and landed in Yokohama, September 16, 1915. Gupta immediately got
in touch with various prominent Hindus. Although their conferences
were enthusiastic and the prospect of obtaining Japanese arms for the
revolution was good, his work was hampered by the discovery on the part
of British agents that Gupta was in Japan. He was notified within a
week of his arrival that he must leave by the next steamer: the next
steamer was bound for Shanghai, a British port; the order was equal to
delivery into the hands of the British, and death. A Japanese friend
came to his rescue. He took him to his house, followed by the police.
By a subterfuge the police were distracted long enough to allow the
Hindu to slip out the back door, jump into an automobile, and flee
to the interior of the country. There he was hidden for six months,
between the flimsy walls of his friend’s house. It was May of 1916
before he could escape, smuggled out in an eastbound vessel, and it was
June before he returned to New York. There he found that the following
order had been issued from Berlin:
“Berlin, February 4, 1916. To the German Embassy, Washington.
“In future all Indian affairs are to be exclusively handled by
the committee to be formed by Dr. Chakravarty. Dhirendra Sarkar
and Herambra Lal Gupta, the latter of whom has meanwhile been
expelled from Japan, thus cease to be representatives of the
Indian Independence Committee existing here.
“(Signed) ZIMMERMANN.”
Gupta, in short, found himself displaced. His expedition had been a
failure. Chakravarty had had his job for nearly six months. He tried
to negotiate with Chakravarty for a restoration of some of his lost
prestige, but the little man would not have much to do with him. In
January, 1917, the French secret service intercepted at the Swiss
border a letter postmarked New York, November 16, 1916, and addressed
as follows:
“Mr. Albourge
“Hotel Des Alpas
“Territel
“Montreau, Switzerland.”
The letter was in cipher, and was seized and returned to French
agents in the United States, and by them turned over to the American
authorities for investigation, at about the time when diplomatic
relations were broken off with Germany. Search here disclosed little.
The letter was typewritten, and the only clue to its message was a hint
suggested by a sub-address on the back of the envelope:
“Mr. Chatterjee”
who was apparently a Hindu. (This, by the way, was the same Chatterji
who persists in cropping up in the wings of this story from time to
time). Now there is no “Hotel Des Alpas” in Montreux; the name of the
inn referred to is the “Hotel des Alpes.” Again, the name “Territel”
was apparently a misspelling of “Territet,” and “Montreau” probably
meant “Montreux.” When we captured Gupta we found in a memorandum book
not only the address cited above, but the _same misspellings_--pretty
conclusive proof that he was the author of the letter. This address was
later found with the same misspellings, in the mailing list of _Ghadr_,
the revolutionary paper published in California. Thus little errors
combined to forge important links.
The code of the Gupta letter was a popular and scholarly volume by an
American author: Price Collier’s “Germany and the Germans,” published
in New York in 1913. The letter was so written that the words which
contained the meat of each sentence were carefully enciphered. The
letter said, for example:
“... I do
not believe there
are very many men
including
98-5-2
98-1-1
98-1-9
98-4-1
98-5-8
98-3-3
------
”Who can show much
better results a-
long the line of
97-1-3
97-1-11
97-6-5
97-8-4
--------
132-1-1
--------
“Undertook”
Turning to page 98 of “Germany and the Germans,” we see that the second
letter of the fifth line is _b_; the first letter of the first line is
_h_; the ninth letter of the first line is _u_; the first letter of
the fourth line is _p_; the eighth in the fifth line is _e_; and the
third in the third line _n_. Sum total: B-h-u-p-e-n--a Hindu name. On
page 97, the first few lines read:
“am willing to concede that perhaps even an emperor
has been baptized with the blood of the martyrs,
and feels himself to be in all sincerity the instrument
of God; if we are to understand this one, we must
admit so much.
“In certain ...” etc.
Thus 97-1-3 is _w_, 97-1-11 is _o_, 97-6-5 is _r_, 97-8-4 is _K_; total
w-o-r-k. 132-1-1 is _I_. Our translation reads therefore:
“_I do not believe that there are very many men including
Bhupen, who can show much better results along the line of work
I undertook._”
Four columns to the typewritten page it ran on over seven sheets of
foolscap, and wound up with a plea in plain English which showed that
Gupta was angry:
“Seems no action taken yet. If want work, change methods
completely. I insist the man in charge is not only useless but
spoiling the work; important workers wasting time for want of
coöperation and funds while that man is squandering money. Do
not care what you decide, I inform you as it is my duty but you
don’t seem to pay any attention. This is my last warning for
the cause. Again I appeal to you to think more seriously and
not spoil the work by leaving it in the hands of irresponsible
and insane person. I again tell you that no one is willing to
work with him because he does not understand anything, secondly
he spends money in a ridiculous way, thirdly he does not do any
work. Think seriously and reply.”
In order to show why Gupta was upset and also in passing to show how
innocently he had coded his letter, we shall quote it in full, with
those words in italics which had to be decoded months later:
“Dear _Chatto_: Am back from _Japan_. Had lots _trouble_.
_Thakur_, real _name Rash Behari Ghose_, splendid worker in
_India_ still in _Japan_. Sent report twice, besides messages
through _German_ sources. Went to _Japan_ as planned. Am
surprised to hear from _Tarak_ you said I had no _right_ to go
to Japan. See my reports submitted to the committee. Before
leaving _Berlin Shanghai_ authorities also wanted me for
important work. This I was told at _German Embassy_ so cannot
understand why you failed to know anything about me. Have sent
two reports since my return. Hope you got them. _Tarak_ said
you were not satisfied with _my work_ and _Bhupen Dutt_ said
that such incapable men as _I_ should not have been sent to
America. _Bhupen_ before leaving _America_ said to _Chakravarty
‘Gupta_ nothing but _adventurer_; should not have been sent,’
and as usual everybody knew and it naturally prejudiced men
_I_ had to work with. What right had _Bhupen_ to make such
remarks? I don’t claim to be a very capable man. You remember
I did not want to _come here_. But how _Bhupen_ measured my
abilities? If no report was received how could anybody pass an
opinion on unknown things? You may _criticize my_ reticence.
I do not believe there are very many men including _Bhupen_
who can show much better results along the line of _work I_
undertook. Results of such work cannot be shown in _black and
white_ but I challenge anybody who dares ignore the _solid
work_ done through _our agencies_. Time alone can prove it.
You cannot compare the _work_ lately undertaken with the
_program_ we started with. If we _failed to start a revolution
in Bengal_ as asked by you it has been for the best. If we
_failed land arms_ it was due more to _Germans_ than anybody
else. Our _men worked, suffered_. Still _suffering_. The whole
plan under the direct supervision of _Germans_ of more capable
_brains failed_ too. We have succeeded in laying foundation
for _future work_. Our _work_ in _Japan_ has been unique. Even
_Lajpat Rai_ who slights our _work_, quite often admits in
three months more _solid work_ done there than any other part
of the world outside _India_ in number of years. I understand
_Chakravarty_ has charge of affairs. Met him. _Tarak Harish_
says he was given instruction to form a _committee_ of five
including _myself_. He did not agree. Said all depended on his
discretion. Fact is he has grudge against me and the fault lies
with _you_. Report went to _Berlin_ concerning his _relations_
with _Mrs. Warren_. You told him I did it. I did not. Even if
I did you had no business to mention my name. I like also to
know how did the _committee_ satisfy itself as to the charge
being false. From _Chakravarty’s letters_ only? He wanted me
to _apologize_. I did not: will not. First I did not _report_;
secondly suppose I did, in the interest of the _cause_. I was
of opinion he had _connection with Mrs. Warren_. She came to
know many things about _work_ through _him_. Am still of same
opinion. I do not care how many _women man enjoys_ but he has
no right to talk about serious _work to women_. I do not know
what _work he_ doing. Does not give me any information. The
_house_ he took with _princely furniture_ shows at once _German
connection_. Some of his _pamphlets_ nothing but _German
propaganda_. It may be your _policy_. We have _centres in
Japan, Burmah, Manila_; regular _communication_ with _India_
through _Japanese_ sources. _Working_ but badly _in need of
funds_. Started _work_ with impression _balance of funds
credited_ to my _account_ would be forthcoming but no sign of
it. For better _work_ need send at least one more _man_ to
_Japan_. _Tarak_ going _China, Chakravarty_ told him his
men would _watch Tarak_ for a month. If behaves well will be
helped, given facilities. What _grand diplomacy! Chakravarty_
told me _committee_ not sure of _Tarak_ so sent him away.
_Tarak_ said large _funds_ have been sanctioned. He can draw
without receipt. Will you blame me (if this be true) if I fail
to understand the policy? _Ram Chandra working_ in his own
way. I did not interfere for _fear_ of creating divisions.
Only helped getting _funds_. Have now influence over him but
as _Chakravarty gone San Francisco_ I consider my duty keep
quiet until hear from you. Have _worked_ to best abilities and
shall work but cannot do so at the instance of people who I am
sure do not know the exact nature of work _done last year_ and
_half_. Am surprised at _mean jealousies_, even sacrificing
_work_. Am shocked at your _faith shaken in me_ and _my work_.
Hope to hear soon all regarding _work_. Remember me to all.
Did not mail the first letter as waiting for information from
_Berlin_.”
[Illustration: How the Hindus used Price Collier’s “Germany and the
Germans” as a cryptogram]
Followed the postscript in English already cited.
The reader will probably be interested, even at the cost of
interrupting the narrative, in the way in which this cipher code was
discovered and the letter translated. By a partial decipherment by
common methods of deduction, it was found to be almost sure that on a
certain page of the code book--the name of which was of course not
then known--the phrase “foreign legation” would appear. The cipher
experts deduced, too, that the phrase “rush to a newspaper” must appear
in a certain line of another page of the volume, and working further
they assembled some twenty-five fragmentary words and phrases of whose
position in the missing volume they were certain. The problem was to
find the volume. The nature of the words and phrases suggested that
the work was a recent one, probably dealing with history--and perhaps
with the nature of a people. These limitations reduced the field of
possibility to a minimum of 100,000 volumes, and the cipher experts set
agents at work searching for such books. The caption of the letter,
“Hossain’s Code,” threw them off the scent and they spent some time in
scouring Allied Europe and America for such a code. There was none,
for “Houssain” was merely a Hindu agent in Trinidad. Then, one of the
agents hunting for the needle in the haystack found it--Mr. Collier’s
book.
Gupta, it is evident, was a prejudiced judge of Chakravarty’s ability.
Even when Gupta was arrested Chakravarty wiped out past scores, and
went bail for the man who had blackmailed and traduced him. But Gupta
was definitely in trouble this time. The evidence supplied of his trip
to Japan, its purpose, and his collusion with Germans brought him to
trial in Chicago with Jacobsen, Wehde, and Boehm. (Mr. Chatterji was a
witness for the prosecution.) The three Germans, after a trial in which
the State’s case had been admirably handled by U. S. District Attorney
Clyne, were convicted and sentenced to serve five years in prison and
pay fines of $13,000. Gupta was sentenced to two years, fined $200, and
released on bail, pending an appeal. He jumped his bail and escaped to
Mexico in May, 1918, while a number of his countrymen were being tried
in San Francisco.
His escape was probably due to fear. The Hindus are a vengeful lot, and
it is no more than possible that the “grapevine cable” had informed him
that friends of the men on trial in San Francisco were planning to get
even with him for having supplied part of the evidence used against
them. Some of that evidence we found in his room at Columbia, and more
in his safety deposit box in a Columbus Avenue bank. Among other items
was the list of addresses in Switzerland already mentioned, and this
was amplified by a letter which we found in Chakravarty’s house, from
Sekunna to the little doctor, which read:
“My dear boy,
“Enclosed please find addresses from Wesendonck. Send your
reports to: Mr. Director Karl Hirsch, Kreuzlingen, Switzerland.”
Chakravarty, in turn, furnished us with two more codes which were used
in writing to these addresses: One which cited pages and word-numbers
in a certain German-English dictionary, and a second, based on an
entirely different principle. The second and third were often used in
the same letter, as this fragment from one of Chakravarty’s reports
will show. The letter reads, in part:
“50337069403847695228, 265-3, 331-6, 497-2, 337-10-3, 335-14,
77-11.”
The first series of figures is written in the third code mentioned, and
must be deciphered by using the following square:
_1 2 3 4 5 6 7_
_1_ A B C D E F G
_2_ H I J K L M N
_3_ O P Q R S T U
_4_ V W X Y Z
Each letter is indicated first by the digit marking the horizontal
row in which the letter falls, second by the number of the vertical
column. Thus “A” is 1-1, or 11: “K” 2-4, or 24, and so on. But if the
Hindu wished to transfer a message in cipher, he would not stop with
this simple designation of the letters, for they would recur too often
and fall too readily under the “laws of repetition” by which most
ciphers can be untangled. So after he had his word translated by this
square chart, he added four key numbers to it, those key numbers being
fixed and permanent, and being added in rotation. In order that we may
find out what this word is, we must therefore subtract the key number
thus:
_Message_ 50337069403847695228 (or divided into letters)
50 33 70 69 40 38 47 69 52 28
_Key numbers_ 25 11 26 32 25 11 26 32 25 11
_Result_ 25 22 44 37 15 27 21 37 26 17
Consulting our chart again, we see that 25 is “L,” 22 is “I” 44 is “Y,”
and that the message deciphers thus:
_L I Y U E N H U N G_
The line we quoted above read:
“_Li Yuen Hung is now the president of China_” After transmitting the
proper-name in the second cipher (as the name of course would not have
appeared in the dictionary code), Chakravarty had lapsed back into the
first code, as being swifter.
Gupta, we observed, was harshly critical of Chakravarty. Let us see
whether he was justified. Chakravarty said he had been commissioned to
deal only with the broader propaganda. From captured reports which he
transmitted through the German embassy as well as through the mails
to Switzerland, he had been delegated to form a committee of five,
with Ram Chandra as one of the other members, to handle Indian affairs
here. They were to send an agent to the West Indies to stir up the
Hindu coolies there, of whom there were estimated to be 100,000, and
to send back to India all who would volunteer for revolution. The same
policy was to be followed in British Guiana, Java, and Sumatra. From
Ram Chandra’s _Ghadr_ press were to be issued reams of propaganda in
the various Indian dialects for circulation throughout the East and
West Indies, in Hindustan itself, and even for German aviators to drop
upon Hindu troops in France. Chakravarty was to procure letters of
introduction to parties in Japan which would assure a safe welcome to
an emissary to be sent there to carry out what Gupta had failed to do,
and an envoy was to be sent to China for a similar purpose. It was a
broad program, and the doctor set to work immediately upon his return
to organize his staff.
In all his work he had the coöperation of von Bernstorff and the
embassy at Washington. Chakravarty organized a Pan-Asiatic League as
a blind, so that Hindus posing as its members could travel without
exciting suspicion. His work was somewhat handicapped in the early
spring by an automobile accident which took him to the hospital, and by
the seizure of the military attaché’s papers in von Igel’s office. He
hired a Chinaman named Chin as the delegate to China, and shipped him
off on a Greek vessel from New York. Referred by Berlin to Houssain,
the spy in Trinidad, Chakravarty established contact with him, and
supervised the formation of an organization there. In July Chakravarty
started for a tour of the West, in the course of which he visited two
disloyal Hindus in Vancouver and determined upon a plan of action for
that section. Then he swung down to San Francisco, where he called
upon Ram Chandra, the western head of the committee. He conferred with
friendly agents of Japanese newspapers who proposed to attack the
Anglo-Japanese treaty. He conferred with W. T. Wang, private secretary
to the new president of China, as the secretary was leaving for Peking,
and learned that “some of the prominent people are quite willing to
help India directly and Germany indirectly--on three conditions, those
conditions being a secret treaty with Germany for military protection,
to last five years after peace had been declared, and to be secured by
giving China one-tenth of all the arms and ammunition which she would
undertake to smuggle across the Indian frontier.” By the late autumn of
1916 Chakravarty was acting as the master-wheel in a most elaborate and
complicated machine for disturbing British rule in almost all of her
colonial holdings, and it is safe to say that if the _Maverick_ affair
had not roused shipping inspectors to unusual vigilance to prevent
filibustering, the United States might have seen the bloody result of
his work by March of 1917, when we arrested him. Even as it was, he was
the general manager of a going concern.
It may be wondered how he was able to perfect an organization. The
answer to that we found in Gupta’s safety deposit box--a list of two
hundred or more members of an Indian society in the United States, a
large proportion of whom were students in American colleges, sent
here for education on scholarships, in the hope that they would return
to their native country and uplift it. Some of them were influential
agents, and they were scattered conveniently about the country. Add to
this force the coöperation of almost innumerable German agents and pay
it with a share of the $32,000,000 which Chakravarty said had been set
aside in Berlin for anarchistic, race-riot and Hindu propaganda in the
western world, and you have a real factor for trouble. It is perhaps
surprising that the organization worked undiscovered as long as it
did, but it is more surprising that having worked under cover for more
than fourteen months it did not break out into a grave demonstration.
Chakravarty’s arrest, however, came in time, and the authorities were
on the whole satisfied that so much time had elapsed because it gave
them more clues to work on and a larger group to round up.
And Chakravarty himself was pleased, I think. When he confessed his
trip to Berlin, he was on the horns of a dilemma, for he feared the
British would revenge themselves on him. I assured him that he would be
protected as an American prisoner. He said, “Well, if I tell you about
what I have done for the Germans, and they hear about it, they will
kill me. And in any case my own people will kill me. You don’t know
them!” I again quieted him and suggested that he tell me now where he
got the money which he said had come to him from his estate in India.
“Von Igel gave it to me,” he answered. “I could not go to his office
downtown, so I sent Sekunna. In all I got $60,000. I spoke of the
poet, Tagore, because he won the Nobel prize, and I thought he would
be above suspicion.” He had bought the house at 364 West 120th Street
and equipped it comfortably as a residence. He bought a house in
77th Street to open a Hindu restaurant. He bought a farm at Hopewell
Junction to use as a rendezvous for the plotters. And when he had given
us valuable information, and had appeared at the trial, and had been
himself convicted and had served his sentence (a short term) in jail,
and the smoke had cleared away, he was the owner of three nice parcels
of real estate and a comfortable income. Dr. Chakravarty, although
a failure as a Prussian agent, fared pretty well as an investor of
Prussian funds.
After a series of digressions which I hope have not led us too far
from the path, we may return to the third of the Hindu-German projects
in which we of the Bomb Squad were especially interested. Ever since
Captain von Papen’s check-book had been captured by the British at
Falmouth in January, 1916, students of the German plots in the United
States had wondered why two of the stubs bore the entries:
“Feb. 2, 1915, German Consulate, Seattle
(Angelegenheit) $1,300.
“May 11, 1915, German Consulate,
Seattle
(for Schulenberg) 500.”
In December, 1917, Barnitz, Randolph and I had gone to San Francisco
to testify in the _Annie Larsen-Maverick_ case. It so happened that a
German who was unable to give a satisfactory account of himself had
just been picked up at San Jose. His name was Franz Schulenberg, and
at the invitation of the San Francisco authorities we assisted in the
examination of the prisoner. He testified that in the early months
of 1915 he had met Lieutenant von Brincken, of the San Francisco
Consulate, who had sent him to the consul at Seattle. There von Papen
in person paid him $4,000 to buy fifty guns, fifty Maxim silencers, a
ton of dynamite, and deliver it to one Singh, at the border between
Sumas, Washington, and Canada. There Singh was to deliver it to a
small army of coolies, who would start a reign of terror in the
Canadian northwest, dynamiting bridges, railways and shipping, and
shooting guards. Schulenberg had actually bought some of the munitions
when he received a letter from von Brincken telling him to break off
relations with the Hindus. After some time he tried to get more money
from von Brincken, but Franz Bopp, the consul, spurned him, and von
Brincken sent him to New York, to get it from von Papen. Von Papen
refused to pay him further. While Schulenberg was in Hoboken, three men
from Paul Koenig’s staff approached him and posing as United States
agents offered him $5,000 for any information which would incriminate
Count von Bernstorff. Von Papen had had Koenig send them--although
Schulenberg did not know this--to test him. One of the three was George
Fuchs. The air was getting thick around von Papen’s head at the moment,
and he could not afford to have a disgruntled and unpaid henchman
gabbling about the saloons in Hoboken. But Schulenberg believed that
the three were really American secret service men, and refused to
divulge what he knew. The next morning a German whom he had not seen
before appeared at his lodging house and gave him a railroad ticket
to Mexico. “They’re after you--the secret service,” he said. “Here’s
a ticket. Use it.” Schulenberg was half sick anyway, and evidently it
did not enter his mind to squeal. He fled to Mexico, and von Papen thus
disposed of a troublesome source of information. When we talked to
Schulenberg, two years later, he was a sorry reminder of another German
failure.