The amazing ramifications of the German spy system in England are,
unfortunately, not even to-day fully realised by the British public, or
admitted by the Government.
In face of the hard facts contained in this book, in face of the serious
statements of Members in the House of Commons, and in face of what the
public are themselves daily reporting to the "authorities," the present
apathy of the Government, and its refusal to admit the peril and deal
with spies with a firm hand, is little short of criminal.
Seven years before the outbreak of war, by a mere accident while in
Germany, I was able to place before the Intelligence Department of the
War Office certain facts which, on being thoroughly investigated,
resulted in the establishment of a department for contra-espionage.
Therefore, however lightly the Government may to-day affect to treat the
question, the fact remains that they have, all along, known of the
existence of a horde of German secret-agents in our midst.
Nevertheless, even as recently as March 3, the Government, in response
to urgent appeals, blankly refused to vest in one Minister powers to
deal with enemy aliens and spies, in place of the present divided
policy.
Truly deplorable it is to think that to-day, while we are fighting for
our very existence as a nation, spies are permitted entire freedom, and
are nobody's business. This most vital question has been shuttle-cocked
between the War Office and the Home Office until it is now impossible to
say where the responsibility really lies. The one fact, however, which
cannot be disguised from the public is that, if the Germans made a raid
upon our shores, the Government, so self-satisfied, would suddenly awake
to find, as France and Belgium did, an army of spies busily assisting in
our undoing.
"Ex-Intelligence Officer" has, within the covers of this book, plainly
shown how systematic espionage is, and that it has been for many years a
most cherished part of German war administration, developed with much
forethought, and with characteristic Teuton cunning. That a settled and
widespread system of spies exists in Great Britain at the present moment
is well-known, both to the Government and to the public, yet certain
Ministers would have us close our eyes and accept the extraordinary
assurance given by Mr McKenna, early in the war, that the spy-peril has
been stamped out.
But is it stamped out? I here assert that at no moment of our national
history have we been confronted by a graver peril from within, than that
with which we are confronted to-day. The public are daily realising
more and more that they are being hoodwinked and bamboozled by this
shuttlecock policy, which is playing so completely into the enemy's
hands, and is allowing dastardly preparations to be made to hasten our
downfall. The inflamed state of public opinion is only too apparent by
the mass of correspondence which I have received from all classes, from
peers to working men, regarding the publication of my book "German Spies
in England," and, further, by its phenomenal sale. Every letter of the
piles before me as I write, complains bitterly of the apathy and
disregard with which the authorities treat the reports made to them of
the doings of spies, and all express disgust at the refusal to stir in a
matter which so closely affects our national security, or even to
institute the smallest inquiry.
Over the whole subject mystery and mystification brood.
The present policy--in face of what the Government know, and what I
myself know, as one who has spent the past seven years in studying the
German Secret Service system and patiently watching its agents--allows,
for example, Baron von Bulow, brother of the German ex-Chancellor, to
live comfortably at Putney, in the full enjoyment of a telephone; it
mysteriously reverses many military orders for the removal of alien
enemies from prohibited areas, providing always that those persons are
of the better class; it allows signals to be sent nightly from our
shores to the sea, and vice versa; it releases about 1,000 aliens
monthly from the internment-camps; it has attempted to gag the Press,
and is, to-day--as I will presently prove--stifling all inquiries into
the doing of spies among us.
In no other capital in the world, save London, would such a disgraceful
scandal be for one moment tolerated, as that which any reader may
investigate for himself, providing he is careful not to obtrude his
British nationality, namely, the toasting of the "Day" of Britain's
downfall by these self-same enemy aliens, who, recently released from
the internment-camps, now nightly meet and plot in the various little
foreign restaurants in the neighbourhood of the Tottenham Court Road.
Here, round the small tables in the underworld of London, sit enemy men
and women, openly expressing the most intense hatred of us, gloating
over their own piratical deeds and barbarities, and declaring that in
England, ere long, there is to be repeated the same savagery and
unbridled lust with which poor Belgium was swept from end to end. This
is no idle statement. I have been present, posing as an Italian and a
neutral, and I have seen and heard. Indeed, in those places, news from
Germany is known hours before it is known to our military or naval
authorities, and I have heard it declared openly that the vanguard of
spies among us are ready to act at a given signal--which is to be the
appearance of Zeppelins over London--to blow up bridges, water-mains,
and railways, destroy telephones and telegraphs, and commit the most
widespread havoc, incendiary and otherwise, for the purpose of creating
a panic, and preventing the movements of troops.
Naturally, one asks, where are the police? On discovering this
scandalous state of affairs I went to New Scotland Yard to ask that same
question. I had interviews with various officials, and after over an
hour's prevarication and elusive replies to my rather disconcerting
questions, I succeeded in eliciting the very illuminating fact that they
were unable to act without the consent of the Home Office! Why, one may
ask, is it withheld? Why should we risk our well-being by allowing
these hot-beds of conspiracy and crime to be officially protected, while
a man may be hauled before the magistrate for the heinous offence of not
having a rear-lamp to his cycle? What a comedy!
Mr Justice Ridley has rightly said: "We must make an end of spies."
Yet the fact that spies are being officially winked at can no longer be
doubted. Before me, I have fully two hundred cases reported by
responsible citizens in various parts of the country in which the
"authorities"--who seem, by the way, to have no authority at all--have
refused even to make the most superficial inquiry, or else a constable
in full uniform has been sent to interview the person under suspicion!
Let us calmly consider the present situation. The mystery of the
official protection afforded to spies has been greatly increased during
the month of March, and the public confidence has been further shaken in
consequence of the statement of Mr Bonar Law in the House of Commons,
who not only declared that there were, on March 1st, 600 male alien
enemies still residing on or near the coast, but also made a most
interesting revelation. The Admiralty, he said, in order to test
whether signalling was really going on from the shore, sent a trawler to
sea with instructions to show German signal-lights. And these were
instantly answered!
What was done? Nothing! And, judging from the experience of the
public, this is hardly surprising. Perhaps a case in point may be of
interest. In the middle of February, from an officer in His Majesty's
Service, I received information that certain highly suspicious signals
were being made nightly between the Kent coast and London. Therefore I
went forth at once to investigate, in company with the officer in
question, who is a qualified signaller and wireless expert, and a
non-commissioned officer also qualified in signalling, while I myself
know something of signalling and wireless. For a fortnight we were out
nearly every night in a motor-car--sometimes watching from the tops of
hills, a cold and weary vigil from dark to dawn--until we had
established, beyond all shadow of doubt, the houses whence the
mysterious lights emanated. These houses--several of them being
residences of well-to-do people, and all in high commanding positions,
had, in each case, an alien living in them, whose name and calling I
succeeded in obtaining. Then, one night, while posted on a hill
commanding nearly the whole of Surrey, and having taken down their
code-messages on many occasions, we resolved to make a test, and with a
powerful signalling-apparatus, I suddenly replied to one of the signals,
repeated part of the code-message, and in pretence of not understanding
the remainder, asked for its repetition. At once it was flashed to me
and read by all three of us! In the message, which, later on, was
submitted to an expert in ciphers, occurred the numeral five. It was
more than a coincidence, I think, that only an hour before that message
had been flashed, five German aeroplanes had left the Belgian coast on
their way to England!
On three separate occasions, from various high positions in Kent and
Surrey, we flashed German signals, which were at once responded to.
Then, having fully established that messages were being nightly so
exchanged, to and from the metropolis, always with the same three
code-letters as prefix, and having definitely fixed those houses
harbouring the spies, I considered it my duty, as an Englishman serving
his country, to call in the assistance of the Intelligence Department of
the War Office, and to them I furnished a full report, together with the
signals sent and received.
Though my facts were vouched for by three officers and a signaller, and
four civilians. I, at first, did not even receive the courtesy of a
reply to what I had declared to be a matter of extreme urgency.
Two nights after sending in my report, some officers of the Royal Naval
Air Service discovered a powerful car containing two men reconnoitring
certain main roads in a Surrey valley actually beneath the residence of
one of the enemy signallers, and they naturally stopped it. The
strangers were questioned, so suspiciously were they acting, while in
the meantime one of the officers reported by telephone to the Admiralty
and asked for instructions. But the amazing reply received was that
they had no authority to stop the car! As for myself, I again wrote to
the Intelligence Department of the War Office, but after eleven days all
they would deign me was a mere printed notice informing me that my
report had been _received_. To this I replied, asking that immediate
steps might be taken to investigate and arrest the signallers as
dangerous to the State--more dangerous perhaps even than the cyclist
without his back-lamp--but to that letter I have not even received an
acknowledgment! Another instance may perhaps be of interest. I
discovered that, among the Belgian refugees from Antwerp who had
received charitable aid in one of our biggest seaports, were two men
upon whom considerable suspicion had fallen. One posed as a
smooth-tongued priest, and wore that garb, while the other was a
"friend," apparently somewhat lower in the social scale. The priest
asserted that he had been head of a college near Antwerp; and in
consequence of his pious profession, he was, as was but natural, made
much of by the ladies in the city in question. One day this priest, who
it had been noted had been unusually inquisitive, and had been
constantly strolling round the extensive docks and quays, and had
watched the military preparations in case of a raid, suddenly applied to
the local Belgian Relief Committee for money to return to Antwerp.
Questioned, he told rather a lame story about some of his pupils having
returned, while his friend, who also applied at the same time for leave
to return, gave as excuse that he had to go to look after his cows! One
wonders how many the Germans had left him. Or, perhaps he was a
humorist, and meant the Black Cows--those mystic signs employed by Von
Kluck's spies. The Relief Committee, apparently, were not exactly
satisfied with the stories; nevertheless, they eventually granted the
pair money for their journey back to Belgium.
A report of this I furnished immediately to the Intelligence Department,
offering to send them information when the pair left the seaport, in
order that they might be met on arrival in London and questioned, and I
also supplied them with the time of the train by which they were to
leave London for Flushing. The whole matter was ignored, and an
official acknowledgment, printed, of course, was sent to me _three days
after the fair had gone_ across to Flushing--full of most important
information, as was afterwards discovered! Here is yet another
instance. In Liverpool the special constables were performing most
excellent work in hunting out alien enemies and sending them to
internment-camps, when, of a sudden, an order came--whence nobody
appears to know--to arrest no one further, for, as the order put it,
"such action may create public alarm." Why is it, too, that men
of wealth and influence, bankers, brokers, financiers and
Birthday-baronets, German-born Privy Councillors, and other alien
enemies who happen to possess money, are caressed and given such
latitude to exert any evil influence they may like upon us? Why, also,
was Baron von Ow-Wachendorf, a lieutenant in the Yellow Uhlans of
Stuttgart, just under thirty years of age, permitted to practise running
in Hyde Park so as to fit him for his military duties: and why was he--
on March 1st--allowed to leave Tilbury for Holland to fight against us?
These are questions upon which the public should demand satisfaction,
and to arraign those responsible.
I here wish to state, most emphatically, that I am not a politician,
neither am I criticising, for one moment, the splendid military
administration of Lord Kitchener. If the spy-peril were placed in his
capable hands--with complete power to act, to arrest, and to punish--
then I would, at this moment, lay down my pen upon the question. Yet,
as one who was among the very first--perhaps the first--to discover the
secret plans of Germany and to report them, I consider it my duty, as a
lover of my country, to warn the public.
The time has passed for mincing matters, or for the further protection
of traitors in our midst. I here cast no reflection upon any single
person, and further, any person mentioned in this article is beyond the
pale of my statement, but I here assert that I have had, in my
possession, a list--actually shown to me by a friend at Wilhelm-strasse,
who was _their paymaster_--of persons in England and America who have
been in receipt of German money, and who, by dint of it and of secret
influence, have risen to high degree, and, in some instances, to places
with fat emoluments. Motives of patriotism alone prevent me from
revealing that list at this hour of our national crisis.
The many truths contained in the following chapters of this book must
surely reveal to the reader the edge of the volcano upon which we are
now sitting. Notwithstanding all the false official assurances, the
sleepiness of the much-vaunted Intelligence Department, and the fettered
hands of the police--both Metropolitan and Provincial--must surely give
the man-in-the-street to pause. Spies are to-day among us in every walk
of life, and in almost every town in Great Britain. Every single man
and woman among them is impatiently awaiting the signal for the
destruction of our homes and the ruin and massacre of our dear ones, and
yet we are actually asked to believe that no danger exists!
The same kid-gloved policy which, at a cost of 13,000 pounds has
provided a pleasant mansion with charming grounds, and a staff of
valets, servants, etc, for German officers, many of whom were
responsible for the barbaric outrages on innocent women, and the
massacre of children in Belgium, has also placed a protecting hand upon
our alien enemies. Assuredly this is an injudicious policy, for it has
already created a very grave suspicion and distrust in the public mind.
The "authorities"--whoever the persons in real authority may be--know
full well how, with every outgoing mail to Holland or Scandinavia, there
goes forth a mass of information concerning us, collected by spies, and
forwarded to neutral countries, where it is again collected by German
secret-agents, and forwarded to the German Secret Service in Berlin.
These letters are generally written, either in invisible ink or in
cipher-ticks, upon newspapers or magazines, which are merely placed in
unsuspicious-looking wrappers addressed to somebody, usually with an
English name, in Holland, Denmark, or Sweden. I have before me two such
letters posted in Hertfordshire. Further, we have undoubted
communication existing nightly from the sea to London by means of the
line of signal-lights which I have described, and further, these, it has
lately been proved, extend north, from the neighbourhood of Harrow,
right up to Leeds, Manchester, and Liverpool. There are other fixed
lights, too; brilliantly-lit windows and skylights, which show each
night, and are intended as beacons for the guidance of the enemy's
aircraft. Yet, all the time, we pursue the foolish policy of trying to
hide London by darkening it, and, at the same time, shine searchlights
at the self-same place and at the same hour each night--apparently to
betray to the enemy our most vulnerable points.
It was not long ago that, in this connection, my friend Mr Geo. R.
Sims pointed out the existence of a line of these guiding-lights,
extending from Willesden across to Buckingham Palace, and happily,
through the exposure he made, those of our "friends" who maintained them
have now been forced to leave them unlit.
Germans have been found in possession of hotels and mansions in
strategic positions all over the United Kingdom, and to-day numbers of
alien enemies--thanks to the order which has released them from the
internment-camps--are actually employed at the various great railway
termini in the Metropolis! Fancy such a state of affairs being
permitted by Imperial Germany--a country in which British prisoners of
war are half-starved, as evidenced by a cleverly composed letter before
me from one who is unfortunately a prisoner, and which passed the German
censor, whose knowledge of English was not so extensive as to cause him
to suspect.
When the reader has digested the pages which follow--chapters which give
a very lucid, calm, and first-hand idea of the low-down methods of
German espionage, he will, I venture to think, agree that it is of no
use to cross the barbarian's sword with a peacock's feather. Germany
intends, if she can, to crush and to humiliate us, to devastate our
homes, to outrage and massacre our dear ones, and by every subtle and
dastardly means, to bring upon us a disaster so stupendous as to stagger
humanity. Shall we remain lulled to sleep further by assurances which
are not borne out by facts? Germany's advance guard of spies are
already here, rubbing shoulders with us, many of them smug and
respectable citizens passing among us entirely unsuspected, members of
our churches, honoured, and believed to be Britons. Some are alien
enemies, others are traitors, who have imperilled this country's safety
for the lure of German gold.
In another place I have fully explained how the German Government held
out an alluring bait to myself. If this was done to me, then surely it
has been done to others.
We are Britons, fighting for our King and our Country. Our fathers,
husbands, sons, and brothers, have gone forth to battle for the right
and hurl back the barbaric Teuton-tide which threatens to overwhelm us.
Some, alas! already lie in their graves. Is it therefore not our duty
to those we hold dear to see that spies shall not exist in our midst?
If the Government are so utterly incapable of dealing effectively with
the problem, as they are now proved to be, then why do they not allow
the formation of a Central Board, with drastic powers, to end at once
this national danger, which grows more acute with the dawn of every day?
I am no alarmist, nor am I affected with spy mania. I am merely here
writing a plain and bitter truth, the truth which I have learnt after
years of experience and patient inquiry. If space permitted, I could
relate a hundred stories of espionage, all supported by evidence;
stories which would contain as much excitement as any I have ever
written in the guise of fiction. But my only object in this preface is
to urge the public to read this book, to inquire into and study the
problem for themselves, and to assure them that the words of
"Ex-Intelligence Officer" are full of very grave truths, which cannot be
ignored or refuted.
It is for the public themselves to demand satisfaction in a very
determined and outstanding manner. The voice of the country is
unanimous that we are being trifled with, and surely it is a thousand
pities that mistrust should thus arise, as it is rapidly arising, at
this grave crisis of our national history.
The public have been told definitely by Mr Tennant that "Every enemy
alien is known, and is now under constant police surveillance." If the
public, in face of the mass of evidence accumulating to the contrary,
will still believe it, then let them rest in their fool's paradise until
the Day of Awakening. If not, then they, through their representatives
in Parliament, have the matter in their own hands.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
William Le Queux.
Devonshire Club, London S.W.
April 1915.
Foreword.
British and other official circles know more of the German secret
service than the public are aware of, and there is little that is done
by German agents without the cognisance of the countries affected by
their work, at the present time. The following pages make no attempt at
unveiling all the secrets of the German system, for that would involve
not a book, but a library. What has been done is to present such
evidence with regard to the system as can be verified from
unquestionable sources--the book given here in no case goes beyond the
truth, and is capable of proof, with the exception of the chapter on
_agents provocateurs_, of whose work no direct proofs are available to
the general public. In this case the writer has been careful to state
facts in such a way that they carry their own proof.
Further, as an ex-member of the Intelligence Staff, the writer has had
access to information respecting the British secret service which is not
generally available, but patriotic motives would alone be sufficient to
withhold this information. All that is said with regard to the British
methods of counter-espionage, or with regard to the measures adopted by
any other Government against German spying, is compiled from information
available in the columns of the Press to all who care to read. The book
is written in the earnest hope that it may do something toward revealing
the nature of the German spy system to incredulous folk, for by opening
the eyes of the public to such a definite danger one is a step nearer to
the crushing of German militarism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Author.