Accordingly it was decided to put Mack to death and men were detailed

to do the deed. On that evening, it was known, the spy was to arrive

at the Shenandoah railway station, whence a long stretch of lonely

roadway led to the townlet of that name. Mack arrived, the sole

passenger, and, to his surprise, was met by none of the Brotherhood.

This was a bad omen; but he decided to go on, and made his way to the

hotel of one M'Andrew, whom he still considered to be his friend.

Affecting the usual cordiality, he entered the house and parlour;

but conversation becoming at once strained, he realised that serious

business was in contemplation; two sentinels were placed outside the

house, one Sweeny remaining in the room; he too got up dreamily and

left, telling the landlord he was going home. Presently, however, he

returned with a piece of snow which he carelessly threw at M'Andrew's

feet, where it melted. This meant that time was short and nothing was

being done—an established sign. M'Andrew looked at the spy, gave a

groan and said: "My feet are sore, I must take off my boots," another

sign which conveyed that as men were not coming in sufficient numbers,

the business of murdering Mack would have to be postponed. Mack,

who, like all Mollies, was well armed, accordingly left the place,

making for his lodgings by the highway. Once at home he spent the

night in self-defensive vigil and on the morrow, early, two Mollies

from a local camp called upon him. With true Irish trust to chance and

the possible ignorance of the other man, they declared they had come

from Scranton by rail and Mack was well aware that no train arrived

at such an hour from that town. These were, however, the men who had

been chosen overnight, and after the last failure, to remove him. The

spy, always on his guard, told the men boldly he was going straight to

Kehoe's house to ask why they had placed him under suspicion. Marching

from the house, he made for the hotel of M'Andrew, whom he induced to

accompany him to Kehoe's by sleigh. The other two men decided also that

they would accompany Mack to Kehoe's and hired a second sleigh. On the

journey several stops were made at intervening pot-houses, where the

victim-to-be treated his would-be murderers to all they desired in the

way of drink—and then some. At Kehoe's the master of the house was

preparing to celebrate the slaying of Mack with a dinner to a score

of Mollies, and when the man who was already supposed to be a "corp"

walked up to the house with a front of brass, followed by his appointed

murderers, both sorely besotted, Kehoe began to pinch himself to see if

he might be dreaming. In the front parlour, where the spy knew they

would not dare to murder him, were a dozen Mollies all celebrating his

slaughter in Old Crow, most of them already on the blink. Mack entered

the room after Kehoe and did a bold thing: "Boys," he said, "you are a

band of foul murderers to seek to take the life of the truest Molly in

the whole bunch. Give me the whisky." They handed him a glass filled to

the brim and the spy drained it. "Kehoe," he demanded, "what is it you

have against me and why do you want my life?" "Father O'Connor knows

all about you," retorted Kehoe. "He knows you for a spy." Mack looked

at his watch and brazened it out. "Well then," says he, "'tis Father

O'Connor himself I will have here, and by God I'll go and fetch him."

Passing from the house he met Mrs Kehoe, with whom he was a favourite,

and telling her how her husband and his friends had put him on the

mortuary list, Mack reached his sleigh, M'Andrew following him. At

the priest's house, he was informed that Father O'Connor had gone to

a neighbouring town. Under pretext of sending him a wire the spy then

drove to the station, reflecting wisely at this somewhat overdrawn

point that his mission was now really at an end. He had timed his

arrival well but still had a few minutes to wait for the noon train.

In the short interval Mack feigned to be busy drawing up his telegram

to the priest. The train arrived to the minute, and Mack, waiting till

the moment of its departure, threw down the prepared message as the

cars were drawing clear of the platform, boarded the last carriage and

vanished for good from the coal regions. His next appearance was made

in the witness-box at Philadelphia, where his evidence incriminated

the leading spirits of the Conspiracy, who were sentenced to long

imprisonment, the Molly Maguires passing thereafter into the history of

evils that had been.

VII

MAJOR ANDRÉ

When the psychology of the Spy comes to be expounded by some master

thinker, one wonders if he will emphasise the fact that, more often

than not, there is that in the pedigree and antecedents of the

agent of stealth which clearly suggests a mongrel breed. Was it not

Tacitus who wrote of the half-caste races who swarmed the Roman

Suburra, describing them in the memorable words: "Despectissima pars

servientium"—the most despicable of the slave tribe? It was among this

class that Marcus Crassus was wont to go in quest of recruits for that

grand army of touts, quidnuncs and informers who, by bringing him

first-hand intelligence of fires, burglaries, murders and kindred daily

occurrences in Rome, most of which were pregnant with the possibilities

of profit of some sort, helped to build up the monster fortune that

made him one of the most important men of antiquity. Your Stiebers and

Schulmeisters, too, all in some vague way convey an impression that

they are beings who are not quite human, although not wholly brute;

living things which seem to come from an unracial stock without stamp

or tradition. To a man who has been accorded the honour of a monument

in Westminster Abbey these reflections do not, of course, apply.

Nevertheless they suggest themselves, and when one reads in the life

of John André that "it was not known whether the place of his birth

was London or elsewhere in England," one feels disposed not to care

particularly whether or not he ever had a father, or if his mother

ever changed her name. André, too, was by origin a Swiss, and there

is invariably lacking in the inhabitants of Switzerland a specific

national cachet or clear racial type. His sire had been born in Geneva,

while his mother was a Frenchwoman called Girardot, who in 1751 gave

birth to the unfortunate British spy.

To add to the complexities of André's particular case, no one seems

to be very certain where he passed the early years of his education,

though it seems correct that the best part of his academic training

was obtained in that always very cosmopolitan University of Geneva. We

are assured that there he mastered several European tongues, that he

became an adept in the social arts and possessed an acquaintance with

the best classical literatures. It is only, however, in 1769, the year

of his father's death, that we really begin to locate him, and then we

find him living at Clapton, where his father, a merchant, resided in

the local manor-house. At the time of this gentleman's death, André was

eighteen years of age and his precociousness seems to be established

by the fact that in those days he was paying his addresses to the

daughter of a clergyman named Seward, the lady being several years

older than himself. Not only that, but Anna Seward was, it appears,

a poet and the leader of a _salon_ of sorts at Lichfield, where many

well-known literary lights of the day were wont to assemble and discuss

the trends of literary and artistic thought and action. Evidently Miss

Seward did not take her gallant too seriously, for we hear of him

shortly afterwards as a worshipper at the shrine of Honoria Sneyd, who

was afterwards to become the mother of Maria Edgeworth. Romance, it is

certain, entered generously into the youth of André.

It is clear also that the counting-house of a London merchant's

establishment was not at all to the taste of the young man. He had

always thirsted for military adventure, and it is not surprising

to hear that in his twentieth year, he purchased a commission as

under-lieutenant in the Royal English Fusiliers. It may be noted in

passing that this was a period in which commissions in the Army—since

become an easy enough achievement—were practically the monopoly of men

who were far superior by birth and social position to the sons of even

the most princely merchants, and there is nothing to indicate that

André's father was at all a man of more than moderate means. The point

is interesting, however, inasmuch as it points to the psychological

tendencies of the young man's mind. His commission duly obtained, André

repaired at once to Berlin, where he received considerable insight

into the military arts. Berlin, it may be parenthetically observed,

was in those days probably the best-organised centre of a vast system

of spies, for had not the collector of the famous giant-regiment

of Potsdam Guards passed that way a generation before, and was not

Frederick the Great still boasting that he had only one cook and a

hundred spies? Some authorities incline to the belief that young André,

while in Berlin, was already an active spy of the British Government.

It is clear at any rate that when after a few years' residence in

Germany he returned to England, he became known to prominent officers

as a man not only more than usually well informed on all matters of a

military kind, but also as a soldier who had fitted himself by very

special study for the business of probing the military secrets and

plans of other countries.

To the man's personality justice must, however, be done, for it is

agreed on all hands that a more captivating or picturesque officer

had never worn King George's uniform. Unlike Wolfe, also a man of

literary parts, though a somewhat dark and silent person, André was a

conversationalist of such fascination and sparkle that his presence

in a drawing-room proved sufficient to attract the larger portion of

both sexes to its immediate vicinity. Even his male contemporaries

all declare that a more lovable being had rarely crossed the social

stage, while the number of women of note and fashion with whom the

young officer was said to be on that footing which the French so

expressively describe by the term _au mieux_, can hardly have been

inferior to that which favoured handsome John Churchill in a former

age. Great facial beauty, a splendid presence, romantic courage,

a reputation for brilliancy in an age which was far from being a

superficial one—all these were qualities which we expect in the pages

of fiction, but which are only occasionally to be met with in actual

experience. They are qualities, nevertheless, which have been the

possession of most of the distinguished adventurers of history and it

is obviously the consciousness of possessing such gifts that turns your

born adventurer towards a life to which he has no definite social or

traditional right.

It is often pointed out in the way of evidence of André's particular

mission as a spy having been officially forecast for him, that on

leaving England for Quebec, where his regiment was stationed, the

young officer travelled thither by the very roundabout route via

Philadelphia. Here he arrived in September 1774. His experience as a

man who had seen much of the military spy system of Frederick and who

was in any case an acute observer of all things were facts of which

General Carleton, the Governor-General of Canada, was well aware. That

officer, coincidently enough, left England about the same time as

André, the twain travelling however by different ways. It is assumed,

by Americans generally, that Carleton, who foresaw the imminence of

the Revolutionary conflict, had directed his subordinate to visit

Philadelphia in the capacity of a commissioned spy, in order to learn

all he might regarding the condition of public affairs, the temper

of the people and, above all, to obtain some clear idea as to the

intentions of the leaders of the American forces. Halting a short while

and for the accomplishment of his purpose in the old Quaker City,

André subsequently passed to New York and Boston, ever observant,

everywhere transcribing, always on the alert. At Quebec he arrived

early in November 1774. On the outbreak of the war André was one of the

first British officers to be captured by the enemy and for over a year

remained a prisoner in several Pennsylvania cities, where his charming

personality and accomplishments gave him among the enemy the footing of

a privileged guest rather than a captive. He was exchanged at the close

of 1776 and rejoined the Army at New York, then commanded by Howe. To

that officer André came like some visitor from Fortune herself, for

during his late captivity, in the course of which he held practically

_carte blanche_ to move about the outlying country, the young soldier

had always done so with his professional instincts set and with the

result that he was able immediately to present Howe with more accurate

information as to the military effective, disposition and plans of

Washington than the regular Intelligence service could have procured

him in three years. A vacancy falling due on the staff of General Grey,

Howe procured its reversion to André, giving him the rank of Captain.

At this time the British Army was moving on Philadelphia.

Literature dealing with the story of Philadelphia in that age presents

us with the picture of a city of perennial pageant. The British Army

was in occupation in the winter and spring of 1778 and revelry ran

long and high in every phase of the social life of Quaker City. Our

André was here in his very element and among the acquaintances he

formed was that of Margaret Shippen, who afterwards became the wife

of Benedict Arnold. "No one," wrote Mr Winthropp Sergeant in 1861,

"seems to have created such a pleasing impression or to have been so

long admiringly remembered as André. His name in our own days lingers

on the lips of every aged woman whose youth had seen her a belle in

the royal lines.... He is described as of five feet nine inches in

height and of singularly handsome person—well made, slender, graceful

and very active, a dark complexion with a serious and somewhat tender

expression; his manners easy and insinuating.... If the serious

business of life was a part of his lot, there was yet ample scope

for the exercise of those elegant arts in which he excelled. His

infirmities, if any there were, sprang like Charles Townshend's from

a noble cause—that lust of fame which is the instinct of all great

souls; and his comely person, his winning speech, his graceful manners

procured him universal acceptance, while his freedom from the grosser

passions of his fellows was especially observed." The universal gaiety

which prevailed throughout Philadelphia was not without its effect on

the Army as a whole and the inevitable demoralisation of all classes of

society followed. It remains a lasting tribute to the attractions of

the fair maids of Philadelphia that the number of irregular marriages

which took place among the lower ranks of the Army alone was so large

as to necessitate the organisation of special pickets with the object

of preventing the wholesale depletion of regiments through long absence

or desertion. As Benjamin Franklin declared at the time: "Howe has not

taken Philadelphia, Philadelphia has taken Howe," and it is written

that on the evacuation of the city by the British forces, 18,000

strong, at least 1000 privates deserted, returning to their sweethearts

and lately married wives in Quaker Town. General Howe himself proved

far from a shining example to his subordinates or soldiery, indolence

and sensuality being his chief characteristics, while there were not

wanting those who accused him of malversation of military funds. "He

returned to England richer in money than laurels," while Americans are

wont to thank him for having given them America, as they put it. His

relations with André hardly seem consistent with what we know of that

officer's usual discernment. In his honour, André, now a major, had

composed and stage-managed a kind of allegorical tourney entitled the

_Mischianza_, which was enacted to honour a general who was already

under sentence of recall to England. Howe was in due course succeeded

by Sir Henry Clinton, to whom André, on the departure of General Grey

in 1778, became chief aide and secretary, a position in which he

so clearly proved his ability that in 1779 he was appointed deputy

adjutant-general to the British forces in America with headquarters in

New York.

We have seen that during his earlier stay in Philadelphia the young

officer had formed a close friendship with Margaret Shippen, daughter

of a wealthy resident. By 1779 this lady had become the wife of

Benedict Arnold, one of the leading Revolutionary generals who was

appointed military governor of Philadelphia on its evacuation by the

British. Arnold, it was well known, maintained a sumptuous style of

living which was wholly out of keeping with his means or position.

A princely retinue, a lavish table, extravagance in all things were

sufficient, once the British ascendancy had given way to the staid

Quaker rule and custom of Philadelphia, to make him an object of

distrust among a naturally suspicious community. Nor was Arnold at all

a man of high character, whether domestic or public. Already in 1780 he

was formally accused of peculation and, though exonerated on inquiry,

was reprimanded by Washington for "imprudent and improper conduct."

Arnold, who fully expected a complete vindication by his superiors,

never forgave them the last implied stigma on his character. He was

suspected even then of disloyal conversation with the enemy under

adopted names, and his present wrath was not calculated to weaken

any predisposition he may have felt towards the commission of an act

of supreme treachery. It seems clear that André, an unusually astute

judge of character, had fully taken the measure of Arnold and perhaps

had already learned something when, on 16th August 1779, he wrote to

the General's wife at Philadelphia a rather whimsical letter offering

to do some "shopping" for her in New York—a somewhat inconsequent kind

of offer if its object was not to discover the condition of the lady's

purse. Shortly afterwards a communication was addressed from the Tory

side—the Whigs were the Revolutionaries—sounding Arnold and his general

disposition, and it is now well established that the correspondence,

which ensued thereafter between Clinton and himself, partook of a

treasonable character on the part of the American General, who wrote

in a disguised hand and assumed the name of "Gustavus" for the purpose

of his communications, Clinton not then being aware of the identity

or the importance of his correspondent. It seems clear, however, that

André, as Clinton's secretary, was well aware of that identity and we

may suppose the Major to have suggested the transference to himself of

the duty of keeping up communication with the traitor, a transference

which accordingly took place. Major André continued therefore to keep

in touch with Arnold, himself writing under the name "John Anderson" in

a slightly disguised hand. It is not implausibly maintained by some

that in the "shopping" letter which André had addressed to Mrs Arnold

in August 1779 he had used a disguised handwriting with the object of

making clear to her husband—reasonably certain to see the letter—the

identity of John Anderson. Shortly after André had taken a hand in

the intrigue, Arnold began to importune his superiors to give him the

command of West Point near New York, urging the costliness of keeping

up his position in Philadelphia. The request seemed reasonable and

was granted by Washington, Arnold assuming the command at West Point,

already, it is certain, resolved to surrender that strong fort to the

British who were lying some fifty miles below in New York, and for whom

the possession of the Point meant a free communication with Canada.

Up till the contemplated treachery of Arnold, the ascendancy of the

British had been well maintained on the American Continent. Charleston

had fallen and here André had twice risked his life disguised as a

spy; the South was in British possession; Gates had been beaten at

Camden and Manhattan was in their army's occupation. Arnold astutely

chose the proper moment for his act of treachery, certain in that dark

hour to produce a strong moral reaction upon the Revolutionaries. In

September 1780 the American General forwarded to André a letter asking

for a personal interview within the American lines, the Major to

disguise himself as John Anderson. André refused to enter the danger

zone and the meeting was arranged to take place at Haverstraw—neutral

ground—on 21st September. Thereafter it became a matter of somewhat

dangerous rumour that André, whose daring men well knew, was about

to undertake a perilous enterprise, a successful execution of which

must swiftly end the war. A baronetcy, a brigadiership, a large sum

of money—these were the rewards Clinton is said to have promised his

young Adjutant. It is generally agreed that André faced his present

mission with anything but that imperturbability which had marked his

departure on similar expeditions. He was saddened, it was said, by an

indefinable presentiment of death and impending disaster, and left

New York to keep his appointment with Arnold, sailing up the Hudson

in the British sloop _Vulture_. Arnold had agreed to send a boat to

the sloop at midnight, 21st September, in order to take off the Major,

who, on his landing, was led by a friend of the former to the secret

tryst on neutral ground. The interview was long, Arnold haggling

desperately over the terms of settlement; dawn had already begun to

shadow the eastern hill-tops and still the bargain was not square.

By five o'clock, however, the men had come to terms, and Arnold, who

had horses in waiting, suggested the completion of the details in

documentary form at the house of a local farmer, Smith his name. André

consented reluctantly, well knowing the house in question to be within

the American lines. By ten o'clock the deeds were drawn up and signed;

André was in possession of all necessary information concerning the

post to be surrendered. Arnold was to make a show of resistance on the

arrival of the British on 25th September, while Washington himself was

to be delivered into the hands of the enemy on his return that way on

September 27th. Benedict Arnold was to receive some £6500 as a reward

for his treachery, a sum which was eventually paid though the surrender

of West Point never took place.

On leaving Smith's residence and bidding adieu to Arnold, the Major

discovered to his surprise that the _Vulture_ had disappeared. The

sloop had been cannonaded during the night and compelled to drop down

the river. As the Major considered his difficult position, the vessel

returned to its previous moorings and André requested Smith to convey

him aboard. Smith refused, pleading reasonably enough that he was

afraid of the consequences to himself of rendering such a service.

No bribe being sufficient apparently to move the farmer, André found

himself forced to remain where he was and to his undoubted peril,

until nightfall. Smith offered to provide the Major with an American

uniform, but finding it impossible to procure one, gave him instead

an old-fashioned coat of the cavalier style, purple in colour, with

faded gold lace. A melancholy beaver hat completed the strange attire

of the British officer who covered the whole with an ordinary surtout.

Contrary to express instructions from Clinton, André took away the

papers which Arnold had given him at the farmhouse, concealing them in

his top-boots—an entirely senseless as well as purposeless proceeding,

which eventually led to his undoing. Accompanied by Smith and a negro,

André crossed the Hudson at King's Ferry on 22nd September, rode boldly

into the American lines, spending, indeed, a night at another farmhouse

in the midst of the enemy. On the 23rd, bidding his companions adieu,

the Major, following directions given him by Smith, made for so-called

neutral ground which swarmed with Tories and where he might feel

reasonably safe. Mistaking a turn, however, in the old Tarrytown Road,

along which he rode his horse slowly and with some hesitation, he came

suddenly upon a group of farmers who were ranging the countryside in

quest of suspicious persons. One of them, Paulding by name, wore a

Hessian surtout given him by a friend. When André came in sight the

company was playing cards, and on the Major's approach, Paulding,

the master spirit of the gang, stepped to the front, musket in hand,

commanding the traveller to halt and account for himself. Seeing the

Hessian coat—a garment peculiar to King George's troops—André stopped

his horse.

"My lads," he said, "you belong to our side, I see."

"What side?" asked Paulding.

"The British side," André replied.

"We do," answered Paulding.

André was momentarily taken off his guard. "Thank God!" he exclaimed.

"I am a British officer out on particular business. I am glad to be

among friends once more and I hope you will not detain me."

"We are Americans," cried Paulding, "and you are our prisoner."

Assuming as much composure as he could, André drew Arnold's passports

from his pocket permitting "Mr John Anderson to pass the guards to

the White Plains," only, of course, to confirm the suspicions of the

farmers, who thereupon dragged him from his horse, searching him from

head to foot, duly to find the incriminating documents which clearly

proved their captive a first-class spy. The Major began by offering

them in turn, cash, his gold watch, one hundred guineas, and finally

made a promise of one thousand guineas, saying he would remain a

hostage in their hands till one of the party should return with the

money. "We would not let you go for ten thousand guineas," shouted

Paulding, and André's doom was spoken. He was taken to the nearest

American post and delivered to the commandant, Colonel Jameson, under

his name John Anderson. André at once requested that General Arnold

should be notified that his friend "Anderson" was in custody, and the

Colonel, an unsuspicious soul, concluded that he could best serve his

superior officer by returning the captive to Arnold, under a guard of

four troopers in charge of Lieutenant Allen, who was also entrusted

with a letter in which the Colonel mentioned that he was "forwarding

certain documents found on Anderson forthwith to Washington," and this

was accordingly done. André, to his joy, set out with his escort on

the return journey to Arnold's lines. Before the party had progressed

many miles towards West Point, a messenger arrived with orders for

their return, and André found himself a captive once more in Jameson's

lines, the Colonel, on a subordinate's advice, having decided to refer

the whole matter to General Washington. In the meanwhile Allen, of his

own initiative, had proceeded to Arnold's headquarters with the private

letter and report from Jameson to the commander at West Point. For this

blunder your true American has never forgiven the simple-minded Colonel.

On 24th September, the day following his capture, Major André, of

whose real name and rank the American officers were still ignorant,

indited his famous letter to Washington, full of rhetoric and

self-justification, in which he advanced several considerations for

his release from captivity. Mentioning his name and military rank,

he only wrote, he said, to vindicate his good fame, not to solicit

security. He was not, he vowed with a strange distortion of actuality,

accustomed to duplicity. He justified his negotiations with "a person"

(Arnold, unnamed) who was to give him intelligence which should

prove serviceable to British arms, a fair ruse of war, he thought.

Having concluded these negotiations, he proceeded, he was conducted

without his knowledge into the American lines. He had thus become a

prisoner and was justified in his endeavour to escape by all means

available, and having reached neutral ground, through a disguise, he

had been arrested by irregulars. There were gentlemen at Charleston,

he concluded, in a half-menacing and highly impolitic phrase, whose

rank might be set in exchange for his; in any case they were persons

whom the treatment he received could not fail to affect. Washington

received this communication after the flight of Arnold who, learning

from Jameson's letter, duly delivered by Allen, how perilously matters

stood for him, had taken refuge on board the British vessel _Vulture_.

The American commander-in-chief gave immediate orders for the transfer

of André to West Point, where he arrived on 26th September, under the

care of a strong escort commanded by Major Tallmadge, the officer who

had advised Jameson to countermand the first order sending the prisoner

to Arnold. It was to Tallmadge that André made the memorable confession

that he had engaged in the adventure "for military glory, the applause

of his King and country and perhaps a brigadiership." The Major asked

the American in what light General Washington was likely to regard him.

"He will regard you," replied Tallmadge simply, "just as the British

regarded my old comrade and schoolfellow, Nathan Hale. Your fate will

be the same as Hale's."

It is not difficult to understand the fierce indignation of the

Americans at this critical time, when the black treachery of a

commander on their own side is considered, and it was, from the very

first, written in the stars that André should receive no mercy,

although, indeed, a strong effort was made to exchange him for Arnold

whom, in all probability, the Americans would have preferred. In

General Washington, above all, there was an elemental severity of the

early Roman type which would leave nothing to chance, although the plot

had, happily for his own arms, totally miscarried. Nevertheless, with

that ideal sense of justice which was found later in his illustrious

successor, Lincoln, he convened a military board with the object of

making careful inquiries and reporting their "opinion of the light in

which the prisoner ought to be considered and what punishment ought

to be inflicted." The court consisted of six major-generals and eight

brigadier-generals. It was held at Tappan, where Washington had his

headquarters. Inevitably André was held to be "a spy from the enemy and

only death could satisfy his crime." Washington stood by the verdict

and sentenced Major André to be hanged as a spy on the second day of

October at four in the afternoon.

At four accordingly on the second day of October 1780, Major André

was executed upon an eminence near Tappan village, in the presence of

a vast concourse of people. He was dressed in full military costume

and white top-boots. A large procession of officers preceded him to

the gallows—a cross-piece between two trees. The prisoner's step was

firm nor did he falter until he saw the gallows, realising then that,

despite his appeal to Washington, he was to die as a felon and not as a

soldier. His hesitation was only momentary, however. A baggage-wagon,

in which was laid a plain pine coffin, had been driven under the

gallows, a grave being dug near by. Into this wagon the prisoner

stepped, and taking the rope from the hangman adjusted it to his neck,

tying also a white silk handkerchief over his eyes. The Major was then

told that he might speak if he wished. Lifting the fold lightly from

his eyes and bowing courteously, André replied in a firm voice: "All I

request of you, gentlemen, is that while I acknowledge the propriety of

my sentence, you will bear me witness that I die like a brave man." And

taking his last look at the sky, he replaced the bandage on his eyes.

The wagon was driven swiftly from under him, and in a few minutes he

was no more.

VIII

BRITISH SECRET SERVICE

Under the euphemism Secret Service, we describe in England our system

of espionage. In common with other countries, espionage has always

prevailed in England as essential in some degree to most conditions of

our political, social, diplomatic and commercial life, all of which are

conducted on the most comprehensive and complex lines. The story of

England has, however, revealed but little of the spy in any class and,

indeed, next to nothing at all when considered in proportion to the

vastness of its national and international relations and commitments,

a happy state of affairs which is attributable to the fact that our

constitutional liberties represent the nearest approach to the ideal in

respect of the completeness of their guarantees. Going back to early

periods, it is only in the case of prominent figures like Alfred—who

did his own spying, it will be remembered—or the seventh Henry, or

Wolsey, that we find there was anything like the beginnings of an

organised secret service system. The father of King Harry, through the

agency of his lawyers Empson and Dudley, undoubtedly spied out the

financial conditions of the territorial nobles as well as the monastic

properties, and by doing so, certainly facilitated the seizure of the

Abbey possessions when the Reformation took place in the next reign.

The agents employed in the case of the wealthy landowners were usually

chaplains who also exercised secretarial functions for their patrons,

while in the monasteries renegade monks were always to be found willing

at a price to put Henry's financial sleuths in the way of obtaining

correct information. The Lord Cardinal, there is no doubt, spied on

the goings and comings of Campeggio when that legate was in England,

and neither is there any doubt of his having spied successfully, and

much to the irritation of the monarch, on King Henry himself who

retaliated, however, more than once by informing the Chancellor as

to certain romantic but very unpriestly trysts of the Cardinal which

had come within the royal cognisance. In royal circles, of course, we

may be sure that spying has always been the custom, all the more so

since household officers justify their persistent attentions on the

ground that the safety of the royal person requires that it should

be perennially shadowed. Did not Fouché once surprise Napoleon, who

was boasting of the superiority of service rendered by his own _corps

d'espions_, when he informed the Emperor regarding every detail of a

nocturnal outing which Majesty had made through Paris in company with

Murat, and in the course of which visits were paid, in turn, to a low

music-hall, a lower night-house and a cheap restaurant?

To find the first definite shapings of organised secret service we

must come to the time of Elizabeth when the Intelligencer and the

Spy were well-known characters in the society of the period. The

Intelligencer proves highly interesting as a study of the purely

parasitical life. In general, he started in life as a man who made it

his business to learn what was going on at all the main centres of

public and private life, trading off the items to men of business,

politicians and diplomatists for the best price he could obtain. He

corresponded very closely to the Roman quidnunc with whom the Satires

of Horace made us all familiar in our schooldays. Who can forget

the picture of that oily Nasidienus—what a nose for news the name

holds!—whose chief title to dine with Mæcenas depended on the fact that

he constituted in his own person a kind of central news agency upon

which all the gossip and intelligence of Rome was sure to converge.

For indeed, the famous quidnunc had his own corps of reporters whom he

employed to scour the City in quest of tittle-tattle for his patron.

The Intelligencer or private newsmonger of Elizabeth's age was, it is

recorded, looked upon as a highly respectable member of the workaday

classes until, to use a journalistic Americanism, he began to "put

it over" on his patrons—meaning to say, when he began to supply them

with the news that was not, drawing good money in exchange for false

intelligence. Like the free-lance of our own day, the Intelligencer

had first of all to build up a connection, as the phrase goes, the

same being remunerative, or the reverse, in proportion to the man's

energy and reliability. Since in those days he invariably dealt with

principals, it happened not so seldom that he effected a permanent

way into the good graces of a wealthy patron, rising afterwards to

positions of honourable importance. It is, nevertheless, a fact that

the majority of these men deteriorated, and for the simple reason that,

deeply versed as they became in the sordid architectonics of life of

all kinds, social, political and commercial, they quickly shed their

ideals. Their previous experience and knowledge of ways and means had,

however, fitted them in a peculiar manner for the business of watching

other men and they were invariably sought out by personages of wealth

and position to exercise the trade of spy, or common informer. And,

accordingly, when Burleigh and his congeners were looking around for

plausible excuses for killing off Mary of Scotland, they fell back on

the services of an informer who had originally made his bow before the

public as an Intelligencer. It is not necessary to go into the story

of the mysterious "J. B.," whom one Delbena, an Italian adventurer,

had introduced to the English Ambassador in Paris, Poulet, as a man of

good birth, but desperate in all enterprises and a traitor to the last

fibre of his spinal column. The records of Elizabethan days would seem

to indicate either that Burleigh and Walsingham were not very astute

judges of the common spy, or else that "J. B." was devilishly apt in

extracting large sums out of credulous statesmen and diplomats, for

it is written that having raised many thousands from Poulet on his

simple promise to capture an agent of Mary Stuart, whose papers were

certain to incriminate that Queen—why, the rascal failed to deliver

goods, to use another expressive newspaper Americanism. Then there was

the informer Gifford whose early training as a priest enabled him, in

his clerical capacity and with forged credentials, to spy on the great

Catholic families of his time, in all cases transmitting false yet

incriminating information to Burleigh. His nefarious activities brought

at least a dozen men to the execution block in those days. In two years

another of the species, one Thomas Phillips, also an ex-Intelligencer,

had contracted to the Crown a debt equal to the large sum of £60,000

of our own money on account of infamous work done for its ministers,

mostly political, be it said. Indeed, the record of the Elizabethan spy

constitutes one long chronicle of the bloodiest treachery in the whole

history of secret service, since the Tower, if not Tyburn, invariably

figured as the last scene in the life of the unfortunate who fell into

the hands of the Queen's sleuths. Treachery seems, for all the halo

which surrounds our notion of the "good old days," to have played a

part in the whole social fabric as universal as it was sinister, nor

can the fact be wondered at, seeing that the promiscuous distribution

of the confiscated estates of murdered men, which often in a day

rewarded poor men with vast lands, was an ever-present incentive to the

cupidity of the adventurer.

Cromwell, if we may judge by diaries and records of his day, was the

best-informed man in England. He had an undoubted faith in the value

of secret service and was ably served by the many agents he employed,

not only at home, but also abroad, where their activities helped to lay

the broad foundations of that foreign policy which is based upon the

principle known as the Balance of Power. It was the Protector's custom

to invite to his table men whom he well knew to be what the current

vernacular of the time termed "trimmers" and what the American calls a

"mugwump"; these men he invariably surprised with the correctness of

his information regarding the variety of their political friends and

relations, as well as of the dangerous company which they frequented,

advising them always in a friendly way to beware. The Protector was

one of the few statesmen in Europe who remained a perennial puzzle

to Mazarin, during whose large ascendancy on the Continent, Cromwell

strengthened the foundations of that naval power which has given

England for so long a paramount voice in Europe's councils. His

successor Charles II. distinguished himself above all other English

monarchs by receiving into his intimate court circle a paid spy of

Louis XIV. in the person of Louise de Kérouaille, on whom he conferred

the title of Duchess of Portsmouth. This lady, as Duchesse d'Aubigny

in France, was at the same time drawing a ducal revenue from the

coffers of Louis XIV., while it remains a matter of statistical record

that in the year 1681 she took in perquisite from the English Exchequer

the sum of £136,000—equal to more than half-a-million sterling of

our time. There can be little doubt that the capacity for political

intrigue of the Duchess, as well as her complete ascendancy over

Charles and her own greed of money, contributed at a later stage to

swell the indictment which ultimately led to the banishment of the

Stuarts. In her Life of the Duchess, Mrs Colquhoun Grant takes a view

generally accepted by historical writers, to wit, that the favourite's

character was neither vicious nor depraved, that her conduct was not

immoral according to the notions of the age, that she was a woman of

immense political capacity, while of a tender and affectionate heart.

Her political correspondence, in which she exercised her specific

rôle as informer to the French court, was carried on with Madame de

Montespan, who is memorable as one of the splendid favourites of Louis.

[Illustration: The Duchess of Portsmouth]

Passing over to Georgian times we find that the employment of spies was

common in all departments of life, and there can be little doubt that

the Hanoverians brought to England many men and women who had learned

the arts of espionage at the best of all possible schools—namely,

Berlin. The history of England of those days shows us nothing in the

way of pre-eminent exponents of the business, nor can espionage be

said, in its political aspects, to have reached to that excellence of

organisation which it attained later in the times of Pitt, whom the

ever-present activities of Bonaparte compelled in the interests of our

security to develop a secret-service system the operations of which

were inferior to none in Europe. It remains a matter of record that in

the days of the French Revolution certain political leaders in England

were in the pay of the Committee of Public Safety presided over by

Robespierre. This fact was communicated to Pitt through his own spy, a

professedly violent Jacobin, who by means of cipher and anagrammatic

correspondence, carried on with a relative in Italy, was transmitting

by that roundabout route the most minute and accurate accounts of the

Committee's proceedings to the English Premier. The sums paid for such

dangerous work, while never, of course, disclosed, were undoubtedly

very large, seeing that the all-observant Saint-Just was moving at

the time through Revolutionary circles. The failure of the French

invasion of Ireland in December 1796 is also set down to an act of paid

treachery on the part of the captain of one of the French vessels,

the story being that he took advantage of prevailing foul weather to

decline approaching the Irish coast for several days, and since the

general commanding the expedition was on board, the brave venture

became a foregone failure. Charles Lever, who, it will be remembered,

acted as British Consul at Spezzia and Trieste, introduces us on

more than one occasion to a kind of consular or ambassadorial spy, an

individual who in those days was as regular a member of a chancellery

as its archivist is in our own.

In the time of Napoleon, Charles James Fox, an admirer and friend

of the First Consul, found himself, all unconsciously, caught in

the vast woof of the Fouché-Talleyrand system of intelligence, thus

becoming an unwitting agent in communicating to the French Government

certain of the designs of the British Government for the destruction

of Bonaparte's Continental policy. The fact that Fox was a desperate

gambler, and ever in debt, was not of course allowed to escape

the notice of his few, but bitter, enemies, who in this case were

obviously moved by malice rather than by anything they really knew. The

cleverness of Canning in procuring private information regarding the

secret clauses of the Treaty of Tilsit between Alexander of Russia and

Napoleon is commonly regarded as among the greatest achievements of

diplomacy in all time. How the British foreign minister obtained this

information will probably remain a secret for ever; but the momentous

results of his cleverness are indisputable, since they led to the

seizure of the Danish fleet and broke up the northern confederation

of powers by which Napoleon still hoped to invade England, and some

analogy to which is found at our own time in the occupation of

Belgium by the Germans, England having been the main objective in

both cases. Conjecture is, of course, not wanting as to the means

which placed this intelligence in the hands of Canning. According to

one writer, a certain Lady Sarah Spencer, in a letter addressed to

her father at Althorp, declared at the time that "Lord G. L. Gower

had got possession, for £20,000, of the original treaty of Tilsit

and that one of the secret articles stipulated that the Danish fleet

should be employed against us, which induced Ministers to adopt such

measures." It is declared by a member of the Mackenzie clan that one

Colin Mackenzie, who perfectly understood and spoke French, disguised

himself as a Cossack and was one of the attendants chosen to accompany

the Russian Emperor to the raft on which the interview with Napoleon

was held—a story which does not, it must be said, meet with very

cordial acceptance. Again it is asserted that the famous Launay, Count

d'Antraigues, obtained the treaty from a friend in Russia, a version

which seems disproved by the fact that the Count was at that time in

disgrace in England. On Sir Robert Wilson has also been conferred

the distinction of discovering the secret understandings of Tilsit,

while the tradition of the Foreign Office is that the information came

indirectly from the Emperor Alexander and was given publicity through

some blunder on the part of the Russian Ambassador in London—most

probably the correct facts.

The enactment of the Union between England and Ireland led in its

time to the commission of untold treacheries. Until within a score

of years ago there stood in the private offices of Dublin Castle two

iron-clamped chests filled to the top with papers relating to pre-Union

days. These chests bore the Government seal and on them was inscribed

the legend: "Secret and confidential—not to be opened." For close upon

a century, these chests remained unexplored until, leave having been

given for their examination, hundreds of betrayals and treacheries

leapt to light. Men of the highest names, says Dr Fitzpatrick, in

effect, were found to have been spies of the Government and practically

_agents provocateurs_, although to the outer world they bore themselves

as high-souled patriots of unimpeachable honour. The various causes

in which these men served were not less filled with the foulness of

secret crime than outwardly they proved to be fraught with deliberately

constructed outrage and injustice to a whole nation. Coming down

to more modern days, we seize upon the story of Major Le Caron.

This man's adventure among the open and admitted enemies of England

shows us the meagre extent to which our Government is prepared to

subsidise its agents abroad. Le Caron is not singular in his criticism

of the British authorities who, by a consistent policy of paying

starvation pay, have reduced the secret service to the proportions of

a vanishing quantity. Le Caron warned the authorities of their fatal

and improvident parsimony in his time. "Some day," he said, "a big

thing will happen about which there will be no leakage beforehand

and then the affrighted and indignant British citizen will turn on

his band of thirty secret-service men and rant and rave at them for

their want of capacity and performance. The fault will be the want of

a perfect system of secret service, properly financed. If plots are to

be discovered in time, they can only be discovered through information

coming from men associated with them. If it is to be made worth their

while to speak, then the price offered by the British Government must

be higher than that of the other paymasters." Le Caron's words are

clearly based on the assumption that men enter into revolutionary

movements rather for what there is in them, than from any spiritual or

ethical motives. Until far more evidence than we possess is afforded

us, we fear that the spy must be held to be right, for the tortuous

path of political agitation is a path which is ever crowded with

self-seekers and one on which the altruist is always the loneliest of

pilgrims.

In the course of the trials of Captains Trench and Brandon at Leipsic

in 1910, the public prosecutor emphasised his view that British gold

had bought up the services of hundreds of agents scattered throughout

Germany, all of them engaged in the business of transmitting important

information to the British Admiralty and War Office. Visitors to what

is known as the Black Country of Westphalia will recollect, too, how

ordinary English tourists who arrive at towns in the neighbourhood

of Essen, the home of Krupp, such as Bochum, or Wesel, or Elberfeld

invariably become the objects of police attention from the moment of

their arrival at local hotels. It is certain that espionage on the

part of the foreigner excites more real concern in Germany than is

the case in England, a fact that we must put down to her geographical

position which leaves her, despite vast armaments and preparations, an

ever-possible object of attack to heavily armed nations which surround

her on all sides. Even, however, if it be the fact that England has

held her spies within Germany itself, few will be found to argue that

it is not a legitimate use of secret service funds, as well as a

matter altogether apart from the infamy which attaches to the person

who accepts money in return for the betrayal of fatherland. It is,

nevertheless, very questionable if any information really worth having,

in the military sense, ever escapes the record of duly appointed

military attachés, whose official existence dates from 1864 and whose

admitted business it is to keep themselves professionally posted as

to the resources of a possible enemy. In regard to Germany, it may be

said that in the business of spying, she occupies a class by herself,

since professional espionage is not looked upon by the people as in

any way degrading or underhand. An easy tolerance of this kind towards

a trade which is in itself intrinsically base cannot, it must follow,

be without a corresponding reaction on the common mind in regard to

spying for the benefit of foreign powers, and we may reasonably assume

it to be the fact that in such cases the British authorities go far

less frequently in quest of native spies, than the native spies come

in quest of British gold. A sum of less than £40,000 is annually set

aside for the purposes of the British Secret Service, according to

official books. The smallness of the sum must clearly be some index of

the limits of our secret-service operations, although no one is asked

to suppose that the amount in question covers the entire expenditure

made on account of useful information given up. Germany, it is known,

makes a public appropriation of, roughly, £1,000,000 sterling for the

secret-service system. Russia's budget for the same object amounts to

£500,000, while that of France is less than £200,000, as far, in all

cases, as public figures are available. The public appropriations do

not, of course, reveal anything like the entire sums expended, the

facts as to which could be realised only by a survey of the various

accounts of consular offices and embassies throughout Europe.

Much ink has been spilt and many public utterances have been made

with the object of showing that the British Government had taken

but perfunctory measures in order to fight the system of espionage

which was preparing England for invasion, even as France had been

prepared for invasion in 1870. Writers in the daily Press and

members of Parliament had declared, by the end of August 1914, that

anything more inadequate than the British system of what is known as

counter-espionage—that is to say, the organising of spies to watch

and report on Germans who were obviously overrunning the country in

quest of information of military value—was inconceivable. After all,

results afford the best test of the precautions taken, and it is on

record that the ease and rapidity with which the authorities rounded up

over 14,000 German and Austrian potential spies, within a few weeks of

the outbreak of the war, came as an illuminating shock to the German

Secret Service authorities themselves who had based their warlike

decisions largely upon the hypothesis that England was still asleep.

A well-known authority on such matters at the Home Office informed

the writer in September 1914 that even the so-called "incendiary

points"—that is to say, localities which had been marked out as

suitable for the setting fire to houses, in the event of aerial raids

on London—were being gradually and completely scheduled by vigilant

officers of our Secret Service, and in such a way that nothing was

left to assist the operations of possible spies who have succeeded

in eluding enumeration by our somewhat silent and unofficious, but

nevertheless eternally wakeful police. As we have said in another

place, the German organisation of spies, internal and external, had

been raised to a point under Stieber, beyond which, given the present

conditions of the world and mankind, it was practically impossible

to go, and since for the past twenty years and more, we have been in

possession of the technical details of Stieberism, we may rely on it

that the authorities, on their side, have not read in vain. Shortly

after the outbreak of the Great War, and in order to allay the anxiety

created by critics of such departments as are charged with the duty of

watching the enemy in our midst, the Home Office issued the following

statement dealing with measures which had been undertaken with a view

to counteracting the operations of foreign spies scattered throughout

the Islands:—

"In view of the anxiety naturally felt by the public with regard to

the system of espionage on which Germany has placed so much reliance,

and to which attention has been directed by recent reports from the

seat of war, it may be well to state briefly the steps which the Home

Office, acting on behalf of the Admiralty and War Office, has taken

to deal with the matter in this country. The secrecy which it has

hitherto been desirable in the public interest to observe on certain

points cannot any longer be maintained, owing to the evidence which it

is necessary to produce in cases against spies that are now pending.

"It was clearly ascertained five or six years ago that the Germans

were making great efforts to establish a system of espionage in this

country, and in order to trace and thwart these efforts a Special

Intelligence Department was established by the Admiralty and the War

Office which has ever since acted in the closest co-operation with

the Home Office and Metropolitan Police and the principal provincial

Police Forces. In 1911, by the passing of the Official Secrets Act,

1911, the law with regard to espionage, which had hitherto been

confused and defective, was put on a clear basis and extended so as to

embrace every possible mode of obtaining and conveying to the enemy

information which might be useful in war.

"The Special Intelligence Department, supported by all the means which

could be placed at its disposal by the Home Secretary, was able in

three years, from 1911 to 1914, to discover the ramifications of the

German secret service in England. In spite of enormous efforts and

lavish expenditure of money by the enemy, little valuable information

passed into their hands. The agents, of whose identity knowledge was

obtained by the Special Intelligence Department, were watched and

shadowed without in general taking any hostile action or allowing

them to know that their movements were watched. When, however, any

actual step was taken to convey plans or documents of importance

from this country to Germany the spy was arrested, and in such case

evidence sufficient to secure his conviction was usually found in his

possession. Proceedings under the Official Secrets Acts were taken by

the Director of Public Prosecutions, and in six cases sentences were

passed varying from eighteen months to six years' penal servitude.

At the same time steps were taken to mark down and keep under

observation all the agents known to be engaged in this traffic, so

that when any necessity arose the Police might lay hands on them at

once, and accordingly on August 4, before the declaration of war,

instructions were given by the Home Secretary for the arrest of twenty

known spies, and all were arrested. This figure does not cover a large

number (upwards of two hundred) who were noted as under suspicion or

to be kept under special observation. The great majority of these were

interned at or soon after the declaration of war.

"None of the men arrested in pursuance of the orders issued on August

4 has yet been brought to trial, partly because the officers whose

evidence would have been required were engaged in urgent duties in

the early days of the war, but mainly because the prosecution, by

disclosing the means adopted to track out the spies and prove their

guilt, would have hampered the Intelligence Department in its further

efforts. They were, and still are, held as prisoners under the powers

given to the Secretary of State by the Aliens Restriction Act. One of

them, however, who established a claim to British nationality, has now

been formally charged, and, the reasons for delay no longer existing,

it is a matter for consideration whether the same course should now be

taken with regard to some of the other known spies.

"Although this action taken on August 4 is believed to have broken

up the spy organisation which had been established before the

war, it is still necessary to take the most rigorous measures to

prevent the establishment of any fresh organisation and to deal with

individual spies who might previously have been working in this

country outside the organisation, or who might be sent here under

the guise of neutrals after the declaration of war. In carrying

this out the Home Office and War Office have now the assistance of

the Cable Censorship, and also of the Postal Censorship, which,

established originally to deal with correspondence with Germany

and Austria, has been gradually extended (as the necessary staff

could be obtained) so as to cover communications with those neutral

countries through which correspondence might readily pass to Germany

or Austria. The censorship has been extremely effective in stopping

secret communications by cable or letter with the enemy; but, as its

existence was necessarily known to them, it has not, except in a few

instances, produced materials for the detection of espionage.

"On August 5 the Aliens Restriction Act was passed, and within an

hour of its passing an Order-in-Council was made which gave the

Home Office and the Police stringent powers to deal with aliens,

and especially enemy aliens, who under this Act could be stopped

from entering or leaving the United Kingdom, and were prohibited

while residing in this country from having in their possession any

wireless or signalling apparatus of any kind, or any carrier or homing

pigeons. Under this Order all those districts where the Admiralty

or War Office considered it undesirable that enemy aliens should

reside have been cleared by the Police of Germans and Austrians, with

the exception of a few persons, chiefly women and children, whose

character and antecedents are such that the local Chief Constable, in

whose discretion the matter is vested by the Order, considered that

all ground for suspicion was precluded. At the same time the Post

Office, acting under the powers given them by the Wireless Telegraphy

Acts, dismantled all private wireless stations; and they established

a special system of wireless detection by which any station actually

used for the transmission of messages from this country could be

discovered. The Police have co-operated successfully in this matter

with the Post Office.

"New and still more stringent powers for dealing with espionage were

given by the Defence of the Realm Act, which was passed by the Home

Secretary through the House of Commons and received the Royal Assent

on August 8. Orders-in-Council have been made under this Act which

prohibit, in the widest terms, any attempt on the part either of

aliens or of British subjects to communicate any information which

'is calculated to be or might be directly or indirectly useful to an

enemy'; and any person offending against this prohibition is liable to

be tried by court martial and sentenced to penal servitude for life.

The effect of these Orders is to make espionage a military offence.

Power is given both to the police and to the military authorities to

arrest without a warrant any person whose behaviour is such as to give

rise to suspicion, and any person so arrested by the police would be

handed over to the military authorities for trial by court martial.

Only in the event of the military authorities holding that there is no

prima facie case of espionage or any other offence triable by military

law is a prisoner handed back to the civil authorities to consider

whether he should be charged with failing to register or with any

other offence under the Aliens Restriction Act.

"The present position is, therefore, that espionage has been made

by statute a military offence triable by court martial. If tried

under the Defence of the Realm Act, the maximum punishment is penal

servitude for life; but if dealt with outside that Act as a war crime

the punishment of death can be inflicted.

"At the present moment one case is pending in which a person charged

with attempting to convey information to the enemy is now awaiting

his trial by court martial, but in no other case has any clear trace

been discovered of any attempt to convey information to the enemy, and

there is good reason to believe that the spy organisation crushed at

the outbreak of the war has not been re-established.

"How completely that system had been suppressed in the early days of

the war is clear from the fact—disclosed in a German Army Order—that

on August 21 the German Military Commanders were still ignorant

of the despatch and movements of the British Expeditionary Force,

although these had been known for many days to a large number of

people in this country.

"The fact, however, of this initial success does not prevent the

possibility of fresh attempts at espionage being made, and there is no

relaxation in the efforts of the Intelligence Department and of the

Police to watch and detect any attempts in this direction. In carrying

out their duties, the military and police authorities would expect

that persons having information of cases of suspected espionage would

communicate the grounds of the suspicion to local military authority

or to the local police, who are in direct communication with the

Special Intelligence Department, instead of causing unnecessary public

alarm, and possibly giving warning to the spies by public speeches

and letters to the Press. In cases in which the Director of Public

Prosecutions has appealed to the authors of such letters and speeches

to supply him with the evidence upon which their statements were

founded in order that he might consider the question of prosecuting

the offender, no evidence of any value has as yet been forthcoming.

"Among other measures which have been taken has been the registration,

by Order of the Secretary of State, made under the Defence of the

Realm Act, of all persons keeping carrier or homing pigeons. The

importation and the conveyance by rail of these birds have been

prohibited; and, with the valuable assistance of the National Homing

Union, a system of registration has been extended to the whole of the

United Kingdom, and measures have been taken which it is believed will

be effective to prevent the possibility of any birds being kept in

this country which would fly to the Continent.

"Another matter which has engaged the closest attention of the police

has been the possibility of conspiracies to commit outrage. No trace

whatever has been discovered of any such conspiracy, and no outrage of

any sort has yet been committed by any alien—not even telegraph-wires

having been maliciously cut since the beginning of the war.

Nevertheless, it has been necessary to bear in mind the possibility

that such a secret conspiracy might exist or might be formed among

alien enemies resident in this country.

"Accordingly, immediately after the commencement of hostilities,

rigorous search was made by the police in the houses of Germans and

Austrians, in their clubs and in all places where they were likely to

resort. In a few cases individuals were found who were in possession

of a gun or pistol which they had not declared, and in one or two

cases there were small collections of ancient firearms, and in such

cases the offenders have been prosecuted and punished; but no store of

effective arms—still less any bombs or instruments of destruction—have

so far been discovered.

"From the beginning, any Germans or Austrians who were deemed by the

police to be likely to be dangerous were apprehended, handed over

to the military authorities, and detained as prisoners of war; and,

as soon as the military authorities desired it, general action was

taken to arrest and hand over to military custody Germans of military

age, subject to exceptions which have properly been made on grounds

of policy. About 9000 Germans and Austrians of military age have been

so arrested, and are held as prisoners of war in detention camps, and

among them are included those who are regarded by the police as likely

in any possible event to take part in any outbreak of disorder or

incendiarism."

IX

FRENCH SECRET SERVICE

Napoleon it was who once expressed the view that if not impossible,

it was rare to find a Frenchman who could really put his heart into

the business of spying, whether military or civil, and it was his

custom, as far as possible, to employ in either capacity men of that

cosmopolitan or unnational type of which we have spoken. The Emperor's

view would hardly seem, however, to fit in with the preconceived

notion entertained by most of us. Regaled as we have long been with

the fantasies and fictions of modern French writers and their inspired

master detectives, we find ourselves almost invariably crediting

the French system of secret service with being, in respect of its

excellence, an exemplar to all other kindred bodies. No satire, so

far as we know, of the stolen-white-elephant type has ever yet been

written with the object of pointing out the futility of its processes

or the imbecility of its methods, and in any case, it is a matter of

statistical record that the amount of undiscovered crime in France is

twenty per cent. lower than that of any other country in the world.

Here, it must be admitted, we seem to be confusing the business of

the detector of crime with that of the secret-service agent; in

most countries, nevertheless, the two departments work largely in

conjunction, and it may be, in general, fairly presumed that a service

which is likely to provide a good corps of detectives is also capable

of producing an able body of spies. It would seem that in no age in

French history was the system of organised spying so complete as during

the ascendancy of Richelieu, when clerical influences, supported

by a vast network of espionage, were everywhere overwhelming, and

again during the times of Napoleon's military empire, a contrast in

conditions which suggests the idea that governments which are based

on autocratic or non-representative principles invariably require the

help of intrinsically corrupt and vicious influences to enable them to

maintain their existence. For all the lauded excellence of the imperial

German organisation of spies, that of France may be said, when we take

into consideration the lighter political and social machinery of a

Republican country, to be hardly less comprehensive, as well as quite

as effective in its results.

Paris is, of course, the centre of the French organisation. Here it

works craftily and silently and though rarely coming into contact with

the work of the President or his Cabinet, is permanently in touch with

departmental officials in all the great public offices. It is declared

on the authority of a now-retired divisional chief of the French secret

service, Saint-Just, that even the Prefect of Police in Paris only

rarely hears of the business details of his own department, though it

is very doubtful if such a statement could be made about M. Méline,

whose omnivorous activities and private information during his tenure

of that office are said on more than one occasion to have extricated

the Republic from a difficult international impasse. As a rule the

divisional chiefs of the system only invite the attention of the

titular head of the service in the event of a _cause célèbre_ in which

great names are mentioned, or else in cases in which international

complications, as in the Dreyfus drama, are to be feared. The French

Secretary for Foreign Affairs can alone be said, in regard to the work

and the results of the French spy system, to be in close touch with it;

and in all certainty this was true about M. Delcassé in the perilous

period of the Moroccan imbroglio of 1906. Other Ministers, all of whom,

like the Prefect of Police himself, hold office by virtue of their

being party men, know as a rule less about what is taking place in the

underground of political movements than much humbler civil servants.

The divisional chiefs without doubt are the real controllers of the

police organisation; these men are practically irremovable and they are

invariably so well acquainted with inside working of state affairs that

no Government dares dismiss one of them without grave reason. Colonel

Henry, whose momentous knowledge of the real motives which underlay

the Dreyfus affair made his own removal by suicide or murder—who can

tell which?—an insistent necessity, had acted as a go-between from

a divisional chief to an important political personage in France and

consequently learned, in the course of his dealings with them both,

that formidable secret which eventually cost the Colonel his life.

The spy system of France is largely based nowadays, as in the time

of Fouché, on the _Dossier_. In France any person who has had, or

even who is likely to have, anything like a career which is of a

public nature is duly taken cognisance of by the police, and all and

everything in the way of private information or gossip or documentary

evidence and the like is collated against all possible eventuality

and upshot, the result being forthwith archived in the offices of the

chief of police. The merest novice who enters in any capacity into the

limelight of publicity, even artists, literary men, frail queans of

the _demi-monde_, financiers, politicians, social fancy-men, jockeys,

actors, clerics, opulent mistresses, editors—all these in point of

personal "pedigree," to cull an expression from the American police

vocabulary, are better known to the secret service than to their own

parents. And so it happens, when a man attains to high political power

and is courted by ministers, he invariably makes it his business to

become as intimate as possible with the Chief of the Police, his object

being to recover and destroy all incriminating documents concerning

his past life. In former times, we have all read, kings were wont on

occasion to ask useful retainers if they had anything to solicit in

the way of favours. If a French President were nowadays to invite a

rising or, better still, a risen politician who had served the party

well, to make his particular request, it is certain that first, and

before all things, the politician would ask to be put in possession

of his _dossier_, since no man, great or small, cares that the world

should know by what arts he taught himself to rise, as Pope puts it.

It is an undoubted fact that the _dossier_ is frequently asked for by

arrivals at high political position, and the police, of course, make

a pretence at surrendering it. But do not think for a moment that

they actually surrender each and all of the documentary proofs and

tit-bits of private intelligence which have come into their possession

regarding the person most concerned. The great man is, of course, given

a _dossier_ of sorts. Yet a year or so later, when the politician has

fallen from his high office, the "pedigree" is replaced in the police

archives, often fatter and more succulent than ever. Since the days

of Fouché, who was the inventor of the _dossier secret_, this has

been a fixed official custom of the French Police and the cost of its

maintenance is charged on the municipal rates. It is also certain that

no constant visitor to Paris, no matter whence he comes or what his

nationality, provided he possesses high political or social importance,

or even notoriety, in his own country, all unconsciously goes through

the ordeal of having his pedigree taken, as they say in New York. And

again, since the art of police photography has become common, as

often as not, and unknown to himself, the visitor has to submit to the

official process of having his portrait taken, or being "mugged," as

the American police so expressively describe it.

Years back, in the time of Napoleon the Third, there existed a system

of spying throughout France, known as that of the "White Blouses,"

these being a ubiquitous band of _agents provocateurs_ who were paid to

incite the people to riots and so furnish the police with pretexts for

incarcerating leading popular spirits who were likely, if allowed their

freedom, to become dangerous to the stability of the Empire. The fall

of that fabric in 1870 led to the partial break-up of this monstrous

organisation, and many who were known to be its paid agents were very

deservedly shot in the days of the Commune. After the establishment of

the Republic the spy police was reorganised and a special brigade of

secret-service agents was formed whose object was—and still is—to spy

upon all those political sects at the head of which stand pretenders

like the Duke of Orleans, or Prince Napoleon, or the late General

Boulanger. At any grave political crisis in France these political

sects display more than their usual energies, trusting more or less, as

they do, in the star of their particular candidate, and at such times

the corps of spies become correspondingly active. This especial body is

said to have constituted far more than any other force to the permanent

stability of the present Republican regime. Most of its special spies

are recruited, it is known, among the newspaper reporters and writers

of Paris and the larger towns of France, and for the reason that their

business affords them better opportunities than are given to most men

of coming in touch with people who are anxious to "move the public

mind" in regard to pet principles, or in simpler words, who have an axe

to grind. This service was the invention of the celebrated Prefect of

Police Andrieux, who also organised a system of fractional divisions

of his police which still exists, and which is also associated with

the body that spies upon the movements of anarchist societies in

France, Spain, England, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Belgium, Holland

and the United States, with all the chief bureaux of which countries

it continues to remain in permanent affiliation. Its magnificent work

undoubtedly accounts for the chronic failure of the militant anarchists

to do serious damage or outrage in anything like proportion to the

fiery sentiments which they profess to entertain towards all reasoned

systems of government, or even in proportion to their numbers.

The real chief of the French Secret Service is, as we have told,

not the Prefect of Police, who is a politician and a party man. The

traditions of a generation will it that the active headship of that

service be taken over generally by the chief of what is officially

known as the Third Division of the Police. Under this functionary's

control are the head of the First Bureau in which the _dossiers_ are

kept, and the head of the Second Bureau which deals with the reports

of political agents and which also directs the notorious Black Cabinet

having charge of the opening of all private letters passing between

suspected persons; when read these letters are photographed and

archived. The Third Bureau has been made famous in recent times by

the Panama, Dreyfus and Humbert scandals in which its large corps of

handwriting experts and interpreters came on the scene. In the First

Division the various bureaux are made up as follows: (_A_) Spies upon

persons of note; thus Esterhazy during the Dreyfus case had seventeen

members of this division following him in all places and at all hours.

(_B_) The corps of men who are detailed to watch women frequently

visited by prominent politicians, and who are, when it is found

necessary, instructed to "engage the sentiments" of the ladies at their

dwelling places, cash-expenses being allowed the spies in proportion

to the cubicular tariff of any given lady who may be suspected of

knowing anything. (_C_) The body of spies who are detailed to spy upon

the actions and movements of notable foreigners. This body includes

those spies who are available for hire by great bankers, the heads of

large business houses, the chiefs of great newspapers, or any other

private individuals of great wealth and position who for reasons of

their own, wish to have their employees, their acquaintances, or their

mistresses followed and their movements reported upon. Foreigners

and others whose presence is not considered desirable in France are

invariably tracked down by the spies of this department. (_D_) The

service of spies whose qualifications enable them to look out for

traits of insanity or eccentricity, especially in persons of wealth

and "in the interests of public health and security," it is officially

stated. There is then the Second Division, which is composed mainly of

a bureau the agents of which are stationed at the different ports of

France and who watch all suspicious characters landing in or leaving

France, or who, as occasion requires, visit foreign ports in quest of

criminal evidence; a subsidiary body of its spies are detailed to watch

malefactors and politicians of the municipal order. Finally there is

the "laboratory" to which the late M. Bertillon, the anthropometrician,

has given celebrity as chief of its Identification department, in

which criminals are measured or identified. In this department, should

the police be very anxious to possess the "identification dossier" of

any person who is suspected of criminal relations, the chiefs have

the suspect arrested on some pretext or other. He is at once haled to

the Identification bureau, where the officials go through the mock

process of recording his measures. Subsequently it is discovered that,

after all, he is not the person required, and he is released with much

apology. The bureau authorities nevertheless retain his card and when,

if ever, the suspect is caught in the act, he is sure to be confronted

with his record in measurements even though he have never so many

aliases.

As in Germany, so in France, that type of inferior spy who is known

by the term _mouchard_ is generally to be found among the municipal

inspectors of lodging-houses, the supervisors of night-houses, those

detectives whose business is the watching of the street-police, all of

which individuals have opportunities for picking up clues to more or

less important crime. There is also an inferior corps of _mouchards_

who are known by the expressive term _remueurs de casseroles_—that is

to say, persons whose business it is to stir up the social saucepan

in any district in order to bring minor details to light. As may be

supposed from their name, they move in the very lowest circles of the

unchosen races of evil and are generally to be hired, for a franc or

two the job, among waiters, money-lenders' touts, race-course "narks"

and such gentry. Spies are also, it is well known, sent in the guise

of convicted offenders among those already undergoing imprisonment,

with the object of bringing to the knowledge of the police further

details as to crimes already committed. Such a person is usually known

among French professional criminals by the name "_mouton_." All these

classes of spies may be said to come under the supervision of the chief

of the Third Division, who also takes charge of that portion of the

system which is detailed to watch the mining, the manufacturing and the

wine districts for the purposes of reporting on anything in the way

of "syndicalist" disaffection. The political _corps d'espionnage_ in

France numbers, it may be said, some 1000 paid agents of all grades of

society, men and women. They are expected to earn their living among

the class of people upon whom they report to the police, so that being

in regular employment their movements shall not be open to suspicion.

When the chief-of-division requires the service of a particular spy

at an established point, the individual chosen is requested formally

to present himself at district headquarters. Here he is informed by

the presiding chief that some details have been gathered concerning

his relations with a dishonest and punishable piece of business

which had taken place perhaps ten years before in, perhaps, another

neighbourhood, or even a different town. The visitor admits the fact,

but pleads that the occurrence is really statute-barred. The police

official declares himself ready to forget the matter provided his

visitor will consent to work on his behalf among the people of his

factory, or store, or municipality, as the case may be. There will be

a little money in it—according to the man's standing, and all he is

required to do is to forward once or twice weekly a letter detailing

conversations, opinions expressed by others, various acts, trysts and

so on of any or all of those with whom he works and consorts. The

prospective spy does not know, nor will he ever know, what object the

police have ultimately in view, or how important it is, or for what

stakes they are playing. He is in reality on the outside rim of some

gigantic movement the penetration of the inmost workings of which is

being sought. Naturally he consents and enters the public service as an

"agent of record."

In France, it is well established, each great newspaper has a spy who

is in receipt of occasional tips from the proprietor. His duty is to

watch editors, writers and reporters, their movements, the quality

of the people they visit and how they spend their spare hours. These

newspapers also employ their agents in other offices in order that

items of special interest in the way of news shall not be omitted by

their own papers. In the great banking-houses of Paris there are spies

paid from inside to spy upon employees and spies paid from outside

to spy on the especial details of the business, its investments, its

intentions and plans, and even these men are spied upon in their turn

to prevent their abusing their information on the Bourse. Politicians,

senators—all these are watched by colleagues who draw salaries from

the secret-service funds. Going back many years, it will be recalled

that at a critical moment in his political career, General Boulanger

fled from Paris because, as he explained to the reporters in Brussels,

his enemies had decided upon his seizure and imprisonment. It was

afterwards shown that the General's valet, one Georget, was a paid spy

in the service of the police, and Boulanger had taken him to Brussels.

Furthermore, the maid who waited upon Madame de Bonnemain, Boulanger's

mistress, was the sweetheart of Georget, and she also was a paid police

spy, the result being that the movements of both were perfectly well

known to the secret-service agents, who could have arrested the General

at any one of the twenty stations between Paris and Brussels. The

police were fully aware, indeed, as Boulanger himself was, that, his

cause being discredited, he no longer counted in politics or society.

The French War Office is now as well informed as any war office in

Europe and the war of 1914 may be held to have disproved the opposite

view. Into its secret intelligence bureau flows information from

every part of Europe. The military attaché of the present day is

responsible for much that is pigeon-holed in its offices—services

of transportation, war material, armaments, railroads, mobilisation

plans, finances—and there is little of moment in any other country

upon which French emissaries cannot throw all necessary light in the

way of special information. From the General Staff down every military

official collects his quota. He is trained what to observe, what to ask

about, what to look for and what to expect—plans of fortifications, new

guns, or parts of guns and so forth. Accordingly it is not surprising

to hear that France, which had neglected to watch, or who more probably

despised the internal enemy in 1870, had by 1914 perfected a system

of counter-espionage which totally neutralised that of Germany in

all directions. Since 1895 the French Code has been increased by

practically only one item of importance in regard to spies. The clause

in question states that "all dealings with the enemy, by private French

citizens, which shall have the effect of conveying knowledge that

hostile armies can make use of in war shall entail penal servitude

for life. In the case of officers or officials who are found to be

transmitting information to the enemy the penalty shall be death."

Renan has declared that, to the honour of France, it has ever been

found impossible to discover a traitor in her hour of trial. On the

whole this statement may be taken as representing the truth, and in

flagrant cases in which French citizens have been proved to have

betrayed their country, it has almost invariably been proved that the

offenders were of German origin.

X

GERMAN SECRET SERVICE

In order properly and fully to understand the nature of the German

system of spying, it is essential that we go down to fundamentals. The

principles on which it is based may be said to have their roots in the

character of the Germans themselves and that character has been largely

developed by a special type of ethical education, the lines of which

were to a great extent conceived by Frederick the Great as especially

applicable to the qualities of his people, and subsequently elaborated

into a kind of national philosophy by writers like Nietzsche,

Treitschke, Bernhardi and others, all of whom were the leaders of that

extreme pragmatical school of which we have spoken. Frederick, it may

be said, was like his descendant[1] of to-day, William the Second, a

man who outwardly professed religious principles and held the view

that Religion is absolutely necessary in a State government. In the

famous _Matinées du Roi de Prusse_, published in 1784, the Prussian

monarch is made, however, to say that the value of religion for the

people consists mainly in the fact that it enables their rulers to

hold them more completely in subjection. For a King to have any

religion whatsoever is, he is also said to have declared, a very unwise

policy, and for the reason, he adds, that "if a King fears God, or

more exactly, if he fears a future punishment, he becomes a greater

bigot than any monk. If a favourable opportunity presents itself of

taking forcible possession of a neighbouring province, immediately

an army of demons seems to him ready to defend it; he is weak-minded

enough to think he is going to commit an injustice and he proportions

the punishment of his crime to the extent of his evil designs. When he

is about to conclude a treaty with some foreign power, all is lost if

he stops to remember that he is a Christian, for by doing so, he will

always suffer himself to be duped and imposed upon."

It is only right to state here that the _Matinées_ have been disavowed

as the work of Frederick himself, and in the British Museum catalogue

are placed among the "doubtful and spurious" works relating to the

King of Prussia. It may be pointed out, however, that the "Testament

of Peter the Great" was also in its time disavowed, although the

policies it lays down for the Russianisation of the Near East have

always been followed to the letter by successive Tsars. It is certain,

too, that the successors of Frederick the Great on the Prussian

throne have followed in every sense the spirit of their ancestor's

alleged teachings and counsels, as far as indicated by the work under

consideration, and since the policies in regard to the conduct of war

and government, which were counselled as far back as 1784, are

to-day being followed and improved upon by German commanders, we make

no apology for assuming that the _Matinées_ fully represent the mind of

the monarch to whom they are attributed. As regards war, for example,

here is the alleged opinion of Frederick:

[Illustration: Frederick the Great

The founder of modern organised espionage]

"War is a business in which the slightest scruple is detrimental to

one's arms and policies. It may be said that no sovereign can seriously

enter into the business of war, if he feels he has not the right to

justify pillage, incendiarism and carnage," a declaration which allows

us to assume that at least _one_ Hohenzollern heart would never have

bled for the fate of Louvain, or Arras, or Rheims, in 1914.

Continuing to voice his opinions on religion, the King is made to say:

"Whatever we may think inwardly, impiety is never to be displayed at

any time, although we must adapt our sentiments and opinions to our

rank and standing in the world. It would be the height of folly, if a

monarch's attention was diverted by trifles of religion which are fit

only for the common people. Besides, the most complete indifference

for religious matters is the best means which a King can hold to

prevent his subjects from becoming fanatics. My ancestors acted in a

most sensible manner in dealing with religion, undertaking a religious

Reformation which, while it gave them a glorious apostolic halo, at

the same time filled their treasuries with money. The Hohenzollerns

began by being pagans, of course, but became Christians in the ninth

century in order to please the Emperors; in the fifteenth century they

became Lutherans in order to have an excuse to rob the Church, and

Reformers again in the sixteenth, in order to placate the Dutch over

the succession of Cleves."

In regard to Justice, Frederick declared that justice is due to the

subjects of a State, although it is especially necessary that rulers

should not be brought so far within the scope of justice that they

become themselves subject to it. "I am too ambitious and autocratic by

nature to suffer willingly the existence of another order within my

States which should restrict my action. It was for this reason that

I drew up a new code of laws. I am fully aware that I did away with

the real spirit of justice, but the truth was, I had become rather

afraid of the influence such notions exert among the common people.

A King must not allow himself to be dazzled by the word Justice: it

is only a relative term, and one which is susceptible of application

and explanation in different ways. Everyone likes to be just in his

own fashion, and as I early realised this, I decided to undermine the

foundations of that great power Justice. And so it has only been by

simplifying it as much as possible that I have been able to reduce it

to the point where I wanted it to be—that is, to a minimum. I could

never have accomplished anything had I been restrained by legal ideals.

I might have passed for a just monarch, but I should never have won the

title of a hero."

Of the value of a set policy in the world and as the only means of

achieving any success, Frederick had very decided notions: "As it has

been agreed among men that to cheat our fellow-creatures is a base and

criminal act, it has been necessary to find a word which should modify

the conception, and accordingly the term _policy_ was adopted. By the

word policy, I mean that we must always try to dupe other people. This

is the only sure means of getting, not necessarily an advantage, but

a fair chance of remaining on an equal footing. I am, therefore, not

ashamed of making alliances from which only myself can derive entire

advantage; but I am never so foolish as not to break faith when my

interests require it, since I uphold the rectitude of the maxim that to

despoil one's neighbours is to deprive them of the means of injuring

one. Statesmanship can be reduced to three principles or maxims: the

first is to maintain your power and, according to circumstances, to

increase and extend it, just as I doubled my army on reaching the

throne for the sole purposes of conquest. Make sure of your army; have

plenty of money and bide a favourable time; you can then be certain,

not only of preserving your States, but of adding to them. The term

'balance of power' is one which has subjugated the whole world; in

reality, however, it is nothing but a mere phrase. Europe is a family

in which there are too many bad brothers and relatives, and it is only

by despising the whole system that vast projects can be formed. The

second principle is to make your allies serve you, and to throw them

off when they have ceased to be useful. The third principle is to make

yourself feared—this is the height of great statesmanship. All your

neighbours must be led to believe that you are a dangerous monarch who

is moved by no principle except martial glory. If they are convinced

that you would rather lose two kingdoms than not occupy a prominent

place in history, you are certain to succeed. Above all, let no one

within your kingdom write anything except to extol your actions and

efforts."

Given a political philosophy of this kind as the inspiration of the

Prussian idea—"Kultur," they call it—it is not hard to realise that the

essentially evil qualities of the government of Prussia were certain

ultimately to react upon the character of the people themselves. If

anyone should doubt the correctness of our view that non-constitutional

systems of government invariably require the support of vicious

subsidiary systems in order to assure their stability, as in the

militaristic regime of Napoleon, or the quasi-ecclesiastical rule of

Richelieu, a study of Prussian autocracy will soon put him in the way

of settled conviction. Since the day of Frederick, some one hundred

and twenty-eight years ago, the people of Prussia have only known such

liberty as is consistent with a bureaucracy the underlying conditions

of which are conceived on entirely military ideas—that is to say, the

type of individual freedom which we are accustomed to associate with a

feudalistic regime or rule by martial law. People who travelled much

on the Continent before the outbreak of the Great War may recollect how

on crossing the frontier of Belgium into Germany—at Herbesthal, if we

remember—one invariably seemed to experience much the same sensation

as that of exchanging the atmosphere of some warm and comfortable

sitting-room for the cold and formal conditions of a public office.

Once across the border, the military spirit seemed to predominate

everywhere, while among the friendly enough natives of the unofficial

classes there was a subdued not to say cowed demeanour which was in

saddening contrast with the free-and-easy cheeriness of the people just

left behind. Everywhere was there evidence of set discipline and on all

hands the spectre of officialism appeared to darken the daily lives of

men with some sort of unexpressed threat. Even fair and open dealings

seemed among the townsmen to be undertaken with the consciousness

that at any moment some furtive official might come upon the scene

and utter the irrevocable _verboten_—forbidden. Later in the noisy

gaieties of the beer-garden or music-hall, one ever seemed to note

that fear of the boisterous schoolboy who under the watchful eye of a

forbidding master never ceases even in the fullness of his frolic to

wonder just how far he is allowed to go. "Germany," says the admirable

Price Collier, "has shown us that the short-cut to the government of a

people by suppression and strangulation results in a dreary development

of mediocrity." In our opinion the American might have added that a

nation which is ruled as if it were a country of convicts, actual or

potential, cannot fail inevitably to develop in a pronounced degree

those symptoms of character and predisposition which land your convict

in the correctional institutions where he is most commonly to be found.

"Prussia and Germany," again says Collier, "are still ruled socially

and politically by a small group of, roughly, fifty thousand men, eight

thousand of them in the frock-coat of the civilian official and the

rest in military uniforms."

It is the fashion to say that Doctor Stieber was the organiser of the

modern spy system of Germany, for the conduct of which some million

pounds sterling are annually appropriated. The truth is, however,

that the organisation goes much farther back, a well-known statesman

of the Napoleonic period, Baron Stein, having been responsible for

the practical application of the theories which lie implicit in the

philosophy of Frederick the Great. In his turn, Stieber assumed control

of the lines and developed them to a point at which improvement became

almost impossible. Stieber was a typical adventurer of the middle

class, a man who, it is clear enough, had in him all those elements

of character which we associate with the criminal who operates along

the higher lines. It is said that he qualified as a barrister, not so

much with the object of practising law, as to discover its limitations,

or in other words, to know for a certainty how far scheming and

the exploitation of simpler natures can be made a lawful trade. He

was born in Prussia in 1818, and having been called to the Prussian

Bar, sought to apply his knowledge of legal matters as a kind of

counsellor in a Silesian factory, Silesia being in those days, 1847,

the nursery of that vast school of Socialism which has since gained

over twenty millions of adherents throughout Germany—indeed, one-third

of the empire's entire population. By far the larger percentage of

the workmen attached to the factory at which he was employed were

Socialists, and Stieber realised that if he could only penetrate the

secrets and methods of this important socialistic nucleus, he might

prove undoubtedly serviceable to the central government in Berlin.

Accordingly he joined the Socialist brotherhood, professing to be

entirely in sympathy with their aims and aspirations, and in a short

while became an acknowledged leader of the Silesian movement. As a man

of superior education, Stieber gained admittance to the family of the

firm which employed him, won the heart of his employer's daughter and

married her.

It is certain that by 1848 he was already in touch with officials at

the chief police bureau in Berlin, and traitor that he was, in order

further to ingratiate himself with the Berlin authorities, Stieber

persuaded his wife's uncle to enter into the Socialistic movement,

the new recruit compromising himself so deeply by the violence of his

radical opinions and utterances that, with Stieber's complicity,

he was denounced, arrested and imprisoned on the ground that he was

inciting the Silesians to revolt against the government. To have been

a Socialist about 1850 was, it may be said, as bad as to have been

an Anarchist in the last years of the nineteenth century, when that

movement was at its height. The arrest of a relative through Stieber's

instrumentality was accordingly a real earnest of his good disposition

towards existing authority, and it was readily realised that in this

recruit there was all the baseness and treachery which Berlin looked

for in its officials. Stieber was summoned to Berlin, where he was

given a commission in the secret police, with the duty of allying

himself to the Socialist movement and reporting as to its progress,

designs and machinations to headquarters in Berlin. Parenthetically,

it may be observed, the German word _stieber_ is equivalent to our own

term sleuth-hound, so that the spy was happy in his patronymic as well

as mentally adapted for his traitorous trade. A writer has described

him in the following terms:—"Herr Stieber is a man whose head, nose and

ears suggest a Hebrew strain, although it is known that his father was

a Gentile. There is in the general aspect of the face, and especially

in the drawn lines of the mouth, much of that self-justifying hardness

which is associated with the ideas given us of the Inquisition Fathers;

his eyes are almost white in their colourlessness. With subordinates

he adopts the loud airs of a master towards his slaves, and when in

the presence of high authorities he is self-abasing and quiet of voice,

wearing a smile of perennial oiliness and acquiescence, with much

rubbing of the hands, a Jewish characteristic."

His work in Silesia was so ably performed and so many arrests and

imprisonments followed as the result of his services, that the Berlin

authorities decided to employ their sleuth in the capital, where

already the Socialists were becoming an important enough body. Armed

with letters of introduction from his committees in Silesia, Stieber

arrived in Berlin and forthwith became a member of the principal

revolutionary clubs in the metropolis. The spy himself describes his

presentation to King Frederick William: "My duties required me as a

Socialist leader to head a procession of revolutionaries through the

capital. At a point in the progress of our bands, the King appeared

on the scene, and naturally felt but little at his ease, seeing

that the Socialists were the avowed enemies of all existing forms

of government and their representatives. Noting his trepidation, I

approached his majesty near enough to say: 'Sire, have no fear. I am of

your majesty's side and have taken every precaution for your safety.

In the meanwhile I must proceed with my rôle of leading these poor

deluded people.'" Notwithstanding that Stieber from this day became an

object of suspicion to men of the Socialist clubs who had known him in

Silesia, the influence of the King protected him and eventually took

him into the monarch's service with the title of "police-counsellor,"

a position which allowed him virtually to act on his own initiative and

independently of the minister of police. Stieber's real business in his

new post was to keep a close watch upon the ministerial or official

police, and that he did so with particular satisfaction to the Prussian

monarch, the latter one day admitted to the official chief of police

who was complaining of the officious activities and energies of the

police-counsellor, and suggested his removal on the ground that since

the man was a traitor to those with whom he professed to adhere, he

must necessarily be suspect in any cause in which he engaged. The King

replied:

"Stieber is more devoted to his King than to any cause and I reward

him well. He used to come to me from time to time and tell me what the

Socialists were doing, what their plans and intentions were and how on

one occasion they had debated the question of seizing the royal family

and establishing a Commune."

The minister of police was accordingly forced to realise that Stieber

had for several years been engaged in the double game of working for

the secret service as an agent and at the same time of spying upon

them at the instance of the King. A few days later he was appointed by

his royal patron chief of the Prussian secret service with a salary

of £1200 per annum. In his new capacity, as the confidential man of

the sovereign and the head of a system which operated almost as much

against the official police as against revolutionary bodies, the spy

had not only to organise the nucleus of that army corps of espionage

which by 1912 was said to number 45,000 active agents, but had also to

fight strong and influential enemies who saw with dismay the promotion

of this unknown intruder. In order to effect the complete independence

of his own body from all others which exercised kindred functions,

Stieber suggested the entire modernisation and specialisation of

his service with proper subsidies and adequate appropriations from

parliament, the department to enjoy autonomy under its presiding chief.

He undertook himself to organise an "internal" and an "external"

service, and here it may be said that the Russian dual system of

espionage has been based entirely on Stieber's ideas and, in so far,

differs not at all from the secret service of Prussia, except possibly

in that the almost entire absence of ideas of personal liberty renders

illegal acts and outrages far more frequent in Russia than in Germany.

It was Stieber also who inaugurated the well-established system of

court-spying which is known to exist at all the German capitals; he was

responsible for the corps of spies within government offices who spy

upon departmental bureaux, while a highly efficient body of clerks who

were employed in banking and commercial houses and all institutions

which possessed large internal and foreign relations were also paid in

proportion to tit-bits of information which they were able to place at

the disposal of his cabinet. To the King—clearly a worthy descendant

of Frederick II.—Stieber, by virtue of his office, had free access and

presented a daily report in person in which all and everything of any

import concerning the public and private life of men and women was made

known to the sovereign. On one occasion the King jokingly reproved his

spy, saying: "You give me all the information I require regarding the

private lives of my courtiers; but what about my brothers? They are

certainly not angels."

"Your Majesty had not authorised me to spy upon the Princes," replied

Stieber, "but in the meantime I had prepared myself against the

possibilities of your Majesty doing so. Here are three sealed documents

containing all there is to be known about their Royal Highnesses since

I have had the honour of serving."

By 1854 the chief agent had become a personage in Berlin, and although

the nobility of the higher rank would not receive him, Stieber found

many valuable acquaintances among the wealthy "climbers" of the capital

who were eager to be associated with the powerful chief confidant of

the King. When the special-service department was in full running,

Stieber was given orders to apply its methods to foreign countries and

accordingly by 1860 Austria, Bohemia, Saxony, Luxembourg and France

were under the observation of his employees. In 1855 the Reichstag

voted an appropriation of about £15,000 in order to "secure for the

State the benefits of useful intelligence," the secret-service agent

himself drawing some £1800 yearly from the fund. At this time, says a

writer of the period, Stieber was the most prominent official in the

kingdom. All were conscious of being closely watched by himself and

his agents and everyone was aware that ruin and dismissal could be

brought about at the nod of the chief, and accordingly Stieber effected

the entrance of himself and his wife into some of the best houses in

Berlin under veiled threats of disclosing secrets of moment unless his

advances were respectfully received. About this time, too, Stieber

began that collection of decorations which were to testify to the high

honour and esteem in which his King and country held him. He had no

proper military uniform and that which on official occasions he was

wont to wear resembled not a little the quasi-regimental garb of the

commissionaire. By 1860 it had become heavily covered with medals and

decorations.

Stieber's activities had enabled him to learn so much as to the inner

workings of the whole political and social fabric of Prussia and the

Germanic nations that an attempt to abolish the private police system,

undertaken by the Reichstag in 1855, had no practical result, although

Stieber disappeared for a short while from official life in that

year. It was certain, however, that the very extent of his private

information had made him a man who was no less dangerous than important

and who, in any case, was an individual who had to be calculated

with. Bismarck, an already-established figure in national politics,

was the first to realise this in 1864, when he was president of the

council of ministers and when Stieber was reinstated in active public

life. In the previous couple of years he had occupied his comparative

leisure by organising the Russian secret police, by discovering the

manœuvres and designs of a certain French _intrigante_ whose services

were being used by diplomats, the Tsar conferring on him the order of

Stanislaus and making him a large grant of money. Bismarck was well

aware of the splendid services Stieber had rendered to Russia and it

was with a view to making use of the chief's universal information

that he attached him to the foreign office as a secret-mission agent,

with instructions to proceed into Bohemia. It was already Bismarck's

intention to strike down Austria, even as he had struck down Denmark

in 1864 and as again he was to strike down France in 1870. Stieber's

mission was to prepare the invasion of Bohemia by supplying Bismarck

with all kinds of topographical information which must prove of the

first importance to German military commanders. It was information

which could only be acquired by a most minute inspection of the various

military routes available into Austria, and Stieber felt that this

could best be accomplished by disguising himself as a pedlar. His

stock-in-trade consisted of religious statues and indecent pictures.

During 1864, 1865 and 1866, the supposed pedlar, travelling with a

small wagon, mapped out in the completest detail the country through

which the Prussian armies marched in the last-named year to the victory

of Sadowa by which Austria finally surrendered any possible claim

she may still have entertained to hold the headship of the Germanic

States in Europe. Even Moltke, the Prussian organiser of victory, was

astonished at the vast amount of valuable military information by which

the spy had facilitated the rapid advance of his armies. "A man with a

genius for military combinations could not have done better for his own

purposes," declared the old Field-Marshal to Bismarck. King William,

too, while occupying Brunn as his headquarters after Sadowa, requested

the ex-pedlar to administer the town, explaining to both Bismarck and

the commander-in-chief his reasons in the following words:—

"One must not confine oneself to giving money to spies. One must also

know how to show them honour when they deserve it."

Stieber was Governor of Brunn, the capital of Moravia, for several

months, a position which Napoleon had also allowed his spy Schulmeister

to hold at several towns in his time. It has to be remembered,

however, that in both cases the spies were in districts about which

they were far better acquainted than any members of the military or

political _personnels_. Expediency also counted for something in each

appointment. At the close of the war he was appointed a Prussian

privy-councillor and minister of the national police. Asked afterwards

how much he had expended on his network of strategic spies and

traitors who practically sold Austria to Prussia in 1866, Stieber

replied:

"One cannot set down in dollars the value of bloodshed which has been

avoided, nor of victories which have been secured."

XI

GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—_continued_

That Stieber was admitted to the more intimate confidences of Bismarck

would seem indicated by the fact that in the year after Sadowa, the

chief of police suggested, he tells in his Memoirs, that he should be

entrusted with the task of doing in France what he had done in Bohemia.

This was in June 1867, when he asked Bismarck for eighteen months' time

in which to supply the Chancellor with all the military and regional

intelligence of the French frontiers and invasion zones, which it was

necessary to possess for a successful campaign. Prussia was then paying

some £52,000 a year for the secret-intelligence service, and Bismarck

was not slow to perceive that Stieber in his own way was making the

path of victory more smooth for von Moltke's commanders. In the month

of June the Chancellor had induced King William to confer on his

police-minister the order of the Red Eagle, and in the course of the

evening which followed the conferring of that decoration Bismarck and

Stieber were for long engaged in conversation, the momentous nature of

which was soon shown by the departure of Stieber, accompanied by his

aides, Zernicki and Kaltenbach, into France with the object of laying

down base-lines, as the surveyors put it. Among the various results of

that journey was the appointment of over 1000 spies within the invasion

zones with "head-centres" at Brussels, Lausanne and Geneva. Another

result of this journey, he himself tells, was his handing over to

Bismarck some 1650 reports of fixed local spies, in the pay of Prussia,

90 per cent. of them Prussians, which called for (_a_) the drafting of

large bodies of German agriculturists into districts which lay along

the possible routes of advancing German armies, and (_b_) the sending

of several thousands of female employees for service in public places

as barmaids or cashiers. It was emphasised that these women should

be "as pretty as possible." Several hundred retired non-commissioned

officers were to be sent to France, where local "fixed spies"

guaranteed them employment of a commercial kind. Furthermore in the

garrison towns in the eastern departments some fifty young and pretty

girls to act as servants in canteens were requisitioned by Stieber,

who laid stress on the fact that women of a "high type of morality"

would hardly serve his purpose, which was to extract information from

drinking soldiers. Several hundred more domestic servants were to be

placed among the homes of middle-class people such as doctors, lawyers,

merchants. From the year 1867, and in pursuance of Stieber's plans,

some 13,000 German spies of the minor order were asked for, itself a

sufficiently large body of immigrants, one would imagine, to awaken

the suspicions of alert French people. Between that year and 1870,

Stieber had added at least 20,000 more, all of them scattered in

various kinds of capacities along the routes of intended invasion from

Berlin and Belgium to Paris. There was one important interlude, however.

In 1867 an attempt was made on the life of Alexander II. of Russia by

a Pole, when that Emperor was paying an important political visit to

Napoleon III. Stieber was then in Paris with Bismarck, also attached

to the staff of the King of Prussia, who was a participator in this

meeting of sovereigns. Information had come to the Prussian minister

of police that an attempt was to be made on the life of Alexander.

Accordingly Stieber called on Bismarck, imparting to him this important

information. Bismarck assured his police-minister that he was already

acquainted with the plot to assassinate the Tsar.

"But," added the Chancellor, "we must allow this act to be attempted

and for political reasons. Nevertheless, we can assure the safety of

the Emperor by having the conspirators shadowed and arrested once

they have fired their revolvers. You, Stieber, must have your men on

the spot, and when the attempt is made, the assailant's aim must be

deflected. The very fact that an attack is made upon the Tsar while in

Paris will prevent the arranging of a Franco-Russian alliance which is

not just now to the interests of Prussia, and if the would-be assassin

is not condemned to death, a period of estrangement must follow

between France and Russia and this is just as I would have things to

be."

As it fell out, a young Pole actually made the attempt on the next day.

Stieber's men had shadowed him all through the night, till the very

moment in which he fired at the Tsar, the outrage taking place, but

without harmful results to the object of the attack. All had fallen

out as Bismarck had foretold, and with the subsequent failure of a

Paris jury to convict the youthful Pole, France was prevented, by the

estrangement which succeeded, from assuring herself the friendship

of an ally whose support might have changed the history of the

Franco-German War of 1870. The story is told in detail in Stieber's own

Memoirs, and we confess that, having read it several times with care,

we are ourselves forced to the conclusion that Bismarck's supposition

that a French jury would fail to convict the Pole was based upon

something much more tangible than the arts and processes of divination.

In other words, the impression left upon the mind is that Bismarck's

gold had subsidised the conspirators in the plot as well as the Paris

jurymen, in order to bring about a political situation which should not

interfere with his plans. Bismarck had already more than once proved

himself an expert in preparing his schemes far in advance, as the

Danish and Austrian wars had already proved, and as the Franco-German

War was even more fully to demonstrate.

When, in due course, and as a result of Bismarck's plan of forcing

a fight on the French at the psychological moment, war was declared

against France in July 1870, Stieber and his two lieutenants, Zernicki

and Kaltenbach, left for the Front with the headquarters staff. His

title was Chief of the Active-Service Police and his duties, drawn up

by himself, were as follows:—

1. To provide information to the Staff regarding the situation,

strength and movements of each of the French armies in the field.