HOW THE PUBLIC WERE BAMBOOZLED
Though the foregoing has been known to the British Cabinet for over
six years, and through it, no doubt, to the various Chancelleries of
Europe, not a word was allowed to leak out to the world until December
2nd, 1914--after we had been at war four months.
The determination of the War Lord of Germany--whose preparations
against Great Britain had been so slyly and so cunningly made--was
at last revealed by the publication of the French Yellow Book, which
disclosed that in a dispatch dated November 22nd, 1913, M. Jules
Cambon, the French Ambassador in Berlin, reported a conversation
between the Emperor and the King of the Belgians in the presence of
General von Moltke, the chief of the General Staff. King Albert had
till then believed, as most people in Great Britain had believed, that
the Emperor was a friend of peace.
But at this interview King Albert, according to an excellent summary of
the dispatches published in the _Star_, found the Emperor completely
changed. He revealed himself as the champion of the war party which he
had hitherto held in check. King Albert learned that the Emperor had
"come to think that war with France was inevitable, and that things
must come to that sooner or later." General von Moltke spoke to King
Albert "exactly as his Sovereign." He, too, declared that "war was
necessary and inevitable." He said to King Albert: "This time we must
settle the business once and for all, and your Majesty can have no idea
of the irresistible enthusiasm which on that day will sweep over the
whole German people."
King Albert vainly protested that it was a travesty of the intentions
of the French Government to interpret them in this fashion. He found
the Emperor "over-wrought and irritable."
M. Cambon suggested that the change in the Emperor's attitude was due
to jealousy of the popularity of the Crown Prince, "who flatters the
passions of the Pan-Germans." He also suggested that the motive of the
conversation was to induce King Albert to oppose no resistance in the
event of war. The French Ambassador warned his Government that the
Emperor was familiarising himself with an order of ideas once repugnant
to him. In other words, as long ago as 1913 the Kaiser was no longer
working for the peace of Europe, but was already in the hands of the
Prussian gang of militarists, who were working for war.
The French Yellow Book proves up to the hilt the guilt of Germany, in
shattering the last hopes of peace at the end of July, 1914. Russia
had proposed a formula for a direct agreement with Austria, but on
July 30th Herr von Jagow, without consulting Austria, declared that
this proposal was not acceptable. When Germany discovered that Austria
was wavering and becoming more conciliatory, she threw off the mask,
and suddenly hurled her ultimatum at Russia. M. Cambon reminded Herr
von Jagow of his declaration that Germany would not mobilise if
Russia only mobilised on the Galician frontier. What was the German
Minister's reply? It was a subterfuge. He said: "It was not a definite
undertaking." The German Government, in its White Paper, suppressed its
despatches during the crucial period to Vienna. It did not publish them
because, we now know, it did not dare to reveal the truth.
Germany, as I have shown, had for a long time planned the attack on
France through Belgium. So long ago, indeed, as May 6th, 1913, von
Moltke said: "We must begin war without waiting, in order to brutally
crush all resistance." The evidence of the Yellow Book proves that the
Emperor and his _entourage_ had irrevocably resolved to frustrate all
efforts of the Allies to preserve the peace of Europe. It confirms the
Kaiser's secret intentions revealed in the previous chapter, and it
establishes--fully and finally--the guilt of the Kaiser and of the
German Government.
Those British newspapers which were most active and resolute in keeping
the country unprepared for the war that has come upon us, and which,
if they had had their way, would have left us to-day almost naked to
our enemies, are now suddenly rubbing their eyes, and discovering that
Germany had premeditated war for _quite a long time_. And this is
up-to-date journalism! The public, alas! reposed confidence in such
journals. Happily, they do not now. What the country will never forget,
if it consents to forgive, is the perversity with which they so long
refused to look facts in the face.
It is surely a damning coincidence that when the Kaiser and von Moltke
were telling King Albert that war was inevitable, was the very time
chosen by the National Liberal Federation to demand the reduction of
our Navy Estimates, and to threaten the Government with a dangerous
division in the party unless the demand were complied with!
Reduction in armaments, forsooth!
The Government knew the facts, and did indeed resist the demand; but
for weeks there was a crisis in the Cabinet, and even in January, 1914,
as the _Globe_ pointed out, a Minister took the occasion to declare
that a unique opportunity had arrived for revising the scale of our
expenditure on Armaments!
While Mr. McKenna was, as late as last November, endeavouring in an
outrageous manner to gag the _Globe_, and to prevent that newspaper
from telling the public the truth of the spy-peril, Lord Haldane--the
scales from whose eyes regarding his friend the Kaiser appear now
to have fallen--made a speech on November 25th, 1914, in the House
of Lords in which he, at last, admitted the existence of spies. The
following are extracts from this speech:--
"With the extraordinary intelligence system which Germany organised
in this country _long before the war_, no doubt they had certain
advantages which they ought not to have even of this kind.... If he
were to harbour a suspicion it would be that the most formidable
people were not aliens, but probably people of British nationality
who had been suborned.... He wishes he were sure that when really
valuable and dangerous pieces of information were given they were not
given by people of our own nationality, but some of the information
which had been given, could only have been given by people who had
access to it because they were British. His belief was that we had
had very little of this kind of thing, but that we had some, and that
it was formidable he could not doubt. In seeking these sources of
communication with the enemy it was desirable to go about the search
in a scientific way, and to cast suspicion where it was most likely
to be founded."
Such a contribution to the spy question was really very characteristic.
It, however, came ill from one whose legal _confrère_ was, at that
moment, being referred to in the House of Commons as having a German
chauffeur who had been naturalised after the war broke out, and _had
gone for a holiday_ into Switzerland! Switzerland is a country not in
the Antarctic Ocean, but right on the border of the land of the Huns
in Europe, and the Lord Chief Justice, according to Mr. Asquith at the
Guildhall, is in close association with Cabinet Ministers in these days
of crises.
Perhaps, as a correspondent pointed out, it never struck our Lord
Chancellor that the Lord Chief Justice's "now-British" chauffeur
might--though I hope not--have gone through Switzerland into Germany,
and might, if so disposed, quite innocently have related there
information to which he had access, not only because he was British,
but because he was in the service of a highly-placed person. Or,
perhaps, he did realise it, and his reference to information given
by persons of British nationality was a veiled protest against the
action of some of his colleagues--against that other who also has a
"now-British" chauffeur, or to a third, whose German governess, married
to a German officer, left her position early in November, but has left
her German maid behind her. Perhaps he did not know these things, or he
would also have known that other people may have access to information,
not because they are British, but because they are in the employ of
British Cabinet Ministers.
Hitherto, the security of our beloved Empire had been disregarded by
party politicians, and their attendant sycophants, in their frantic
efforts to "get-on" socially, and to pile up dividends. What did "The
City" care in the past for the nation's peril, so long as money was
being made?
In the many chats I had with the late Lord Roberts we deplored the
apathy with which Great Britain regarded what was a serious and most
perilous situation.
But, after all, were the British public really to blame? They are
discerning and intelligent, and above all, patriotic. Had they been
told the hideous truth, they would have risen in their masses, and men
would have willingly come forward to serve and defend their country
from the dastardly intentions of our hypocritical "friends" across the
North Sea, and their crafty Emperor of the _volte-face_.
It is not the fault of the British public themselves. The blame rests
as an indelible blot upon certain members of the British Government,
who now stand in the pillory exposed, naked and ashamed. The apologetic
speeches of certain members of the Cabinet, and the subdued and altered
tone of certain influential organs of the Press, are, to the thinker,
all-sufficient proof.
In the insidious form of fiction--not daring to write fact after
my bitter experiences and the seal of silence set upon my lips--I
endeavoured, in my novel "Spies of the Kaiser" and other books, time
after time, to warn the public of the true state of affairs which was
being so carefully and so foolishly hidden. I knew the truth, but, in
face of public opinion, I dared not write it in other fashion.
Naturally, if the Government jeered at me, the public would do
likewise. Yet I confess that very often I was filled with the deepest
regret, and on the Continent I discussed with foreign statesmen, and
with the Kings of Italy, Servia, Roumania and Montenegro in private
audiences I was granted by them, what I dared not discuss in London.
Our national existence was certainly at stake. Lord Roberts knew it.
He--with members of the Cabinet--had read the Kaiser's fateful words
which I have here printed in the foregoing pages, and it was this
knowledge which prompted him to so strenuously urge the peril of our
unpreparedness until the outbreak of war.
The hypocrisy of the Kaiser is sufficiently revealed by the fact that
two months after his declaration at the Secret Council at Potsdam he
made a public speech at Strasburg on August 30th in which he assured
the world that the peace of Europe was not in danger.
In the same month, however, that the German Emperor disclosed his
secret intentions towards Great Britain, some important military
manoeuvres took place in Essex and were watched most closely by the
German authorities. The spy-peril had then commenced. It would seem
that the Kaiser took the keenest interest in the matter. Despite the
fact that there was an officially accredited German military attaché,
a number of German agents were also present, and among the number
was Count Eulenburg, a Secretary of the German Embassy in London. A
military correspondent of the _Daily Mail_ wrote that the Count's
taking of notes and making of sketches had excited a good deal of
adverse criticism among the British officers who were familiar with
the fact. The reports of all these secret agents were apparently to be
laid before the Kaiser, who was well aware of the significance of the
operations in Essex to both the German Army and Navy.
The only organ of the Press which recognised the spy-peril in its
earliest stages was the _Daily Mail_, which never ceased to point out
the imminent and serious danger, and to warn the public that Germany
meant us harm. Because of this open policy, it was from time to time
denounced by the deluded public--deluded because of official lies--for
what was termed its "scaremongerings." But recent events have surely
shown the world that that journal spoke the open truth, while all
others, and more especially a certain dear old delightful London daily
paper, so glibly told us that "there will be no war with Germany,"
while even three days before the outbreak of war this same journal
actually made a plea for "German Culture."
Culture indeed! Have not the modern Huns now revealed themselves?
What must readers of that paper now think? It has truly been said
that the influence of the half-naked barbarians who swept over the
Thuringian forests soon after the birth of Christianity has never been
totally eradicated. There is, _au fond_, an inherent brutality in the
German character which the saving grace of the art of music has never
destroyed, the brutality which caused the destruction of Louvain, of
Rheims, of Ypres, of Termonde, of Malines, the wreck of cathedrals and
churches, and the wholesale savage butchery of innocent men, women, and
even tiny children.
And this is the gallant and "cultured" nation which has been so admired
and eulogised by certain well-known papers: the nation which has so
cleverly spread its spies through every phase of our national life, and
made such elaborate plans for her conquest that, in her arrogance, she
has now risen to defy civilisation.
Here is one of many equally ridiculous extracts from that same journal
which pleaded for "German culture." It was published after a Zeppelin
had flown 610 miles, on January 1st, 1909:
" ... as far as national danger goes, the thing is not yet within
sight. 'Dirigibles' may, in the future, be useful for scouting and
collecting intelligence when war has once begun, ... but talk about
invasion by airship, or bombardment from the sky, need not, for a
long time, be considered by ourselves or any other nation."
Again, a few days later, this same pro-German journal wrote:--
"It is maintained by some of our contemporaries that Germany is
struggling to regain her position of predominance in Europe, such as
she held more than thirty years ago. That is not our reading of the
situation."
I will not quote more. There are dozens of such expressions of opinions
in the files of that unreliable organ of "public opinion."
Where should we have been to-day, I ask, had we suffered ourselves to
be led by the nose by this "patriotic" organ of the Press, which, with
its sinister commercialism on the declaration of war, urged upon us to
keep out of the fighting, and to capture the trade of our friends the
Belgians, French, and Russians?
This self-proclaimed organ of "humanitarianism" actually urged us to
stand aside and make capital out of the agonies of those countries at
war. I will quote the following from the article in its actual words on
August the 4th--the day upon which war was declared:--
"If we remained neutral we should be, from the commercial point of
view, in precisely the same position as the United States. We should
be able to trade with all the belligerents (so far as the war allows
of trade with them); we should be able to capture the bulk of their
trade in neutral markets; we should keep our expenditure down; we
should keep out of debt; we should have healthy finances."
And this same organ of humanitarianism has assured us, for years, that
no spies of Germany existed in England, and that war was utterly out of
the question. And the British public have paid their half-pennies for
such bamboozle! One sighs to think of it!
Times without number--even to-day as I write--this journal has sought
to ridicule those who attempt to tell the nation the truth concerning
the underground peril existing in every part of our islands. Its motive
for so doing may be left to the inquisitive.
Probably few men have travelled so constantly up and down Europe as
I have done, in search of material for my books. In the course of my
wanderings, and perhaps a somewhat erratic life on the Continent, I
have--ever since I recognised the spy-peril--made it my practice to
seek out the spies of Germany, and I know a good many of them.
An incident which may interest the reader occurred on October 29th,
1914:
I was on the platform of Waterloo Station buying a paper, and chatting
with the bookstall clerk, when I noticed a group of men, mostly in
shabby overcoats and presenting a woebegone appearance, surrounded
by a cordon of police in silver-trimmed helmets--county constabulary
from the North. An excited crowd had surrounded them, and as I glanced
across my attention was attracted by a man slightly better dressed than
the others, though his well-cut grey overcoat was somewhat shabby. As
his dark, narrow-set eyes met mine, he lifted his grey plush hat to
me, and smiled across in recognition.
For a moment I halted, puzzled. I had not realised that the group
of men were prisoners. The fellow's face was familiar, and the next
instant I recognised him. We had met a dozen times in various places
in Europe--the last time at Salvini's, in Milan, early in the previous
year. He was a well-known agent of the German General Staff, though I
had never met him before on British soil.
I crossed over to him, arousing the distinct suspicion of the
constables and the curiosity of the crowd of onlookers.
"You recollect me, Mr. Le Queux--eh?" he asked in good English, with a
laugh.
"Of course," I said, for I could not help a grain of sympathy with him,
for, usually a resident of the best hotels, he was now herded with the
scum of his compatriots. "Well, what's the matter?"
"Matter!" he echoed. "You see! They've got me at last!"
"Speak French," I said in that language. "The police won't understand";
for the constable near him looked at me very suspiciously, and I had no
desire to be arrested on Waterloo platform.
"_Bien!_" said my friend, whom I will call by his assumed name, von
Sybertz, "I am arrested. It is the fortune of war! I am simply detained
as an alien, and we are going to Frimley, I hear. Do not say anything;
do not make it worse for me. That is all I ask, M'sieur Le Queux. You
know me--too well--eh?" and he grinned.
"I shall say nothing," was my reply. "But, in return, tell me what
you know. Tell me quickly," I urged, for I saw that the constables
were preparing to move the prisoners towards the train. "What is the
position?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Bad. My friends are frantic," he replied. "All their plans have
gone wrong. It is, I fear, our downfall. The Kaiser is mad. I have
no money. I came to England in the middle of August. I have been to
Portsmouth, to Rosyth, Hull, and Liverpool; now I am deserted. I was
arrested yesterday near Manchester, though I had registered as German
and thought myself safe. I was, as I have always been when in England,
a teacher of languages. It covers so much," and he smiled. "Is not this
meeting strange, eh? We have chatted together--and laughed together,
too--in Nice, Florence, Rome--in many places. And now, monsieur, you
have the laugh of me--eh? We must be beaten. Germany begins to know the
truth."
"No, not the laugh," I protested. "It is, as you say, the fortune of
war that you have been taken."
"Pass on, please," commanded the big constable gruffly at my elbow.
"And you?--you will say nothing? Promise me, M'sieur Le Queux," von
Sybertz urged again in French.
"I have promised," was my reply. "You are arrested--for me, that is
sufficient. I wish you no ill-will, though you are my enemy," I added.
"Ah, yes, you are English!" exclaimed the spy. "I knew--I have known
always that the English are gentlemen. _Au revoir_--and a thousand
thanks for your promise."
And my friend the spy--a man who, on account of his refined and
gentlemanly bearing, and the money which had, for years, been at
his command, was a particularly dangerous secret-agent of the
Kaiser--lifted his shabby grey hat politely, and then passed dolefully
on, with the big constable at his elbow, to the train which stood
waiting to convey him to that barbed-wire enclosure high upon Frith
Hill.
I watched him pass out of my sight, while the crowd, on their part,
watched me in wonder. I knew I had aroused the suspicions of the police
by speaking in a foreign tongue. That meeting had been a strangely
dramatic one. In those moments there came up before me visions of past
meetings. Five years before, I had first known him living in a pretty
white villa, with palms in front, on Mont Boron, outside Nice, and
taking his lunch daily at the Reserve, at Beaulieu, one of the most
expensive luncheon-places in Europe. I had met him in the Russie in
Rome, in Doney's in Florence, and in the Pera Palace in Constantinople.
He was a gay, merry companion, and half a dozen times I had been to
variety theatres with him and to garish night-cafés afterwards. Yet
I knew him to be a German international spy, and so intimate had we
become that he had scarcely taken the trouble to conceal the fact from
me.
In those few brief moments there had been enacted before me, at that
busy London terminus, the dénouement of a great life-drama, and, as the
spy disappeared, there arose before me recollections of the gay places
of Europe where we had before met--the Rooms at Monte Carlo, the Casino
at Trouville, and other places where he had been such a well-known
figure, always exquisitely dressed, always the acme of correctness, and
always a great favourite with the fair sex. What would the latter think
could they see him now?
In silence and in sorrow I have watched the proceedings of many a
German spy in this country--watched while the public have been lulled
to slumber by those who rule. Ah! it has all been a fearful comedy,
which has, alas! now ended in tragedy--the tragedy of our dead sons,
brothers and husbands who lie in unnumbered graves in France and in
Belgium.
My thoughts revert to individual cases which I have investigated
during recent years.
At Rosyth, I lived in an obscure hotel in Queensferry under the name of
William Kelly, enduring three weeks of wearisome idleness, boating up
and down the Firth of Forth, and watching, with interest, the movements
of two Germans. They had arrived in Edinburgh from a tourist-ship which
had touched at Leith. The first suspicion of them had been conveyed to
me by my friend Mr. D. Thomson, proprietor of the _Dundee Courier_, and
I sped north to investigate. In passing I may say that this journal
was one of the first--with the _Daily Mail_--to point out the danger
of German spies. My journey was not without result, for I waited, I
watched, and I returned to the Intelligence Department with certain
important details which proved to be the beginning of a long campaign.
Those two Germans, unsuspicious-looking professors with gold-rimmed
spectacles, were making elaborate maps. But these maps were not
ordnance maps, but maps of our weaknesses. Our secret agents followed
them to Plymouth, to Milford Haven, to Cromarty, and afterwards on a
tour through Ireland.
Surely it is betraying no confidence to say that one of our secret
agents--a man whose remarkable career I hope to some day record in the
guise of fiction--acted as their guide on that curious tour!
I know I have written times without number of spies in the form of
fiction. Many people have asked me, "Is it true?" To such I will say
that the dramas I have written, short and long, have been penned solely
with one single purpose--in order to call public attention to our peril.
Many of the stories I have written have been based upon actual fact.
Half a life spent in travelling up and down Europe has shown me most
conclusively how cleverly Germany has, with the aid of her spies, made
elaborate preparations to invade us.
So intimate have I been with Germany's secret agents that, during this
last Christmas, I had the _dis_pleasure of sending Compliments of the
Season to two of them!
I have dined at the Ritz in Paris on more than one occasion with the
yellow-toothed old Baroness X----, an Austrian, high-born, smart, and
covered with jewellery. With her she has usually one and sometimes two
pretty "nieces," who speak French, and pose as French. Perhaps they
are, but one may be forgiven if one is suspicious. The Baroness X----
always has on hand a goodly supply of these "nieces." I have met them
at Doney's in Florence, at Ciro's at Monte Carlo, at Maxim's in Paris,
at Shepheard's at Cairo. I have chatted with these young ladies at the
Hotel Hungaria in Budapest, at the Royal at Dinard, at the Grand in
Rome, and in the aviary at the Métropole at Brighton. But these merry
little "nieces" are always different! Baroness X---- and myself are in
entire agreement. She knows what I know, and she sent me a Christmas
card this season and dated from The Hague! She is certainly the ugliest
old lady I have ever met, a figure well known in every European
capital. Her speech is like the filing of brass. As a linguist,
however, she is really wonderful. I believe she speaks every European
language perfectly, and Arabic too, for she once told me, while we were
together on a steamer going down the Mediterranean, that she was born
in Smyrna, of Austrian parents.
As a spy of Germany she is unique, and I give her her due. She is
amazingly clever. To my certain knowledge, she and her nieces, two
years ago, while living in Nice beneath the same roof as myself,
obtained through a young artillery officer a remarkable set of plans
of the defences of the Franco-Italian frontier near the Col di Tenda.
Again, I know how she and her attendant couple of "nieces" were in
Ireland "on a tour" during the troubles of last year. And, further, I
also know how many a military secret of our own War Office has been
"collected" by one or other of those pretty cigarette-smoking flapper
"nieces," with whom I, too, have smoked cigarettes and chatted in
French or Italian.
How often have I seen one or other of these sirens--daughters of a
foreign countess as their dupes have believed them to be--driving about
London in private cars or in taxis, or supping at restaurants.
On a day in last November I found one of these interesting young
ladies, dark-haired and _chic_--Parisienne, of course--enjoying a
tête-à-tête luncheon at the Hut at Wisley, on the Ripley road, her
cavalier being a man in khaki. I wondered what information she was
trying to obtain. Yet what could I do? How could I act, and interrupt
such a perfectly innocent _déjeuner à deux_?
Yes, to the onlooker who knows, the manoeuvres are all very intensely
interesting, and would be most amusing, if they were not all so grimly
and terribly tragic.
And who is to blame for all this? Would it be suffered in Germany?
The law of libel, and a dozen other different Acts, are suspended over
the head of the unfortunate man who dares to risk ridicule and speak
the truth. Therefore, with my own personal experience of the utter
incapability of the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police to deal with
spies, or even to reply to correspondence I have addressed to his
hopeless department, and to the still greater discourtesy and amazing
chaos existing in his ruling department, the Home Office, I ask myself
whether it is of any use whatever _to trouble, or even exert oneself
further in the matter_? It is for my readers, the public themselves,
to demand the truth. The public are assuredly not blind to the fact
that air raids have been made upon us directed by spies.
I can only address these serious words to my circle of readers
throughout the Kingdom, and to make my bow, assuring them that while
they were being gulled and bamboozled by those whom they have so
foolishly trusted, I have, at personal loss to myself--which need not
be counted--done my level best to counteract the evil which Germany has
spread in our midst.
And my only request is that, by my works, constant and earnest as they
have been, I may be judged.