ski-running at Mürren. As he stood before the fire I chanced to
remark that the Crimes Club was holding their usual dinner that night
and I was remaining in town to attend it.
“In my profession I am constantly dealing with petty crime. I would
so much like to go to one of your dinners,” he said. “I suppose you
discuss the celebrated cases of poisoning and so on? It must be most
interesting.”
I replied that at the meetings many unknown facts concerning great
crimes were often revealed.
But as I sat there I never dreamed of the terrible crime of which,
not a month before, the man standing astride the rug had been guilty.
He had deliberately poisoned his wife, and at that moment she was
lying in her grave!
“Yes,” he repeated, throwing himself into a big armchair and lazily
smoking an excellent cigar. “I should so much like to be present at
one of the meetings.”
I met my fellow-clubman on quite half a dozen subsequent occasions,
and no doubt he would have found the deliberations of the Crimes Club
full of interest, for he was none other than the notorious poisoner,
Herbert Rowse Armstrong. When his wife’s body was exhumed by order of
the Home Office about seven months after our fireside conversation,
arsenic was found to have been the cause of death, and then came
another charge of attempting to poison a friend.
As everyone knows, Armstrong was hanged in Gloucester Gaol in
January, 1922.
Yes, I have met some very queer people.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Spies and Spying--I am the First to Warn Britain of the Coming
War--Everybody Derides Me--How I Knew that the Kaiser
was Plotting War--I Bring Documentary Evidence to London
and Place it before Earl Roberts and the Cabinet--It is
Stolen by German Agents--I Write _The Invasion_, and am
Denounced by the Premier in the House of Commons as a
Scaremonger--The Premier Apologizes Privately and Says he
has Discredited Me for Political Reasons--Earl Roberts,
Lord Charles Beresford and Mr. Lloyd George Stick by Me--I
Become a Secret Agent of Great Britain and Manage to See
Over the Ehrardt Gun Factory in Düsseldorf, where Big Guns
were in the Making--_The Invasion_ is Translated into
Twenty-seven Foreign Languages--The Germans Invite Me to Go
Over to Them and Offer to Pay Me Well!
I think I can claim to be the first person to warn Great Britain that
the Kaiser was plotting a war against us.
I discovered, as far back as 1905, a great network of German
espionage spread over the United Kingdom. I found out the secret
through a friend in Berlin, who was at the time under-director of
the Kaiser’s Spy Bureau, and who had married an Englishwoman who was
believed by all, except her husband, to be German. As is usual in
Germany, his master did not exactly “play the game” with him, and,
therefore, in 1905, he told me frankly what was in progress.
I came back from Germany and endeavoured to awaken public opinion
concerning the peril, but my voice was, alas! that of one crying in
the wilderness. Spies! What on earth did Germany want to spy upon
us for? Were we not good friends with Germany? Had not the Kaiser
assured Lord Haldane of his peaceful intentions? Did not the great
War Lord in his golden helmet come to Buckingham Palace, and did he
not parade the Embankment on his way to the Mansion House?
No, Le Queux was a writer of romance. Who could believe a word he
said? So nobody would listen to me. No newspaper would publish any
article that I wrote, although I asked no payment for it. I sent four
London daily newspapers a letter of warning, asking the Editor to
publish it. All returned it. The editor of one of the most powerful
organs wrote:
“MY DEAR LE QUEUX,--We cannot publish this! Spies exist only
in your imagination. We don’t want to alarm the public.”
Alarm the public? I, who knew the truth, was walking about London
telling people a story at which they only laughed!
Now, to my friend Earl Roberts I related what I had discovered.
He listened to me attentively and declared that he, too, was very
suspicious of Germany’s intentions. I introduced him to Lord
Northcliffe and we all three discussed the peril for over an hour.
I next consulted Colonel Lockwood, M.P. for Epping, now Lord
Lambourne. He heard me, instituted his own inquiries in Essex, and
three weeks later entirely agreed with me. He realized the danger,
and one day put a question in the House, whereupon the whole of our
legislators laughed him to scorn. Spies! It was Le Queux with a bee
in his bonnet again!
I saw Prince Louis of Battenberg and Lord Charles Beresford who,
on my producing facts that I had at my own expense obtained, fully
agreed that a serious peril existed.
In this way the small circle of the men I have named first became
aware of Germany’s elaborate system of espionage that was working in
every direction for one purpose only--a coming war.
The Admiralty had a kind of scratch intelligence service at the
time, and so had the War Office. If any officer happened to obtain a
tit-bit of information he sent it “to the proper quarter” where it
was pigeon-holed and nobody ever again referred to it. Scotland Yard
with its much vaunted Special Branch, looked after wild Irishmen and
political undesirables, but spies--oh! it was all very absurd.
The greatest Empire of the world, sucking down daily the soothing
syrup handed out by a pro-German press, declared Lord Roberts, Lord
Northcliffe and myself to be a set of scaremongers.
I was in a quandary, but just at that moment, when nobody would
publish a word concerning the spy peril, my old friend Mr. D.
C. Thomson, proprietor of the _Dundee Courier_ and a group of
influential newspapers in Scotland and England, heard what I had
to say, and after consulting with one of his Editors, Mr. G.
B. Duncan--one of the most able and popular journalists in the
Kingdom--resolved to make some investigations. With Mr. Duncan I
travelled for some weeks about Scotland, gathering a quantity of
information. On our return to Dundee, Mr. Thomson decided that as the
public refused to believe in the actual existence of German spies
among us, or of the Kaiser’s intentions for war, I should write a
series of articles based on the facts that we had gathered.
Thus I wrote the first story ever written about spies, called _Spies
of the Kaiser_. It was published by Mr. Thomson in _The Weekly News_,
a journal that has a huge circulation throughout the United Kingdom.
It also appeared later in book form, and, when the scales at last
fell from the eyes of the public, I had many imitators, who obtained
much kudos and made much money out of the kind of article I had
inaugurated.
Still the Government was much against my having dared to tell the
truth to the public. The octopus hand of Germany was on every walk
of life, and I knew myself to be a marked man. My old friend in
Berlin--who had, long years before, been a fellow student of mine in
Paris--warned me one day when we met at the Hôtel des Indes at the
Hague, that if I proceeded with my exposures I should certainly be
ruined in some way or another.
I laughed and expressed defiance. If I had not done so and had
withdrawn from the attitude I had taken up, I might have to-day been
a rich man.
I came back to London and in Lord Roberts’ study in Portland Place, I
one morning told him what Herr N---- had told me.
“I feel that all is hopeless,” I said to the gallant old
Field-Marshal. “I have done my level best, and nobody will hear me.
I know the truth, but because I dare to tell it, people think I am a
lunatic. My popularity as a writer will wane--and I have to earn my
living by my pen!”
“My dear Le Queux,” said the white moustached old soldier, holding
out his hand in a fatherly manner, “the world thinks me a lunatic
also, because, after my forty years service in India, I have come
home and dared to tell England that she is unprepared for war. I know
you fear that you will earn unpopularity if you persevere with your
good work. But stand by me--follow me. Charles Beresford and I will
support you in every way, and we will, between us, try and convince
these careless money-making people around us, that they are living on
the brink of a volcano.”
I grasped his outstretched hand, and thus the compact was made.
Lord Roberts became Commander-in-Chief, and almost his first work
was the formation--entirely apart from the official one--of a new
voluntary Secret Service Department, of which I became a member.
Half-a-dozen patriotic men in secret banded themselves together.
Each paying his own expenses, set to work gathering information in
Germany and elsewhere that might be useful to our country in case of
need. Italy and the Near East were the regions allotted to me, but my
travels took me also to Russia, to Germany, and to Austria.
We soon discovered in our midst most remarkable ramifications of
Germany’s spy system. As time after time I came home to report to
Lord Roberts what I had found out in the course of my travels as a
wandering novelist, the great military leader became more than ever
convinced of the Kaiser’s slow but sure preparations for war.
Suddenly I received a guarded note from my German friend, Herr N----,
asking whether I could meet him in Switzerland as he wished to renew
my acquaintance. He would be in Zurich on a certain date.
I read between the lines that he wished to see me, so I travelled
to Zurich, where in my bedroom at the Dolder Hotel he handed me a
document that, when I brought it to London, caused the greatest
sensation in certain quarters.
It was the full report of a secret council held a month before at
Potsdam, at which the Emperor presided, Prince Henry of Prussia--a
clever man whom I knew personally, having been on one of his
motor-tours--the representatives of the leading Federal States, and
the chiefs of the army and navy--including my informant--being also
present.
At this secret council the Kaiser appeared in naval uniform, pale,
determined, and somewhat nervous and unstrung, my friend told me, and
went on to describe the scene. The Emperor spoke for more than two
hours, illustrating his speech with many maps and diagrams as well as
models of new air-craft and long-range guns designed for the coming
war.
At first the Emperor’s voice had been almost inaudible, and he
looked haggard and worn, but his words, according to the transcript
that my friend gave me--and which I eventually produced in my book
_German Spies in England_, after being forced by hostile public
opinion to keep it secret for seven years--were significant enough.
He openly declared that he intended to have war.
“In calling this council this evening,” the Emperor said, “I have
followed the Divine Command. Almighty God has always been a great and
true ally of the House of Hohenzollern, and it is to Him that I--just
as my august ancestors did--look for inspiration and guidance in the
hour of need. After long hours of fervent prayer light has, at last,
come to me. You, my trusted councillors and my friends, before whom I
have no secrets, can testify that it has been, ever since I ascended
the Throne, my most ardent desire to maintain the peace of the world
and to cultivate, on a basis of mutual respect and esteem, friendship
and goodwill with all the nations on the globe. I am aware that the
course followed by me did not always meet with your approval, and
that on many an occasion you would have been glad to see me use the
mailed fist rather than the silken glove chosen by me in my dealings
with certain foreign nations. It was a source of profound grief to me
to see my best intentions misunderstood, but, bullet-proof against
public censure and criticism, and responsible only to the Lord above
us for my acts, I calmly continued to do what I considered to be my
holy duty to the Fatherland. True to the great traditions of Prussia,
and the House of Hohenzollern, I believed in the necessity of
maintaining a great army and an adequate navy as the best guarantee
of peace. In our zeal for the preservation of peace we were compelled
to keep pace with the ever-increasing armaments of our neighbours,
until the limit seems now to have been reached.
“We find ourselves now face to face with the most serious crisis in
the history of our new German Empire. Owing to the heavy taxation
and the enormous increase in the cost of living, the discontent of
the masses is assuming alarming proportions, and even infecting the
middle and upper classes, which have, up to the present time, been
the strongest pillar of the monarchy. But, worst of all, there are
unmistakable signs that the discontent is spreading even among the
troops, and that a secret well-organized anti-military movement is
afoot, calculated to destroy all discipline, and to incite both my
soldiers and sailors to open disobedience and rebellion.
“As, according to the reports of my Secret Service, a similar
movement is making itself felt in nearly all the states of Europe,
all indications point to the fact, which admits, indeed, no longer of
any doubt, that we have to deal with an international revolutionary
organization whose voiced object is the overthrowing of throne and
altar, and the establishment of a Republican government....
“‘Breakers ahead!’ is the call of the helmsman of the Imperial ship
of state, and I am ready to heed it. How to find an honourable and
satisfactory solution of the problem is a question to which I have
devoted the closest attention during these last months. The outlook
is, I admit, dark, but we need not despair, for God, our great Ally,
has given into our hands the means of saving our Empire from the
dangers which are threatening it. You know what I mean.
“It is the wonderful invention which Count Zeppelin was able, through
the grace of the Lord, to make for the safeguarding and glory of
our beloved Fatherland. In this invention God has placed the means
at my disposal to lead Germany triumphantly out of her present
difficulties and to make once and for all good the words of our poet,
‘_Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!_’ Yes, gentlemen, Germany over
everything in the world, the first power on earth both in peace and
war.
“That is my irrevocable decision. At present we are, thanks to our
airships and our new monster guns, which will be a surprise for our
enemies, invincible, and can carry at will war into the enemy’s own
country.
“Of course it is too early yet to fix the exact date when the blow
shall be struck. But I will say this, that we shall strike as soon
as I have a sufficiently large fleet of Zeppelins at my disposal. I
have given orders for the hurried construction of more airships of
the improved Zeppelin type, and when these are ready we shall destroy
England’s North Sea, Channel, and Atlantic Fleets, after which
nothing on earth can prevent the landing of our army on British soil,
and its triumphant march to London. Do you remember, my Generals,
what our never-to-be-forgotten Field-Marshal Gebhard Lebrecht von
Blücher exclaimed, when looking from the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral
upon the vast metropolis at his feet? It was short and to the point.
‘What a splendid city to sack!’
“You will desire to know how the outbreak of hostilities will be
brought about. I can assure you on this point. Certainly we shall
not have to go far to find a just cause for war. My army of spies
scattered over Great Britain and France, as it is over North and
South America, as well as all the other parts of the world where
German interests may come to a clash with a foreign power, will take
good care of that. _I have issued already some time since secret
orders that will, at the proper moment, accomplish what we desire!_”
In due course I gave the document to Lord Roberts, and also showed
it to Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Northcliffe, Prince Louis of
Battenberg, Rear-Admiral H. W. Wilkin, and a number of officers
of high rank. In addition, it was placed before the Cabinet, who
pooh-poohed it. Yet six years later the Kaiser carried out his
programme almost to the very letter, and came very near achieving his
dastardly object.
My friend from Berlin had given the report of that speech to me with
these words:
“There is war coming; I am certain of it. And though I am a German,
I am one who does not believe in war. Therefore I think your friends
should know what is intended, and be warned in time. For that reason
I give it to you, assuring you that those words are the exact words
used by His Majesty, and trusting to your honour always to regard
your source of information as secret.”
I gave him my hand in pledge, and have never divulged his name, even
though during the war his ingenuity regarding the organization of
enemy spies was very often pitted against my own.
I have said that when I brought it to London the speech created
a great sensation among those to whom I showed it in confidence.
Very naturally its authenticity was doubted by some members of the
Cabinet, and all the machinery of the official Secret Service was set
to work to try and discredit it. But certain facts were brought to
light that left no doubt of its genuineness.
I spoke to several publishers of my intention of writing a book
exposing the Kaiser’s intentions for war, but they one and all
dissuaded me, saying that such a subject would be unpopular. The
country laughed at any idea of German treachery, and the book would
in consequence be a complete failure.
Now the German Government, by some means, learned that I was in
possession of a report of that secret speech of the Kaiser’s, and
a curious incident resulted. In September, 1909, I determined to
write a book pointing out that Germany meant war. With that object
I showed Eveleigh Nash, whose offices were then at Fawside House,
Covent Garden, the opening chapters of my manuscript, together with
the speech in question. He, in my presence, locked them in a drawer
of the writing-table in his private room. Two days later, when Mr.
Nash opened that drawer, he found they had been stolen! German secret
agents undoubtedly committed the theft--which was reported in certain
newspapers at the time--for I have since learnt that my manuscript
is now in the archives of the Secret Service in Berlin! This, in
itself, is sufficient proof of how eager the Kaiser was to suppress
his declaration of war. It was fortunate that I had kept a copy of
the speech, which I did not publish till the outbreak of war.
I was utterly disheartened at the apathy of the nation. I was
doing my utmost, spending my hard-earned money in travelling and
discovering the truth, yet nobody, except the few men I have already
mentioned, would listen to me. I was openly told that my patriotism
would spell ruin to me, as, alas! it eventually did, thanks to
the same pro-German influence then at work, officially deluding,
reassuring, and lulling the public to sleep, even as it is to-day.
I was in despair, and one afternoon, when I sat with Lord Roberts in
his library, I told him that all I had endeavoured to do was without
avail; for I was being denounced on every hand as a scaremonger,
and told that I was a novelist and should stick to my profession of
writing fiction.
“If people prefer your fiction to your fact, why not write a work of
fiction--a description of what would happen if a great war came and
we were invaded?” the Field-Marshal suggested.
The idea seemed a good one, but I pointed out that, not being a
military man, I would make many technical blunders. Whereupon he said:
“I have the country’s welfare at heart, just as you have. I will
prepare the scheme of attack and defence, and give you hints, if you
will write the book.”
“And who will publish it?” I queried.
“Try Lord Northcliffe,” was his advice.
I did. Next day I saw my old friend whom the _Daily Mail_ staff
called “The Chief.” Within an hour he had given me an open
commission. I was to write, regardless of expense, a forecast of
“The Invasion” for the _Daily Mail_, besides being promised a very
handsome price for it.
“I know your pocket has suffered very much, Quex,” he said, for he
always called me by that name. “Write a good stirring forecast. Tell
Lord Roberts we will both try and wake up the country to a sense of
its peril.”
In high spirits I went back to Portland Place and told the gallant
old soldier, and that same evening we started to plan out an
imaginary German invasion.
Having _carte blanche_ in the matter of expense, I sought the aid
of Colonel Cyril Field, R.M.L.I., and Major Matson, both military
experts, while H. W. Wilson, the well-known naval expert, was eager
and ready to assist me in connection with naval matters.
For four months we reconnoitred the whole of East Anglia, from the
Tyne to the Thames, making notes, marking maps, and finding out the
most vulnerable points--including Weybourne Gap, in Norfolk, which
was no doubt one of the points marked by the Germans for their
disembarkation at the proper moment--and then, on my return to
London, I was appalled to find that I had spent over three thousand
pounds on what some would have termed “a joy ride.”
Lord Northcliffe paid it, remarking that, provided the forecast was
well done, he would not mind the expense.
Then I took a flat in Queen Anne’s Mansions, Westminster, and there
began to write. It was a colossal task as may well be imagined by
anyone who has read the book, and further I had to surmount a heavier
barrier than any I had ever dreamed might obstruct my way.
Thus, when at last I had, after a year’s work, finished the
manuscript, and Lord Roberts had read every line and corrected
any mistake I had made, and one morning--as will perhaps be
remembered--the whole front pages of _The Times_, the _Daily
Telegraph_, the _Morning Post_, the _Daily Mail_, and the _Daily
Chronicle_, as well as the front pages of certain great provincial
papers, bore a map of England, showing the districts that would be
invaded, and announcing that the publication of my forecast, “The
Invasion,” would commence in the _Daily Mail_ on the morrow, the
Campbell-Bannerman Government determined that every word I wrote
should be discredited and held in derision.
That same afternoon in the House of Commons a question was asked
of the Prime Minister whether his attentions had been directed to
the advertisements. The campaign against me had now started in real
earnest!
Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman replied that he had seen the
advertisements, and, denouncing me as a mere scaremonger, declared
that such work was pernicious literature, “calculated to inflame
public opinion abroad and alarm the more ignorant public at home.”
I at once wrote asking how he could criticize a work he had never
read; and, moreover, why he accused his electors, the British public,
of being more ignorant than their neighbours across the Channel. I
knew it was a poser. But of the jugglery of politics there is no
end, so I smiled and forgave him when next day he sent by special
messenger a note in his own handwriting marked “Strictly Private” and
in which he apologized for the words he had used. He meant “the more
ignorant _section_ of the public at home,” and hoped that I would
not, in the exigencies of politics, take any word of his as being
personally offensive. He concluded by asking me to call at Downing
Street when I could, as he wanted to make full explanation!
Next day the _Daily Mail_ appeared with the opening chapters of my
work. It proved a huge success. Everyone congratulated me on it. At
the Savage Club, at the Devonshire, at Boodles, at the Reform, at the
houses I visited, I was hailed as the man-who-dared-to-tell-the-truth.
[Illustration:
_I therefore wish you every success in your endeavour to
impress upon the people of this country that the possession
of a world-wide Empire carries with it defensive obligations
commensurate with the commercial and other advantages which it
confers, and that, without concerted and patriotic effort, we
may not improbably lose what our ancestors won.--_
_Believe me
Yours very truly
Roberts._
Extracts of Lord Roberts’ famous letter of warning.]
Naturally I was much gratified, for among the letters I received was
one that I here publish for the first time:
“47 PORTLAND PLACE,
“LONDON, W.,
“_22nd August, 1906_.
“DEAR MR. LE QUEUX,--I return with many thanks the enclosure
of your letter of 2nd August.