von der Goltz took an oath that he was born in San
Francisco.
But this method was rather loose, and upon Captain von Papen devolved
the necessity of establishing a regular system. The military attaché,
always resourceful and daring, selected for the work Lieutenant Hans von
Wedell. Von Wedell had been a newspaper reporter in New York, later a
lawyer; but when he received orders from Captain von Papen, he gladly
undertook the work in New York, bureaus being started in other cities.
He opened an office in Bridge Street, New York, and began to send out
emissaries to Germans in Hoboken, directing them to apply for passports.
He sent others to the haunts of hoboes on the Bowery, to the cheap
hotels, and other gathering places of the downs-and-outs, offering ten,
fifteen and twenty dollars to men who would apply for passports. He
spent much time at the Deutscher Verein, at the Elks clubhouse, where he
would meet his agents, give them instructions and receive passports. His
bills were paid by Captain von Papen, as revealed by the attaché’s
cheques and counterfoils. These show that on November 24, 1914, von
Papen paid him $500; that on December 5, he gave him $500 and then $300,
the latter being for journey money; that he paid von Wedell’s bills at
the Deutscher Verein, amounting in November, 1914, to $38.05. Meantime,
he was using Mrs. von Wedell as a courier, sending her with messages to
Germany. On December 22, 1914, he paid Mrs. von Wedell, by his own
account, $800.
BUYING PASSPORTS WHOLESALE
The passports which von Wedell, and later on his successor Carl Ruroede,
Sr., obtained, were used for the benefit of German officers whom the
General Staff had ordered back to Berlin. American passports, then
Mexican, Swiss, Norwegian and the passports of South American countries,
were seized eagerly by various reservists bound for the front. Stories
were told in New York of Germans and Austrians, who had been captured by
the Russians, sent to Siberia as prisoners of war, escaping therefrom,
and making their way by caravan through China, embarking on vessels
bound for America, arriving in New York and thence shipping for neutral
countries. Among them was an Austrian officer, an expert observer in
aeroplane reconnaissance, who lost both his feet in Siberia, but who
escaped to this country. He was ordered home because of his extreme
value in reconnoitring. The British learned of him, however, and took
him off a ship at Falmouth to spend the remainder of the war in a prison
camp.
Captain von Papen used the passport bureau to obtain passports for spies
whom he wished to send to England, France, Italy and Russia. Among these
men were Kuepferle and von Breechow, both of whom were captured in
England, having in their possession fraudulent passports. Kuepferle and
von Breechow both confessed.
But so reckless was von Wedell’s and Ruroede’s work that the authorities
soon discovered the practice. Two hangers-on at the Mills Hotel called
upon the writer one day and told him of von Wedell’s practices, related
how they had blackmailed him out of $50, gave his private telephone
numbers and set forth his haunts. As a result of this and other
information reaching the Department of Justice, Albert G. Adams, a
clever agent, started out one day, got into the confidence of Ruroede
and offered to get passports for him for $50 each. Meantime, von Wedell
had gone on a trip to Cuba, apparently on passport matters, and Adams,
posing as a pro-German, got into the inner ring of the passport-buyers.
He was informed by Ruroede as to what was wanted.
CHANGING OFFICIAL STAMPS
Though in the early days of the war it had not been necessary for the
applicant to give to the Federal authorities anything more than a
general description of himself, the reports of German spies in the
Allies’ countries became so insistent that the Government directed that
the document, bearing the United States seal, must have the picture of
the person to whom it was issued. The Germans, however, were not
worried. It was a simple matter to give a general description of a man’s
eyes, colour of hair, age and so forth, that would fit the man who was
actually to use the document and then forward the picture of the
applicant, who, getting the passport, would sell it. Even though the
official stamp was placed on the picture, the Germans were not dismayed.
Federal Agent Adams rushed into Ruroede’s office one day waving five
passports which had been issued to him in a batch by Uncle Sam. Adams
seemed proud of his work. Ruroede was delighted.
“I knew I could get these passports easily,” boasted Ruroede. “Why, if
Lieutenant Hans von Wedell had kept on here, he never could have done
this. He always was getting into a muddle.”
“But how can you use these passports with these pictures on them?” asked
the agent, curiously.
“Oh, that’s easy,” answered Ruroede. “Come into the back room and I’ll
show you.” The agent followed the German, who immediately soaked one of
the passports with a damp cloth and with adhesive paste fastened a
photograph of another man over the original upon which the imprint of
the United States seal had been made.
“We wet the photograph,” said Ruroede, “and then we affix the picture of
the man who is to use it. The new photograph also is dampened, but when
it is fastened to the passport, there still remains a sort of vacuum in
spots between the new picture and the old, because of ridges made by the
seal. Well, turn the passport upside down, place it on a soft ground
made with a silk handkerchief, and then, taking a paper cutter with a
dull point, just trace the letters on the seal. The result is that the
new photograph looks exactly as if it had been stamped by Uncle Sam. You
can’t tell the difference.”
Through the work of Adams, four Germans, one of them an officer of the
German reserves, were arrested on the Norwegian-America liner
_Bergensfjord_, outward bound to Bergen, Norway. They had passports
issued to them through Ruroede’s bureau under the American names of
Howard Paul Wright, Herbert S. Wilson, Peter Hansen and Stanley F.
Martin. Their real names were Arthur Sachse, Pelham Heights, N.Y., who
was returning to Germany to become a lieutenant in the German Army;
Walter Miller, August R. Meyer, and Herman Wegener, who had come to New
York from Chile, on their way to the Fatherland. Ruroede pleaded guilty
and was sentenced to three years in Atlanta, Ga., prison. The four
Germans, also pleading guilty, protested they had taken the passports
out of patriotism and were fined $200 each.
Von Wedell, himself, was a passenger on the steamer _Bergensfjord_, but
when he was lined up with the other passengers, the Federal agents, who
did not have a description of him, were deceived, and let the vessel
proceed. He was taken off the ship by the British and placed in prison.
The arrest of Ruroede exposed the New York bureau, and made it necessary
for the Germans to shift their base of operations; but it did not put an
end to the fraudulent passport conspiracies, as will be shown. In the
face of the exposures, so daring were the German agents that they
continued to commit fraud upon the United States, and to put in danger
every honest American travelling in Europe with an American passport.
FOMENTING REVOLTS
Captain von Papen was a supervisor and a promoter of sedition. His
headquarters in Wall Street were the centre of lines running out to
British and French colonies, where Germany planned at critical moments
to start revolutions, if it would help her interests.
One of the enterprises which Captain von Papen, acting under orders from
Berlin, supervised in the United States, was a revolt against British
rule in India. Preparations for this insurrection had been in the making
for years, and, in the course of all of them, German agents were working
with the Hindus and also with the German-Irish in America, the latter
organization being really headquarters for many Hindus travelling from
Germany to England, then to United States, on their way back to India.
There has been for years a sort of understanding between pro-German
Irish and certain members of an American society interested in India. In
this organization, prior to the war, were men who were plotting a
revolution in India, who were in touch with German agents and who
received German money.
Immediately after the outbreak of the war, von Papen and his agents
poured more money into Hindu pockets, and made arrangements to supply
arms and ammunition to Hindus. For the promotion of this German-Hindu
conspiracy, two other centres were established. One was fathered by
Germans in San Francisco, and another was at Shanghai, China.
Confessions by men, who were active in the enterprise, tell how Hindus
in sympathy with the sedition plots conferred with certain German
officials in Berlin, that they came to New York—this in the course of
the war—where they met certain pro-German-Irishmen and were aided
financially. From New York they journeyed to Chicago, where more money
was handed to them, and then to San Francisco, where they had talks with
Hindu revolutionists—whose openly avowed aim is in rousing the people of
India to celebrate the year 1917, “the diamond jubilee of the mutiny of
1857,” by a general and universal rising against British rule in India.
HINDUS LAUNCH BOMB CAMPAIGN
Many Hindus, who were assembled in the West, also had an opportunity to
study the fine art of explosive and bomb making at a bomb factory up in
the state of Washington. On several occasions groups of Hindus equipped
with money and carrying secretly arms with them sailed from San
Francisco for the Philippines, planning thence to go to India.
Furthermore, ships were chartered by German agencies to carry arms and
ammunition to India and Ceylon. The American schooner _Annie Larsen_ and
the ship _Maverick_, both owned by a man named Fred Jebsen, a German
naval officer, were chartered on the Pacific coast to sail for India in
June, 1915. The _Annie Larsen_ was seized by the United States officials
at Hoquiam, Washington, and on board was found a cargo of rifles and
ammunition. The _Maverick_, however, got away also equipped with rifles
and cartridges, carrying a number of Hindus. The good ship had a most
eventful voyage, the sailors and the passengers suffering many
hardships, and finally reached Batavia, where she was seized by the
Dutch authorities.
In the early stages of his plans, Captain von Papen had an opportunity
to send a rather detailed report of events in India to the secret office
in Berlin. The chance came through Captain Archibald, who was about to
sail from this country, and Captain von Papen, accordingly, prepared in
code a long message. This document, which has been translated, is
illuminating. Here it is:
* * * * *
“Since October, 1914, there have been various local mutinies of
Mohammedan native troops, one practically succeeding the other. From the
last reports, it appears that the Hindu troops are going to join the
mutineers.
“The Afghan army is ready to attack India. The army holds the position
on one side of the Utak River. The British army is reported to hold the
other side of the said river. The three bridges connecting both sides
have been blown up by the British.
“In the garrison located on the Kathiawar Peninsula, Indian mutineers
stormed the arsenal. Railroad and wireless station have been destroyed.
The Sikh troops have been removed from Beluchistan; only English,
Mohammedans and Hindu troops remain there.
“The Twenty-third Cavalry Regiment at Lahore revolted; the police
station and Town House were stormed. The Indian troops in Somaliland in
Labakoran are trying to effect a junction with the Senussi. All Burmah
is ready to revolt.
“In Calcutta, unrest is reported with street fighting; in Lahore, a bank
was robbed; every week at least two Englishmen are killed; in the
north-western district many Englishmen killed, munitions and other
material taken, railroads destroyed; a relief train was repulsed.
“Everywhere great unrest, in Benares a bank has been stormed.
“Revolts in Chitral very serious; barracks and Government buildings
destroyed. The Hurti Mardin Brigade, under General Sir E. Wood, has been
ordered there. Deputy Commissioner of Lahore wounded by a bomb in the
Anakali Bazaar.
“Mohammedan squadron of the cavalry regiment in Nowschera deserted over
Chang, south-west Peshawar. Soldiers threw bombs against the family of
the Maharajah of Mysore. One child and two servants killed, his wife
mortally wounded.
“In Ceylon a state of war has been declared.”
* * * * *
THE REVOLT IN IRELAND
The extensive conspiracy on the part of Germany to start a revolt in
Ireland has been thoroughly set forth in the public prints in connection
with the arrest and trial of Sir Roger Casement as a rebel. Sir Roger
worked openly among the Irish prisoners in Germany, travelling backwards
and forwards between Ireland and Germany by means of a German submarine.
Nevertheless, a very large and important American phase of this whole
revolution occupied von Papen’s attention prior to his recall. German
agents here were in touch with the Irishmen in America, who were
actively co-operating with Patrick H. Pearse.
German funds were poured into Irish hands in America, the money being
used for the purchase of arms and the printing of seditious papers and
leaflets. More than $100,000 was collected in America for Ireland
between September, 1914, and April, 1915. Plans also were worked out
with the aid of Germans in America to ship arms and supplies to the
Irish rebels.
There also have been vague reports of dramatic schemes in America to arm
the Arabs in northern Africa and start an uprising against British rule.
There have been signs of dramatic plottings to stir up trouble in
Afghanistan and in Egypt. It is a fact that various attempts have been
made to ship rifles and cartridges from the United States to South
America and then from South America to Africa. Some of these have proved
successful. In other cases, the shipments have been stopped.
FORCING WAR IN THE UNITED STATES
_Throughout all the crises arising between the United States and Germany
over the submarine campaign, German agents constantly kept in view the
possibility of a war between their country and this nation._ They
prepared for it.
“Before I left New York,” confesses von der Goltz, “I had some
conversation with Captain von Papen about the war, and while speaking of
the end of the war Captain von Papen said: ‘_Should things start to look
bad for us, there will be something happen over here._’ In connection
with other statements of his, he speculated on America joining Germany,
or on a possible uprising.” The significance of that remark was shown
two years and a half later when on January 31, 1917, three days before
the break between the United States and Germany, an order went forth
from the German Embassy in Washington. Immediately the machinery of
every German merchantman interned in American ports was wrecked. The
damage was $30,000,000.
Here again Captain von Papen’s and Captain Boy-Ed’s advice and orders
were involved. _It devolved_ upon Captain von Papen not only to keep in
thorough touch with the development of American military affairs, but
also _to study constantly the topography of the United States, the plan
of cities and their surroundings from a military viewpoint. Upon him
fell the task of stationing German reservists in the various cities and
towns where, in case of hostilities, they would be valuable to the
German cause._ German efficiency and foresight came to the front in
connection with these plans. _There were under consideration at one time
when the crisis between the United States and Germany was acute,
military plans to start a reign of terror in America._
First of all, Captain von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed _supervised the
purchase of ground near New York and Boston, which was to be used for
the construction of concrete bases for big guns in the same manner in
which the Germans prepared in Belgium, England and France prior to the
war_. There is absolute proof that German representatives spent money
for this purpose, and that they caused to be built foundations that
could be used for big guns for the purpose of making an attack upon New
York City, for instance. But that was only a part of the scheme.
When von Papen and his colleague Boy-Ed were recalled, it was announced
by the State Department that the reason was “improper activities in
military and naval affairs.” A brief summary of Captain von Papen’s
activities shows that he violated the courtesies extended to him as a
diplomatic agent in secretly sending code messages by couriers; that he
handed out money for fraudulent passports; that he schemed in military
enterprises against Canada; that he plotted with Ambassador Dumba to
start strikes in American factories; that he plotted in connection with
other criminal activities in this country, such as blowing up factories;
that he was a promoter of seditious enterprises; and that he and his
associates schemed to start war between the United States and Mexico.
When he set foot upon the gangway of the steamship _Noordam_, homeward
bound, he said: “I leave my post without any feeling of bitterness,
because I know full well that when history is once written it will
establish our clean record, despite all the misrepresentations spread
broadcast.” But at the moment he handed out that statement he was
carrying under his arm a portfolio which was a veritable diary of his
payments to law-breakers. Again he gave proof of his expression about
“stupid Americans,” because he thought he could make those “stupid
Americans” believe him, and that he could sneak the proofs of his
law-breaking past the British at Falmouth. Again the stupidity was on
his side.
CHAPTER IV
VON IGEL AND KOENIG, TWO OF THE KAISER’S FAITHFUL WORKERS
Wolf von Igel, von Papen’s Man Friday and custodian of his secret
documents, was hustling about his private office on the twenty-fifth
floor of 60, Wall Street, on the morning of April 19, 1916. He was
hurried. His full, grey eyes glistened with excitement and he curled his
stubby moustache as he glanced upon heaps of papers carefully arranged
on the long council table and on the floor. Then squaring his stocky
shoulders, he turned again to the big safe, bearing the seal of the
Imperial German Government, and swinging back the heavy doors, extracted
another bundle of papers which he ranged among the other sheets with
military precision.
“It’s eleven o’clock and Koenig should be here now,” he said in German
to another employé of von Papen’s who was with him. “These papers must
be packed up at once.”
He paused and then began a mental inventory of each stack of papers to
make sure none was missing. All these documents—there were hundreds of
them, and their weight, as revealed by a government agent, was seventy
pounds—had belonged to von Papen. They revealed the inner workings of
the German spy system in America and a great part of the world. They
told many of the details. Those papers, connecting the German Government
with violators of law in America, were a vast responsibility for any
officer of von Igel’s age. Naturally, the young man was keyed to a high
pitch of excitement; for hitherto they had come from the safe only
piecemeal, and to permit daylight to reach so many at one time was
almost a little more than von Igel’s nerve could stand.
Perhaps he had a presentiment. In fact, secret agencies had been at work
to instil in him a feeling of uneasiness. Von Igel, stopping again and
again to twirl his moustache, knew that von Papen and Captain Tauscher
had been indicted on a charge of plotting to blow up Welland Canal. Word
also had come to him that still more ominous events were portending and
the idea—by stealthy prearrangement—had been given to him to ship all
the documents to Washington, where they would be absolutely safe.
Therefore von Igel was both busy with his packing and intensely
perturbed.
“A man to see you, Herr von Igel,” announced a stout German attendant.
“He refuses to tell his business except that it is important.”
Von Igel was gruffly directing his agent to make the stranger specify
his name and mission when the door was flung open. In dashed Joseph A.
Baker, of the Department of Justice, in charge of Federal Agents Storck,
Underhill and Grgurevich.
“I have a warrant for your arrest!” shouted Baker, who had a warrant
charging the German with complicity in the Welland Canal enterprise. Von
Igel eyed the intruders for the fraction of a second. With one spring he
reached the safe, and swinging the doors shut, was turning the
combination when Baker leaped upon him bearing him to the floor. Then
followed a battle of four Americans against two Germans, the attendant
having been quieted by the flash of revolvers.
“This means war,” yelled von Igel. “This is a part of the German Embassy
and is German territory. You’ve no right here.”
“You’re under arrest,” said Baker soothingly, as he pulled a revolver.
“You shoot and there’ll be war,” answered von Igel, while Storck and
Underhill grappled with a third. “I’m connected with the Embassy and you
can’t arrest me.” The first skirmish was quickly ended by von Igel,
realizing the importance of the documents entrusted to his care and
straining every resource to outwit his captors, he fought again and
again, facing revolvers and braving fists to reach the telephone to call
for the help of the German Ambassador and prevent the officers from
gathering up the documents. But he was unsuccessful. As the agents led
him from the office, they met Koenig, von Igel’s associate, and von
Papen’s agent in many enterprises just entering. Koenig, who was already
facing three charges growing out of his activities, was rendered
speechless by the sight of von Igel in custody and some of his documents
in possession of the government.
The mass of documents—it makes no difference whether the Secretary of
State, for reasons of State or of law, orders their return—not only set
forth the secrets of Germany’s activities in this country; but they also
told what part von Igel and Koenig played in the invisible war in
America. They show how both men were errand boys, carriers of cash and
of messages for von Papen and Boy-Ed.
WHO WAS VON IGEL?
Concerning young von Igel there is much mystery. At the outbreak of the
war he was reported to be wandering around looking for a job, willing to
work for any wages. Then von Papen picked him up, paying him a salary of
$238 a month. There is a rumour, too, that he is a grandson of Graf von
Waldersee, one time Germany’s Chief of Staff. That he is a man of
importance is indicated by the manner in which he was trusted by von
Papen, Boy-Ed, and Dr. Albert. When in an automobile ride from Captain
Tauscher’s home on Long Island with von Papen and Dr. Albert, he met
with an injury, he was hurried secretly to a hospital. Every effort was
made to hide his identity; but Dr. Albert and von Papen visited him
frequently. Von Papen paid the hospital bills and charged them up to
“War Intelligence.”
Almost immediately upon beginning service under von Papen, he leased the
offices in Wall Street, putting down in the contract “advertising” as
the purpose to which the rooms were to be devoted and never making any
statement as to his connection with the German Embassy. He quickly gave
von Papen every reason to trust him fully and won the respect of the
reckless attaché. Though he did not begin work for von Papen until
September, 1914, he had, it is charged, a hand in the first Welland
Canal enterprise.
HANDLING MONEY FOR EVIL ENDS
Von Igel also handled money for von Papen. For instance, on March 27,
1915, the latter gave to his secretary a cheque payable to his order for
$1,000 and on the counterfoil of his cheque-book he wrote “for A.
Kaltschmidt, Detroit,” who since has been accused by the Canadian
authorities as an accomplice in the project against Canadian armouries
and munition factories. It was von Igel, furthermore, who cashed many
cheques for von Papen, the proceeds of which were to go to secret agents
starting on missions to the enemy’s country. He carried confidential
messages which von Papen would not put in writing. He handled the code
books in compiling and deciphering messages. He carried orders to
Koenig, conferring with him and directing him when to meet von Papen.
When von Papen was preparing to leave the country at the request of
President Wilson, he began to turn over his documents to von Igel for
safe keeping. He gave him instructions as to the custody of the papers
and the cleaning up of work left undone. In his regard, he undoubtedly
followed Dr. Albert’s instructions put in a letter from San Francisco:
“If you should leave New York before my return, we must try to come to
some agreement about pending questions by writing. Please instruct Mr.
Amanuensis Igel as precisely as possible. You will then receive in
Germany the long-intended report of the expenses paid through my account
on your behalf.”
So von Igel, as a trusted clerk, took unto himself the duties of
confidential man for von Papen and for other big Germans who began but
were obliged to leave unfinished certain projects in this country. There
were many lines of information and activities converging to von Papen,
afterwards to von Igel. After von Rintelen left this country, part of
his schemes were entrusted to von Igel, who saw men with whom von
Rintelen or his assistants had dealt. For instance, he has been indicted
jointly with Dr. Scheele, Captain Gustave Steinberg, von Rintelen’s aid,
for complicity in a plan to ship articles abroad under fraudulent
manifests and thus deceive the Allies. One of these schemes was to
export lubricating oil, much needed in Germany, to Sweden as fertilizer.
Some of the payments for this purpose were made after von Rintelen
sailed for home.
With von Papen gone and Koenig arrested, von Igel became a somewhat
important person, taking upon himself the attaché’s prestige and a lot
of Koenig’s work after the latter’s arrest. Many, many cheques were
cashed by von Igel in the four months intervening between the attaché’s
departure and the former’s arrest. He carried on von Papen’s work in a
miniature way, conferring with many secret agents, giving orders and
preparing reports in code for despatching to Germany.
While von Igel, in point of family, education and confidential
association with the big German agents in America, is an important link
in the Teutonic spy chain, Paul Koenig (“P. K.”), is more striking
because of his rough activities, his underground connections and his
associations with law-breakers. He was a sort of business manager of
Germany’s secret service in the eastern part of America.
“P.K.”
“P. K.,” as his hirelings called him, was a sort of boss, an unmerciful
autocrat in the lower world, physically fearless, trusting no man and
driving every man to work by the use of violent abusive language,
boastful of his skill, physical prowess and his craft. In appearance, he
gives this impression. A tall, broad-shouldered man, he has bony fingers
and arms long and powerful reaching almost to his knees. His dark, sharp
eyes dart suspiciously at you from beneath black, arching eyebrows,
showing defiance and yet a certain caution. A truly typical person he is
for the work for which he was selected, and though perhaps a little too
boastful, such supreme confidence undoubtedly is a necessary attribute
of any man who would acquire any degree of success in such undertakings.
Koenig is another product of the Hamburg-American Steamship Line—the
Kaiser’s very own. Prior to the war he was superintendent of the
company’s police, having a half-score men under him and keeping watch on
the pier workers or investigating complaints received by the management.
He had grown to that task from similar training in the Atlas Service, a
subsidiary corporation. He had spent years among longshoremen, bossing
them and cursing them. He knew wharf rats, water-front crooks, and was
thoroughly acquainted with their schemes—as naturally such a man would
be. He understood thoroughly how to handle men of the rough type.
When the war started and von Papen was searching for an assistant
organizer, he found in Koenig’s little police force a splendid nucleus
of just what he needed. At his request the _Hamburg-American Line_
quickly put Koenig at von Papen’s disposal and straightway von Papen
began to link up to Koenig’s police a number of channels of information,
to supply him with reservists for special assignments, to suggest to him
how to spread out and instal spies in various places to gather important
facts. Koenig accordingly became the business manager of a part of
Germany’s secret service, not only gathering information, but acting as
a link in the labyrinth system employed by von Papen in communicating
with the reservist or agent selected to do certain work in behalf of the
Fatherland.
How varied and steady was his work for von Papen is revealed by the
latter’s cheques. Here are a few excerpts: “March 29, 1915, Paul Koenig
(Secret Service bill), $509.11; ... April 18, Paul Koenig (Secret
Service bill), $90.94; ... May 11, Paul Koenig (Secret Service), $66.71;
... July 16, Paul Koenig (compensation for F. J. Busse), $150; ...
August 4, Paul Koenig (5 bills Secret Service), $118.92,” and so on.
Remember also that von Papen only paid from his cheque account for a
part of Koenig’s expenses, other German officials who employed him
receiving a bill for the special work.
KEEPING WATCH ON SPIES
“P. K.” also kept a most carefully prepared note-book of his spies and
of persons in New York, Boston and other cities who were useful in
furnishing him information. In another book he kept a complete record of
the assignments on which he sent his men, the purpose and the cost. In
this book of names were several hundred persons—German reservists,
German-Americans and American clerks, scientists and city and Federal
employés—showing that his district was very large and that his range for
picking facts and for supervising other pro-German propaganda was broad.
For his own hirelings or reservists, over whom he domineered, he had
specially worked out a system of numbers and initials to be used in
communicating with them. These numbers were changed at regular intervals
and a system of progression was devised by which the agent would know
when his number changed. He also employed suitable aliases for his
workers. These men likewise had codes for writing letters and for
telephone communication, and they knew that _on fixed days these codes
changed_.
Always alert for a listening ear or a watchful eye—because playing the
eavesdropper was his job—he looked for spies on himself. He believed
that his telephone wire was tapped and that he was overheard when he
spoke over the telephone. Accordingly, he instructed his men in various
code words. For instance, if he told an agent to meet him at five
o’clock at South Ferry that meant: “Meet me at seven o’clock at
Forty-second Street and Broadway.”
His wire was not tapped, but P. K. kept the men who were spying on him
exceeding busy and worried. He would receive a call on the telephone and
would direct the man at the other end of the wire to meet him in fifteen
minutes at Pabst’s, Harlem. Now from Koenig’s office in the
Hamburg-American Building to 125th Street, it is practically impossible
to make the journey in a quarter of an hour; but his watchers learned
that Pabst’s, Harlem, meant Borough Hall, Brooklyn. Just as he eluded
espionage for days and months, this man, skilled in shadowing others and
in doing the vanishing act whenever necessary, boasted that the Federal
authorities or the police never would get him. “They did get Dr.
Albert’s portfolio,” he said one day, “but they never will get mine, for
I won’t carry one.”
SHADOWS FOLLOWING SHADOWS
He sought likewise to elude Americans trailing him. He never went out in
the daytime that he did not have one or two of his agents trailing him
to see whether he was being shadowed. He used to turn a corner suddenly
and stand still so that a detective following came unexpectedly face to
face with him and betrayed his identity. Koenig would laugh heartily and
pass on. He loved to jibe the American authorities and ofttimes he would
dodge around a corner and then reappear to confront the detective with a
merry jest and pass on. By that means he came to know many agents of the
Department of Justice and many New York detectives. When he started out
at night he used to have three of his own men follow him, and by a
prearranged system of signals inform him if any strangers were following
him.
The task, consequently, of keeping watch of Koenig’s movements was most
difficult and required clever guessing and keen-headed work on the part
of the New York police. So elusive did Koenig become that it was
necessary for Captain Tunney to evolve a new system for shadowing Koenig
and yet not betray to him the fact that he was under surveillance. One
detective, accordingly, would be stationed several blocks away and would
start out ahead of Koenig. The “front shadow” was kept informed by a
series of signals whenever Koenig turned a corner so that the man in
front might dart down the street beyond and by a series of manœuvres
again get ahead of him. If Koenig boarded a street car, the man ahead
would hail the car several blocks beyond, thus avoiding any suspicion
from Koenig. In other instances, detectives, guessing that he was about
to take a car would board it several blocks before it got abreast of
Koenig. Because of his alertness, he kept Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Terra
and Corell always on the edge; but they finally ran him down.
It was never possible to overhear any conversation between Koenig and
any man to whom he was giving instructions. Koenig always made it a
point to meet his agents—some of his workers he never permitted to meet
him at all—in the open, in parks in broad daylight, in the Pennsylvania
Station, or the Grand Central Station. There, as he talked to them, he
could make sure that nobody was eavesdropping. In the open he met many a
man for the first time, talked with him and then said:
“Be at Third Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street at 2.30 to-morrow afternoon
beside a public telephone booth there. When the telephone rings, you
answer it.”
The man would obey the request. Promptly at the minute named, the
telephone rang and the man answered the telephone. A strange voice spoke
to him and told him to do certain things, perhaps to be at a similar
place on the following day and receive a message, or he would receive
instructions as to what he should do and where he should go to meet
another man, who would give him money and instructions as to what he
should do. The voice at the other end of the wire was speaking from a
public telephone booth and was thus reasonably sure also that the wire
was not tapped.
Koenig trusted no man. _He never sent an agent out on a job without
detailing another man to follow that man and report back to him the
movements of the agent and the person whom that man met._ He was severe
with his men when they made their reports to him, and always insisted
that they do exactly what he told them and never permitted them to use
their own initiative. So stubborn was he in sticking to his own ideas
that some of his men used to call him “the Westphalian, bull-headed
Dutchman.”
As to the outline of Koenig’s activities, his book of spies, the great
mass of information gained by trailing him, and by study of the
documents seized in his office, show that _he had spies along the water
front on every big steamship pier. He had eavesdroppers in hotels,
telephone switchboards, among porters, window-cleaners, among bank
clerks, corporation employés and in the Police Department._
To Roger B. Wood, formerly assistant United States District-Attorney in
New York, is due the credit for the unfolding of the intricate and
varied schemes charged against Koenig. He studied the evidence for
months as it was developed by Federal agents under Superintendent Offley
of the New York office and Captain Tunney, and prepared for trial the
cases against the German agent.
One of Koenig’s spies was listed in his book as “Special Agent A. S.,”
namely Otto F. Mottola, a detective in the warrant squad of the New York
police force whom he paid for special work. The note-book revealed
Mottola as Antonio Marino, afterwards changed to Antonio Salvatore.
Evidence was produced at Mottola’s trial at Police Headquarters that
Koenig paid him for investigating a passenger who sailed on the
_Bergensfjord_; that he often called up Mottola, asked questions and
received answers which Koenig’s stenographer took down in shorthand. In
other words, Koenig sought to keep closely informed as to the
developments at Police Headquarters, and to be advised, perhaps, of the
inquiry being made by the police into the activities of the Germans.
Mottola was dismissed from the force because of false statements made to
his superiors when asked about Koenig.
STARTING TROUBLE IN CANADA
“P. K.” also despatched men to Canada to gain information concerning the
Canadian preparations for war, and facts that could be used by the
Germans here in planning attacks upon munition factories, railroads and
transportation facilities in the Dominion. An Irish employé of the
_Atlas Line_ has been arrested on a charge of planning with Koenig to
start a “military enterprise” against the Dominion. The employé, named
Justice, is accused of going to Quebec to ascertain the number of troops
which were being transported by the Dominion of Canada to ports in
France and Great Britain; the names of the steamships on which said
troops were being transported; the kind and quantity of supplies which
were being shipped from the Dominion to France and Great Britain, and
other information which would or might be of value to the German
Government, and which would assist the military operations of the German
Government.
_The complaint stated that the undertaking was one of hazard, and came
within the purview of the statute forbidding the undertaking of any
military venture with this country as a basis of operation._ It says,
further, that Justice and Metzler, Koenig’s secretary, left New York on
September 15, 1914, and went to Quebec; that Koenig left New York on
September 18 and met Metzler in Portland, Me., and that he went to
Burlington, Vt., where on September 25 he conferred with Justice. The
authorities also say that Metzler and Justice gained a varied assortment
of information in Quebec; that they inspected the fortifications there,
went to the training camps, observed the number of men, the condition of
the men and estimated the time when they would be sent to the front.
VARIOUS ALIASES
In his meetings with various persons who had been picked for some daring
enterprise, Koenig is accused of having employed various names. The
Federal authorities give him at least thirteen, among which are
Wegenkamp, Wegener, Kelly, Winter, Perkins, Stemler, Rectorberg, Boehm,
Kennedy, James, Smith, Murphy and W. T. Munday.
After indictments had been returned against some of the Hamburg-American
officials for conspiring to defraud the United States of legal clearance
papers, Koenig, assisted by a private detective in the pay of Captain
Boy-Ed, developed a scheme to get affidavits from tugboat captains to
the effect that they had supplied English war vessels patrolling off
Sandy Hook with provisions.
_The plan was to turn sentiment against the British by proving that the
British were doing the same thing that had been charged to the Germans._
Accordingly, Koenig called a number of tugboat captains to a room in the
Great Eastern Hotel, New York, and offered them a contract to haul
provisions to the English cruisers. He told them that the captains were
extremely suspicious of boats approaching the war vessels, and the
affidavits were necessary to allay their fears that the tugboats might
have a few Germans with bombs on board. So, in return for sworn
statements from them to the effect that they already had been carrying
supplies out to other English cruisers, he, Koenig, was to give them a
monthly contract to do the work. Many of the tugboat captains signed the
affidavits; but the scheme was exposed before the Germans really made
any use of the documents. So carefully did Koenig work that he made the
stenographers who took the statements transcribe the notes in his
presence, give him the shorthand notes and he immediately destroyed
them.
SPIES IN BANKS
Through the arrest of Koenig and the facts obtained thereby, one of the
mysteries concerning the Germans’ method of getting information about
the shipment of munitions of war to the Allies was cleared. _They knew
the number of the freight car rushing to the Atlantic seaboard and its
exact contents._ They knew the ship’s hold into which that product was
to be placed; but how they got this data was a mystery until Koenig was
caught. Then Metzler, Koenig’s secretary, made a confession that cleared
the mystery. Agent Adams got the confession.
Besides having spies in some of the factories throughout the country,
the Germans had one great fountain of information in the foreign
department of the National City Bank, an institution that has carried
hundreds of millions of dollars in financing the purchase of supplies
for the Entente Powers. That source was Frederick Schleindl, a German
who has since been convicted of selling stolen information and sentenced
to three years in a New York State prison.
Schleindl, only twenty-three years old, came to this country from
Germany several years ago, obtained work with a private banking firm,
and after the war started was shifted to the National City Bank. He had
influence to get the position, and, incidentally, it may be said, that
for years prior to the war German agents, trained financiers, have been
stationed in New York, making friends and learning conditions, so that
at the critical time they could, by underground means, succeed in
getting positions for such men as Schleindl who would betray their
trust.
SECRET INFORMATION ON BANKS
When the war started Schleindl registered with the German Consul, giving
his address and his place of business. One day word reached him that a
German wished to see him, and going to the Hotel Manhattan he was
approached by a man who introduced himself as Koenig. The latter sounded
him thoroughly as to his sentiments on the war, and then outlined the
scheme by which Schleindl was to help Germany and make $25 a week.
Schleindl was to keep his eyes open for all letters and cable messages
bearing on the deposits of the Allies with the bank, the payments of
orders and other facts bearing on the war.
The bank clerk succumbed, either through patriotism or love of money.
And Koenig had placed his finger on exactly the right spot; so accurate
was he that there seems no doubt that he received guidance from a master
spy higher up, who knew banking operations thoroughly, and where to go
for information. It quickly developed that Schleindl could obtain
information of two very important kinds.
First, he received in his department cable messages bearing on war
orders and deposits by the Allies. The day he was arrested he had in his
pocket certain messages and letters addressed to the National City Bank.
One had come from the Banque Belge pour Etrangers in regard to a
shipment of two million rifles that was being handled through the Hudson
Trust Company. Another message that he picked up and handed over to
Koenig had come from the Russian Government, directing the bank to place
at the disposal of Colonel Golejewski, a Russian naval attaché, a large
amount of money for the purchase of war materials.
Secondly, the bank paid for orders of goods as soon as they had been
inspected and delivered on board ships at the seaboard. The
manufacturers sent their bills of lading to the bank, showing the
carload shipments and the vessel to which they were consigned. _Thus
accurate information was obtained as to every item, the railroad route
of shipment and the name of the vessel._ All this information was turned
over to Koenig, who passed it along for dissemination to the proper
persons. Consequently, _the Germans knew exactly what ships to attack;
in what vessels to place their fire bombs or other explosives_.
Schleindl was accustomed to meet Koenig almost every night and hand him
papers. Sometimes he would go to Koenig’s office, where “P. K.,” Metzler
and Schleindl would spend many hours copying the documents. Other times
Schleindl would give the papers to Koenig and receive them on his way to
work, so that they would be in their proper place the moment any bank
official desired them. _Koenig pleaded guilty in the Court of Special
Sessions to an information charging him with having corrupted the boy to
sell such information. Koenig was set free on a suspended sentence._
The National City Bank leak is only one of a hundred channels through
which Koenig and his agents received information. Koenig compiled it
with the aid of his secretary, conferred with von Papen or Boy-Ed. He
would spend a few weeks gathering facts, and then he would pack hundreds
of papers into a trunk and run down to Washington. Arriving there, he
would take a taxi to a rooming house, where he would unpack his trunk,
and put the contents into another trunk in an adjoining room.
As weeks went by and Koenig believed he was escaping police and Federal
espionage, he grew bolder, more defiant of the authorities, and louder
in his talk. He treated his employés with less consideration. He always
followed a principle of never hiring the same reservist for a second
job. Then he quarrelled with George Fuchs, a relative whom he had
employed to go to Buffalo with him. The police heard of that quarrel,
and quickly got into the confidence of Fuchs, obtained his confession,
and enough information on which to arrest Koenig. He has been indicted
by the Federal authorities twice on charges that may get him six years,
if convicted.
The two men were active workers for a time. Koenig continues in New
York, but von Igel sailed with Count Bernstorff when the latter was
dismissed from this country.
CHAPTER V
CAPTAIN KARL BOY-ED, THE EMPEROR’S SOCIAL DANDY AND VON TIRPITZ’S TOOL
In the days before the Kaiser booted his spur through the treaties of
Europe, you could observe, almost any afternoon, a faultlessly-attired
man—well built, his big round head resting firmly on a powerful
neck—sauntering down Connecticut Avenue, the Rotten Row or Fifth Avenue
of Washington. Jauntily swinging his cane and puffing at his inevitable
cigarette, he would bow gracefully in greeting the members of the
capital’s smart set. He could be seen later at tea at the Chevy Chase
Club, then among government officials and diplomats at the Metropolitan
Club, or a guest at the Army and Navy Club. He was much desired at the
most brilliant functions in New York in the winter, or at the resorts
where, in the summer, the wealthiest and most exclusive Manhattanites
gathered. One always found him graceful, suave, clever at repartee,
effervescing natural humour—the object of admiration on the part of
matchmaking mothers, and the reported seeker after an American
heiress—but always mingling with the persons in official, diplomatic and
navy circles who knew the innermost government secrets.
He was Germany’s Beau Brummel, Captain Karl Boy-Ed, the Kaiser’s naval
attaché, seemingly more interested in the frills, foibles and gaieties
of society than in the supremacy of the German Navy. Very much like an
American in appearance, Oriental in his sense of luxury, and possessing
the French quality of subtlety in rapid-fire wit, he lacked apparently
every vestige of the much vaunted Teutonic efficiency. He would
occasionally, however, drop out of the scenes of beauty and charm,
travelling about the country, visiting warships, tramping over coast
country, scrutinizing fortifications, or places where Uncle Sam would
have coast defences, until finally it began to be whispered that Captain
Boy-Ed knew as much about the American Navy and coast forts as did the
naval officers themselves. Under the veneer of lightness and graceful
ease, the naval attaché hid with the craft to which that Turkish part of
his ancestry made him heir, the persistent methodical thoroughness of
his German ancestry.
And, when the Kaiser set the dogs of war loose, Boy-Ed shunted aside the
cloak of frivolity, disappeared almost entirely from festive gatherings,
settled down by day to room 801, No. 11, Broadway, New York, receiving
code messages as “Nordmann,” and by night to his suite in the German
Club, where he delved into records, conferred with associates and
elaborated plans for activities on the seven seas. From a hale, jolly
fellow he became—as if by the shift of the magic wand of a Turkish
sorcerer—a veritable machine, mind and body, working for the Kaiser. A
man of great brain power, erudite, fertile in schemes, for long an aid
to Admiral von Tirpitz, he assumed charge in America of all enterprises
dealing with the naval phases of the Teutonic warfare in this country
and in or near American waters. These were activities which, despite his
boast: “They haven’t got any evidence against B. E.,” caused his
dismissal from America by President Wilson.
BOY-ED’S CAREER
Born of a Turkish father and German mother—the latter, Ida Boy-Ed, a
novelist much loved in Germany—he possessed an unusual combination of
traits, a mingling of Oriental subtlety, the brutal frankness of the
Prussian, and the artistic genius of his mother. He elected for the
navy, and early displayed qualities that attracted von Tirpitz’s
attention. The admiral took him up and made him one of his “Big Six,”
young German officers who were admitted to the naval lord’s most secret
councils and trained for just such executive work and such emergencies
as the great war produced. Having both a literary and constructive
ability, in addition to unusual qualities as a tactician and naval
officer, he was selected by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz as his chief
lieutenant, and was made the head of the news division. As such, he had
charge of propaganda enlightening the German people and arousing a
demand for a bigger navy. He prepared articles for the newspapers and
compiled pamphlets arguing for many battleships, in all of which he
cleverly instilled a distrust of England. Prior to each appropriation
for an increase in the German fleet, Boy-Ed carried on a Press campaign
designed to educate the public as to the urgent necessity for more
Dreadnoughts and submarines. By this means, an appropriation equal to a
hundred million dollars was obtained in 1910.
For five years, prior to his arrival in Washington in 1911 as the
Kaiser’s naval representative, he served under von Tirpitz, making trips
around the world, observing and working out the details of Germany’s
plans for breaking Great Britain’s sea-power. Because of the work which
he performed, the unusual ability which he displayed, and because
Germany was seeking to surpass the naval power of the United States,
then the second only to Great Britain, he was sent to this country. When
he arrived here, he impressed Americans by his knowledge of America and
American ideas. With ample tact and keen insight into American customs,
he began immediately to make himself almost an American. Speaking
English fluently and possessing an unusually attractive personality, he
made himself extremely popular.
NAVAL STUDENT IN TIMES OF PEACE
His duties in peace times, naturally, were to study the American Navy
and gain whatever facts he could about American war vessels, the
personnel of the navy, the government’s plans for increasing the fleet’s
power and building up coast defences; also to pick up whatever he could,
openly or stealthily, about the secret plans of America in the use of
her battle-fleet. When the war started, a thousand and one more tasks
devolved upon him. As von Papen was in Mexico, he had for a time to look
after the military attaché’s secret service, and, after being relieved
of that, he devoted himself to the manifold details peculiar to naval
intelligence. Like von Papen, he, too, had a staff of experts. They
began, under his direction, delving into every phase of American naval
activities, seeking information about the naval plans of the Allies,
striving to exert their influence to prevent the shipment of arms and
ammunition from this country. Boy-Ed’s work lay also in supervising the
registration of naval reservists with the German consuls, providing for
the return of as many as possible of them to the Fatherland, assigning
spies to the country’s enemies, and collecting all naval information
bearing upon the war.
WATCHING BRITISH VESSELS
Seated in his room 801, Captain Boy-Ed gathered a great mass of facts of
value to Germany from enemy sources and from neutral nations. From his
room, which was stacked with maps of the sea and steamer routes, he sent
directions to his spies. He forwarded information about ships—English
merchantmen and British warships—that could be utilized by the German
Government in raids on Allied commerce. He also gave directions for
provisioning the German raiders scouring the Seven Seas for enemy
ships—an enterprise just as romantic—though in violation of American
laws—as the spectacular dashes of the _Karlsruhe_, _Emden_ and the
_Prince Eitel Friedrich_.
Here was a project in which before the war and in preparation for it,
the German Admiralty and the _Hamburg-American Steamship Company_
participated; and after hostilities began, it was simply necessary for
the captain through his staff of assistants or in person to issue
orders. The Atlantic phase of the enterprise, its financing, its
spectacular features and its illegality were presented to a Federal
court in New York by Roger B. Wood, the Assistant United States
Attorney, at the trial and conviction of several _Hamburg-American Line_
officials: Dr. Karl Buenz, its general representative in America, George
Koetter, supervising engineer, Adolf Hachmeister, purchasing agent, and
Joseph Poeppinghaus, second officer and supercargo, on the charge of
conspiring to obtain from the collectors of the ports false clearances
for ships in connection with the coaling and provisioning of raiders.
The Pacific phase of the scheme has been unearthed by United States
District Attorney Preston in San Francisco.
SMUGGLING SUPPLIES TO RAIDERS
Two years before Germany sent a declaration of war to England, and
just when a crisis in European affairs was impending, Dr. Karl Buenz,
who never before had engaged in steamship business, came to New York
as the American head of the _Hamburg-American Line_. Prior to that he
had been a judge in Germany, a consul in Chicago and New York, and a
minister to Mexico. One of the first things which came to his
attention was the completion of a contract between the Admiralty
Division of the German Government and the steamship company for the
provisioning, during war, of German warships at sea from America as a
base. Arrangement also was made for communication between these ships
and the company by the Admiralty’s code. The documents dealing with
this agreement were kept locked up in the German Embassy in
Washington, and the _Hamburg-American_ officials declined to produce
them at the trial, “because in that agreement,” Prosecutor Wood
asserted, “I venture to say the whole plan whereby false clearances
should be obtained is worked out in detail.”
When Germany stood on the brink of war and England stood ready to pen
her in by a blockade, the Admiralty Division sent its orders to make
ready to provision the raiders. Dr. Buenz himself, on July 31,
1914—before the war—received a cable which he read, and then at once
sent to the German Embassy for safe-keeping. Straightway Boy-Ed was in
and out of Dr. Buenz’s office, giving directions as to the warships
needing supplies and whither the provision ships should proceed by
routes outside the regular freight lines. He kept urging upon Dr. Buenz
the necessity of haste, and even before the German Government advanced
the cash, the ships were chartered—others purchased—under bonds that
guaranteed payment to the owners in the event of seizure. Twelve or more
ships in all set forth from Atlantic ports, carrying coal and food
supplies bought with Hamburg-American cash.
The steamship _Berwind_, which had been chartered and loaded in a hurry,
was the first to sail. When some of the conspirators met in Dr. Buenz’s
office, there was hesitancy as to who should apply for clearance
papers—documents of which Dr. Buenz testified he knew nothing. They
finally told G. B. Kulenkampf, a banker and exporter, that the _Berwind_
was loaded with coal—she had coal and provisions—and told him to get the
clearance papers. He did so, swearing to a false manifest, as he
afterwards admitted. In getting such clearance papers, Germany’s agents
aimed to prevent the Allies from learning about the supply ships.
Germany desired, naturally, to carry on this work secretly in order to
deceive her enemies and prevent her adversaries from knowing where the
German cruisers were.
Such a ruse may be a legitimate trick in war, but the German Government
or her agents had no right to use the American Government in such an
enterprise. So men employed by the _Hamburg-American Line_ went to the
collector of the ports from which these ships sailed, making affidavits
as to the cargo—generally false—and the destination for which they
sailed—also false. On board these ships—the _Berwind_ and the _Lorenzo_,
sailing from New York presumably for Buenos Aires on August 5 and 6,
1914, respectively; the _Thor_ from Newport News for Fray Bentos,
Uruguay; the _Heina_ from Philadelphia in August, for La Guayra; the
_Mowinckle_, _Nepos_ and others—the officials put supercargoes bearing
secret instructions. These men had authority to give sailing orders to
the captains once they were outside the three-mile limit. They knew that
the ships were not bound for the ports designated, but to lonely spots
on the high seas, where they would lie in wait for the arrival of the
German cruisers, whose captains would receive the “tip” by wireless.
RISKY WORK FOR SKIPPERS
Very few of the supercargoes, however, accomplished their aims. The
_Berwind_ reached a point near Trinidad where Supercargo Poeppinghaus
directed the ship to lie to. Presently five German ships, the _Cap
Trafalgar_, _Pontus_, _Elinor Woerman_, _Santa Lucia_ and _Eber_
appeared, and after the task of transferring the supplies to them was
begun, the British converted cruiser _Carmania_ came up. A brisk fight
ensued between the _Carmania_ and the _Cap Trafalgar_, lasting for two
hours, and ending when the German ship sank.
One representative of the _Hamburg-American Line_ sought to use bribery
to effect his purpose. One of the ships chartered was the _Unita_, in
charge of Eno Olsen, a Canadian citizen of Norwegian birth. The German
supercargo made a mistake in thinking that Olsen was friendly to
Germany. When, however, the supercargo explained to him after they had
got out to sea, what the purpose of the cruise was, Captain Olsen
baulked.
“‘Nothing doing,’ I told the supercargo,” Captain Olsen testified, with
a Norwegian twist to his pronunciation. “So the supercargo offered me
$500 to change my course. ‘Nothing doing—nothing doing for a million
dollars,’ I told him.
“The third day out he offered me $10,000. ‘Nothing doing.’ So,”
concluded Captain Olsen with finality, “I showed him my citizenship
paper. I said the _Unita_ cleared for Cadiz; and to Cadiz she goes.
After we got there I sold the cargo and looked up the British Consul.”
The provisions for each ship were ordered under directions from the
_Hamburg-American_ officials who eventually provided the money. The
_Hamburg-American Company_ received three payments of $500,000 each from
the Deutsche Bank in Berlin. In addition, $750,000 was sent to Boy-Ed by
exchange through Kulenkampf’s firm, Wessels, Kulenkampf & Company, from
the Deutsche Bank, making $2,225,000 in all. Telling of the receipt of
the money, Kulenkampf testified:
“Some time after that, Captain Boy-Ed came to me and asked if I had
received money from Berlin. I said, ‘Yes,’ and he told me that it was
for him. I asked him to obtain instructions, and a little later I was
telephoned to hold the money at the disposal of Boy-Ed. I followed the
instructions of Captain Boy-Ed. He instructed me at different times to
pay over certain amounts, either to banks or to firms. I transferred
$350,000 to the Nevada National Bank in San Francisco, $150,000 to the
_North German Lloyd_, $63,000 to the _North German Lloyd_. That left a
balance of approximately $160,000, which was placed to the credit of the
Deutsche Bank with Gontard & Company, successors of my former firm. That
amount was reduced to about $57,000 by payments drawn by Captain
Boy-Ed’s request to the order of the _Hamburg-American Steamship
Company_.”
MONEY SPENT FREELY
How part of the money was spent is shown by the following account of
payments through the _Hamburg-American Line_:
Steamer Total Payment
Thor $113,879.72
Berwind 73,221.85
Lorenzo 430,182.59
Heina 288,142.06
Nepos 119,037.60
Mowinckel 113,867.18
Unita 67,766.44
Sommerstad 45,826.75
Fram 55,053.23
Graecia 29,143.59
Macedonia 39,139.98
Navarra 44,133.50
——————
Total $1,419,394.49
But Boy-Ed’s supervision of supplies to the raiders covered both the
Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. While the _Hamburg-American_ took
charge of handling the supplies in the North and South Atlantic, another
German agency is accused of doing similar work on the Pacific. That
accounts for Boy-Ed’s transfer of money to the West, where his cash also
was used in the purchase of at least one ship. Boy-Ed’s funds, amounting
to more than $600,000, have been traced to the Pacific. In following
these payments it is important to observe how differently and more
cleverly Boy-Ed handled his money than von Papen. Unlike the military
attaché, he paid out little money by personal cheque; but he had
accounts with various commercial firms to whom he gave orders for
payments. Working with the ingenuity of an adept in covering up his
tracks, he caused money in large amounts to be shifted from one bank to
another, from one firm to another, through various cities until after
myriad devious turnings and twisting it finally reached its destination.
He used various commercial concerns as his bankers.
Out on the Pacific Coast, Boy-Ed employed members of the German
consulate to distribute the money and supervise provisioning. Two
indictments returned against Germans and others in San Francisco charge
that an effort was made to employ that port as a “naval base” for
provisioning the German raiders; that false manifests were filed for the
succouring of merchantmen; that supplies were transferred to the German
raiders. More than $150,000, it is specifically charged, was paid out
for this purpose by the German consulate.
The outfitting of the steamships _Sacramento_, _Olsen and Mahoney_,
_Mazatlan_ and the barque _Retriever_ are said to be charged to the
defendants. One device employed in San Francisco Bay to outwit the
Government officers watching for violations of the neutrality laws was
to fill the _Retriever_ with coal, and then announce that the vessel
would be used for an expedition on the high seas to take cinema pictures
of a stirring sea drama. But the officials were not hoodwinked. The
steamer _Sacramento_, formerly the German-owned _Alexandria_, which,
after the war started, was bought by the _Northern and Southern
Steamship Company_ and which flew the American flag, left port piled
high with supplies of all sorts, including sauerkraut and beer, and
reached Valparaiso, Chile, empty. All her supplies were transferred to
German cruisers and a German supply ship at Masefuero Island, near the
Chilean coast.
Captain Fred Jebsen, a lieutenant in the German naval reserve, took a
cargo of coal south on his boat, the _Mazatlan_, for delivery at
Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico. He transferred it to lighters, which carried it
to the German cruiser _Leipzig_. Jebsen also is said to have planned to
pilot a ship to India, and being frustrated, made his way in disguise to
Germany, where he is reported to have been drowned by the sinking of a
submarine. The _Olsen and Mahoney_, a steam schooner, was loaded with
supplies, but after considerable controversy with customs officials, was
unloaded. In the early days of the war, the cruisers _Leipzig_ and
_Nürnberg_ lay off San Francisco. The _Leipzig_ put to port for supplies
which were granted in quantities permissible under international law.
Efforts to supply still further quantities are alleged by the
Government.
One of the picturesque incidents of the provisioning, which reveals how
minutely Captain Boy-Ed looked after finances and sets forth other
phases of his work on the high seas, as directed from No. 11, Broadway,
is revealed in the piratical cruise of the good ship _Gladstone_,
rechristened under German auspices _Marina Quezada_. Her owner, when she
bobbed into the view of Captain Boy-Ed, was a Norwegian syndicate; but
what money was behind that group it has not been possible to learn.
Under the name of _Gladstone_, the ship had plied between Canada and
Australia; but shortly after the outbreak of the war she put into
Newport News. Then Captain Hans Suhren, a sturdy German formerly of the
Pacific coast, appeared in New York, called upon Captain Boy-Ed, who
took most kindly interest in him, and then departed for Newport News.
Here he assumed charge of the _Gladstone_.
“I paid $280,000 in cash for her,” he told First Officer Bentzen. After
making arrangements for his crew, he flitted back to New York, where he
received messages in care of “Nordmann, Room 801, 11, Broadway, N. Y.
C.” Meantime, in consultation with Captain Boy-Ed, the captain received
instructions to erect a wireless plant on his ship—the equipment having
already been shipped to the _Marina Quezada_—and to hire a wireless
operator. Boy-Ed handed Suhren a German naval code book, gave him a map
with routes marked out and sailing instructions that would take him to
the South Seas, there to await German cruisers. Food supplies, ordered
for a steamer which had been unable to sail, were waiting on the piers
at Newport News and Captain Boy-Ed ordered them put on the _Marina
Quezada_. Two cases of revolvers also were sent to the boat. In a like
manner, it may be observed, ships on the Pacific had been equipped
secretly with arms and wireless.
Again Suhren went back to his boat, kept the wireless operators busy,
hurried the loading of the cargo, which was under the supervision of an
employé of the _North German Lloyd_, and needing more money before
sailing in December, 1914, he drew a draft for $1,000 on the
_Hamburg-American Line_, wiring Hachmeister, the purchasing agent, to
communicate with “Room 801, 11, Broadway,” the office of our friend
Boy-Ed.
Prior to his departure, the skipper had difficulty with the registration
of his ship. Though he insisted he owned her, a corporation in New York
whose stockholders were Costa Ricans were laying claim to ownership, for
they really christened her, and got provisional registration for her
from the Costa Rican minister in Washington. It was necessary, however,
in order for the ship to get permanent registration, to go to Port
Limon, Costa Rica, and register there. So hauling down the Norwegian
flag, that had fluttered over the ship as the _Gladstone_, Captain
Suhren ran up the Costa Rican emblem. Then, having loaded his ship and
having obtained false clearance papers stating his destination as
Valparaiso, based upon a false manifest, sailed for Port Limon. But the
Costa Rican authorities declined to give Suhren permanent papers, and,
accordingly, being without authority to fly any flag and in such status
not permitted under international law to leave port, Suhren was in a
plight. He waited, however, until a heavy storm came up one night, then
quietly slipping his anchor, he sped out into the high seas, a veritable
pirate. Finally, as he neared Pernambuco, he ran up the Norwegian flag,
put into port and got into such difficulties with the authorities that
his ship was interned. His supplies never reached the raiders, and
Boy-Ed, at No. 11, Broadway, learned from Suhren of another fiasco.
Suhren is supposed to have been taken prisoner to Canada.
Had the _Hamburg-American_ officials carried out their part of the
enterprise by means of the false clearance papers—and the same applies
to Boy-Ed—a guest of the nation and to others engaged in the
project—they would have put the American Government in the position of
officially endorsing their work of deceit and stealth. “Is it a nice
thing,” asked Prosecutor Wood, “to have this Government endorse the lies
of these defendants?”
Boy-Ed, furthermore, violated the clause of _The Hague Conference of
1907, which says: “Belligerents are forbidden to use neutral ports and
waters as a base of naval operation against their adversaries.”_
QUEER WIRELESS CODES
Another operation that appealed to Captain Boy-Ed’s ingenuity was the
use of the wireless to frustrate the enemy. He had given implicit
instructions to Skipper Suhren in regard to the use of the wireless.
Members of the crew of the _Sacramento_ are accused of breaking the
Government seal and using the radio plant. The Government officials also
found such extensive misuse of the German-owned wireless plants in
America that they were obliged either to close them down or take them
over. The Sayville, Long Island, plant, finally was taken over and
operated by the government.
CUTTING IN ON MESSAGES
But Boy-Ed delighted in circumventing the Federal authorities. A few
instances have been published, but there remain hundreds of cases which
the Federal radio inspectors have uncovered. To Chief Flynn of the
Secret Service and Charles E. Apgar, an inventor, much credit is due for
detecting one ingenious method used by Boy-Ed and others for sending out
wireless messages. Apgar, an enthusiastic wireless operator, spent much
time “listening in” to the messages sent every night from the wireless
plants at Sayville, Long Island, to Germany. Finally he hit upon the
scheme of recording the splash and splutter of the radio in a
phonograph. After perfecting his device he began to “can” the Berlin
messages—coming and going—every night. Then reeling off these messages
on his phonograph, he would study again and again the dots and dashes of
each word. He observed that messages had been repeated by the Sayville
operator, that numbers were thrown in at intervals and finally that
between words there were gaps of varying lengths—all means undoubtedly
of sending messages in code—a new language of science invented by the
Germans. Many messages were sent by Boy-Ed, himself. It was after a
thorough study of these canned messages that the government began to
operate the Sayville plant itself.
FRAUDULENT PASSPORTS
Like von Papen, Boy-Ed was under orders to send spies to the
adversaries’ countries, to make arrangements for naval reservists to
return to Germany, all of which required the use of fraudulent
passports. While there have been charges that Germany had a factory for
forging passports and while the _New York World_ charged, at the time of
Boy-Ed’s recall, that he had dealings with a gang of forgers and
counterfeiters, who made passports, there is evidence that the naval
attaché did pay money to German reservists, who procured passports
fraudulently. One of these men was Richard Peter Stegler, a Prussian,
thirty-three years old, who had served in the German Navy, and
afterwards came to this country to start on his life work. Before the
war he had applied for his first citizenship papers; but his name had
not been removed from the German naval reserve list.
“After the war started,” says Stegler, a well-dressed young man with
rather stern features, “I received orders to return home. I was told
that everything was in readiness for me. I was assigned to the naval
station at Cuxhaven. My uniform, my cap, my boots and my locker were all
set aside for me, and I was told just where to go and what to do. But I
could not get back at that time and I kept on with my work.”
Stegler then became a member of the German secret service in New York.
“There is not a ship that leaves the harbour, not a cargo that is loaded
or unloaded, but that some member of this secret organization watches
and reports every detail,” he said afterwards. “All this information is
transmitted in code to the German Government.” In January, 1915, if not
earlier, Stegler was sent to Boy-Ed’s office, and there he received
instructions to get a passport and make arrangements to go to England as
a spy. Boy-Ed paid him $178, which he admits, but denies that it was to
buy a passport. Stegler immediately got in touch with Gustave Cook and
Richard Madden, of Hoboken, and made use of Madden’s birth certificate
and citizenship in obtaining a passport from the American Government.
Stegler has pleaded guilty to the charge and the two men were convicted
of conspiracy in connection with the project. Stegler paid $100 for the
document. Stegler, Cook and Madden each served a term on Blackwell’s
Island.
“I was told to make the voyage to England on the _Lusitania_,” continued
Stegler. “My instructions were as follows: ‘Stop at Liverpool, examine
the Mersey River, obtain the names, exact locations and all possible
information concerning warships around Liverpool, ascertain the amount
of munitions of war being unloaded on the Liverpool docks from the
United States, ascertain their ultimate destination, and obtain a
detailed list of all the maritime ships in the harbour.’”
NEW YORK, THE CENTRE FOR SPIES
“I was to make constant, though guarded inquiries, of the location of
the Dreadnought squadron which the Germans in New York understand was
anchored somewhere near St. George’s Channel. I was to appear as an
American citizen soliciting trade. Captain Boy-Ed advised me to get
letters of introduction to business firms. He made arrangements so that
I received such letters and in one letter were enclosed some rare stamps
which were to be a proof to certain persons in England that I was
working for the Germans.
“After having studied Liverpool, I was to go to London and make an
investigation of the Thames and its shipping. From there, I was to
proceed to Holland and work my way to the German border. While my
passport did not include Germany, I was to give the captain of the
nearest regiment a secret number which would indicate to him that I was
a reservist on spy duty. By that means, I was to hurry to Eisendal, head
of the secret service in Berlin.”
Stegler did not make the trip because his wife learned of the enterprise
and begged him not to go. He also had been detected by Federal Agent
Adams and was placed under arrest in February, 1915, shortly after he
decided to stay at home. In his possession were all the letters and
telegrams exchanged between him and Boy-Ed, none of which, however, said
anything about passports. There was one telegram from “Winko,” who was
Captain Boy-Ed’s servant.
LODY SENT TO DEATH
Stegler also said that he had been told that Boy-Ed previously had sent
to England Karl Hans Lody, the German who in November, 1915, had been
put to death as a spy in the Tower of London. Lody also had been in the
navy, had served on the Kaiser’s yacht and then had come to this country
and worked as an agent for the _Hamburg-American Line_, going from one
place to another.
Still another man who had a fraudulent German passport was a German
naval reservist, who had shipped as a hand on the freighter _Evelyn_
carrying horses to Bermuda. On one trip that he took, practically all of
the horses were poisoned and were lost. He, however, was arrested by
Federal authorities on the charge of using the name of a dead man in
order to get an American passport.
In passport matters and the handling of spies, Captain Boy-Ed was more
acute and more subtle than his colleague, von Papen. Nevertheless, the
Government officials succeeded in getting a clear outline of his
activities. It seems quite likely that after the arrest of Ruroede in
December, 1914, when suspicion was directed to von Papen as the
superintendent of the passport bureau, the management thereof was
switched to Boy-Ed. The exposure of Boy-Ed’s connection with Stegler
made it necessary for the German Government to change its system once
more.
Boy-Ed, as has been shown, had supervision of naval affairs and matters
pertaining to the sea. He issued information to the Press bearing on
Germany’s conduct of her naval warfare. He made pleas for an embargo on
the export of arms and ammunition. He received from Count von Bernstorff
all information which the Ambassador obtained bearing on that question,
and, on one occasion, the Count sent him a list of the countries which
had forbidden the export of war supplies.
The conviction throughout the country has been steadily growing, since
the exposure of von Papen’s methods, that Boy-Ed was not an innocent
associate of the military attaché. The Federal authorities, in fact,
have unearthed a large amount of evidence to show active participation
by Boy-Ed in these enterprises, for to him they simply were part of the
war of Germany on her enemies. Colonel Roosevelt, who has made a special
study of Germany’s crimes on neutral territories, has expressed the
sentiment of Americans in a speech at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, on
January 30, 1916, in these words:
“The German and Austrian Governments through their accredited
representatives in the embassies here have carried on a campaign of bomb
and torch against our industries. The action our government should have
taken in view of this campaign was not action against Dumba, von Papen
and Boy-Ed, but the holding of the German and Austrian Governments
themselves responsible for every munition plant that was blown up or
damaged.”
The roll of Boy-Ed’s associates, as indicating his knowledge of plots of
violence, is illuminating. He employed Paul Koenig for a series of
secret activities. He was said to have known Captain Eno Bode, dock
superintendent of the _Hamburg-American Steamship Line_ in Hoboken, and
Captain Otto Wolpert, another dock superintendent, both of whom, it is
charged, were involved in a bond conspiracy.
Boy-Ed and von Papen, in many secret conferences on board the
_Vaterland_ in Hoboken, where they were sure of no eavesdroppers,
developed details of their war on America and the campaign of violence
on land and on sea to stop the carrying of munitions of war to England,
France and Russia. Von Papen superintended the campaigns on land and
projected his work upon the seas. The moment, however, the schemes, as
papers found in von Igel’s possession prove, had anything to do with the
sea, he consulted Boy-Ed.
INVOLVING AMERICA IN THE MEXICAN MUDDLE
One of the causes for the summary dismissal of both Boy-Ed and his
confrère, von Papen, from America, was their schemes to involve this
nation in a conflict with Mexico, to bring about American intervention
in that country and thus prevent America’s supply of explosives and
rifles from being used exclusively against Germany. Boy-Ed, prior to the
war, had opposed the suggestion of intervention, but he changed his mind
when he began to appreciate the fact that America in arms would take the
powder, high explosives and rifles that Europe was buying. He always was
a warm supporter of General Huerta, for, when von Papen was in Mexico,
getting acquainted with Huerta, Boy-Ed, addressing his colleague there,
wrote: “I was especially pleased by what you wrote about Huerta, the
only strong man in Mexico. In my opinion, Admiral von Hintze was not
quite right in his estimate of him. For Huerta can scarcely be such a
drunken ruffian as Hintze often implies, if only because a chronic
drunkard could hardly have kept so uncertain a position under such
uncommonly difficult circumstances. I met a number of people in Mexico
City who were in close touch with Huerta, and without exception they all
spoke very highly of the President’s patriotism, capacity and energy.”
PLANNING WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES
Of Boy-Ed’s schemes to do his share in preparing, from a naval
standpoint, for war between Germany and the United States, of the plots
to create disorganization in the American seaports and to render the
German merchantmen useless to Americans, much evidence has been gathered
by Federal investigators. Of his methods in getting information secretly
from the Navy Department and from battleships, of his placing spies,
ready for any deed of daring, on the warships, a greater amount of
information has been learned than ever will be made public by the
Government. Suffice it to say precautions already have been taken
against those schemes. All these formed the basis for the decision to
hand Boy-Ed his passport. Summing up Boy-Ed’s work for the Kaiser in
America, accordingly, we have his supervision of the shipment of
supplies to the German raiders, his activities in fraudulent passports
and his co-operation with Dr. Dumba. When President Wilson requested the
Kaiser to recall his military and naval representatives, he made the
announcement that his action was due to “their improper activities in
military and naval affairs,” a double-barrelled assertion applying to
both men.
Captain Boy-Ed, on his return home, received from the Kaiser the
decoration of the Order of the Red Eagle, third class, with sword, in
“recognition of his services in the United States.” He would
undoubtedly, for “those services,” except for the immunity granted him
as a member of a diplomat’s official family, be facing prison in the
United States with Dr. Karl Buenz and other officials of the Kaiser’s
own steamship line.
CHAPTER VI
CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER
When the German spy system was working smoothly and giving gleeful
satisfaction to its builders, the War Staff in Berlin sent to America a
masterly schemer who threw sand into the machinery. He was Franz von
Rintelen, a finished product of the Prussian war-mould. He had been born
with a supreme confidence in the conquering destiny of Germany. He had
been trained for his work in that order of things and he had
subordinated to the needs of the Empire, his business, wealth, brains,
energy—yes, his very soul. _He had been ordered here to undertake, with
the aid of Germany’s agents, the enormous task of isolating commercial
and financial America, as a base of war supplies, from Europe._ In
trying to accomplish his aim, _he sought to wreck American institutions
and to use the United States as a battlefield in a rear attack on the
Allies_.
Highly imaginative, keen of foresight, a master of detail, a superb
organizer, and conscienceless in the execution of his plans, he seemed
like a man so perfectly trained for the emergencies of war that under no
circumstances would he lose his poise. And yet when put face to face
with his own misjudgments and forced to take measures to retrieve
himself, he lost the very quality which his training was meant to
insure—a carefully calculating eye and a cool head. His strategic moves
consequently proved to be ridiculous errors that led to his own
confusion.
In a brief sojourn in America he moved in the shadows of mystery,
employing the vast network of German spies, hiring Americans, using
thugs and setting in motion manifold plans for gigantic enterprises that
involved the entire governmental, industrial and financial organizations
of the country. When he went away, his work unfinished, his aims
unaccomplished and a large amount of money wasted, there remained a
multitude of trails, isolated facts and incidents suggesting his
activities. Seizing these clues, Federal agents under A. Bruce Bielaski
and William M. Offley, began to dig up von Rintelen’s associates, to get
their stories and to obtain proof of his doings—his letters and
telegrams, his agents’ speeches and the instructions which they tried to
carry out. Taking these facts, Raymond H. Sarfaty, then Assistant United
States Attorney in New York, working with patience and skill, fitted the
details together into a series of great mosaics—depicting conspiracy,
fraud, purchases of strikes, bribery, perjury, forgery, sedition, almost
treason. Those pictures show how hidden forces—Americans and Germans
working in secret—during von Rintelen’s presence in this country,
plotted to cause commotions in political, industrial and financial
spheres, and all to aid Germany in derogation of our rights.
PICTURES OF VON RINTELEN
In every one of them, von Rintelen looms as the audacious plotter, man
of mystery, user of a hundred aliases, supreme egotist, a vaunted aid to
the Kaiser and a Teutonic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In one picture, you
see him in exclusive homes on Fifth Avenue, a “mould of form”—scarcely
thirty-eight years old, slim and upstanding, with stalwart shoulders,
the bearing of an aristocrat, short stubborn hair, a moustache with a
like independent twist, and greenish-grey eyes that sparkled defiance.
He garbed himself in the cut of London’s most artistic tailors and
selected the colours of his ties, his shirts and his socks with a view
to perfect harmony. He was the “glass of fashion” on the tip-toe of
courtesy, beguiling with his gallant quips and charming his hearers by
his fascinating stories and comments.
Other pictures show him under an assumed name, in conference with
conspirators. He might meet them secretly in offices, or in hotels, or
he might pick them up in an automobile, whizzing along at full speed and
handing gold to hirelings who for a price were ready to undertake some
criminal job. He might be seen dining in one of Broadway’s most alluring
cabarets, ordering the rarest of wines and boasting of his schemes to
accomplish in America what would be equivalent to Germany’s capture of
Paris.
VON RINTELEN’S VALUE
And who is this man? He is so important that when made a prisoner in
England, the Kaiser offered to exchange for the nobleman any ten British
prisoners that King George might select. He is so esteemed in Germany
that large amounts of gold were placed at the disposal of Americans to
go to England and by hook or crook effect his escape. Rumour has sought
to make him a relative of the Hohenzollerns. Another report has put him
down actually as the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. But persons, who knew
him well in Berlin, saw him in the United States and at the prison camp
in England, say he is von Rintelen. He is said to be the son of a former
member of the Kaiser’s Cabinet; but the German “Wer Ist’s” does not
credit that man with a son. Still, von Rintelen married into one of the
wealthiest families in Berlin, his wife being a member of the von
Kaufmann family, and he had a commanding social position in Germany.
He is wealthy in his own name, his fortune being estimated at
$15,000,000. He is a director of the Deutsche Bank and the National Bank
für Deutschland. He is, or was, a member of the big financial group of
Germany, and as such was one of the Emperor’s financial advisers. His
knowledge and advisory sphere included England, the United States and
Mexico; and of the financial and industrial resources of these countries
he was supposed to have a broad and comprehensive knowledge. He had
influence also because he was a friend of the Kaiser and a close
associate of the Crown Prince.
A SECRET AGENT’S TRAINING
Von Rintelen’s work was cut out for him in his early youth. His
qualifications were considered and he was assigned to studies in
preparation for the tasks he gave promise of performing most
efficiently. At the gymnasium and the university, he divided his time
between economics and finance. In addition, he spent considerable time
in the navy, finally became a Captain-Lieutenant, and as such qualified
for the General Navy Staff. He, too, was one of von Tirpitz’s young men
chosen for definite lines of naval secret service and financial
campaigns that would be of value to the further development of the navy.
Finance may have been a mere cloak for the real nature of von Rintelen’s
naval assignments abroad, or his secret service training may have been a
necessary part of his training for a high place in the Teutonic
financial world. Graduating from the university and finishing the
prescribed part of his tutelage under von Tirpitz, he went to London
where he obtained employment in a banking house. While there, he was
learning not only finance, but he was a part of that branch of Germany’s
spy system that radiated through banking institutions to the various
concerns allied therewith. Under the guidance of wise heads in Berlin,
he grasped far more facts about banking conditions than ever were
suspected by his English associates.
Next he came to America. He entered the banking house of Ladenburg,
Thalmann & Co., spending a short time there and then moving to other
banking institutions, some of which were branches of English and
Canadian banks. He obtained letters of introduction from big bankers to
bankers scattered throughout the United States. He grew in knowledge,
learned American banking methods, the connections of banks with big
industries, and sought to make affiliations of benefit to German
institutions. He served, meantime, as Germany’s naval representative at
the exercises in commemoration of John Paul Jones. His entrance into New
York’s society was paved for him through the German Embassy’s friends.
He was a guest at social functions where only the most favoured were
invited. He was accepted as a member of the New York Yacht Club. He was
entertained at Newport. He made friends among the biggest men in New
York; for he was attractive, a remarkable cosmopolite, extremely
learned, versed in international questions, speaking English, French and
Spanish fluently, and, above all, he was an inimitable raconteur. He
showed himself at all times an ardent pro-German, arguing for a union of
Germany and the United States in the event of war.
Through his wide acquaintanceship and innumerable avenues open to him,
he gained information about America such as only the most favoured
business men in America possess. He left this country finally saying he
would go to Mexico to investigate conditions there, hoping that
eventually he might be able to open Mexican and South American branches
of a German bank. But before going, he had acquired insight not only
into American banking connections with Canada, but also with Mexico. He
knew the big financial groups interested in the development of the
natural resources of those countries and he knew thoroughly America’s
actual and industrial preparedness for war.
BACK TO GERMANY
So, returning to Berlin in 1909, he again took up his banking business
and continued his close affiliation with von Tirpitz and the Big Navy
crowd, setting forth the facts he obtained and making recommendations
for the development of Germany’s secret service in America. He became
more prominent socially than ever, making it a point to entertain
Americans. When his American acquaintances turned up in Berlin, they
invariably found von Rintelen a most cordial and extravagant host. He
obtained introductions at court for some; and he introduced others to
the Crown Prince. When the war started, Americans who besought von
Rintelen for help in the exciting days, found him most obliging.
But before circumstances that brought von Rintelen to this country
arose, he received several Americans. One was a wealthy American
manufacturer who owns a large factory in France. Being on intimate terms
with von Rintelen, he called upon him and explained how the plant had
been closed down with the invasion of the Germans, causing a big
financial loss. He appealed for von Rintelen’s intercession to have the
concern continue business. He got von Rintelen’s promise of aid but
returned to the United States before any definite action was taken as
von Rintelen was too crafty to make any move before he was ready to ask
his compensation.
Von Rintelen was ordered, in January, 1915, the General War Staff to
come to America. It had become necessary to send a man here to buy
supplies of copper, rubber and cotton and to take extensive
precautionary measures against the Allies getting war munitions from
America. He was scornful of American facilities for filling Allies’
orders and backed by the authority of the War Staff and a group of
Berlin’s ablest bankers, he made arrangements for his trip. Knowing he
must elude the English, he obtained the Swiss passport of his sister
Emily V. Gasche, who was with her husband in Switzerland. He erased the
“y” of Emily and had the passport altered in other ways to suit his
needs, travelling as Emil V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen. As he bade goodbye
to his wife and two little daughters, he talked arrogantly of a quick
trip to America past English spies, promised big accomplishments for the
Emperor and an early return home.
Von Rintelen, confident and daring, is said to have gone first to
England. After gathering facts about the manufacture and importation of
munitions of war and England’s method of increasing the supply, he
disappeared suddenly and is believed to have gone to Norway. When he was
on the high seas due to arrive in New York on April 3 he sent a wireless
message to the American owner of the factory in France, asking an
interview at the pier. Von Rintelen, acting at what was the time best
suitable to himself, had succeeded in having the American’s factory
opened. He wished, on landing, to give him this information and in
return get help in the plans that he wished to put into effect. As the
American did not go to the pier, the nobleman, always alert and
suspicious, hired a detective who spent a week investigating. He finally
met this man, told him in part the purpose of his trip to America, and
used him as a means of getting introductions to men who would prove
valuable to him.
JEKYLL AND HYDE
Herr von Rintelen, having dropped the guise of E. V. Gasche, immediately
began to play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll, visiting the Yacht
Club, and calling upon wealthy friends, proved a more charming, more
delightful von Rintelen than ever, meeting influential business men who
were selling supplies to the Allies. He was presented to society matrons
and débutantes, whom, by flattery and subtlety, he sought to use to
further his purposes. To these, he was Herr von Rintelen in America on
an important financial mission. But occasionally, he made wild boasts of
plans. As a typical Mr. Hyde he sought information from von Bernstorff,
von Papen, Boy-Ed, about the production of war supplies. Astounded by
what he learned from them and corroborated from other sources, he began
to realize how utterly he had misjudged America’s potential resources
and what a blunder he had made in his statement to the General War
Staff.
Within a brief time von Rintelen realized, with a vividness that chilled
him, the capacity of America to hand war materials to the Allies and her
rapidly increasing facilities to turn out still more ammunition and
bullets. The facts which he obtained struck him with triple force
because of the knowledge he had about the war moves. _It is upon a basis
of the supplies of munitions in the Allied countries, particularly
Russia, as von Rintelen knew them, that his acts are best judged and
upon this basis only can sane motives be assigned to the rash projects
which he launched._
He understood these three striking facts thoroughly: (1) that the German
drive on Paris had failed because in two months the Germans had used up
ammunition they confidently expected to last a half a year; (2) that the
English and French in the west could not take up the offensive because
ammunition was not being turned out fast enough; and (3) that the
Russian drive on Germany and Austria would soon fail for lack of arms
and bullets.
In the winter and spring of 1915 the Russians had made a drive into
Galicia and Austria, hurling the Austrians and Germans back. In May they
had advanced victoriously through the first range of the Carpathian
mountains. Meantime the German General Staff, as von Rintelen knew, was
preparing for a big offensive against the Russians. The War Staff knew
of Russia’s limited capacity to produce arms and ammunition, knew that
during the winter with the port of Archangel closed by ice, her only
source for new supplies lay in the single-track Siberian railway,
bringing material from Japan. He realized that by spring the Russian
resources would well nigh be exhausted, and that with the beginning of
the projected Austro-German offensive the crucial necessity lay in
shutting off supplies from Russia. He knew that England and France could
not help her, and, therefore, the American source must be cut off
absolutely. But spring had already come, ships were sailing for
Archangel laden with American explosives, shells and cartridges.
A PLOTTER AT WORK
Von Rintelen, startled by his mistaken estimate of American industrial
preparedness, and frantically determined that Russia’s supplies must be
crippled, that the cargoes going to France and England must be held
back, began mapping out his gigantic enterprises. These conditions were
the big compelling motive; for von Rintelen’s reputation was at stake.
_The work for which he had been so carefully trained was bound to fail
unless he acted quickly._ Desperate measures were necessary. With that
situation in view he exchanged many wireless communications with his
superiors in Berlin—messages that looked like harmless expressions
between his wife and himself in which the names of Americans who had
been in Berlin were used both as code words and as means to impress upon
the American censor their genuineness. He obtained as a result still
greater authority than he had received on the eve of his departure from
Germany.
In his quick fashion, he often boasted, and there is foundation for part
of what he said, that he had been sent to America by the General Staff,
backed by $50,000,000 to $100,000,000; that he was an agent
plenipotentiary and extraordinary, ready to take any measure on land and
sea to stop the making of munitions, and to halt their transportation at
the factory or at the seaboard.
_He mapped out a campaign, remarkable for detail, scope, recklessness
and utter disregard of American laws._ These plots proved von Rintelen,
or the German General Staff, a master of thoroughness and ingenuity, for
he took into consideration the psychology, the customs, habits, and
reported weaknesses of Americans.
_His schemes in brief were (1) the purchase of war materials for Germany
as a means of inflating prices; (2) the fomenting of war between the
United States and Mexico as a means of compelling the American
Government to seize all available war munitions; (3) a campaign of
publicity and the arousing of public sentiment to bring about an embargo
on arms shipments; (4) strikes in American industries; and (5) a series
of acts of violence against factories and munition-carrying vessels._
Von Rintelen rapidly mobilized his forces of money and men. He went
first to the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company, where he was known by his
right name and where he arranged his finances. Money was transferred
from Berlin through the usual German channels—large corporations with
German affiliations—and placed to his credit in various banking
institutions. He deposited large amounts in the Trans-Atlantic Trust
Company and large amounts, totalling millions, in other banks. He next
rented an office on the eighth floor of the same building that housed
the trust company and had a telephone running to it through the
switchboard of the banking institution. He registered with the county
clerk as the E. V. Gibbon Company, a purchaser of supplies, signing his
name to the document as “Francis von Rintelen.”
Using the name of Fred Hansen, he received persons in that office. There
he summoned to his help a part of the German espionage system. He did
not hesitate to call upon any German for assistance, and thousands of
willing workers were at his disposal. If he wished a naval reservist, he
knew where to get him; if a member of the landsturm was needed for any
detail, he was called. From Boy-Ed, he received data about the sailings
of ships; from von Papen, facts about munition factories. He met Koenig
and assigned numerous tasks to him, particularly the location of
munition factories, their products and exports.
His first task, merely incidental in importance compared with his other
aim, was the succouring of the Fatherland and the blocking of the Allies
through purchases. He participated with influential Germans in the
scheme of buying the leading munition factories. He attempted the
running of the British blockade. Dr. Albert also was buying goods, but
von Rintelen, working on a much larger scale, commensurate with his
fertile imagination, and employing a staff of agents, took charge of the
shipments of raw products and food. Carrying on these purchases through
E. V. Gibbon Company, using the name of Gibbon and Hansen, he had as aid
Captain Steinberg, a German naval officer. _Through him, von Rintelen
chartered ships, purchased materials, caused false manifests to be made
for the cargoes, and arranged for shipment to Italy and the Scandinavian
countries, whence they were trans-shipped._
IN THE MAZE
This officer, it is charged, had dealings with Dr. Walter T. Scheele,
the alleged manufacturer of fire bombs, and arranged with him to mix
lubricating oil, so urgently needed in Germany, with fertilizer, and
ship the oil as “commercial fertilizer.” The oil was to be extracted by
a chemical process in Germany. Von Rintelen, through Steinberg,
importuned Dr. Scheele to ship munitions as farming implements, giving
him $20,000 for that purpose. Dr. Scheele did bill the shipment as
requested, but he did not lie because he shipped farming machinery,
taking a fat commission. Again von Rintelen was hoodwinked. The officer,
von Igel and Dr. Scheele have been indicted on a charge of conspiring to
defraud the United States by false manifests.
“_The British blockade_,” von Rintelen used to boast with purring pride,
“_is a myth. I can send to Germany all the goods that I wish._”
So skilfully did he plan—he was a master of detail and a consummate
artist in concealing his movements—and so many different aliases did he
employ, that at first he attracted no attention, and after a time his
doings were credited to a German Red Cross lecturer. Because of the
German method of switching agents to cause confusion to the enemy’s
spies, it is probable that some Red Cross agents did figure in the
purchases. The investigations of the Federal authorities, however, have
laid to von Rintelen the schemes carried on from April to June, 1915.
_Von Rintelen boasted that he bought provisions, amounting to $2,000,000
a week, for shipment to Germany through Denmark. More than $25,000,000
was consumed by von Rintelen in his blockade-running, many of the boats
being seized by British warships._
_Von Rintelen also took a flier at the most elusive and puzzling
diversions of war-brokers, namely the purchase of the 350,000
Krag-Jorgensen rifles which the United States Government had condemned
just prior to the outbreak of the war._ Around those rifles was centred
more intrigue and deceitful scheming than was incited by almost any
other single article connected with the war. Even after the Government
had announced emphatically that they were not for sale, and _President
Wilson had told one banker: “You will get those rifles only over my dead
body_,” every belligerent tried to get them.
Von Rintelen heard that by bribing Government officials he could obtain
the guns. He was stirred; for if an official would accept money for one
thing, he could be influenced to do other things to help Germany.
Sending out agents, he offered to purchase the rifles. He encountered a
man who put a price of $17,826,000 on them, part of the amount being
intended, von Rintelen was told, as bribes of several millions of
dollars for Government officials.
Things looked bright to von Rintelen. “_So close am I to the
President_,” said the agent who promised to deliver them, “_that two
days after you deposit the money in the bank you can dangle his
grandchild on your knee_.” But von Rintelen apparently came to realize
that he was dealing with the secret agent of another government, who was
laying a trap for him, and he quickly withdrew.
THE “LUSITANIA” GOES DOWN
_Then the Lusitania was torpedoed._ Americans who were connected with
von Rintelen’s schemes to ship supplies to Denmark and to buy the Krags,
became alarmed over the prospect of war with Germany. They cut off
negotiations with him and fearing possible government investigations,
they began to talk. Part of the activities of a mysterious German of the
name of Meyer and Hansen reached both the Government officials and
newspapers. A reporter on the New York _Tribune_ who got a “tip” of the
real facts and who hunted for von Rintelen, frightened the German agents
from the office of the E. V. Gibbon Company. Steinberg skipped back to
Germany disguised as a woman carrying a trunk full of reports showing
the necessity of concerted action to prevent the Allies from getting
American war materials.
Von Rintelen slipped away to an office in the Woolworth Building. On
disclosing something of his schemes to men there, he was quickly ordered
out. He moved to the offices, in the Liberty Tower, of Andrew M. Meloy,
who had gone to Germany hoping to interest the German authorities in a
scheme having the same purpose as von Rintelen’s. In Meloy’s office he
posed as E. V. Gates—still retaining the initials of E. V. G. So
effective was von Rintelen’s “getaway,” that he was reported to have
gone abroad as a secretary. Those newspaper stories again gave von
Rintelen cause to chuckle over his cleverness and his elusiveness, and
encouraged him to still more reckless projects. He was reporting
meantime to Berlin by means of apparently innocuous commercial messages
sent by wireless, and also by cablegrams _via_ England and Holland.
Von Rintelen, always scheming to prevent arms and ammunition from going
to the Allies, reached into Mexico to use that country as another angle
from which to harass the United States. _He planned_—and this project
was a part of his vast campaign—_to embroil Mexico and this country in
war, or to cause such a jumble of revolutions within the Mexican borders
that the United States would be compelled to intervene. He pictured this
country in war with Mexico, a mobilization of the regular army and the
militia, an assembling of the American fleet. That would require a large
part of the output of the munition factories. The horses that were being
shipped to the Allies, the arms, the clothing for soldiers, the shoes
and the hundreds of other things which American factories were busily
turning out, would be required for a large American army moving south of
the Rio Grande._
STIRRING UP MEXICO
He seized, therefore, upon President Wilson’s opposition to General
Huerta, and he planned to start a revolution in Mexico with the aim of
returning Huerta to power and thus placing the United States in a
position where it would be compelled to go into Mexico and restore
order. The United States would not be in a position then to dictate
terms for the settlement of the _Lusitania_ controversy, would seize the
war supplies going to the Allies, and, incidentally, would be hampered
for the remainder of the European war.
Ensconced in Meloy’s office, von Rintelen had as his daily associate a
man of his own age and of much the same appearance, tall, slender,
splendidly dressed, namely, a Mexican of German ancestry and a banker of
Parral. These two, who had known each other for years, met in New York.
The banker was versed in Mexican affairs, and the young German-Mexican
knew some of von Rintelen’s plans which had been set in operation before
the latter’s arrival in America.
German agents had been sent to Barcelona, Spain, to confer with General
Victoriano Huerta, former dictator of Mexico, and dazzle him with the
prospect of returning to power. Von Rintelen appreciated keenly the fact
that Huerta in Mexico virtually meant a declaration of war by the United
States, and, therefore, he wanted to put him there.
Having coaxed the old warrior to the United States, von Rintelen got
Boy-Ed and von Papen to map out Huerta’s plans. The two attachés, with
von Rintelen standing, invisible, far in the background and pulling the
strings, had many secret conferences in New York hotels, overheard by
Federal agents. They developed the plans for Huerta’s dash into Mexico,
and the uprising of Mexicans to support him. Von Rintelen, Boy-Ed and
von Papen made trips along the Mexican border, arranged for the
mobilization of Mexicans, for the storing of supplies and ammunition and
for furnishing funds. Von Rintelen deposited in Cuban banks and in banks
in Mexico City more than $800,000 for Huerta’s use. When the aged
general, stealing away from New York, reached Texas, he was nipped,
while attempting to jump the international border.
_While the Huertista faction was amply financed, it was only one of
seven groups, five of which were in Mexico, to which von Rintelen passed
out money._ Striving to stir up trouble and still more trouble for the
United States, he poured gold upon gold into Mexico, hoping that
President Wilson, nervous and harassed, would raise a big army for a
march.
Next, as an English banker making a special study of Mexican railway
securities, he called one day upon Villa’s representative in New York,
and discussed the Mexican situation with him, and afterwards he sent
money to Villa. He gave support to Carranza. He financed Zapata, and he
started two other small revolutions in Mexico. He gave $350,000 to one
agent who hurriedly left the country carrying the cash with him. He sent
$400,000 travelling through devious channels to help one of the
revolutionary parties; but that money was recovered by von Rintelen’s
superiors after a most exciting scramble. The reckless agent is reported
to have expended $10,000,000 in his Mexican enterprises, and airily he
said he would spend $50,000,000 if necessary.
CHAPTER VII
CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER
But von Rintelen had still bigger projects afoot. While his precise,
swiftly moving mind supervised the Mexican conspiracy, and carefully
watched over shipments of supplies to the Fatherland, _he was launching
a series of concerted conspiracies designed to cut off this country
almost entirely from Europe_. His vivid imagination had led him to
picture a Utopian fantasy wherein Americans who believed so absolutely
in universal peace—despite the war raging abroad—that the labourers
would refuse to make munitions of war, the farmers would decline to sell
food to warring nations, and the Government would take over all the war
factories. _Von Rintelen, accordingly, determined to bring such a dream
into real life, not for altruistic purposes, but to help Germany conquer
the Allies._
He had made his plans before he left Germany, and he had sent ahead for
information concerning Americans as his aids, who were skilled in
finesse and underground work. _He wanted men who, while men of brains,
might be led by lust for gold or hatred of England to espouse the
criminal schemes which he had originated. He sought leaders whose logic
and oratory could sway the rank and file._ The man of whom he had heard
while in Berlin as a likely assistant was David Lamar, now serving a
term of imprisonment for having impersonated a Congressman, whose
craftiness and ingenious methods in using politicians in his stock
operations had won him the title of “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The two
men were brought together.
One can see von Rintelen, enthusiastically speaking in millions of
dollars, as he outlined his schemes to Lamar, his equal in grace of
manner and deceit, and Lamar cloaking his avarice with smiles and
sophistry.
BEFUDDLING THE PACIFISTS
_Von Rintelen’s first step_, as he outlined it to Lamar, _was to use the
horrors of the European War as an appeal for universal peace, and to
enlist the labouring men and the farmers of America in raising their
united voice against the exports of arms and ammunition. And thus a
great labour peace propaganda_ was originated by a German whose
patriotism had driven away his scruples, and an American who had gone
money-mad. The details of the organization were set forth, and soon von
Rintelen had a staff of workers at his command, though they all may not
have known he was paying their salaries. His agents, in secret
interviews with labour leaders, were soliciting their aid, flashing
rolls of gold-tinted certificates. The men who guiltily handled the
money which von Rintelen drew from the bank had only one complaint,
namely, that the denominations of the bills were entirely too large.
_Two of von Rintelen’s agents following Samuel Gompers, president of the
National Federation of Labour, to Atlantic City one day, offered him
$500,000 for his services in endorsing the peace propaganda and
participating in the work. Mr. Gompers scorned the offer. Other big
labour leaders, whose aid was solicited, began immediately to warn their
associates against the anti-American activities of German agents._
By June, 1915, von Rintelen’s schemes were moving apace. A big
advertising campaign had been started in the early spring with von
Rintelen’s cash. Newspaper propaganda picturing the glories of universal
peace began to appear.
By the aid of Lamar, who kept von Rintelen in the background, the German
soon had many persons working and talking in the interest of universal
peace. It has been stated that the services of Frank Buchanan,
Representative in Congress and former labour leader, and of H. Robert
Fowler, ex-Congressman, were obtained. Whether they were aware of von
Rintelen and his motives is a question for a jury to answer, for they
have been indicted in connection with the alleged activities of the
Labour’s National Peace Council.
Within a short time, thousands of invitations were scattering throughout
the country to labour leaders, small and large, and to heads of farmers’
granges, to attend the national convention of the peace propaganda at
the expense of the organization. All railroad fares, hotel expenses and
a liberal allowance for spending money were promised.
Under the fostering financial auspices of von Rintelen, who hovered
conveniently near the New Willard Hotel, the members of a peace movement
gathered in Washington, expenses paid. They adopted resolutions saying
they desired “to promote peace.” _The resolutions demanded the enactment
of laws that would enable the Government to take over as exclusive
government business the manufacture of all arms, instruments and
munitions of war; demanded an immediate embargo upon shipments of war
supplies to the belligerents; denounced the maintenance of military and
naval forces, and called for a special session of Congress to promote
“peace universal.”_ The executive board went immediately into executive
session.
PAYING THE HIRELINGS
“How is this movement to be financed?” one of the newly-elected
executive board asked another. He and one of the vice-presidents waited
for an answer. They got none, he says, and the question was repeated by
another. Then one of the officers answered:
“This thing is big enough, so that I do not care where the money comes
from to finance it.”
Another member asked:
“What, after all, does this council want to do?”
“We want,” was the answer, “to stop the exportation of munitions to the
Allies. Germany can manufacture all the munitions she wants.”
Von Rintelen’s deposit in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company meantime was
growing smaller by jumps of $100,000. It was drawn by cheques payable to
cash, placed in another bank, quickly withdrawn, and on one occasion the
money in bills was taken to the headquarters of a peace organization in
a suit-case. _Bank accounts of von Rintelen’s peace propagandists began
to jump._
The executive board was busy. One of the first moves was a statement
filed with Secretary of State Lansing alleging that nine ships in
various American ports were taking on cargoes of ammunition in violation
of the neutrality laws. That charge, undoubtedly prepared with von
Rintelen’s aid upon information gathered by German spies, showed an
accurate knowledge of the merchantmen loading with supplies for the
Allies. _There was, however, no violation of law_, because the vessels
were officered and manned by ordinary seamen who had no connection with
the Allied governments.
The second step was the preparation of a complaint charging as a
violation of law the issuance of Federal Reserve notes by national banks
on the ground that the New York banks had lent money to the Allies which
was being used in payment for war supplies, and that some of those banks
had rediscounted notes with the Federal Reserve Bank. Here again was
displayed a remarkably detailed knowledge of the business of the Federal
Reserve Banks. _This charge also fell flat._
A third move was against Dudley Field Malone, Collector of the Port of
New York. Resolutions were adopted accusing him of exceeding his
authority in having granted clearance papers to the steamship
_Lusitania_ when that vessel was ladened with munitions, and authorizing
an action to be started against him. No suit, however, was begun. In
this connection, it may be mentioned that one member of the peace
committee was attorney for a woman of Chicago, who, months afterwards,
started suit for $40,000 against Collector Malone and Captain Turner, of
the _Lusitania_, on the ground that the ship illegally carried
explosives.
CONSPIRACY GROWS BOLDER
These public acts mentioned above, however, are stated by the Federal
Government to have been merely a cloak, covering a more extensive
conspiracy financed by von Rintelen. By a series of strikes in munition
factories, humming with the Allies’ war orders; on railroads carrying
the articles to the seaboard, and on steamships, von Rintelen, it is
alleged, sought to cut off commerce among the United States and the
Allied countries. Von Rintelen and several others are accused in the
Federal indictment of doing six different acts in a conspiracy in
restraint of foreign commerce. They are charged with conspiring to use
“solicitation, persuasion and exhortation” to influence the workers to
go on strike or to quit work, to bribe officers of labour unions to get
the men to strike, and “by divers other means and methods not
specifically determined upon by the defendants, but to be decided as the
occasion arose.”
Von Rintelen was busy now jumping from town to town, sending orders
under one name, then another, and paying out money. _There took place in
June and July, 1915, many strikes which, the national labour leaders of
the respective trades said, were absolutely unauthorized by the national
bodies._ The German agent was delighted to read in the newspapers of
strikes at the Standard Oil plant in Bayonne, N. J.; of strikes at the
Remington Arms Company in Bridgeport, Conn., and in the General Electric
Plant in Schenectady, N. Y. His agents would approach him gleefully with
the newspapers containing these accounts, and immediately would receive
another bundle of bills with the exhortation, “That is fine. Go out and
start some more.”
Another projected strike in connection with which Germans were mentioned
in correspondence, but in which von Rintelen is not named, is presented
here because it fits in the general scheme of the German plotting. That
is the conspiracy on part of moneyed representatives of Germany in May
and June, 1915, to start a strike simultaneously among the 23,000
‘longshoremen on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. _Such a walkout would
absolutely have paralysed American shipping, completely stopped the
movement of explosives to the Allies at a most critical moment._ A
leader of the big ‘Longshoremen’s Union told Chief William J. Flynn, of
the United States Secret Service, that $1,035,000, or $45 for every man,
was offered to keep the men out on strike for four weeks. After the
sinking of the _Lusitania_, the man who approached the ‘longshoremen
wrote under the name of “Mike Foley,” asking if an “S.” (strike) was to
be called, that because of the “L. (_Lusitania_) affair,” his people
were not going to do anything at present, and because the “Big Man” (who
preceded von Rintelen) was going away. It will be recalled that after
the sinking of the _Lusitania_, Dernburg was dismissed from the country
because of his comments concerning the attitude of Germany towards
submarine warfare.
CRIMINALS SET TO WORK
While von Rintelen was reaching out in so many directions in his frantic
endeavour to build a barrier between the United States and the Entente
Powers, he did not hesitate to resort to criminals. Keeping his quick
eyes on the progress of the peace propaganda, he had schemes which,
while distinctly separated from that organization, were designed to work
in harmony with the developments in the strike propaganda. Von Rintelen
planned by aid of reservists and crooks to take other measures in
munition factories to stop, delay, injure the production of materials
destined for the Allies’ battle fronts.
_He sent trained German reservists to get employment in factories with
orders to collect information and do what they could to cause trouble._
Resorting again to the well-developed system of German secret agents in
New York, under new aliases, he got in touch with organized bands of
criminals in New York, and, the authorities say, hired them _to start
depredations on the ships being loaded with supplies_ for the Allies in
New York harbour. To von Rintelen or some other person associated with
him is attributed the origin of a plot for widespread attacks by thieves
on cargoes being lightered from railroad piers to merchantmen. These
thefts of sugar, automobile tyres and magnetos have amounted to millions
of dollars. For instance, one of the sugar thieves stealing bags of
sugar from a lighter said to a comrade:
“Take some more bags. The ship won’t ever reach the other side, anyway,
and nobody will know.”
To the persons who doubt these varied, reckless and extensive activities
of von Rintelen, it may be suggested that von Rintelen asserted
frequently to his associates that he had come to America to take every
step, including peaceful or violent measures, to stop the shipment of
munitions.
The doubter must not overlook the supervision which von Rintelen
exercised over the manufacturer of fire bombs which German reservists
are accused of hiding on the Allies’ merchantmen, and the fact that von
Rintelen’s aid visited a bomb man in his Hoboken laboratory frequently;
that on one occasion he scored him roughly because the fire bombs were
not proving effective. Furthermore, Fay, after his arrest, and long
before the indictment of the bomb plotters, told Captain Tunney of a
wealthy German, then a prisoner of war in England, who had paid $10,000
to a Hoboken chemist to make fire bombs.
Though von Rintelen, during the months of June and July, was exuberant
over the reports—most of them false—which were carried to him concerning
the progress of peace, the strikes and other schemes, and though he was
kept drawing money from the bank until the $800,000 in the
Trans-Atlantic Trust Company was reduced to $40,000, he began to have
doubts about Lamar and about the effectiveness of the latter’s
management of some of the projects. He knew that Lamar and his
associates were planning for a second rousing meeting in Washington,
but, becoming suspicious, he suddenly cut off the money. He had received
estimates of activities that required more money. After deliberation he
finally decided to slip away to Berlin, get away from Lamar entirely and
after making a report to the War Office return to America to broaden his
scope of work.
All told, von Rintelen had failed to perceive any falling off in the
exports to the Allies. They were, in fact, rapidly increasing, and von
Rintelen’s schemes thus far had proved ineffective, though he still was
optimistic that eventually he would have all his forces working in
unison and thus accomplish his aims.
He did not go to Washington when a second peace convention was in
session, and the word had slipped out to some of the workers that von
Rintelen was about to sail. Still, the meeting with the members claiming
a representation of 8,000,000 voters, was more denunciatory and
enthusiastic over its aims, than ever. There were attacks on President
Wilson and demands for an embargo on war munitions. There was an intense
pro-German feeling.
Differences, meantime, began to arise among the members of the executive
board. One of the vice-presidents resigned just before the second
session convened, saying emphatically that the financing of the
organization was under suspicion. Another quietly quit, not making the
fact public until weeks afterwards. Lamar flitted away to a magnificent
country home which he had bought in Pittsfield, Mass. There was no money
left. The propaganda died.
EXIT VON RINTELEN
Von Rintelen was on the high seas. He had left $40,000 in the bank in
charge of his friends, and some of the plotters tried to get that on the
strength of a promise to stop the Anglo-French bond sale of
$500,000,000. Before sailing he had applied for a passport as an
American citizen named Edward V. Gates, of Millersville, Pennsylvania.
But whisperings concerning von Rintelen’s activities had reached the
White House from society folk who had heard von Rintelen’s rash talk and
who knew of some of the unscrupulous things he had attempted. The State
Department ordered an investigation and finally sent his passport on to
New York the day before the sailing of the _Noordam_, in care of Federal
agents; but von Rintelen did not claim it. Though he had bought a ticket
on the boat under the name of Gates, and had obtained drafts payable on
that name, he did not occupy the Gates cabin but at the last minute
engaged passage under the name of Emil V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen.
On board ship, he set to work preparing for the close scrutiny of
British naval officers when the ship neared Falmouth. He handed over
many of his documents to Andrew D. Meloy, his travelling companion, and
Meloy’s secretary. He dictated a long document about financial
conditions of Mexican railways purporting to be the report of himself as
commissioner for a group of English bondholders. He sought to make it
appear that he had been sent to the United States as a representative of
the bondholders’ committee of Mexican railways. When the British
officers came on board and searched him, von Rintelen put up a skilful
bluff, but finally surrendered as a prisoner of war. Meloy, who had
aided von Rintelen in his application for the American passport, was
sent back to this country by the British authorities.
A VALUABLE PRISONER
While von Rintelen, after his strenuous days in America, was resting
comfortably in a luxurious prison camp at Donington Hall, England, the
American authorities were busily delving into his record. Mr. Sarfaty
presented witness after witness and thousands of documents to the
Federal Grand Jury. Von Rintelen and Meloy were indicted, first, for the
fraudulent passport conspiracy; and Meloy finally made a confession to
the Government authorities. Von Rintelen’s agent, called before the
Grand Jury and refusing to answer, was adjudged in contempt of court and
spent a night in the Tombs prison. Another agent, summoned before the
Grand Jury and asked about his dealings with von Rintelen, refused to
answer on the ground that it might tend to degrade and incriminate him,
but he afterwards was arrested on a firebomb charge.
Von Rintelen was indicted on the charge of forgery on the passport
application, and upon that as a basis, application was made to the
English authorities for his extradition. After months of investigation,
indictments finally were filed against von Rintelen, Lamar, and his
associates on a charge of conspiring to restrain foreign trade.
The moment a United States District-Attorney, equipped with a mass of
documentary evidence, telegrams, letters, minutes of secret meetings,
and the statements of hundreds of witnesses, laid facts before the Grand
Jury who brought an indictment against a Congressman, the House of
Representatives, without waiting for the trial of the defendant,
immediately ordered an inquiry which in substance amounted to a fishing
expedition by the sub-committee to ascertain just what evidence Mr.
Marshall and Mr. Sarfaty had dug up against one of their members.
Congress did not take any action, and finally, after a spectacular play,
decided to let the matter drop.
A COSTLY FAILURE
From the viewpoint of picturesqueness, fantastic conceptions,
recklessness, extravagance, and a remarkable mastery of detail, von
Rintelen stands forth as the most extraordinary German agent sent to
America. Boy-Ed and von Papen are now telling their friends in Berlin
that their recall was due not to what they did but to what von Rintelen
did and said.
The energetic nobleman had hoped to cause an absolute cessation of
exports from this country to the Allies and to create a political
situation where the United States would be powerless to make any protest
on Germany’s submarine warfare. To bring these conditions about _he had
not hesitated to try to foment war between the United States and Mexico,
to violate various American neutrality laws, to attack American
institutions and American ideals with the aim of causing an industrial
stagnation_. Yet how little he actually accomplished!
His Mexican plans were a failure. His schemes to influence legislation
came to naught. While a few strikes were started and quickly settled,
the activity of the Germans proved hurtful to the working men. Von
Rintelen did get a few supplies over to Germany; but many of his ships
were seized by the English. His enterprises are said to have cost many
millions of dollars, and the supplies which he shipped are about the
only thing that Germany got out of his gigantic schemes. U. S. Attorney
Marshall has a passport issued to Edward V. Gates which von Rintelen can
have any time he wishes to come and get it. Should he ever step upon
American shores, he will face charges which upon conviction furnish a
total sentence of anywhere from fifty to sixty years. _Never did Germany
aim through one man to accomplish so much yet effect so little as
through Franz von Rintelen, the Crown Prince’s friend._
CHAPTER VIII
THE STORY OF THE _LUSITANIA_
The _Lusitania_ was, in the eyes of the German Admiralty, the symbol of
Great Britain’s supremacy on the seas. The big, graceful vessel,
unsurpassed in speed, had defied the German raiders that lurked in the
Atlantic hoping to capture her and had eluded the submarines that tried
to find her course. Time and time again, the Germans had planned and
plotted to “get” the _Lusitania_, and every time the ocean greyhound had
slipped away from them—every time save when the plot was developed on
American territory.
To sink the _Lusitania_, the German Admiralty had argued, was to lower
England’s prestige and to hoist the black eagle of the Hohenzollerns
above the Union Jack. Her destruction, they fondly hoped, would strike
terror to the hearts of the British, for it would prove the inability of
the English navy to protect her merchantmen. It would prove to the world
that von Tirpitz was on a fair way of carrying out his threat to isolate
the British Isles and starve the British people into submission to
Germany. It would be a last warning to neutrals to keep off the Allies’
merchantmen and would help stop the shipment of arms and ammunition to
the Allies from America. It would—as a certain royal personage
boasted—shake the world’s foundations.
Gloating over their project and forgetting the rights of neutrals, the
mad war lords did not think of the innocent persons on board, the men,
the women and babies. The lives of these neutrals were as nothing
compared with the shouts of triumph that would resound through Germany
at the announcement of the torpedoing of the big British ship, symbol of
sea power. The attitude was truly expressed by Captain von Papen, who on
receiving news of the sinking of the _Lusitania_ remarked: “Well, your
General Sherman said it: ‘War is Hell.’”
So the war lords schemed and the plots which resulted in the sinking of
the _Lusitania_ on May 7, 1915, bringing death to 113 American citizens,
were developed and executed in America, through orders from Berlin.
The agents in America put their heads together in a room in the German
Club, New York, or in a high-powered limousine tearing through the dark.
These men, who had worked out the plot, on the night of the successful
execution had assembled in a club and in high glee touched their glasses
and shouted their devotion to the Kaiser. One boasted afterwards that he
received an Iron Cross for his share in the work.
On the night of the tragedy, one of the conspirators remarked to a
family where he was dining—a family whose son was on the
_Lusitania_—when word came of the many deaths on the ship: “I did not
think she would sink so quickly. I had two good men on board.”
WARRIORS AT WORK IN AMERICA
In their secret conferences the conspirators worked their way round
obstacles and set their scheme in operation. Hired spies had made
numerous trips on the _Lusitania_, and had carefully studied her course
to and from England, and her convoy through the dangerous zone where
submarines might be lurking. These spies had observed the precautions
taken against a submarine attack. They knew the fearful speed by which
the big ship had eluded pursuers in February. They also had considered
the feasibility of sending a wireless message to a friend in England—a
message apparently of greeting that might be picked up by the wireless
on a German submarine and give its commander a hint as to the ship’s
course. _In fact, they did attempt this plan._ Spies were on board early
in the year when the _Lusitania_ ran dangerously near a submarine,
dodged a torpedo and then quickly eclipsed her German pursuer.
Spies also had brought reports concerning persons connected with the
_Lusitania_, and had given suggestions as to how to place men on board
in spite of the scrutiny of British agents. All these reports were
considered carefully and the conclusion was that no submarine was fast
enough to chase and get the _Lusitania_; that it was practically
impossible to have the U-boats stationed along every half mile of the
British coast, but that the simplest problem was to send the _Lusitania_
on a course where the U-boats would be in waiting and could torpedo her.
The scheme was, in substance, as follows:
“Captain Turner, approaching the English coast, sends a wireless to the
British Admiralty asking for instructions as to his course and convoy.
He gets a reply in code telling him in what direction to steer and where
his convoy will meet him. First, we must get a copy of the Admiralty
Code and we must prepare a message in cipher, giving directions as to
his course. This message will go to him by wireless as though from the
Admiralty. We must make arrangements to see that the genuine message
from the British Admiralty never reaches Captain Turner.”
That was the plan which the conspirators, aided and directed by Berlin,
chose. Upon it the shrewdest minds in the German secret service were set
to work. _As for the British Admiralty Code, the Germans had that at the
outbreak of the war and were using it at advantageous moments. How they
got it has not been made known; but they got it and they used it, just
as the Germans have obtained copies of the codes used by the American
State Department and have had copies of the codes used in our Army and
Navy. While the codes used by the British officials change almost daily,
such is not the case with merchant vessels on long voyages._
The next step of the conspirators was to arrange for the substitution of
the fake message for the genuine one. Germany’s spy machine has a
wonderful faculty for seeking out the weak characters holding
responsible positions among the enemy or for sending agents to get and
hold positions among their foes. It is now believed that a man on the
_Lusitania_ was deceived or duped. Whether he was a German sympathizer
sent out by the Fatherland to get the position and be ready for the
task, or whether he was induced for pay to play the part he did—has not
been told. Neither is his fate known.
Communication between New York and the German capital, ingenious,
intricate and superbly arranged, was almost as easy as telephoning from
the Battery to Harlem. Berlin was kept informed of every move in New
York and, in fact, selected the ill-fated course for the _Lusitania’s_
last voyage in English waters. Berlin picked out the place where the
_Lusitania_ was to sink.
Berlin chose the deep-sea graves for more than one hundred Americans.
Berlin assigned two submarines to a point ten miles south by west off
Old Head of Kinsale, near the entrance of St. George’s Channel. Berlin
chose the commander of the U-boats for the most damnable sea-crime in
history.
Just here there is a rumour among U-boat men in Europe that the man for
the crime was sent from Kiel with sealed instructions not to be opened
till at the spot chosen. With him went “a shadow” armed with a death
warrant if the U-boat commander “baulked” at the last moment.
BERLIN GIVES WARNING
The German officials in Berlin looking ahead, sought to prearrange a
palliative for their crime. Their plan, which in itself shows clearly
how carefully the Germans plotted the destruction of the _Lusitania_,
was to warn Americans not to sail on the vessel.
While the German Embassy in Washington was kept clear of the plot and
Ambassador von Bernstorff had argued and fought with all his strength
against the designs of the Berlin authorities, he, nevertheless,
received orders to publish an advertisement warning neutrals not to sail
on the Allies’ merchantmen. Acting under instructions, this
advertisement was inserted in newspapers in a column adjoining the
Cunard’s advertisement of the sailing of the _Lusitania_:
=NOTICE!=
=Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are
reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her
Allies and Great Britain and her Allies; that the zone of war
includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in
accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial German
Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or any of
her Allies are liable to destruction in these waters and that
travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or
her Allies, do so at their own risk.=
_Imperial German Embassy._
_Washington, D.C., April 22nd, 1915._
Germans in New York, who had knowledge that German submarines were lying
in wait off the Irish coast to “get” the _Lusitania_, sent intimations
to friends before the sailing of the ship.
The _New York Sun_ was told of the plot and warned Captain Turner by
wireless after the ship sailed. The German secret service in New York
also sent warnings to Americans booked on the _Lusitania_. One of the
persons to receive such a message signed “morte” was Alfred Gwynne
Vanderbilt. Many other passengers got the same warning that the ship was
to be torpedoed; but they all laughed at it. They knew she had outrun
submarines on a previous voyage and tricked them on another voyage.
Besides, before the horrors of this war, optimistic Americans firmly
believed the world was a civilized place. It was only after the
destruction of the _Lusitania_ that many neutral Americans could credit
the atrocity stories of Belgium.
FATEFUL MAY 1, 1915
So when the _Lusitania_ backed from her pier in the North River on the
morning of May 1, 1915, there was more than the average levity that
makes the sailing of an ocean liner so absorbing. On the pier were
anxious friends somewhat perturbed by the mysterious whisperings of
impending danger. Mingling among them also were men who knew what that
danger was, and who had just delivered final instructions to German
hirelings on board. On the deck of the great vessel, as she swung her
nose down-stream toward Sandy Hook, was not only the man who had
promised to see that the false message in code reached Captain Turner,
but there also were those two friends, good and true, of von
Rintelen’s—men who, in the event that the _Lusitania_ should run into
the appointed place at night, would flash lights from port holes to give
a clear aim to the commanders of the stealthy submarines.
On board the vessel swinging out past Sandy Hook into the ocean lane
were a notable group of passengers, many of them representative
Americans of inestimable value to this country. Besides Mr. Vanderbilt,
there was Charles Frohman, a talented theatrical producer, who had
furnished by his artistic shows genuine amusement to millions; Elbert
Hubbard, talented and inspiring writer; Charles Klein, writer of
absorbing plays; Justus Miles Forman, novelist, and Lindon W. Bates,
Jr., whose family had befriended von Rintelen. Merchants, clergymen,
lawyers, society women, a large list of useful men and women in the
1,254 passengers.
These, added to the crew of 800, made more than 2,000 lives under the
care of the staunch, blue-eyed captain. _Of that number_, 1,214 were
_being rushed over the waves to doom_. And as the ship sped eastward,
submarines leaving their bases at Cuxhaven and Heligoland clipped their
prows under the waves, and made for Old Head of Kinsale on the south
coast of Ireland, where they were instructed to pause, upon sealed
instructions, and obey them to the letter.
Meantime, Berlin, counting almost to the hour when the _Lusitania_ would
near the British Isles, prepared the exact wording for the false
instructions to Captain Turner. This was sent to New York by wireless,
where it was put into British code. The next step was to have this
message substituted for the British Admiralty’s instructions to the
_Lusitania_. The inside details of how this substitution was
effected—can only be surmised. This secret is buried with the British
Admiralty and with the Bureau in Berlin.
BERLIN’S DELIBERATIONS
For such intricate action Germany had been preparing with infinite
patience both before and after the war began. Prior to the outbreak,
representatives of Germany had started the building of the wireless
plant at Sayville, Long Island, by which aerial communication was
established with Berlin. After the war began, the equipment of the
station was increased, and instead of 35 kilowatt transmitters, 100
kilowatt transmitters were installed, the machinery for tripling the
efficiency of the plant having been shipped from Germany _via_ Holland
to this country. Wireless experts, members of the German navy, also
slipped away from Germany to direct the work of handling messages
between the two countries.
Everything was in readiness at Sayville, consequently, to catch the
directions that were flashed through the air. There was an operator
specially trained to take the message coded for the deception of Captain
Turner, and send it crackling fatefully through the air. Everything was
ready and only the request of the operator on the _Lusitania_ for
directions south of Ireland was needed. _All this was in violation not
only of our neutrality laws, but also in disregard of American statutes
governing wireless stations._
Meantime, the vessel had reached the edge of the war zone decreed by
Germany in violation of international law, and Captain Turner sent out
his call for instructions. Presently the order came. It was hurried to
Captain Turner’s state-room.
Captain Turner, carefully decoding the message by means of a cipher book
which he had guarded so jealously, read orders to proceed to a point ten
miles south of Old Head of Kinsale, and run into St. George’s Channel,
making the bar at Liverpool at midnight. He carefully calculated the
distance and his running time, and adjusted his speed accordingly. He
felt assured, because he relied on the assumption that the waters over
which he was sailing were being thoroughly scoured by English cruisers
and swift torpedo boats in search of German submarines.
THE EXPLOSION THAT ROCKED THE WORLD
The British Admiralty also received his wireless message—just as the
Sayville operator had snatched it from the air, and despatched an
answer. The order from the head of the Admiralty directed the English
captain to proceed to a point some seventy or eighty miles south of Old
Head of Kinsale and there meet his convoy, which would guard him on the
way to port. _But Captain Turner never got that message, and the British
convoy waited in vain for the Lusitania to appear on the horizon._
The _Lusitania_ headed north-east, going far away from the vessels that
would have protected her. Swiftly she slipped through the waves on the
afternoon of May 7. Unsuspecting, the ship moved directly toward certain
death. The proud, swift liner steered straight between two submarines,
lying in wait.
The details of what happened after the torpedo blew out the side of the
great ship have been told—told so fully, vividly, so terribly that they
need not be repeated here. As Captain Turner heard the explosion of the
torpedo he instantly knew that there had been treachery. He knew he had
been decoyed away from the warships that were to escort him to his pier.
The manner in which the captain had been lured to the waiting submarines
was made clear at the secret session of the Board of Inquiry that
investigated the sinking of the ship. Captain Turner told at the
Coroner’s inquest how he had been warned, supposedly by the British
Admiralty, of submarines off the Irish coast, and that he had received
special instructions as to course. Asked if he made application for a
convoy, he said:
“No, I left that to them. It is their business, not mine. I simply had
to carry out my orders to go, and I would do it again.”
At the official inquiry, the captain produced the orders which he had
received, directing him to proceed south-west of Old Head of Kinsale.
The British Admiralty produced its message which had directed Captain
Turner to go by an utterly different course. It produced also orders
which had been issued to the convoy to meet the _Lusitania_. The orders
did not jibe. _They showed treachery, and further investigation pointed
to Sayville._
AMERICA REVOLTED AND APPALLED
The indignation and the revulsion of Americans against Germany because
of the destruction of the _Lusitania_ with the appalling loss of life
was a surprise to the Kaiser and his war staff. They apparently had
believed that the warning contained in the official announcement of
Germany, declaring the waters about the British Islands a war zone, and
the advertisement published would be sufficient excuse, and that their
act would be accepted calmly by America. They were not prepared for
Colonel Roosevelt’s invective stigmatizing the act as piracy, or the
editorial denunciation throughout the country. Their effrontery was
displayed by one of their agents, who announced that American ships also
would be sunk. But this agent’s removal from the country and mob
violence threatened other agents was emphatic proof of America’s state
of mind.
Immediately Germany turned as a defence to the argument that the
_Lusitania_ carried munitions of war and other contraband in violation
of the United States Federal statute. But the American laws were quoted
to Ambassador von Bernstorff to prove to him that cartridges could be
transported in a passenger ship. That argument proved of no avail.
Secretary Bryan’s note, written by President Wilson, and forwarded to
Berlin, demanded a disavowal of the sinking of the _Lusitania_, an
apology and reparation for the lives lost. But Germany sought to parley
with a reply that would lay the blame on Great Britain, and asserting
that the _Lusitania_ had been an armed auxiliary cruiser, requested an
investigation of these alleged facts, and refused to stop her submarine
warfare until England changed her trade policy. But this note again
aroused the wrath of Americans.
LIES AND DECEIT
German secret agents began to manufacture evidence to support the
Kaiser’s contentions. Here a hireling of Boy-Ed looms as an obedient
servant of the naval attaché, whether he knew all the facts or not. It
was Koenig, who, using the alias of Stemler, obtained from Gustave Stahl
an affidavit to the effect that he had seen four fifteen-centimetre guns
on the decks of the _Lusitania_ before she left port on her ill-fated
voyage. There were three other supporting affidavits. All these
documents were handed to Boy-Ed on June 1, 1915, and the following day
were in the hands of von Bernstorff, who turned them over to the State
Department in Washington.
It required but little work on the part of Federal agents to establish
the untruth of Stahl’s affidavit. Stahl, a German reservist, appeared
before the Federal Grand Jury, where he again repeated his lies. He was
indicted for perjury and upon a plea of guilty was sent to the Federal
prison at Atlanta.
It was Koenig who had hidden Stahl away after the latter had made his
affidavit, and it was Koenig who, at the command of the Federal
authorities, produced him.
So here again Germany’s efforts to deceive and to justify her piratical
act came to naught, and left her even more damned before the world. Time
came within a few days for President Wilson to reject forcibly the
flimsy defence made by Germany, but before that note was drafted, the
United States authorities by a thorough investigation of Sayville, and a
scrutiny of the German naval officers employed there, discovered that
the fake code message that drove the _Lusitania_ to her grave in the sea
had been flashed out from neutral territory; that the conspiracy had
been developed in America, though the details were not obtainable at
that time as they are presented here.
President Wilson was determined to demand absolute safety for Americans
at sea. Though Bryan resigned, Mr. Wilson sent a note, asserting that
the _Lusitania_ was not armed, and had not carried cargo in violation
either of American or international law. The action of Bryan weakened
the position of America in demanding a cessation of Germany’s submarine
warfare. It gave encouragement to Austria, after Germany had promised to
obey international law, to try a series of similar evasions. It gave
impetus to Germany’s plans to make a settlement of the submarine
controversy and to try to divide Congress on the issue.
The loss to America was 113 lives and a great amount of prestige; to
Germany, a tremendous amount of sympathy. But through it all stand out
the pictures of secret agents, boasters, schemers and reckless
adventurers, one of whom, having aided in the sinking of the _Lusitania_
and the drowning of hundreds of her passengers and crew, had still the
audacity to dine on the evening of this ghastly triumph at the home of
an American victim. One agent high in international affairs, overcome by
the force of the tragedy done in answer to the Kaiser’s bidding, had
still enough decency left to remark:
“Oh, what foul work!”
CHAPTER IX
DR. HEINRICH F. ALBERT, GERMANY’S BAGMAN AND BLOCKADE RUNNER
“And tell him that the struggle on the American front is sometimes very
hard.”—Dr. Albert.
* * * * *
To outwit John Bull on the high seas by running his blockade is a big
task. To compete against the combined commercial generals of England,
Russia, France and Italy in seeking trade in the Americas is a still
larger undertaking. But for one man to attempt both, while incidentally
keeping watch on the industrial growth of the United States and being a
big factor in Germany’s spy system, seems like a pigmy grappling with a
Hercules. The qualities requisite for the man who would accept such a
battle are diplomatic finesse of the highest degree, strength compared
to one of America’s kings of industry, a vast economic knowledge, the
shrewdness of a Yankee and the cleverness of the Kaiser’s ablest
strategist. Yet the responsibilities of such a manifold enterprise,
romantic in its infinite details and its vastness, were assumed by one
German.
You could find him almost any day until the break with Germany in a
small office in the Hamburg-American Building, the Kaiser’s beehive of
secret agents, at No. 45, Broadway, New York. He was a tall, slender
man, wonderfully supple-looking in spite of the conventional frock coat
and the dignified dress of a European business man. His clear, blue
eyes, his smooth face, thoughtful and refined, his blonde hair, and his
regular features suggested a man of thirty-eight, or even younger,
though you would look for a middle-aged or older man as selected for a
position requiring so many nice decisions. When you entered his room—and
few persons gained admission—he would rise and bow low and most
courteously. He spoke in a soft, melodious voice, was deliberate in the
choice of his words and encouraged conversation rather than made it. He
was the quintessence of politeness, a marked contrast to the clear-cut,
energetic, brusque, American business man—a smooth polished cog in the
steel machinery of Prussian militarism.
Yet this man was the centre of Germany’s business activities in America.
Upon him has rested the task of spending between $2,000,000 and
$3,000,000 a week for the German Government in the purchase of supplies
and in propaganda. His expenditure in furthering the cause has cost him
thirty millions of dollars outside the vast amounts spent in the
purchase of supplies, and he admits he wasted a half million or more
dollars.
He was Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, privy councillor to the German Embassy
and fiscal agent in America for the German Government. He was the source
of the funds used by the representatives of Germany, her secret
diplomatic and consular agents. He was the channel through whom money
flowed from the Imperial exchequer—unwittingly it may have been on his
part—to men who, in the interest of Germany, have violated American
laws.
His job was a big one because this war has demanded the help of
industry, as no other previous war. Just as it has resolved itself into
an enormous race between the industries of the combating nations in
turning out shells and arms, so Geheimrath Albert’s duties became all
the more multitudinous, really a part of the great conflict itself.
Dr. Albert had just as important work as his colleagues, the military
and naval attachés, but in a different field. With industrial
preparedness of greater importance in this than in any other war it is
natural that the commercial attaché and his staff of agents should prove
a most important asset to Germany’s secret service in America.
Geheimrath Albert’s duties in the economic field have been bound
inextricably with the aims of the Fatherland’s secret service. While
directing and financing the collection of data for use in the
preparation of reports to the home government, he has also worked side
by side with the other representatives of his Government.
THE EQUIPMENT OF A COLOSSUS
Albert was equipped for the gigantic task, as few men in the world have
been equipped. He knew finance, the economy of industry, the finesse of
diplomacy and the odd, yet scientific twists of the inventor’s mind. He
had been trained in the things that interested kings and the problems
that appealed to the labouring man. His field of knowledge was broad,
for in preparation for his tasks he had to seek the best commercial,
banking, industrial methods and inventions of the world to help Germany.
So successful was he that his friends have termed him “The German
Yankee.”
Around no German official in America has there hovered so much mystery.
A great bulwark of Germany’s propaganda—though no participation in any
illegal or criminal acts has been charged against him—he might have
remained the greater part of the war under cover had it not been for the
activity of secret service agents and for a little nap which Geheimrath
Albert, the courteous and overworked, took upon an elevated train one
day. When he awoke, his dossier was gone. That portfolio contained a
mass of wonderfully illuminating documents, so many and so varied that
if the privy councillor is accustomed to take up in one day so many
diverse matters it almost staggers the imagination to try to conceive of
the tasks which this war brought him. Through them public and official
attention was fastened upon him, serving to deepen the folds of mystery
about him. Through them the public in America first learned of the
vastness of German propaganda. Dr. Albert lost his portfolio in August,
1915.
In the quietness of his little office above humming Broadway and within
calling distance of the gold-lined Wall Street into which he so
constantly pried, Geheimrath Albert discussed momentous economic
problems with Germany’s other big men. In the German Club in the
evenings he continued those consultations. In trips to Washington and
Chicago and New Orleans and San Francisco, he and his agents conferred
with big German business men.
His close confidant was Count von Bernstorff, with whom he had a joint
account of several millions of dollars in the Chase National Bank, New
York. His two active colleagues were Captain von Papen and Captain
Boy-Ed. The association with these men must have been very close and
keen; for on von Papen’s recall Dr. Albert wrote him: “I shall feel your
departure most keenly; our work together was excellent and was always a
great pleasure to me. I hope that in the Fatherland you will have an
opportunity for making use of your extraordinary talent in dealing with
economic questions. When I think of your and Boy-Ed’s departure and that
I alone remain behind in New York, I could—well, better not!”
Dr. Albert learned the output of the steel industries and the financial
connections of the big corporations. He had accurate information about
the electrical manufacturing concerns in this country, their output,
their inventions, the ability and the accomplishments of the engineers
at the head of those plants, their training and personal history. He
knew all about America’s transportation systems, their financial
strength and the real mechanical and constructive ability of the
scientific men connected with those systems. His information was as
broad as his American activities. Suffice it to say that it was Dr.
Albert’s business to get these facts—and he did so.
HIS VIEW OF THE FUTURE
How Dr. Albert looked to the future is set forth in a report which was
prepared for him on June 3, 1915, by a trade representative in the
German General Consulate, New York, on the effect of the British
embargo. This document, compiled by a scientist, was undoubtedly only
one of hundreds of such instruments worked out by Germans in this
country for the help of the Fatherland. In this paper the writer, named
Waetzoldt, says:
* * * * *
“There can be no doubt that the British Government will bring into play
all power and pressure possible in order to complete the total blockade
of Germany from her foreign markets, and that the Government of the
United States will not make a strenuous effort to maintain its trade
with Germany....
“It has been positively demonstrated during this time that the falling
off of imports caused by the war in Europe will in the future be
principally covered by American industry....
“The complete stopping of importation of German products will, in truth,
to a limited extent, especially in the first part of the blockade, help
the sale of English or French products, but the damage which will be
done to us in this way will not be great....
“The _Lusitania_ case did, in fact, give the English efforts in this
direction a new and powerful impetus, and at first the vehemence with
which the anti-German movement began anew awakened serious misgivings,
but this case also will have a lasting effect, which, unless fresh
complications arise, we may be able to turn to the advantage of the sale
of German goods....
“The war will certainly have this effect, that the American business
world will devote all its energy toward making itself independent of the
importation of foreign products as far as possible....
“If the decision is again brought home to German industry it should not
be forgotten what position the United States took with reference to
Germany in this war. Above all, it should not be forgotten that the
‘ultimate ratio’ of the United States is not the war with arms, but a
complete prohibition of trade with Germany, and, in fact, through
legislation. That was brought out very clearly and sharply in connection
with the still pending negotiations regarding the _Lusitania_ case.”
* * * * *
Dr. Albert received among many reports one giving an analysis of the
trade here in war materials:
* * * * *
“The large war orders, as the professional journals also print, have
become the great means of saving American business institutions from
idleness and financial ruin.
“The fact that institutions of the size and international influence of
those mentioned could not find sufficient regular business to keep them
to some extent occupied, throws a harsh light upon the sad condition in
which American business would have found itself had it not been for the
war orders. The ground which induced these large interests to accept war
orders rests entirely upon an economical basis and can be explained by
the above-mentioned conditions which were produced by the lack of
regular business.... These difficulties resulting from the dividing up
of the contracts are held to have been augmented, as stated in business
circles, by the fact that certain agents working in German interest
succeeded in further delaying and making worse American deliveries....
“So many contracts for the production of picric acid have been placed
that they can only be filled to a very small part.”
* * * * *
A MAN OF MYSTERY
Naturally one of the most vital problems that stirred Dr. Albert was the
British Order in Council in regard to the blockade of Germany from which
resulted the seizure of meat and food supplies and cotton by British war
vessels. He was always on the alert for information as to what was the
attitude of the Administration and the people of the United States
toward the blockade. That he used secret and perhaps devious means to
get it is revealed by a confidential report which he received under most
mysterious circumstances concerning an interview by a man referred to as
“M. P.” with President Wilson and Secretary Lansing. “M. P.,” according
to the conversation, claimed to have received from the President “a
candid, confidential statement in order to make clear not only his own
opposition, but also necessarily the political opportunity.” A striking
part of this conversation follows:
* * * * *
“L. advises regarding a conference with M. P. Thereafter M. P. saw
Lansing as well as Wilson. He informed both of them that an American
syndicate had approached him which had strong German relations. This
syndicate wishes to buy up cotton for Germany in great style, thereby to
relieve the cotton situation, and at the same time to provide Germany
with cotton. The relations of the American syndicate with Germany are
very strong, so that they might even possibly be able to influence the
position of Germany in the general political question. M. P. therefore
asked for a candid, confidential statement in order to make clear not
only his own position, but also necessarily the political opportunity.
The result of the conversation was as follows:
“1. _The note of protest to England will go in any event whether Germany
answers satisfactorily or not._
“2. _Should it be possible to settle satisfactorily the Lusitania case,
the President will bind himself to carry the protest against England
through to the uttermost._
“3. _The continuance of the difference with Germany over the Lusitania
case is ‘embarrassing’ for the President in carrying out the protest
against England._...
“4. A contemplated English proposal to buy cotton in great style and
invest the proceeds in America would not satisfy the President as an
answer to the protest....
“5. The President, in order to ascertain from Mr. M. P. how strong the
German influence of this syndicate is, would like to have the trend of
the German note before the note is officially sent, and declares himself
ready, before the answer is drafted, to discuss it with M. P., and
eventually to so influence it that there will be an agreement for its
reception, and also to be ready to influence the press through a wink.
“6. As far as the note itself is concerned, which he awaits, so he
awaits another expression of regret, which was not followed in the last
note—regret together with the statement that nobody had expected that
human lives would be lost and that the ship would sink so quickly.
“The President is said to have openly declared that he could hardly hope
for a positive statement that the submarine warfare would be
discontinued.”
* * * * *
WHAT HIS SECRET CORRESPONDENCE REVEALED
Dr. Albert also was in close communication with the American branches of
German industries. This fact is apparent from secret correspondence
found in his dossier, showing how after much deliberation and
consultation a group of German representatives in America forbade the
American branch of a German firm to fill a Russian war order. This
correspondence shows that the American branch first sought information
as to whether or not it should fill the order either as a means of
making money or, secondly, as a means of delaying the Russian Government
in getting the material. One of the Embassy staff wrote suggesting that
the Ambassador approve of the acceptance of the order as a means of
hindering the Allies. After a conference it was reported:
* * * * *
“In my opinion it would be hazardous for your firm to ship locomotives,
cars, or wheels to Russia. All these transportation means would lighten
the transport of troops, ammunition and provisions for the Russian
Government, and your firm would, within the meaning of Paragraph 89 of
the (German) Penal Code, be rendering aid to the enemy thereby.... That
you are in a position to delay the delivery of the order to the
prejudice of the hostile country ordering them will in no measure
relieve you from liability.”
* * * * *
GERMANY IN THE STOCK MARKET
When it appeared that the Kaiser would not yield to demands made by the
President, the prices of stocks went down and Germans bought stocks
cheaply. After they loaded up a liberal supply, word would come that
Germany was yielding and the stock market would become buoyant, thus
allowing the German group to sell hundreds of thousands of shares on a
substantial profit. _There is absolutely no doubt that as a result of
every crisis the German Government realized millions of dollars in the
market._
An instance of how Dr. Albert had opportunity to get into the market is
revealed in a secret letter written to Dr. Albert on July 8, 1915, by a
well-known Board of Trade German in Chicago, and associated with a group
of German traders. In this letter he refers to Dr. Albert’s “principal,”
presumed to be no other than the German Government or the Kaiser
himself. His letter says:
* * * * *
“Provisions have been horribly depressed by severe liquidation. We
firmly believe that purchase of September lard will make your principal
a great deal of money. September lard closes tonight at $8.65. This,
with high freight added, will cost under 10 cents delivered Hamburg,
where actual prices are around 35 cents per pound.
“I do not want to appear over persistent, but there never was a better
proposition than buying this cheap lard for September delivery.”
* * * * *
One of Dr. Albert’s functions was to sift this commercial information
and make recommendations to Berlin. He would confer with his coworkers
on all military and naval matters having a commercial phase. That he did
so is proved by the reports which they made and which went to Dr. Albert
for his consideration and further recommendation. Captain von Papen, on
July 7, 1915, submitted to Dr. Albert a memorandum headed, “Steps taken
to Prevent the Exportation of Liquid Chlorine,” in which he tells of the
efforts made by England and France to buy that chemical in America,
tells of the output here, and the firms turning it out.
THE SHIP PLOTS
Another matter of importance to which he gave thought was the problem
which had been in every German mind and mouth since the beginning of the
war, namely, the prevention of the shipment of war supplies to the
Allies. A letter mailed to Dr. Albert from Chicago under date of July
22, 1915, sets forth how zealously his agent was working on an embargo
conference with the aim of arousing sentiment in this country against
the export of arms and ammunition. The letter says that he had obtained
the co-operation of a United States Senator, a Congressman and other
Americans in this project.
One letter from Albert’s agent runs thus:
* * * * *
“I must refrain from communicating the above facts in my report to the
Ambassador, as the matter could be too easily compromised thereby.
Perhaps you will find an opportunity to inform Count von Bernstorff
verbally. As soon as the matter has first gained more headway, I believe
Mr. von Alvensleben, who has taken part in the whole development here,
will come to New York in order to inform the Ambassador fully regarding
prevailing frame of mind here as well as regarding the movement,
provided, however, that is desired.”
* * * * *
Letters from Detroit suggested a plan for a general strike of the
automobile workers in that city as a mighty protest against shipment of
arms. The strike would cost about $50,000.
NEWSPAPER PROPAGANDA
To Dr. Albert also was assigned the task of studying sentiment in this
country regarding the war and taking steps to influence it in favour of
Germany—in other words, highly paid press work. Through Dr. Albert
arrangements also were made for many German professors, either in
Germany or connected with American institutions, to give up their
occupations as teachers and devote themselves in America exclusively to
lectures before high-class audiences. In these talks the speakers
devoted themselves to showing the friendly relations between Germany and
the United States, the similar aims of both countries in industry and
international affairs, and to arguing for the cordial support of
Germany’s cause.
A complete organization was tabulated of journalists throughout the
country who were sympathetic with the German cause. These men received
news for publication in various papers, also instructions. By the aid of
these men a vast amount of information was gathered and shunted along to
Dr. Albert. In addition Dr. Albert gave consideration to still more
elaborate plans for the purchase of newspapers, the starting of news
syndicates and information bureaus which, apparently neutral, should be
secretly allied with the German cause and supported by German money.
These facts were shown by a number of papers bearing on publicity and
methods of acquiring it which were found in his dossier. The papers show
that in one instance he was subsidizing a weekly paper and that in
return he demanded a certain policy.
The following letter throws some light on the subject:
* * * * *
“I request the proposal of a suitable person who can ascertain
accurately and prove the financial condition of your paper. From the
moment when we guarantee you a regular advance, I must—
“1. Have a new statement of the condition of your paper.
“2. Practice a control over the financial management.
“In addition to this, we must have an understanding regarding the course
in politics which you will pursue, which we have not asked heretofore.
Perhaps you will be so kind as to talk the matter over, on the basis of
this letter, with ——.”
* * * * *
Plans for the purchase of an English daily in New York which would
support the German cause were worked over at length by Dr. Albert and
his assistants. Proof also that Dr. Albert and his associates
contemplated the creation of news bureaus in New York and Berlin which
would furnish and disseminate throughout the United States news
favourable to the German Government is given in the memorandum prepared
apparently by an expert newspaper man, outlining the plan and cost of
organization and giving certain suggestions.
Dr. Albert gave consideration to the suggestion of paying the expenses
of American newspaper men who would go to Germany and send back articles
favourable to the German cause. He did so under orders from von
Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Imperial Chancellor, who caused one of his
aids to write to the German Ambassador a letter suggesting that certain
journalists be invited to visit Germany.
EFFORTS TO OUTWIT THE BRITISH BLOCKADE
Varied and important as were these various duties, already mentioned,
still the paramount task to which Dr. Albert devoted himself was a
scheme to outwit England’s blockade of Germany. This tall, silent man,
working in his little office, was concerned with the purchase of
millions and millions of dollars’ worth of supplies—cargo after
cargo—for shipment to Germany, direct or through neutral countries. In
this campaign he used every means of deceiving the enemy that were in
his power.
Let it be said that this is meant as no reflection on Dr. Albert. In war
one nation may establish a blockade and the other nation will attempt to
run it. International lawyers agree that one nation has a right to
establish such a blockade. If the shipowner obtains ingress to the port
he makes big profits by the sale of his goods, but if he is caught by
the other belligerent he loses his ship and cargo. It is a gamble.
It has already been established as a part of international law, through
decisions of Lord Stowell in England more than a century ago and of the
United States Supreme Court during the Civil War, that if it can be
shown that shipments of supplies to a neutral country are really
designed for transhipment to a belligerent, then the enemy has a right
to seize and confiscate those goods.
After the Orders in Council were issued by England, Dr. Albert sought
first to make the embargo unpopular in America. Letters and other
documents in his dossier show that plans were submitted to him for
stirring up sentiment in this country against what was denounced by
pro-Germans as arbitrary seizures on the part of Great Britain. For
instance, Edward D. Adams of 71, Broadway, New York, who for many years
was a representative in that city of the Deutsche Bank, sent a letter to
Dr. Albert in which he makes the following suggestion:
* * * * *
“The South politically is of very great importance to the Democratic
Party and to the re-election of its representatives at our next
Presidential election. The Cabinet and Congress have represented in them
Southern men to a considerable number who are keenly alive to the
importance of keeping the Democratic Administration in close touch with
the Southern voters, and it takes such action from time to time as will
secure their sympathy and support.”
* * * * *
Likewise plans were worked out for the arousing of the meat packers in
Chicago to protest to Washington over the seizure of meat ships bound
for Germany by way of neutral ports.
German representatives studying public sentiment in this country also
suggested to Dr. Albert that indignation against Great Britain could be
aroused by making it appear as if the British blockade was hurting
America in preventing the receipt here of various non-contraband
articles from Germany. One associate wrote to Dr. Albert:
* * * * *
“From a German standpoint, the pressure on the American Government can
be strengthened by the interruption of deliveries from Germany even if
the British Government should permit exception. Those shipments
especially should be interrupted which the American industries so badly
require; withholding of goods is the surest means of occasioning the
placing before the Administration in Washington of American interests.
Those protests have the most weight which come from American industries
which employ many workmen.”
* * * * *
In the early months of the war Dr. Albert was a buyer of enormous
supplies of cotton, wheat, copper, lubricating oil and other articles
needed by Germany for the prosecution of the war. He signed contracts
for meat and other supplies amounting to millions of dollars and he made
payment the moment the ships were loaded here so that the American
seller got his money regardless of what happened to the cargo while on
the high seas. Of course, after the German Government seized all food
supplies, the British Government took the attitude that all food
supplies bound for Germany were intended for the Government and were
therefore contraband. In the next place all purchases of food or other
material by Dr. Albert as the official representative of the German
Government made them Government supplies and therefore contraband of
war. The moment the British Government discovered that these articles
were purchased by Albert, no matter whether they were bound for neutral
countries, or not, England argued she was justified in seizing the ships
and confiscating them. But as a fact, England paid the American shippers
in most instances.
All the facts in the vast scheme mapped out by Dr. Albert for outwitting
John Bull’s blockade, have been developed by the Attorney-General of
England and set forth in the prize courts there. It has been shown that
Albert backed the purchase of cotton by the shipload, that he acquired
vessels under neutral flags for carrying these cargoes to neutral
countries. He spent millions of dollars in the purchase of meat. For
instance, Dr. C. T. Dumba, Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, writing to Baron
Burian from New York, tells of an interview in Chicago with a beef
packer.
“No fewer than thirty-one ships, with meat and bacon shipments from his
firm to Sweden, with a value of $19,000,000, have been detained,” he
says, “in British ports for months under suspicion of being ultimately
intended for Germany. The negotiations have been long drawn out, because
Mr. Meagher and his companion will not accept a lame compromise, but
insist on full compensation or release of the consignments in which the
bacon may still remain sound.”
A TWO-FACED PROPAGANDIST
Dr. Albert issued a statement which purports to be a complete reply to
the charges in regard to a secret German propaganda in the United
States. He said that the purchase of ammunition plants in this country
was justifiable, argued for an embargo on arms and ammunition, charged
Great Britain with piracy on the high seas, denied that the German
Government financed press agents, and asserted that the German
Government had not started any under-cover newspaper campaign in this
country. He said it was inevitable that all sorts of wild and
irresponsible offers, proposals and suggestions should be addressed from
every conceivable quarter to one holding the official position in which
he was placed as an accredited agent of one of the great nations engaged
in this unfortunate world-wide war. He referred to the strike letters as
junk, and said that he should not be held responsible for every crank
that wrote him a letter.
That statement was for the American public. Dr. Albert’s real sentiments
are shown vividly in a letter which he wrote to Captain von Papen from
San Francisco after the announcement of the President’s decision to send
the military attaché out of the country. Here is part of it:
* * * * *
“Well, then! How I wish I were in New York and could discuss the
situation with you and B. E.! Many thanks for the telegram. The ‘Patron’
also telegraphed that I was to continue the journey. So we shall not see
each other for the present. Shall we at all before you leave? It would
be my most anxious wish; but my hope is small. For this time, I suppose,
matters will move more quickly than in Dumba’s case. I wonder whether
our Government will respond in a suitable manner! In my opinion, it need
no longer take public opinion so much into consideration, in spite of
its being artificially and intentionally agitated by the Press and the
legal proceedings, so that a somewhat ‘stiffer’ attitude would be
desirable, naturally quiet and dignified!
“If you should leave New York before my return, we must try to come to
some agreement about pending questions by writing. Please instruct Mr.
Amanuensis Igel as precisely as possible. You will receive then in
Germany the long-intended report of the expenses paid through my account
on your behalf. I would be very thankful to you if you would then
support the question of a monetary advance which you know of, although I
know that I was mistaken in my opinion, that I acted as your
representative and according to your wishes.”
* * * * *
When all the work of Dr. Albert is summed up and taken into
consideration with his propaganda in association with Captain von Papen
and Captain Boy-Ed, the impression remains that he, a guest of the
United States, was immersed in plans that were aimed at the honour and
integrity of this republic.
CHAPTER X
AMBASSADOR DUMBA, GERMANY’S CO-CONSPIRATOR
“If I wanted to flatter the American people, I would make a statement
before my departure, but I say nothing.”
This was the sentiment of Dr. Constantin Theodor Dumba, veteran diplomat
and Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at Washington, just after he had
received his passports from Secretary of State Lansing. He was dismissed
from this country in September, 1915, because of his pro-Teutonic
activities, which were adjudged by the State Department to amount to
interference with the internal affairs of the nation.
The diplomat, regarded at the time as the ablest in Washington, did not
relish the notoriety of being the ninth diplomat to be expelled from
America; and, when questioned by reporters on the eve of his departure,
he revealed the acrid feeling regarding Americans which his wonted
suavity and self-control hitherto had enabled him to conceal. The next
day, however, he did unbend to the extent of saying something about
“wonderful United States”—and then sailed away.
Dumba, master of intrigue and remorseless in the attempted execution of
any scheme that he regarded as beneficial to the welfare of his country,
had been the supervising authority of the Austro-Hungarian espionage
system in America, which was linked almost chain for chain with the
German machinery. The joint activity of the German and the Austrian
organizations was aimed at the same end as those described in connection
with the duties of the German agents and their executives. He had as his
active assistants, Baron Erich Zwiedinek von Sudenhorst, counsellor to
the Austrian Embassy, and after the dismissal of Dumba, Chargé
d’Affaires; Dr. Alexander Nuber von Pereked, Consul-General in New York,
and several other Austrian consuls throughout the country. He is said to
have been the originating genius of many of the ideas which the German
agents tried to put into effect.
The charges against him are based on a series of exposures concerning
the secret propaganda in which Dr. Dumba participated and concerning
which evidence was gathered by the Secret Service and the Department of
Justice. They rest on secret diplomatic messages which Dr. Dumba wrote
and entrusted to Captain James F. J. Archibald, an American, travelling
in August, 1915, on the steamship _Rotterdam_ for Holland, whence he
expected to confer with the Foreign Offices of both Germany and
Austro-Hungary. Those documents were captured by the British and turned
over to the American authorities. They expose much the same sort of
illicit activity as set forth in German documents.
MORE PASSPORT FRAUDS
Attorney-General Gregory caused a thorough investigation of these
documents and also of von Nuber’s office in New York. Many consular
employees were taken before the Grand Jury and practically every member
of the Consulate, excepting von Nuber and his immediate associates, was
rounded up one night in the office of Superintendent Offley in New York.
They were questioned, and they gave much information.
* * * * *
Baron Zwiedinek was a busy person at the summer Embassy at
Manchester-by-the-Sea after the outbreak of the war. Hundreds of
Austro-Hungarian reservists were bobbing up at various consulates and
registering, eager for directions and for means of getting back to their
country. Evidently, these matters came under his jurisdiction, for he
wrote the following letter to von Nuber:
* * * * *
“Manchester, A. M., 24 August, 1914.
“To the Imperial and Royal Consulate-General in New York:
“On the 21st inst. the Imperial and Royal Embassy received the following
telegram from the Imperial and Royal Consulate in San Francisco:
“‘Nine employees arrived here on the steamer _Yokohama_ seek
transportation New York at expense of State. Beg for telegraphic
instruction whether Consulate should pay travelling expenses. Stay here
would cause embarrassment.’
“The Embassy has instructed the Consular office mentioned to send these
employees to New York. Thereupon the following telegram of the 22nd
arrived:
“‘Attaché Hanenschild, Interpreter Nanternatz, Embassy, Tokio, as well
as six employees, journeyed onward.’
“Since the Imperial and Royal Embassy is of the opinion that it is a
patriotic duty of the reservists to do their utmost to reach the
monarchy, will the Imperial and Royal Consulate please make all efforts
in this connection to discover the proper transportation facilities for
these employees who are shortly to arrive. Perhaps it would be possible
also to produce suitable passports of neutral countries at comparatively
slight expense.
“Concerning that which is done in this connection please report in due
time.
“For the Imperial and Royal Embassy,
“ZWIEDINEK.”
* * * * *
When that letter was shown to Baron Zwiedinek by Secretary of State
Lansing, he admitted the authenticity of the signature, but denied he
remembered anything of its contents. He explained that it was probably
dictated by a clerk, and that in his haste he signed it without reading
it. He also disclaimed any responsibility for it on the ground that Dr.
Dumba was at the date of the letter the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador.
MUNITION PLOTS
Part of the schemes considered and recommended by Ambassador Dumba to
prevent the exportation of war munitions from the United States is set
forth in the secret communications which he gave to Captain Archibald to
carry to Baron Burian, Austrian Foreign Minister. The first document
discusses the diplomatic efforts that have been made toward that end,
deprecates the arguments put forth by the State Department in declining
to take any action to forbid the export of war munitions.
* * * * *
“The true ground for the discouraging attitude of the President,” wrote
Dumba, “lies, as his confidant, Colonel House, already informed me in
January, and has now repeated, in the fact that authoritative circles
are convinced that the United States in any serious crisis would have to
rely on foreign neutral countries for all their war material. At no
price, and in no case, will President Wilson allow this source to dry
up.
“For this reason I am of the opinion that to return to the question
whether by a reply from your Excellency or by a semi-official
conversation between myself and the Secretary of State would not only be
useless, but even, having regard for the somewhat self-willed
temperament of the President, would be harmful.”
* * * * *
Dr. Dumba’s plans for causing strikes in munition factories in the
United States are related by himself in the following official document
which he sent to Baron Burian:
* * * * *
“New York, August 20.
“Your Excellency: Yesterday evening Consul General von Nuber received
the enclosed _aide mémoire_ from the chief editor of the local
influential paper _Szabadsag_, after a previous conversation with me in
pursuance of his verbal proposals to arrange for strikes at Bethlehem in
Schwab’s steel and munitions factory and also in the Middle West.
“Archibald, who is well known to your Excellency, leaves to-day at
twelve o’clock on board the _Rotterdam_ for Berlin and Vienna. I take
this rare and safe opportunity of warmly recommending these proposals to
your Excellency’s favourable consideration. It is my impression that we
can disorganize and hold up for months, if not entirely prevent, the
manufacture of munitions in Bethlehem and the Middle West, which, in the
opinion of the German military attaché, is of great importance and amply
outweighs the comparatively small expenditure of money involved.
“But even if strikes do not come off, it is probable that we should
extort under pressure more favourable conditions of labour for our
poorly down-trodden fellow-countrymen in Bethlehem. These white slaves
are now working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. All weak persons
succumb and become consumptive. So far as German workmen are found among
the skilled hands means of leaving will be provided immediately for
them. Besides this, a private German registry office has been
established which provides employment for persons who voluntarily have
given up their places. It already is working well. We shall also join in
and the widest support is assured us.
“I beg your Excellency to be so good as to inform me with reference to
this letter by wireless. Reply whether you agree. I remain, with great
haste and respect,
“DUMBA.”
* * * * *
PLANS FOR STRIKERS
The enclosure, or “_aide mémoire_,” written in Hungarian, outlines the
scheme which the diplomat recommended.
* * * * *
“I must divide the matter into two parts, Bethlehem and the Middle West
business” (says this paper), “but the point of the departure is common
in both, viz., press agitation, which is of the greatest importance as
regards our Hungarian-American workmen. It means a press through which
we can reach both in Bethlehem and in the West. In my opinion we must
start a very strong agitation on this question in _Freedom_ (Szabadsag),
the leading organ, in respect to the Bethlehem works and the conditions
there. This can be done in two ways and both must be utilized.
“In the first place, the regular daily section must be devoted to the
conditions obtaining there, and a campaign must be regularly conducted
against these indescribably degrading conditions. _Freedom_ already has
done something similar in the recent past, when the strike movement
began at Bridgeport. It must necessarily take the form of strong,
deliberate, decided and courageous action.
“Secondly, the writer of these lines would begin a labour novel in that
newspaper much on the lines of Sinclair’s celebrated story. This might
be published in other local Hungarian, Slovak and German newspapers. The
_Nepszava_ (‘Word of the People’) will undoubtedly be compelled
willingly or unwillingly to follow the movement initiated by _Freedom_,
for it is pleasing the entire Hungarian element in America, and is an
absolutely patriotic act to which that open journal, the _Nepszava_,
could not adopt a hostile attitude. Of course, it would be another
question to what extent and with what energy and devotion that newspaper
would adhere to this course of action without regard to other
influences, just as it is questionable to what extent other local
patriotic papers would go. There is a great reason why, in spite of
their patriotism, American-Hungarian papers hitherto have shrunk from
initiating such action.
“In these circumstances the first necessity is money.
“Bethlehem must be sent as many reliable Hungarian and German workmen as
we can lay our hands on, who will join the factories and begin their
work in secret among their fellow workmen. For this purpose I have my
men, roll-turners and steel workers. We must send an organizer who in
the interests of the union will begin the business in his own way. We
must also send so-called ‘soap-box’ orators who will know how to start a
useful agitation. We shall want money for popular meetings, possibly for
organizing picnics. In general, the same applies to the Middle West. I
am thinking of Pittsburg and Cleveland in the first instance, as to
which I could give details only if I were to return and spend at least a
few days there. I already have shown that much can be done with the
newspapers. We must stir up the men’s feelings in Bethlehem. A sensation
was caused by the articles which appeared at the time of the strike at
Bridgeport. They brought Bethlehem into the affair.
“It is evident that the start of a movement from which serious results
are to be expected requires a sufficiency of money at the very start.
The extent of subsequent expenditure for the most part depends on the
work effected. For example, the newspapers must not receive the whole
sum intended for them all at once, but only half. To union agitators
only a certain amount should be given at first, and a larger sum in case
of success or of a serious strike on the formation of the union. It is
my opinion that for the special object of starting the Bethlehem
business and the Bethlehem and Western newspapers campaign $15,000 to
$20,000 must be at our disposal, but it is not possible to reckon how
much ultimately will be required.
“When a beginning has been made, it will be possible to see how things
develop and where and how much it will be worth while to spend. The
above-mentioned preliminary sum would suffice partially to satisfy the
demands of the necessary newspapers and to a considerable extent those
of the Bethlehem campaign. If circumstances are lucky and leadership is
good, we can arrive at positive results in the West comparatively
cheaply, whereas Bethlehem is one of the most difficult jobs.
“I will telephone at 8 a.m., and request you then to let me know where
and when I can learn your opinion of my proposal, which requires a
considerable amount of verbal exposition. Finally, I make bold to point
out the fact that hitherto I have said nothing on the subject to any one
connected with the newspapers, and am in the fortunate position that in
the case of giving effect to the plan I can make use of names in case of
necessity, for I have already in other matters made payments through
other individuals. In any event, in the case of the newspapers the
greatest circumspection is necessary. No one but the proprietor must
know that money is coming to the undertaking from any source.”
* * * * *
EXIT DUMBA
Following the receipt of those documents by the State Department, Dr.
Dumba and Secretary Lansing were in conference. The Ambassador admitted
he had written the letter, and had consigned it to the care of Captain
Archibald. He defended his course on the ground that he was under orders
from his home government, and that he wished to prevent Austro-Hungarian
workmen from committing high treason by helping turn out munitions for
the Allies. President Wilson, however, insisted on the Ambassador’s
recall, and Secretary Lansing, in his note to Austro-Hungary, made these
charges against Dr. Dumba:
* * * * *
“By reason of the admitted purpose and intent of Mr. Dumba to conspire
to cripple legitimate industries of the United States and to interrupt
their legitimate trade, and by reason of the flagrant violation of
diplomatic propriety in employing an American citizen, protected by an
American passport, as a secret bearer of official despatches through the
lines of the enemy of Austria-Hungary, the President directs us to
inform your Excellency that Mr. Dumba is no longer acceptable to the
Government of the United States as the Ambassador of his Imperial
Majesty at Washington.”
* * * * *
After the departure of Dr. Dumba, Baron Zwiedinek and von Nuber began a
series of advertisements in racial newspapers, calling the subjects of
Austria-Hungary out of the munition factories. If any workman wrote him
regarding the matter, he sent a reply, in which he said: “It is demanded
that patriotism, no less than the fear of punishment, should cause every
one to quit his work immediately.”
CHAPTER XI
GERMANY’S LOBBY IN CONGRESS
President Wilson said in part of his Flag Day address in June, 1916:
* * * * *
“There is disloyalty in the United States, and it must be absolutely
crushed. It proceeds from a minority, a very small minority, but a very
active and subtle minority.... If you could have gone with me through
the space of the last two years and could have felt the subtle impact of
intrigue and sedition, and have realized with me that those to whom you
have entrusted authority are trustees not only of the power, but also of
the very spirit and purpose of the United States, you would realize with
me the solemnity with which I look upon the sublime symbol of our unity
and power.”
* * * * *
The President in those few words summed up the conspiracies of the
Teutonic Powers aimed at the integrity of the United States. When he
made his charge, he had behind him a vast amount of evidence which never
has been and never will be made public. _He had as proof the details of
Germany’s scheme to control the Congress of this nation and to
manipulate it in a manner that would have rendered not only the
legislative bodies an absolute check to the administrative functions of
the Government, but would have dictated the course of the Republic in
international affairs just as if the United States were a dependency of
the Fatherland._
DISLOYAL CITIZENS
“The subtle and active minority” to which the President made such a
sensational reference is a group of Americans—German-Americans swayed by
sentiment for Germany and Americans influenced by gold—who have been
following the dictation of Teutonic agents in America. They have
received orders and sought to carry them out. They have been puppets
that worked and argued in the interest of the Central Powers when
certain men pulled the strings. They have been active workers in
carrying out clever political policies and agitations that were part of
schemes devised in Berlin to benefit Germany against her enemy. True,
there have been faithful American citizens who have sided with Germany’s
arguments—and their loyalty cannot be questioned—_but there have been
citizens who knowingly worked with German agents against the best
interests of the nation_. When a man strives and schemes with foreign
agents against the honest endeavours of an American official, who is
seeking to execute the law, he is guilty not only of disloyalty but of
sedition.
From the outset of the war Teutonic agents intrigued to get their
clutches upon the Federal legislative body. They schemed to use it as an
obstacle to any move by the President. They sought legislation that
would prevent the shipment of munitions from this country, that would
have prevented the Allies from floating any war bonds in America, and
that would have stopped Americans from sailing on passenger vessels of
Allied merchantmen. Their aim was to make Congress vote and the
President act just as the Emperor of Germany deemed most suitable to the
interests of the Fatherland.
To that end they tried to manipulate sentiment among the voters by means
of insidious propaganda. They hired lobbyists to work among
Representatives and Senators at the National Capitol, and so thoroughly
and accurately did these men do their work that the line-up of the House
of Representatives and of the Senate was reported almost daily to Berlin
on any important legislation bearing on Germany’s interests in the war.
They reported the change from day to day of any Congressman’s attitude
and the reason therefore. They strove to create a sentiment among the
voters so that appeals would pour in upon Congressmen, filling them with
fear of defeat at the polls if they did not obey what amounted to the
Kaiser’s dictation.
At the start of the European War there began in Congress a vehement
debate over the question of imposing a legislative embargo on the
shipments of arms and ammunition to the Allies. In these debates men
participated who undoubtedly were sincere in the convictions they
expressed. Nevertheless, they were button-holed by Americans working for
German agents, but all the flowery oratory in favour of “universal
peace” proved unavailing.
In the late winter and early spring of 1915, a hireling of the Germans
began to seek secret conferences with Congressmen in a Washington hotel
and to outline to them plans for compelling an embargo on munitions.
_Money was mentioned and offers were made to seven or eight different
Congressmen._ It is charged by Government officials that a large amount
of money was spent—but the project was in vain.
UNDERGROUND DIPLOMACY
Meantime, Count von Bernstorff and Dr. Dumba were seeking by diplomatic
means to effect a stoppage of the flow of war equipment to the Allies.
Each addressed appeals to the Secretary of State and each presented
notes from his respective Government protesting against the shipment of
munitions as unneutral. Their protests were unavailing and the answers
of the Secretary of State were so clear and determined that it became
clear to the Teutonic agents that their efforts along such a channel
would be without success. Dr. Dumba ascribes the failure of Congress to
shut off the export of munitions and the decision of the Administration
against the Teutonic Powers, to the President, for in one of his letters
to Burian he said in August, 1915:
“As last autumn, he (President Wilson) can always, through his personal
influence, either force the House of Representatives to take his point
of view against their better judgment, or, on the other hand, in the
Senate can overthrow the resolution already voted in favour of
prohibiting the export of guns and munitions. In these circumstances any
attempt to persuade individual States to vote parallel resolutions
through their legislative bodies would offer no advantages apart from
the internal difficulties which the execution of this plan presents.”
With that letter Dr. Dumba enclosed a memorandum adroitly suggesting the
use of England’s seizure of ships as a means of inciting Americans to
support embargo legislation.
* * * * *
“President Wilson” (he wrote) “will not hear of Congress laying an
embargo, for the reason, as he clearly explains, that to do so would be
unneutral. The result of this is to stultify all attempts at agitation
based on embargo. This is a matter entirely in President Wilson’s hands.
It is, of course, always possible that, despite the President’s
declaration, a resolution might be laid before Congress contemplating
the prohibition of the export of munitions as a measure of reprisal
against England for her illegal seizure of American ships; but we should
indulge in no illusions as to the success likely to attend such an
enterprise.”
* * * * *
HOLDING THE CLUB TO CONGRESS
The German agents, as has been told, did not cease their efforts to
arouse the sentiment of the country, hoping to force Congress and the
President to take steps in the direction that the Germans wished.
The fear which a Representative in Congress has of displeasing his
constituents was a factor carefully taken into account by the German
agents. Every means of impressing upon a Representative the belief that
the men who voted for him wanted an embargo were used. These were the
motives behind a plan for holding an embargo conference in the Middle
West in the summer of 1915. The details were carefully developed and the
conference would have been held had not the secret workings been
divulged through the publication of the Albert papers. One letter
addressed to Dr. Albert by Herr P. Reiswitz, in Chicago, reveals the
scheme in detail and shows that Count von Bernstorff was aware of the
inner organization. The letter, dated July 22, 1915, says in part:
* * * * *
“Everything else concerning the proposed embargo conference you will
find in the enclosed copy of the report to the Ambassador. A change has,
however, come up, as the mass meeting will have to be postponed on
account of there being insufficient time for the necessary preparations.
It will probably be held here in about two weeks.
“H—— seemed to be very strong for the plan. He told our representative
at a conference in Omaha: ‘If this matter is organized in the right way
you will sweep the United States.’
“For your confidential information, I would further inform you that the
leadership of the movement thus far lies in the hands of two gentlemen
(one in Detroit and one in Chicago), who are firmly resolved to work
toward the end that the German community, which, of course, will be with
us without further urging, shall above all things remain in the
background, and that the movement, to all outward appearances, shall
have a purely American character. I have known both the gentlemen very
well for a long time, and know that personal interest does not count
with them; the results will bring their own reward.”
* * * * *
PULLING WIRES BEHIND SCENES
Germans made it a point to get behind resolutions presented to Congress
in the early part of 1916 bearing on the submarine controversy. These
measures, regardless of the aims of the legislators, had features that
would be helpful to Germany in her desire to sink merchantmen on the
high seas.
Senator Gore introduced a resolution “to prohibit the issuing of
passports for use on vessels of a belligerent country,” and another bill
“to prohibit a belligerent vessel from transporting American citizens as
passengers to or from ports in the United States and to prohibit
American and neutral vessels from transporting American citizens as
passengers and contraband of war at one and the same time.”
Representative Stephens of Nebraska and Representative McLemore also
introduced bills and resolutions of similar character.
This lobbying and other secret propaganda in Congress was designed to
render the President powerless in his demands upon Germany to cease
torpedoing passenger ships. The Germans almost succeeded in getting
Congress to enact resolutions, forbidding Americans to travel on such
passenger vessels. While this legislation was under discussion, Berlin
was kept accurately informed concerning the attitude of both the House
and the Senate on those measures. The schemes of the Germans, however,
fell through and President Wilson was upheld in his policy.
After President Wilson had sent his ultimatum to Germany, insisting that
the attacks on passenger ships and merchantmen, in violation of the
rules of international law, must cease, the entire horde of German
propagandists, German spies and German sympathizers were lined up in a
countrywide appeal to Congress to maintain diplomatic relations with
Germany, no matter what her answer to America’s note might be. By a
systematic scheme put into operation throughout the country, thousands
of telegrams were sent to members of Congress and of the Senate
beseeching harmonious relations with Germany. In the majority of
instances these telegrams were according to formula and all the sender
had to do was to sign his name to it. The telegraph charges were paid by
an organization financed by German agents.
But their pleas were not needed, for Germany, facing at last—after many
months of exchange of notes—the anger of the American people, finally
yielded on the submarine question and the _Lusitania_ controversy. All
of Germany’s legislative propaganda and secret work had been futile. The
exposure of the activities of her agents resulted only in causing many
neutral Americans to revolt against her.
CHAPTER XII
CHANGING THE SYSTEM
After all the ramifications of the Teutonic system in America had been
unearthed through the work of the Federal authorities, an order went
forth to the spies to cease activities that were in violation of the
laws. _Meantime, the Chief Spy in Berlin began immediately to construct
an entirely new system of espionage, for use in an emergency._ The
remnant of the old system, however, was kept at hand for the furthering
of propaganda and such activities as could not arouse the objection of
the Government, even though detected.
Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador, took steps following the
seizure of the von Igel papers, rather the papers showing the
directorship of the system in America, to issue a warning to all Germans
of the necessity of leading a purely and righteously neutral life. He
sent forth a statement, which had been prepared by an attorney in New
York, to all German consuls in the country, and took care to see that
the State Department obtained a copy of this notice. The notice, dated
some time in the early spring of 1916, said:
* * * * *
“In consequence of cases which have occurred of late, German Ambassador
Bernstorff sent instructions to all German Consuls in the United States
to strongly impress on German citizens living in their districts that it
is their duty scrupulously to obey the laws of the states in which they
reside.”
* * * * *
That notice, however, was simply a subterfuge employed by the Chief Spy
in Berlin to throw Americans off his trail. In December, 1915, following
the arrest of Paul Koenig and other German agents, a formal notice was
sent forth from Berlin asserting that no citizen of Germany ever had
been asked to disobey any laws. But that statement had proved merely a
blind to cover other activities in the United States. With the seizure
of the von Igel-von Papen papers, however, it had become necessary to
make a strategic retreat, so to speak, and to rebuild the spy system.[3]
Footnote 3:
How a new system was devised, and how Americans were employed to
gather information about the Allies is now coming to light. Still more
startling revelations of plans for attacks upon the United States will
shortly be unfolded.
The necessity of such a move is clear because of the fact that the
papers, documents and other evidence developed by the Secret Service and
other Federal agents proved that the warriors and statesmen of Germany
had, at the outset of the war, decided upon a campaign in America to
injure the Allies and to weaken the American Government. The General War
Staff had at their disposal in America a vast army of German reservists
and secret agents, and straightway set them to work upon plans in
violation of American laws.
TWO AND A HALF YEARS OF HIGH TREASON
Go back over the events since 1914, and study them in the light of the
moves made by Germany or by her secret agents here, and you will realize
how, in America, Germany has had a hand in practically every domestic or
foreign event of any importance. _Her agents sought to control the
Congress. They planned trouble between the United States and Mexico with
the aim of stopping the shipment of war supplies to the Allies, and of
getting this country so absorbed in other matters that we could not call
Germany to account for her murderous submarine warfare. They fomented
trouble among labouring men. They schemed to bring about seditious
uprisings in Cuba, and in the dependencies of the Allies, using this
country as a base of operations._
_By means of this secret organization, Germany carried on the scheme of
buying fraudulent passports for the use of her reservists, developed a
scheme for the illegal provisioning of the German cruisers, set on foot
various military enterprises from the United States against Canada,
schemed to destroy munition factories in America, to blow up merchantmen
of the Allies sailing from American ports—and planned crimes of bribery,
arson and assault._
But the alertness of the American Secret Service and the Bureau of
Investigation of the Department of Justice prevented the consummation of
these plans. There was need for a shifting of the Germanic spies.
Immediately after the publication of Count von Bernstorff’s warning, an
exodus of known spies to South America began, and the development of _an
effective system of espionage in every country in South America is now
under way_.
AMERICA’S VITAL QUESTION
_The great question that confronts the American people is one of
preparedness against this or a like system. Any foreign government that
knows the moves of the United States before they are made is in a
position to do the country much harm in peace, and tremendously greater
harm in war. In view of the crimes perpetrated by Germans and Austrians
in America in 1914, 1915 and 1916, it behoves the American Government to
take steps to destroy the system, root and branch; to see to it that no
nation ever builds up a similar system in these United States._
_This Government must take such steps as will ensure it against
treachery from within. The citizens of the United States must stand in
time of danger as one man in defence of our lives, our liberties, our
rights on land and sea, our homes and our national honour._
THE END
_Printed at The Chapel River Press, Kingston, Surrey._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Messrs. Hutchinson & Co.
are pleased to announce Novels for the Spring of 1917 by the following
LEADING AUTHORS, particulars of which will be found in the ensuing pages
ETHEL M. DELL
Baroness ORCZY
H. de VERE STACPOOLE
Baroness von HUTTEN
M. P. WILLCOCKS
DOUGLAS SLADEN
BERTA RUCK
DOROTHEA CONYERS
W. E. NORRIS
MARIAN BOWER
H. B. SOMERVILLE
ISABEL C. CLARKE
F. FRANKFORT MOORE
CURTIS YORKE
G. B. BURGIN
CECILIA HILL
JANE BARLOW
M. BERESFORD RYLEY
KATHLYN RHODES
EDGAR JEPSON
GABRIELLE VALLINGS
MARJORIE DOUIE
HELEN PROTHERO LEWIS
F. BANCROFT
EDGAR WILLIAM DYNES
_New 6s. Novels_
The Mark of Vraye
By H. B. SOMERVILLE
Author of “Ashes of Vengeance” (4th Edition), etc.
The scenes of this story are laid chiefly in Brittany at the end of the
fifteenth century; and it deals with conflicts, both of wills and
weapons, which arise from marriage by trickery of a Breton lady, Yvonne
de Vraye, to her family’s most bitter enemy and the murderer of her
brother. It also introduces the plots of the Breton nobles to depose
Pierre Landais from his high position in the Court of hautes as the
chief favourite of the last Duke of Brittany.
The Deep Heart
By ISABEL C. CLARKE
Author of “The Lamp of Destiny,” etc.
The background of Miss Clarke’s new novel is Italy, and in the hands of
one who is so sensible to the beauties of that country nothing could be
more appropriate. Like her other books, it is a Catholic story,
beautifully told in her limpid flowing language with which her readers
are familiar.
Avril Waring has never known any other house than the charming villa
overlooking Naples, where she lives till her twentieth year, when her
mother’s death makes it necessary that she should sell it. The place is
bought by Justin, a young man who has recently come into a fortune, and
who is determined to enjoy his life to the full. Without disclosing the
main theme of the story, we may say that Justin’s selfish course of life
deeply affects Avril, but how he is at last brought to a sense of the
worthlessness of his life is related with rare skill and feeling.
The Hundredth Chance
By ETHEL M. DELL
Author of “The Bars of Iron.”
A new and very long novel by the Author of “The Way of an Eagle” and
“The Bars of Iron,” of which 48,000 copies of the latter have already
been sold in its original form.
The Bridge of Kisses
By BERTA RUCK
Author of “His Official Fiancée,” (15th Edition), “The Girls at His
Billet,” etc.
“Men and women do jar upon each other so with the differences in their
ways, that one thinks they must have been meant to live in separate
worlds. A gulf yawns between them. There’s only one bridge that can span
that gap—Love: the Bridge of Kisses!”
This is the story of the building of two bridges—one by the hero, a
young Engineer-officer, and one by the heroine, an ingenuous girl, who
has undertaken to find him a wife during the six weeks that he is
billeted in her neighbourhood.
Grace Lorraine
By DOUGLAS SLADEN
Author of “The Tragedy of the Pyramids.”
The scene is laid on the lofty coast of South Devon, where a Squire, who
lost his fortune in the War, had founded a fellowship of poor authors,
artists and musicians, in the restored mediæval monastery of Via Pacis,
and the American millionaire who purchased his property and built a copy
of Taormina on it. It is a strong love story, packed with exciting
incidents as Mr. Sladen’s stories always are. The millionaire, a rugged
Westerner, and the Rector’s grandson, who has been the idol of Rugby and
Oxford, and goes to fight in France, are both of them in love with Grace
Lorraine, the beautiful daughter of the Squire. Her decision and Roger’s
fate form the crux of the book.
In Mio’s Youth
By JANE BARLOW
Author of “Irish Neighbours,” etc.
A natural and convincing Irish story by a familiar pen. Like all Miss
Barlow’s novels, the characterization is particularly good.
A New Novel
By KATHLYN RHODES
Author of “The Lure of the Desert” (6th Edition).
Captain Moody, having been wounded in France, goes to Cornwall to spend
three months’ leave alone with his young wife. Instead of the peace he
expects, he is involved, through the agency of a woman, in strange and
devastating happenings which lead perilously near to tragedy. Largely,
however, through the wisdom of Deniss, his wife, the tragedy is averted,
and the bridge which leads from disaster to security is safely
negotiated.
A Sheaf of Bluebells
By BARONESS ORCZY
In this long and fascinating romance we read of the intrigues that are
necessary for Madame la Marquise de Mortain to employ in her endeavour
to control her son and to stop his factory for the making of arms. The
manner in which this intricate plot is worked out is worthy of the
author of “The Elusive Pimpernel”; and for sustained interest and for
situations that will hold the reader in breathless excitement, “A Sheaf
of Bluebells” bears a resemblance to Baroness Orczy’s greatest novel,
now in its 314th thousand.
The Experiments of Ganymede Bunn
By DOROTHEA CONYERS
Author of “The Strayings of Sandy” (15th Edition), etc.
The hero of this story, Ganymede Bunn, was formerly a clerk in a London
store, when he receives an unexpected bequest from an aunt. He has
always longed to ride and live in the country, and he resolves to
speculate his capital in horses with a view to increasing his
inheritance. He goes over to Ireland, where he makes plenty of good
friends, not withstanding his odd language and other peculiarities, and
he falls in love. His relatives try, but are not successful in their
endeavours, to prove him mad.
The Head Man
By F. BANCROFT
Author of “The Veldt Dwellers,” etc.
Like the earlier novels by this writer, the present book is a convincing
story of South African life. It is a fragment of life as it was and is
lived in that country, the space of time covered in the narrative being
considerable. The story, which opens shortly after the Boer war and
closes with the annexation of South-West Africa in the present war,
deals with the fortunes of a family. The young English widow of a Boer
farmer in her need makes the desperate bargain with a Boer that he is to
work as her partner for ten years, and her daughter, who will at the
expiration of that period be seventeen, is to be his wife. What is the
result of this compact must be left to the author to tell, but the end
is not reached without many exciting complications.
The Love Story of Guillaume-Marc
By MARIAN BOWER
Author of “Skipper Anne,” etc.
This romance is fresh, original and dramatic in the simple presentation
of the great truths of life and love. There is colour, vivacity and
atmosphere in it. The love story is exceptionally interesting.
Tumult
By GABRIELLE VALLINGS
Author of “Bindweed” (4th Edition).
This novel, by the author of “Bindweed,” now in its fourth large
edition, is a picture of modern French social life in Paris and on the
Riviera, and the love story of a young Countess of Franco-Australian
parentage. It deals with social and artistic circles in France, and
incidentally with life in the Australian bush. It depicts the struggle
between Ancient Vitality—as a revival of the Classic and
Primitive—embodied by the god Pan, and the Modern Vitality embodied in
the Futurist movement and Ultra-Modernist thought.
In Blue Waters
By H. de VERE STACPOOLE
In “In Blue Waters,” as in “The Blue Horizon,” Mr. Stacpoole shows us
not only the beauty and terror of the tropics, but the humour and
tragedy of the sea. The humour of the sailor-man in his hands never
becomes farcical, and he has discovered the fact that every ship has its
own personality and character. Billy Harman, of “The Blue Horizon,”
steps again into the pages of “In Blue Waters,” where this quaint and
companionable scamp has sea dealings almost as extraordinary as those of
Captain Slocum with his “Luck.”
“In Blue Waters,” like “The Blue Lagoon,” is a big sunlit book, a tonic
book, full of the freshness of the sea.
The Eyes of the Blind
By M. P. WILLCOCKS
Author of “Change,” “The Wings of Desire,” “The Power Behind,” etc.
Miss Willcocks’ new novel is the story of one who regained his eyesight
after an operation with most disconcerting results. We are often told
that it is folly to be wise if ignorance is bliss. In this novel we are
asked whether, if blindness means happiness, one should therefore shrink
from the light. It is a story more intense in its drama than her recent
books, since, like “Wings of Desire,” it deals mainly with West Country
types, and, like “The Wingless Victory,” it is a novel of temptation and
of the love that conquered after a hard fight. Miss Willcocks has gone
back to the old simple things that are as old as man and woman, though
here, too, there is the interest of opposing social and religious
atmospheres, and here again many of the “saints” are but whited
sepulchres.
The Citadel
By CECILIA HILL
With an Introduction by EMILE CAMMAERTS
The story opens with the schooldays of Catherine Buckland at the old
Belgian town of Dinant, the Citadel of which, in its dominating
position, is impressed potently on her consciousness. In England she
meets two men, who are friends, and who are both attracted by her. She
becomes engaged to one of them, a devout Catholic, and whose mother is a
fanatical one. She had vowed her son to the priesthood, but he turns his
back on it, though in his heart he had heard the call. Later, the call
comes again. The closing scenes are in Dinant, and a remarkably
convincing description is given of the siege and sack of the town by the
Huns. The novel is noteworthy for its fine feminine quality and charm,
and for its interesting and natural characters.
She Who Meant Well
By CURTIS YORKE
Author of “Disentangled,” “Her Measure,” etc.
The story of a man and a woman who, owing to the well-meant
misrepresentations of the man’s sister, married under the impression
that each was in love with the other. The man was an invalid, and the
girl married him out of pity; he married her to give her a home. A
dramatic incident leads to the man’s recovery, and they are becoming
really attached to one another when they accidentally find out how they
have been deceived. There are various carefully drawn minor characters,
and the story holds the interest from first to last. It is one of the
best the author has written, and will increase her world-wide
popularity.
The Fall of Raymond
By F. FRANKFORT MOORE
Author of “The Rise of Raymond,” etc.
Mr. F. Frankfort Moore’s new novel concerns the progress—up to a certain
point—of Raymond Monk, who, after passing with distinction through the
English schools of music, goes to Italy to study for grand opera under a
famous but eccentric _maestro_. He has been engaged to a charming
English girl and remains faithful to her, in spite of the many
temptations which surround a young and promising tenor, until a moment
comes when his ambition to achieve a great career causes him to be blind
to every other consideration. Happily, he recovers his sight and balance
before it is too late. The means by which this is accomplished
constitutes the greater part of the story; and it is made plain that
when Raymond falls it is not “like Lucifer, never to rise again.” The
sketches of the _personnel_ of the opera company with which the hero is
associated will be found equal to the best of the author’s work.
The Peepshow
By HELEN PROTHERO LEWIS
(Mrs. JAMES J. G. PUGH)
Author of “Love and the Whirlwind,” etc.
This highly humorous book purports to be a memoir, and is written in
autobiographical style by a young girl—Griselda Lovejoy, who is
remarkably ingenuous, and has been adopted by an Earl. Her blunders
create extraordinary situations. All the characters, we are told, are
living people with fictitious names. Hilaria, the Earl’s American wife,
is delightful. She sympathizes with Griselda’s secret love for the
Earl’s son, Lord Dwindle, and the way in which she manages her
tempestuous husband and steers Griselda through her entanglements with
the exclusive Sir John Sumpter-Mule and the democratic Mr. Washington
Yanke, is most diverting. More than once tragedy draws near, but finally
Griselda is steered into safety. The pictures of life, as led by our
aristocrats, shown us in this “Peepshow,” may not flatter Society, but
will certainly entertain it.
The Professional Prince
By EDGAR JEPSON
Author of “The Night Hawk,” etc.
Tells how a young Prince employs a double to take tiresome jobs off his
hands. The complications close with the Prince’s marriage to a charming
Princess at the opening of war. Bletsoe, the Prince’s accomplished valet
and majordomo, is a very clever character. There is a light, deft touch
in the handling of characters and situations, and the story increases in
interest as it proceeds to a happy ending for the Prince.
Ma’am
By M. BERESFORD RYLEY
A novel with a most charming heroine. The treatment is quite original,
the style refined, and the story very human and interesting. The
characters are not the stereotyped fiction puppets; they are all very
much alive.
The Pointing Man
A Burmese Mystery
By MARJORIE DOUIE
This mystery story is concerned with the disappearance of Absalom, a
little Christian boy, who is the assistant and the pet of a wealthy
Burman, Mhtoon Pah, the keeper of a curio shop in Paradise Street,
Mangadone. Besides Mhtoon’s former friend, but now sworn enemy, Leh
Shin, who is suspected regarding the boy’s disappearance, there are
several people belonging to the English colony, all of whom more or less
are interested in solving the mystery. The intricate skein which
envelops the boy’s fate is very skilfully worked out in this most
unusual and enthralling detective story, the Burmese background
contributing to its interest and fascination.
Brown Amber
By W. E. NORRIS
Author of “Proud Peter” (4th Edition)
The brown amber which gives the title to the story is a bead of that
somewhat unusual shade, reputed to have the gift of bringing a large
measure of either good or ill fortune to its holder. In the opening
chapter it is acquired from an itinerant vendor at Cairo by the hero, a
young officer. By him it is bestowed upon a young lady who has lately
become a widow, and with whom he has been upon terms which make him feel
that he is bound in honour to marry her, should she expect what he
himself has quite ceased to desire. This lady has other designs; yet she
is not disposed to give the young man his liberty, and still less so
when she discovers that he has fallen in love with a girl whom he cannot
ask to marry him until he is set free. The story has the above situation
for its pivot, and only reaches a satisfactory termination by means of
divers events. In the course of these the amber passes through many
vicissitudes, conferring good luck or the reverse by turns, until it
finally finds its way back into the possession of the original
purchaser.
Magpie
By BARONESS VON HUTTEN
Author of “Sharrow,” “Pam,” etc.
No living novelist has written such charming stories of children as the
Baroness von Hutten. Who is there that, once having made the
acquaintance in her pages of Pam, will deny her the most completely
sympathetic knowledge of childhood, with its own strange and wistful
outlook on the world. In the present book she tells the story of the
child Mag Pye, the daughter of a gentleman, broken in fortune by his own
failings, who has married a pantomime girl. How the child grows up in
the Chelsea Workmen’s Dwellings and how she fares, with her joys and
sorrows, under her unworthy father’s vicissitudes, is related in the
author’s most characteristic manner.
A Puller of Strings
By G. B. BURGIN
Author of “The Shutters of Silence,” etc.
Mr. G. B. Burgin’s forthcoming Canadian novel, “A Puller of Strings,” is
a powerful study of the harm a bad priest may do in his jealous attempts
to counteract the work of a good one. Father Grondin is sent to Four
Corners, and oppresses everybody until handsome Gaspardeau, “The Puller
of Strings,” who has made a large fortune in New York, appears on the
scene and unobtrusively sets to work to put things right. The real
heroes of the story, however, are the good old gaoler and his
half-witted friend Minyette, who are turned away from the gaol owing to
the intrigues of Father Grondin. The picture of their life in the
primitive Bush and the subjugation of the all-conquering Gaspardeau by a
charming habitant maiden, are told with a freshness and _verve_ which
one would imagine impossible in an author who is already responsible for
some fifty or sixty novels.
The Prodigal of the Hills
By EDGAR WILLIAM DYNES
This is an uplifting novel of life in the North-West of Canada; it is
full of feeling and freshness.
* * * * *
The story is dramatic and strong, and shows how a young man away in the
hills fought and won, and how the girl of the right sort stuck to him;
all the characters have the throb of real life in them.
The Mixed Division
By R. W. CAMPBELL
_Crown 8vo, cloth gilt, 6/-_
This book, by the author of “Private Spud-Tamson”—the work of a soldier
and a Highlander—is a tribute to the spirit, patriotism and courage of
the Territorials. “With sure and sympathetic touch, he reveals the
bright side and the grey, the pathos and the tenderness, the simple
heroism that knows but duty, the inspiration of _esprit de corps_, and
the unforgettable horrors of Gallipoli, where the Territorials won for
themselves undying fame. We congratulate the author and thank him for a
book brimming with laughter that cheers, and with deeds that urge to
emulation.”
Four large Editions called for in a month.
=A 2s. Edition=, _in attractive coloured wrapper, will be Published in
June of_
ETHEL M. DELL’S
_GREAT NOVEL_
THE BARS OF IRON
Hutchinson’s 1/- net Novels
New Volumes for 1917.
_Each in =cloth=, with most attractive wrappers in colours._
Marguerite’s Wonderful Year By Mabel Barnes-Grundy
Two in a Tent—and Jane By Mabel Barnes-Grundy
Hilary on Her Own By Mabel Barnes-Grundy
Patricia Plays a Part By Mabel Barnes-Grundy
Candytuft—I Mean Veronica By Mabel Barnes-Grundy
The Third Miss Wenderby By Mabel Barnes-Grundy
An Undressed Heroine By Mabel Barnes-Grundy
The Vacillations of Hazel By Mabel Barnes-Grundy
The Courtship of Rosamond Fayre By Berta Ruck
The Pearl Fishers By H. de Vere Stacpoole
The Blue Horizon By H. de Vere Stacpoole
Corporal Jacques of the Foreign Legion By H. de Vere Stacpoole
What She Overheard By Mrs. B. M. Croker
In Old Madras By Mrs. B. M. Croker
The Serpent’s Tooth By Mrs. B. M. Croker
The Web of the Spider By H. B. Marriott Watson
We of the Never Never By Mrs. Aeneas Gunn
The Scratch Pack By Dorothea Conyers
Two Imposters and Tinker By Dorothea Conyers
The Coward By Robert Hugh Benson
Little Comrade By E. Burton Stevenson
Twilight By Frank Danby
The Money Master By Sir Gilbert Parker
Bird’s Fountain By Baroness von Hutten
“Good Old Anna” By Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
The Wood End By J. E. Buckrose
The Sunlit Hills By Madame Albanesi
Blue Jay By Peggy Webling
A Welsh Singer By Allen Raine
Torn Sails By Allen Raine
By Berwen Banks By Allen Raine
Thalassa By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds
The Man Who Won By Mrs. Baillie Reynolds
ALSO
“Our Girls” Their Work for the War By Hall Caine
_With 15 illustrations on art paper._
VOLUMES ALREADY ISSUED
_Each in =cloth=, with pictorial wrappers._
MADAME ALBANESI
The Cap of Youth
ROBERT HUGH BENSON
Oddsfish!
Initiation
Loneliness
An Average Man
Come Rack! Come Rope!
WINIFRED BOGGS
The Return of Richard Carr
DOROTHEA CONYERS
Meave
The Strayings of Sandy
Mrs. B. M. CROKER
A Rash Experiment
S. R. CROCKETT
Sandy’s Love Affair
MAUD DIVER
Lilamani
ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER
A Double Thread
ERIC HUDSON and H. GRAHAME RICHARDS
Ye Gods!
BARONESS VON HUTTEN
Sharrow
Maria
The Lordship of Love
The Green Patch
JEROME K. JEROME
Paul Kelver
W. B. MAXWELL
The Devil’s Garden
BARONESS ORCZY
A Bride of the Plains
Petticoat Government
The Elusive Pimpernel
A True Woman
Meadowsweet
ALLEN RAINE
A Welsh Singer
Mrs. BAILLIE REYNOLDS
A Dull Girl’s Destiny
BERTA RUCK (Mrs. Oliver Onions)
His Official Fiancée
The Lad with Wings
MAY SINCLAIR
The Three Sisters
J. C. SNAITH
The Great Age
H. DE VERE STACPOOLE
The Children of the Sea
Father O’Flynn
KATHERINE CECIL THURSTON
Max
_Each in crown 8vo, with pictorial covers_
F. BANCROFT
Time and Chance
The Veldt Dwellers
DOROTHEA CONYERS
The Arrival of Antony
FRANK DANBY
Concert Pitch
Let the Roof Fall In
COSMO HAMILTON
Adam’s Clay
LUCAS MALET
Adrian Savage
W. B. MAXWELL
General Mallock’s Shadow
Mrs. Thompson
In Cotton Wool
KATHLYN RHODES
Sweet Life
The Will of Allah
BERTA RUCK (Mrs. Oliver Onions)
Khaki and Kisses
H. DE VERE STACPOOLE
The Ship of Coral
The Order of Release
Mrs. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE
Monte Carlo
RALPH STOCK
The Pyjama Man
CYNTHIA STOCKLEY
Virginia of the Rhodesians
“M. Dugard has done for the Army of Verdun what Lord Ernest Hamilton did
for ‘The First Seven Divisions.’”
[Second Edition
The Battle of Verdun
By HENRY DUGARD
Translated by F. Appleby Holt. B.A., LL.B.
WITH 32 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS
_In cloth =6s.= net._
“It is to your glorious resistance that we owe our victory, which will
start to-morrow.” Such were the words of General Joffre in an Order of
the Day addressed to the Army of Verdun, at the end of June, 1916. All
the world recognizes the truth of that remarkable prophecy. The Battle
of Verdun is universally hailed as the turning point of the war.
* * * * *
“This will surely be one of the comparatively few war books which
contemporaries will read and re-read and hand on to posterity.”—_The
Times._
* * * * *
[3rd Edition
‘Neath Verdun
By MAURICE GENEVOIX
With an introduction by Ernest Lavisse
Translated by H. Grahame Richards.
_In cloth =6s.= net._
Of this extraordinarily interesting narrative, _The Times_ said: “This
will surely be one of the comparatively few war books which
contemporaries will read and re-read and hand on to posterity. Hundreds,
nay, thousands, of subalterns saw much the same things that M. Genevoix
saw, and went through equally ripening experiences. But if they were
compelled to describe it all on paper the result in the great majority
of cases would be simply a mass of material like unsmelted ore. Few, if
any, would show the magic touch of this young lieutenant. The book is
_la vérité vraie_.”
Behind the German Veil
A Record of a (Journalistic) War Voyage of Discovery
By J. M. de BEAUFORT
_WITH MAPS AND 34 ILLUSTRATIONS ON ART PAPER_
_In crown 8vo, cloth, =6s.= net_
The German “veil” has been lifted during the war, and we have had
discreet and generally prearranged peeps into the real Germany. But Mr.
de Beaufort has done more than raise one corner for a fleeting glimpse.
He has kept open the door behind it, for he had in his possession a
magic key—a letter of introduction to Hindenburg himself from the
Teutonic demigod’s nephew.
With such a passport it is small wonder that he passed easily into
the very Holy of Holies of our chief enemy—Hindenburg’s
headquarters—incidentally flouting the restrictions and wrath of the
authorities in Berlin.
What Mr. de Beaufort has to tell us of the man whom Germany undoubtedly
regards as the “Hub of the Universe,” is well worthy of the efforts and
sacrifices he made to reach him.
The interview proved to be the prelude to a visit to the Eastern front
of intense interest to us in the West, for whom that part of the
Continental battle-area still seems somewhat remote and mythical. We get
a succession of vivid war scenes in Poland and East Prussia, and the
author throws light on campaigns such as the much-boomed “Battle of the
Masurian Lakes,” of which too little is known in this country.
Not less interesting than the Author’s adventures in the field is his
series of interviews with the most eminent men in the military, naval,
political and industrial world of Germany, and his visit to the German
naval bases.
_A BOOK EVERYONE IS READING_
With the Zionists in Gallipoli
[3rd Edition
By LT.-COL. J. H. PATTERSON, D.S.O.
Author of
“The Man-Eaters of Tsavo,” and “In the Grip of the Nyika.”
_In crown 8vo, cloth, with Maps, =6s.= net._
While in Egypt the author was placed in command of a mule corps composed
entirely of Jews for service in Gallipoli; his book is a record of the
work of the corps there, but it is also a vivid description of the
fighting generally. It is a story of actual happenings as he saw them,
and he does not hesitate to criticize freely the way in which the
campaign was attempted to be carried out. Written in a bright and
attractive style, the book is excellent reading, as well as being most
instructive, for it is the first book of the kind to be published.
10th AND CHEAP EDITION.
The Soul of Germany
By THOMAS F. A. SMITH, Ph. D.
Late English Lecturer in the University of Erlangen.
Author of “What Germany Thinks.”
_In cro. 8vo cloth, =2/6= net._
“The picture he draws might pass for caricature if recent events had not
attested its fidelity to fact. This illuminating book, derived from the
pain-begotten wealth of twelve years’ experience, should be on the
shelves of everyone who desires to identify the German of Louvain and
Dinant with the German of Germany.”—_Morning Post._
“It is a book of monumental industry, as full of knowledge as an egg of
meat, and with much illuminating thought.”—_Glasgow Herald._
The Causes and Consequences of the War
[Second Edition
By YVES GUYOT
Late French Minister of State, &c.
_In one large volume, cloth gilt, =10/6= net_
Translated by F. APPLEBY HOLT, B.A., LL.B.
At the present day M. Yves Guyot holds an unique position. He is not
only the _doyen_ of political economists but he is one of the best
known, the most independent and clear headed publicists in Europe. M.
Guyot has long been a staunch friend to England and he was one of the
very few Frenchmen who publicly supported us during the critical period
of the Boer War.
In his latest, and in some respects, his most important book he has
employed his extensive knowledge of European history, diplomacy and
political geography to account for the causes of the present war.
Without exonerating the ruling classes in Germany from their guilt in
devising the war, he shows how historical events have made it possible
if not inevitable.
The book has made a great impression in France and is recognised as one
of the most valuable and reliable contributions that has appeared in
connection with the subject. It is a book that no public man, nor indeed
anyone interested in current events, can afford to neglect.
* * * * *
_Times Literary Supplement_ says:—“There is no denying or questioning
the novelty of his treatment of some parts of a well-worn theme, or of
his conclusions. M. Guyot’s service is to bring to the discussion of
post-war problems unusually wide knowledge; to study the aspiration of
the many ethnic groups, which the Central Empires have crushed, and to
which this struggle has brought new hopes. All may profit by his remarks
even if they disagree with his conclusions. We should do much less than
justice to it if we failed to recognise its richness in suggestions, its
wide outlook, and the generous spirit animating it.”
* * * * *
_38th Year of Issue._
The Year’s Art, 1917
Compiled by A. C. R. CARTER
A concise epitome of all matters relating to the Arts of Painting,
Sculpture, Engraving, and Architecture, and to Schools of Design which
have occurred during the year 1916, together with information respecting
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318 My Lady Frivol
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310 The Danvers Jewels
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427 Some Happenings of Glendalyne
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184 Olivia and Others
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185 The Story of a Passion
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198 A Girl of Spirit
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236 A Life’s Mistake
299 Reuben
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257 Signa’s Sweetheart
239 Leola Dale’s Fortune
235 Floris
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189 The Mistress of Court Regina
225 She Loved Him
284 Violet
263 Wicked Sir Dare
267 That Strange Girl
271 Miss Estcourt
276 Nellie
280 My Love Kitty
H. RIDER HAGGARD
354 The Way of the Spirit
Lieut.-Col. ANDREW G. P. HAGGARD
181 Love Rules the Camp
J. B. HARRIS-BURLAND
372 The Shadow of Malreward
378 The Lord of Iron Gray
389 The Secret of Enoch Seal
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Transcriber’s note:
1. Silently corrected typographical errors.
2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
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