The nature of the work undertaken by spies of the higher orders places
them, at times, in possession of a good deal of information which,
should the spies choose to use it improperly, becomes a danger to the
German Government. This is not good for the spies concerned; in some
cases they are trusted too far--for even such an organisation as the
German secret service can make mistakes at times--and then they vanish.
One case was that of an ex-service officer on the Russian frontier, who,
unfortunately for him, fell in love with a Russian lady, and found that
his duty was not so strong as his love: it was ascertained that not only
was he lax in his espionage, but that he was actually making his work of
benefit to the Russian service rather than to his own people. A noted
duellist was sent to the spot, with orders to challenge the recreant
spy--and as a result the spy was killed.
The instance is not an isolated one, and in some cases the headquarters
at Berlin, realising that a man or woman knows enough to be dangerous,
deliberately betrays the person concerned to the authorities of some
other Power, with a view to removing dangerous evidence, by means of
imprisonment, until such time as the evidence shall be no longer
dangerous. Such a case, undoubtedly, was that of the man Graves, whose
arrest was largely due to a wrongly addressed letter sent to him from
his headquarters--or at the instigation of his headquarters. The system
pursued at the German headquarters is such that mistakes are not made by
accident, but, if they occur, there is a definite purpose behind them.
Graves knew too much, and suffered for it; he was a clever man and a
good spy--but there were others equally good, and, since he had come to
know more than the heads of the German secret service thought fit, he
was removed, by being imprisoned in an English prison, to a point where
his knowledge was no longer available for his own use.
It may be urged that, in view of the nature of the work involved in
espionage duty, it would be hard to find people to undertake that duty,
at least, to the extent alleged in the case of the German Empire and its
secret service. Such a contention as this, however, proves ignorance of
the German, and especially of the Prussian character and way of viewing
moral problems. In this connection it is worthy of note that Herr
Richter, the leader of the Opposition in the Reichstag, once raised a
protest with regard to "the more than doubtful morality of the
individuals employed" in the police service of the country; that is, the
persons employed in secret police work. In reply, the Minister for the
Interior, Von Puttkamer, stated that "it is the right and duty of the
State to employ special and extraordinary methods, and even if that
honest and estimable functionary, Police-Councillor Rumpff, has employed
the methods of which he is accused, in order to secure for the State the
benefits of useful intelligence, I here publicly express to him my
satisfaction and thanks."
The methods to which Herr Richter took exception included the suborning
of high officials in magisterial, political, and industrial circles,
more especially by the temptations afforded by the keeping of such
disorderly houses as the woman Krausz made infamously notorious; the
engaging, as secret agents, court officials, Reichstag deputies and
their wives, and all who could in any way help on the business of
information without regard to the moral or social degeneracy that might
be brought about by these "honest and estimable" methods. Since the
responsible Ministers of the country countenance rank immorality and
vice in the search for information, it follows inevitably that the life
of the nation as a whole is lowered in tone by the existence of the spy
system; things that, to people of normal view-point appear detestable,
become things that all may do without shame. Here in England a spy is
given his real value--he is looked on as no true man: in Germany, on the
other hand, the business of a spy is as honourable as any other; the
outlook of the nation has become perverted by the system that Stieber
set in working--Stieber himself was Germany's greatest enemy, but the
country has not yet realised this. And, with this perverted morality,
this condoning of evil for the sake of the good that may accrue, there
is no lack of material from which to fashion spies. The German Empire
has become not only commercialised, but debased; the German view of
solemn treaties, and the German justification of broken oaths on the
ground of expediency, are typical of the German view-point in all
things. Nothing is dishonourable, except to be found out, is a fairly
accurate way of expressing the German view-point as regards rules for
the conduct of life.
With this much understood, it is easy to understand that, in dealing
with a German--with any German--one is dealing with a potential spy, for
the whole nation is subject to espionage and attuned to it, regarding it
as a part of daily life. From money-lender and social hanger-on down to
workman and loafer, spies may be made out of all grades of the social
scale, and are made. Through the medium of a workman spy, the plans of
the Lebel rifle were in German hands before ever one of the rifles in
question was handed out for the use of French troops. At the other end
of the scale is Von Puttkamer, Minister of the Interior, sanctioning
anything and all things, irrespective of the harm they may do to the
moral nature of the German race, so long as "information" is obtained.
The taint is in the race, so permeating all classes that neither man nor
woman can be regarded as free of it. The actual word "spy" is capable
of various interpretations, and the real and acknowledged spies of the
German system, numerous though they are, do not form nearly as large a
total as the people who help the espionage system to maintain its
efficiency.
The spy _par excellence_ is one who has in him or in her a decidedly
criminal instinct. Men and women of this class make the best spies,
from the point of view of their employers; and by reason of this the
German system, since Stieber passed out from it, has been more effective
in the elucidation of details than of large essentials--something is
missing from the moral pervert who makes the best spy, or it may be that
there is no longer at the head of the secret-service organisation such a
genius as Stieber, who could make his small creatures accomplish large
designs. Stieber, Zerniki--one may choose out half a dozen or so of
names just as in criminal records one may choose out the names of Peace
and Crippen, or even of the Borgias, as capable of great things in
crime. But the spies of later days in the German secret service have
not been put to great uses, or the temper of the British people would
not have been misunderstood to the extent that led to Ireland being
looked on as "a revolting province," or the colonies of Britain as only
waiting for a chance to escape from British rule. The general work of
the spy seems to have degenerated along with the nation that founded the
system, down to petty ends and inconsequent results; we have seen, in
this present war, that the occupation of Brussels was carried through
without a hitch owing to the machine-like perfection of the German spy
system--there was cause for congratulation, from a German point of view.
But we have seen none of the great coups that made the campaign of 1870
as great a triumph for Stieber as for Bismarck and his royal master.
The anti-espionage system of British secret service is worthy of note in
connection with the decline of the German system of espionage. In this
connection the _Scotsman_ report of the trial of Graves bears quotation,
more especially the deposition of Inspector Trench, who described the
effects found on Graves at the time of his arrest.
"The prisoner, on being arrested at his hotel, had in his possession a
doctor's book, apparently empty. This was found, on inspection, to
contain two leaves stuck together. In the middle were sentences and
figures--a code which had been subsequently deciphered by a process of
subtraction from the A.B.C. code.
"He also had... cartridge cases of the latest Army pattern. The
code-notes contained phrases like `clearing practice,' `have lowered
defending nets,' `land fortifications are manned,' etc."
Further, Graves had lived in Edinburgh as "a medical student taking his
last degree in science," but had not been near any hospital, and had
used the paper and envelopes of a well-known English firm for his
correspondence, in order to avoid inspection of his letters by the post
office.
The statement in court of facts like these points not so much to the
cunning of the man Graves, but to the way in which, from the time of his
taking up residence in Edinburgh as "a medical student," he must have
been shadowed and kept under observation. The deciphering of the code,
the certainty as to paper and envelopes used, and other things that came
out at the trial, are small points in themselves; but they go to show
that, if the German secret service were relatively as good to-day as in
the days when Stieber used his intelligence to keep the system ahead of
all others, Graves would never have come to a British jail; for, in the
first place, the German secret service would not have employed a man who
already knew too much, and, in the second place, as soon as any methods
were known to the British police they would have been changed for
others, even to the code which could be interpreted without the aid of a
key.
With regard to the quality of treachery, latent in all spies, the German
secret service does its best to overcome this difficulty by the
retention of a certain portion of the pay with which the spies are
credited. When once a man or woman has fairly entered on the work of
espionage a proportion of the pay is held back by the paymaster, so that
there is always a considerable sum owing. This is supposed to act as an
incentive to loyalty, and in most cases it undoubtedly has that effect,
for no man likes to commit an act which will involve the forfeiture of a
sum of money really due to him. Bearing in mind the cupidity of the
average spy, it will be seen that no stronger deterrent of treachery
could be devised.
In the case of the military spy, the French service affords more
opportunities for the German agent than does the British. In the
British service the officers of commissioned rank have many faults, but
they are in nearly every case gentlemen, in the best sense of that
much-abused word. In the citizen army of France, on the other hand, an
officer may be anything--and in this is intended no disparagement on the
brave Army of our present allies. The Republican system admits all to
its ranks--perhaps it would be better to say that it compels all to
enter its ranks--and the Republican ideal places a commission in the
reach of all, without regard to birth or social standing. In many ways
this is to the good, for it fosters the Republican spirit in the Army,
and at the same time makes an efficient fighting machine; but it admits
to the commissioned ranks, perhaps once in five hundred times, a man who
is sufficiently unworthy of his country and its uniform to be guilty of
acts which point to his openness to corruption. The case of Ullmo,
though it concerns a naval officer, was one in point; it is not to be
alleged that a British officer, enslaved by drugs and otherwise debased,
would not have done as Ullmo did; but it is to be alleged that the
debasing of Ullmo, which brought him down to the point at which
subsequent corruption was not only possible but easy, is almost
impossible in the British service--such a man would have been cashiered
before he reached the point at which Ullmo fell to actual treachery and
crime. The Republican system has its drawbacks, and a retention of the
laws of caste to an extent which compels all commissioned officers to an
acknowledgment of caste, is not altogether undesirable--except from the
view-point of the spy. On the confession of a French writer on the
subject, there are officers in the French service who form a "class of
officers whose private life is no better regulated than their
professional conduct." In such the spy finds comparatively easy prey;
but their counterparts do not exist in the British services, for the
caste laws of Army and Navy alike forbid ill-regulated lives, and
officers of both services must be above suspicion when off parade. The
universal service of France renders such a state of affairs almost
impossible in the Republican Army. Where every man is a soldier, the
staff of officers is so much greater that the presence of a few black
sheep is practically unavoidable--and it must be said in common fairness
that the French officer is more sternly supervised than his British
confrere--yet lapses on the part of commissioned officers are more
common than in the British services.
Yet one other point must be borne in mind in connection with the general
work of the spy. Happenings in 1870, combined with Stieber's Memoirs,
make clear that the hanging of peasants in the later stages of the war
excited even the criticism of stone-hearted Bismarck, who saw in these
occurrences a policy which might some day bring retribution. But to
this Stieber answered: "In war one must take the measures of war. It is
the duty of our soldiers to kill the soldiers of the enemy who from
motives of duty oppose our march. We spies claim the right to hang
those who spy on us."
The declaration is illuminating. Here were the members of the German
secret service facilitating a conquest by dastardly measures, by abuse
of the hospitality of the country which the Prussian troops subsequently
invaded. Yet, if the inhabitants of that country dared to attempt to
give information to their own countrymen, they were to be hanged.
Espionage is responsible for many evils: Stieber shows here that it
is responsible for the blunting of the moral sense of his
fellow-countrymen, and that the espionage system of 1870 laid the
foundations of the Prussian disregard of human life, and the utter
brutality and savagery displayed by Prussians in this present war of
1914.
"A peasant was caught in the act of watching a Prussian convoy," Stieber
writes in his Memoirs, "and was falsely accused of having fired upon it;
he was hung up by ropes under his arms in front of his own house, and
was slowly done to death with thirty-four bullets fired in succession.
In order to make an example, I decided that the body should remain
hanging for two days, under the guard of two sentries."
A thing like this is worth memory to-day, in view of what has happened
at Louvain and Aerschot and other scenes of Belgian outrage. The germ
of Prussian barbarism must have been in the race, but Stieber and his
kind have fostered it and caused its growth to the extent that has made
of Germany a name of shame among the nations of the earth.