Part 17 (1/2)
Our American Amba.s.sadors, on the other hand, confine their attention to strictly amba.s.sadorial work, attend to the needs of travelling Americans, and communicate with their Government on matters vital to American interests.
The excellent German Consular system, which has done so much to help German trade invaders in foreign countries, is openly a spy bureau, and is provided in almost every important centre with its own secret service fund. Attached to it are spies and semi-spies, hotel-keepers, hairdressers, tutors, governesses, and employees in Government establishments, such as s.h.i.+pbuilding yards and armament factories. It is a mistake to suppose that all these are Germans.
Some, I regret to say, are natives of the laud in which the Germans are spying, mostly people who have got into trouble and with whom the German agents have got into touch. Such men, especially those who have suffered imprisonment, have often a grudge against their own country and are easily caught in the spy net.
Part of the system in England before the war was a commercial information bureau resembling the American Bradstreets and the English Stubbs, by which, on payment of a small sum, the commercial standing of any firm or individual can be obtained. This bureau, which had its branches also in France and Belgium, closed its activities immediately prior to the war, the whole of the card-indexes being removed to Berlin.
It is the German boast, and I believe a legitimate one, that they know England better than do the English. _Their error is in believing that in knowing England they know the English themselves_.
At the outset of the war, when the Germans were winning, Herr Albert Ulrich, of the Deutsche Bank, and chief of their Oil Development Department, speaking in perfect English, told me in a rather heated altercation we had in regard to my country that he knew the United States and Great Britain very thoroughly indeed, and boasted that the American submarines, building at Fore River, of which the Germans had secured the designs, would be of little value in the case of hostilities between Germany and the United States, which he then thought imminent.
It is typical of German mentality that when I met him in Berlin, fifteen months later, he had completely altered his time as to the war, and his tone was, ”When is this dreadful war going to end?”
This, however, is by the way. Herr Ulrich is only an instance of the solidarity of Pan-Germanism. An English or American banker visiting a foreign country attends to his affairs and departs. A German in a similar position is a sort of human ferret. An hotel with us is a place of residence for transient strangers. The Hotel Adlon and others in Berlin are excellent hotels as such, but mixed up with spying upon strangers; Herr Adlon, senior, a friend of the Kaiser's, a.s.sists the Government spies when any important or suspicious visitor registers. The hotel telephones or any other telephones are systematically tapped. German soldiers are granted special leave for hotel service--that is to say, hotel spying.
When Belgium and France were invaded, German officers led their men through particular districts to particular houses with certainty, with knowledge gained by previous residence and spying. I know an officer with von Kluck's army who received the Iron Cross, First Cla.s.s, for special information he had given to von Kluck which facilitated his progress through Belgium.
Any German spies who may be working in England to-day have no great difficulty in communicating with Germany, though communication is slow and expensive. They can do so by many routes and many means.
As it is impossible to isolate Great Britain from Europe, it is equally impossible to prevent the conveyance of information to the enemy with more or less rapidity. Agents of the various belligerent Powers are plentiful in Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and the United States. So far as the maritime countries are concerned, s.h.i.+ps leave and enter daily. It is quite impossible to control the movements of neutral sailors and others engaged in these vessels. To watch all the movements of all those men would require a detective force of impossible dimensions. That information comes and goes freely by these channels is notorious.
That all the sailors are legitimate sailors I do not believe, and as a matter of fact I know that they are not.
The transmission of doc.u.ments via Switzerland, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway has been rendered difficult, but not always impossible. Cabling and telegraphing have been made very risky.
Judging by the impatience manifested in certain quarters in Berlin at delay in getting news of Zeppelin raids, for example, I believe that the steps taken to delay communication between England and Germany have been effective, and delay in spy work is very often fatal to its efficiency. The various tentacles of the German spy system, its checks and counter-checks, whereby one spy watches another; whereby the naval spy system has no connection with the military spy system, and the political with neither, greatly mars its utility.
Take one great question--the question that was all-important to Germany as to whether Great Britain would or would not enter the war in the event of an invasion of Belgium or declaration of war against France. I was informed on good Berlin authority that from every part of Great Britain and Ireland came different reports.
So far as London was concerned, Prince Lichnowsky said ”No.” Baron von Kuhlmann was non-committal. As a result Lichnowsky was disgraced and von Kuhlmann continued in favour.
It is common knowledge in Berlin, and may be elsewhere, that the most surprised person in Germany at Great Britain's action was the Kaiser, whose violent and continual denunciations of Great Britain's Government, of King Edward, and King George, are repeated from mouth to mouth in official circles with a sameness that indicates accuracy.
All the ignorance of Great Britain's intentions in 1914 is to me the best proof that the German minute system of working does not always produce the result desired.
As one with Irish blood in my veins, I found that Germany's Irish spy system (largely conducted by hotel waiters and active for more than five and twenty years) had resulted in hopeless misunderstanding of Irish affairs and Irish character, North and South.
German spies are as a rule badly paid. The semi-spies, such as waiters, were usually ”helped” by the German Government through waiters' friendly societies. It was the duty of these men to communicate either in writing or verbally with the Consul, or with certain headquarters either in Brussels or Berlin, and it is only in accordance with human nature that spies of that cla.s.s, in order to gain a reputation for ac.u.men and consequent increase of pay, provided the kind of information that pleased the paymaster. That, indeed, was one of the causes of the breakdown of the German political spy system. A spy waiter or governess in the County of Cork, for instance, who a.s.siduously reported that a revolution throughout the whole of Ireland would immediately follow Great Britain's entry into the war, received much more attention than the spy waiter in Belfast who told the authorities that if Germany went to war many Irishmen would join England. Ireland, I admit, is very difficult and puzzling ground for spy work, but it was ground thoroughly covered by the Germans according to their methods.
The military party in Germany, who are flaying von Bethmann-Hollweg for his ignorance of the intentions of Britain's Dominions and of Ireland, never cease to throw in his teeth the fact that he had millions of pounds (not marks) at his hack to make the necessary investigations, and that he failed. That and his lack of the use of ruthlessness, his alleged three days' delay to mobilise in 1914, are the princ.i.p.al charges against him--charges which, in my opinion, may eventually result in his downfall.
The great mob of semi-spies do not derive their whole income from Germany, nor are they, I believe, all actually paid at regular intervals. The struggling German shopkeeper in England was helped, and I have no doubt is still helped, by occasional sums received for business development--sums nominally in the nature of donations or loans from other Germans. The army of German clerks, who came to England and worked without salary between 1875 and 1900, received, as a rule, their travelling money and an allowance paid direct from Germany, or, when in urgent need, from the Consul in London or elsewhere. Their spying was largely commercial, although many of them formed connections here which became valuable as Germany began to prepare directly for war with Britain. They also helped to spread the knowledge of the English language which has enabled Germany to a.n.a.lyse the country by means of its books, Blue-books, statistical publications, and newspapers. They also brought back with them topographical and local knowledge that supplemented the military spy work later achieved by the German officers who came to live here for spying purposes, and the great army of _trained_ spy waiters, who are not to be confused with the semi-spies in hotels, who drew small sums from Consuls.
One of the finest pieces of spy work achieved by Germany was the obtaining by a German professor of a unique set of photographs of the whole of the Scottish coast, from north to south. Those photographs showing every inlet and harbour, are now at the Reichs-Marine-Amt (Admiralty) in the Leipsigerplatz. They have been reproduced for the use of the Navy. I do not know how they were obtained. I _know_ they are in existence, and they were taken for geological purposes.
Thefts of doc.u.ments from British Government Departments are not always successfully accomplished by German agents, I was told.
Some of the more astute officials are alleged, especially by the Naval Department, to have laid traps and supplied the spies with purposely misleading designs and codes.
a.s.siduous fis.h.i.+ng in the troubled waters around the Wilhelmstra.s.se--waters that will become more and more troubled as the siege of Germany proceeds--renders the gathering of information not so difficult as it might appear.
By sympathising with the critics of the German Foreign Office in the violent attacks upon the Government by the non-official Social Democrats, a sympathetic listener can learn a great deal.