THE RAIDERS AT SEA
The outbreak of war--Mobilization of reservists--The
Hamburg-American contract--The _Berwind_--The _Marina
Quezada_--The _Sacramento_--Naval battles.
A fanatic student in the streets of Sarajevo, Bosnia, threw a bomb at
a visiting dignitary, and the world went to war. That occurred on the
sunny forenoon of June 28, 1914. The assassin was chased by the police,
the newspaper men, and the photographers, who reached him almost
simultaneously, and presently the world knew that the Archduke Francis
Ferdinand, of Austria, was the victim, and that a plain frightened
fellow, struggling in the shadow of a doorway, was his assailant.
Austria's resentment of the crime mounted during July and boiled
over in the ultimatum of July 23. Five days later, with Germany's
permission, Austria declared war on Servia. By this time continental
tempers had been aroused, and the Central Empires knew that "Der Tag"
had come. Austria, Russia, Germany, England, France and Belgium entered
the lists within a fortnight.
By mid-July Germany had warned her agents in other lands of the
imminence of war and a quiet mobilization had begun of the more
important reservists in America. Captain von Papen, after dispatching
his telegram from Mexico via El Paso to Captain Boy-Ed, hurried to
Washington, arriving there on August 3. He began to weld together
into a vast band the scientists, experts, secret agents and German
army-reservists, who were under German military oaths, and were
prepared to gather information or to execute a military enterprise "zu
Befehl!" How rapidly he assembled his staff is shown in testimony given
on the witness stand by "Horst von der Goltz," alias Bridgeman Taylor,
alias Major Wachendorf, a German spy who had been a major in a Mexican
army until July.
A German consul in El Paso had sounded out Goltz's willingness to
return to German service. "A few days later, the 3rd of August, 1914,
license was given by my commanding officer to separate myself from
the service of my brigade for the term of six months. I left directly
for El Paso, Texas, where I was told by Mr. Kueck, German Consul at
Chihuahua, Mexico, who stayed there, to put myself at the disposition
of Captain von Papen." This was two days before the final declaration
of war.
All German and Austro-Hungarian consulates received orders to
coördinate their own staffs for war service. Germany herself supplied
the American front with men by wireless commands to all parts of the
world. Captain Hans Tauscher, who enjoyed the double distinction of
being agent in America for the Krupps and husband of a noted operatic
singer, Mme. Johanna Gadski, chanced to be in Berlin when war broke
out, reported for duty and was at once detailed to return to the United
States and report to von Papen, as Wilhelmstrasse saw the usefulness of
an ordnance expert in intimate touch with our Ordnance Department and
our explosives plants. Two German officers detailed to topographical
duty, who had spent years mapping Japan, and were engaged in the same
work in British Columbia, jumped the border to the United States,
taking with them their families, their information and their fine
surveying and photographic instruments, and in the blocking out of the
country which the wise men in the East were performing, were assigned
to the White Mountains. Railroads and ships to the Atlantic seaboard
bore every day new groups of reserve officers from the Orient and
South America to New York for sailing orders.
They found von Papen already there. He established a consultation
headquarters at once with Boy-Ed in a room which they rented in the
offices of G. Amsinck & Co., at 6 Hanover Street. From that time
forward, New York was to be his base of operations, and it was at that
moment especially convenient to von Bernstorff's summer establishment
at Newport.
The naval situation at once became active. In the western and southern
Atlantic a scattered fleet of German cruisers was still at large. The
British set out eagerly to the chase. Security lay in southern waters,
and the German craft dodged back and forth through the Straits of
Magellan. From time to time the quarry was forced by the remoteness of
supply to show himself, and a battle followed; in the intervals, the
Germans lay _perdu_, dashing into port for supplies and out again to
concealment, or wandering over seldom traveled ocean tracks to meet
coal and provision ships sent out from America.
Captain Boy-Ed received from Berlin constant advices of the movements
of his vessels. On July 31, Dr. Karl Buenz, the American head of the
Hamburg-American Line, had a cable from Berlin which he read and then
forwarded to the Embassy in Washington for safekeeping. Until 1912
Buenz had had no steamship experience, having been successively a judge
in Germany, a consul in Chicago and New York, and minister to Mexico.
When at the age of 70 he was appointed Hamburg-American agent, one of
the first matters which came to his attention was the consummation of
a contract between the Admiralty Division of the German government and
the steamship line, which provided for the provisioning, during war,
of German ships at sea, using America as a base. This contract was
jealously guarded by the Embassy.
[Illustration: _Copyright, International Film Service_
Dr. Karl Buenz, managing director of the Hamburg-American Line]
The cablegram of July 31 called on Dr. Buenz to carry out this
contract. There was consultation at once with Boy-Ed for the location
of the vessels to be supplied, merchant ships were chartered or
purchased, then loaded, and despatched. The first to leave New York
harbor was the _Berwind_. There was hesitancy among the conspirators as
to who should apply for her clearance papers--documents of which Dr.
Buenz protested he knew nothing. They finally told G. B. Kulenkampff,
a banker and exporter, that the _Berwind_ was loaded with coal, and
directed him to get the clearance papers. He swore to a false manifest
of her cargo and got them. The _Berwind_ carried coal to be sure--but
she also carried food for German warships, and she was not bound for
Buenos Aires, as her clearance papers stated. Thus the United States,
by innocently issuing false papers, made herself, on the third day of
the war, a party to German naval operations.
The steamship _Lorenzo_ dropped down the harbor, ostensibly for Buenos
Aires, on the following day, August 6, cleared by a false manifest, and
bearing coal and food for German sailors. On these ships, and on the
_Thor_ (from Newport News for Fray Bentos, Uruguay), on the _Heine_
(from Philadelphia on August 6 for La Guayra), on the _J. S. Mowinckel_
and the _Nepos_ (out of Philadelphia for Monrovia) and others Boy-Ed
and Buenz had placed supercargoes bearing secret instructions. These
men had authority to give navigating orders to the captains once they
were outside the three-mile limit--orders to keep a rendezvous with
German battleships by wireless somewhere in the Atlantic wastes.
The _Berwind_ approached the island of Trinidad and Herr Poeppinghaus,
who was her supercargo, directed the captain to lie to. Five German
ships, the _Kap Trafalgar_, _Pontus_, _Elinor Woerman_, _Santa Lucia_
and _Eber_, approached and the transfer of supplies started. It was
interrupted by the British converted cruiser _Carmania_. She engaged
in a brisk two-hour duel with the _Kap Trafalgar_ which ended only when
the latter sank into the tropical ocean. The _Berwind_ meanwhile put
the horizon between herself and the _Carmania_.
Few of the chartered ships carried out their intentions, although their
adventures were various. Hear the story of the _Unita_: Her skipper was
Eno Olsen, a Canadian citizen born in Norway. Urhitzler, the German spy
placed aboard, made the mistake of assuming that Olsen was friendly to
Germany. He gave him his "orders," and the skipper balked. "'Nothing
doing,' I told the supercargo," Captain Olsen testified later, with a
Norwegian twist to his pronunciation. "She's booked to Cadiz, and to
Cadiz she goes! So the supercargo offered me $500 to change my course.
'Nothing doing--nothing doing for a million dollars,' I told him. The
third day out he offered me $10,000. Nothing doing. So," announced
Captain Olsen with finality, "I sailed the _Unita_ to Cadiz and after
we got there I sold the cargo and looked up the British consul."
One picturesque incident of the provisioning enterprise was the
piratical cruise of the good ship _Gladstone_, rechristened, with a
German benediction, _Marina Quezada_. Under the name of _Gladstone_,
the ship had flown the Norwegian flag on a route between Canada and
Australia, but shortly after the outbreak of war she put into Newport
News. Simultaneously a sea captain, Hans Suhren, a sturdy German
formerly of the Pacific coast, appeared in New York, called upon
Captain Boy-Ed, who took kindly interest in him, and then departed for
Newport News. Here he assumed charge of the _Marina Quezada_.
"I paid $280,000 in cash for her," he told First Officer Bentzen. After
hiring a crew, he hurried back to New York, where he received messages
in care of "Nordmann, Room 801, 11 Broadway, N. Y. C."--Captain
Boy-Ed's office. Captain Boy-Ed had already told him to erect a
wireless plant on his ship--the equipment having been shipped to the
_Marina Quezada_--and to hire a wireless operator. He then handed
Suhren a German naval code book, a chart with routes drawn, and sailing
instructions for the South Seas, there to await German cruisers. Food
supplies, ordered for the steamer _Unita_ (which at that time had been
unable to sail) were wasting on the piers at Newport News and Captain
Boy-Ed ordered them put in the _Marina Quezada_. Two cases of revolvers
also were sent to the boat.
Again Suhren went back to the ship and kept his wireless operators
busy and speeded up the loading of the cargo, which was under the
supervision of an employee of the North German Lloyd. Needing more
money before sailing in December, 1914, he drew a draft for $1,000 on
the Hamburg-American Line, wiring Adolf Hachmeister, the purchasing
agent, to communicate with "Room 801, 11 Broadway."
Then trouble arose over the ship's registry. Though Suhren insisted
that he owned her, a corporation in New York whose stockholders
were Costa Ricans were laying claim to ownership, for they had
christened her and had secured provisional registration from the
Costa Rican minister in Washington. Permanent registry, however,
required application at Port Limon, Costa Rica. So hauling down the
Norwegian ensign that had fluttered over the ship as the _Gladstone_,
Captain Suhren ran up the Costa Rican emblem. He had obtained false
clearance papers stating his destination as Valparaiso. They were
based upon a false manifest, and he sailed for Port Limon. The Costa
Rican authorities declined to give Suhren permanent papers, and he
found himself master of a ship without a flag, and in such status not
permitted under international law to leave port. He waited for a heavy
storm and darkness, then quietly slipping his anchor, he sped out into
the high seas, a pirate. Off Pernambuco he ran up the Norwegian flag,
put into port and got into such difficulties with the authorities that
his ship and he were interned. His supplies never reached the raiders
and Boy-Ed learned of another fiasco.
The _Lorenzo_, _Thor_ and _Heine_ were seized at sea. The _Bangor_
was captured in the Straits of Magellan. Out of twelve shiploads of
supplies, only some $20,000 worth were ever transshipped to German war
vessels. This involved a considerable loss, as the following statement
of expenditures for those vessels made by the Hamburg-American Line
will show:
_Steamer_ _Total payment_
_Thor_ $113,879.72
_Berwind_ 73,221.85
_Lorenzo_ 430,182.59
_Heine_ 288,142.06
_Nepos_ 119,037.60
_Mowinckel_ 113,367.18
_Unita_ 67,766.44
_Somerstad_ 45,826.75
_Fram_ 55,053.23
_Craecia_ 29,143.59
_Macedonia_ 39,139.98
_Navarra_ 44,133.50
-------------
Total $1,419,394.49
Where did the money come from? The Hamburg-American Line, under
the ante-bellum contract, placed at Captain Boy-Ed's disposal three
payments of $500,000 each from the Deutsches Bank, Berlin; the
Deutsches Bank forwarded through Wessells, Kulenkampff & Co., credit
for $750,000 more. "I followed the instructions of Captain Boy-Ed,"
Kulenkampff testified. "He instructed me at different times to pay
over certain amounts either to banks or firms. I transferred $350,000
to the Wells-Fargo Nevada National Bank in San Francisco, $150,000 to
the North German Lloyd, then $63,000 to the North German Lloyd. The
balance of $160,000 I placed to the credit of the Deutsches Bank with
Gontard & Co., successors to my former firm. That was reduced to about
$57,000 by payments drawn at Captain Boy-Ed's request to the order of
the Hamburg-American Line."
The North German Lloyd was serving as the Captain's Pacific operative,
which accounts for the transfer of the funds to the West. (The same
line, through its Baltimore agent, Paul Hilken, was also coöperating
at this time, but not to an extent which brought the busy Hilken into
prominence as did his later connection with the merchant submarine,
_Deutschland_.) Following the course of the funds, federal agents
eventually uncovered the operations of Germans on the Pacific coast,
and secured the arrest and convictions of no less personages than the
consular staff in San Francisco.
The steamship _Sacramento_ left San Francisco with a water-line cargo
of supplies. A firm of customs brokers in San Francisco was given a
fund of $46,000 by the German consulate to purchase supplies for her;
a fictitious steamship company was organized to satisfy the customs
officials; on September 23 an additional $100,000 was paid by the
Germans for her cargo; a false valuation was placed on her cargo, and
she was cleared on October 3. Two days later Benno Klocke and Gustav
Traub, members of the crew, broke the wireless seals and got into
communication with the _Dresden_. Klocke usurped the position of master
of the vessel, and steered her to a rendezvous on November 8 with the
_Scharnhorst_, off Masafueros Island, in the South Pacific; six days
later she provisioned and coaled the German steamship _Baden_. She
reached Valparaiso empty. Captain Anderson said he could not help the
fact that her supplies were swung outboard and into the _Scharnhorst_
and _Dresden_.
Captain Fred Jebsen, who was a lieutenant in the German Naval Reserve,
took out a cargo of coal, properly bonded in his ship, the _Mazatlan_,
for Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico. Off the mouth of Magdalena Bay the
_Mazatlan_ met the _Leipzig_, a German cruiser, and the cargo of coal
was transferred to the battleship. One of Jebsen's men, who had signed
on as a cook, was an expert wireless operator, and he went to the
_Leipzig_ with three cases of "preserved fruits"--wireless apparatus
forwarded by German agents in California. Jebsen, after an attempt to
smuggle arms into India, which will be discussed later, made his way
to Germany in disguise, and was reported to have been drowned in a
submarine. The _Nurnberg_ and _Leipzig_ lay off San Francisco for days
in August, the former finally entering the Golden Gate for the amount
of coal allowed her under international law. The _Olson_ and _Mahoney_,
a steam schooner, was laden with supplies for the German vessels and
prepared to sail, but after a considerable controversy with the customs
officials, was unloaded.
Perhaps the most bizarre attempt to spirit supplies to the Imperial
navy was that in which the little barkentine _Retriever_ figured as
heroine. Wide publicity was given the announcement that she was to be
sailed out to sea and used as the locale of a motion picture drama. The
Government found out, however, that her hull was well down with coal,
which did not seem vital to the scenario, and she was not permitted to
leave port.
The major portion of Germany's naval strength lay corked in the
Kiel Canal, where, except for a few indecisive sorties, Germany's
visible fleet was destined to remain for more than three years. At the
outbreak of war, the _Emden_, _Dresden_, _Scharnhorst_, _Gneisenau_
and _Nurnberg_ were at large in the southern oceans. On November 1 the
German cruisers met the British _Monmouth_, _Good Hope_, _Glasgow_ and
_Otranto_ off Coronel, the Chilean coast. The _Monmouth_ and _Good
Hope_ were struck a mortal blow and sunk. The _Glasgow_ and _Otranto_
barely escaped. In a battle off the Falkland Islands on December 7, as
the German army was being thrown back from Ypres, the _Scharnhorst_,
_Leipzig_, _Gneisenau_ and _Nurnberg_ were sunk by a reinforced British
fleet. (Walter Peters, one of the crew of the _Leipzig_, floated
about for six hours after the engagement, was picked up, made his way
to Mexico, and for more than three years was employed by a German
vice-consul in Mexico in espionage in the United States. Peters was
arrested as a dangerous enemy alien in Crockett, California, in April,
1918.) The _Dresden_ and _Karlsruhe_ escaped, and the former hid for
two months in the fjords of the Straits of Magellan. On February 26,
1915, an American tourist vessel, the _Kroonland_, passed east through
the Straits and into Punta Arenas harbor, while out of the harbor
sneaked the little _Glasgow_, westward bound. The _Dresden_, after
the American had passed, had run for the open Pacific; the _Glasgow_,
hot on her trail, engaged her off the Chilean coast five days later
and sank her, leaving only the _Emden_ and _Karlsruhe_ at large. The
_Karlsruhe_ disappeared.
The last lone member of the pack was hunted over the seas for months,
and finally was beached, but long before her activities became public
the necessity for supplying the German ships expired, from the
simple elimination of German ships to supply. Captain Boy-Ed's first
enterprise had been frustrated by the British navy and he turned to
other and more sinister occupations. Buenz, Koetter and Hachmeister
were sentenced to eighteen months in Atlanta, and Poeppinghaus to a
year and a day--terms which they did not begin to serve until 1918.[1]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] Dr Buenz' case is an enlightening example of the use made by German
agents in America of the law's delays. He was sentenced in December,
1915, for an offence committed in September, 1914. He at once appealed
his case to the higher courts, going freely about meanwhile on bail
furnished by the Hamburg American Line. In March, 1918, the Supreme
Court of the United States, to which his case had finally been pressed,
denied his appeal. His attorneys at once placed before President
Wilson, through Attorney-General Gregory, a request for a respite, or
commutation of his sentence, which the President, on April 23, 1918,
denied. Buenz pleaded the frailty of his 79 years--which had not
prevented him from keeping his social engagements while his appeal was
pending.