forcibly illustrates the risk we should run under present
military conditions, if, owing to the temporary absence
or inferiority of our fleet, a Continental power (meaning
Germany) were able to seize an opportunity for landing a large
force of picked soldiers in this country.
“The maintenance at home of an adequate number of well-trained
and organized troops and reservists would not only set free
the navy for offensive action and the protection of our
sea-borne commerce, by relieving it to an appreciable extent
of the onerous obligation which it has lately undertaken of
defending these shores without military co-operation, but
would also enable such reinforcements to be despatched to our
Colonies and dependencies as might be required to preserve the
integrity and safeguard the interests of the British Empire.
“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.”
Have we not already lost Ireland, and are we not daily losing grip on
Australia and on Canada? Is the reader aware that the newspapers in
the latter country, when advertising for a man to do a job, add: “No
English need apply”?
I received a flood of other congratulatory letters from, among
others, the Duke of Northumberland, the Duke of Argyll, the Duke of
Fife, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Rosebery, the Earl of Wemyss,
Viscount Milner, Viscount Hardinge, Lord Brassey, Lord Tweedmouth,
Lord Newton, Field-Marshal Sir George White, Lieut.-General Sir
William Nicholson, Sir Ralph Moor, Major-General Sir J. Wolfe
Murray, Sir Albert Rollit, M.P., Sir William Holland, M.P., Sir
Joseph Dimsdale, M.P., Sir Charles Lawson, Sir Francis Tress Barry,
M.P., Sir Henry Seton-Karr, Sir Theodore V. S. Angier, Major-General
Sir Edwin Collen, Sir John Turney, Sir Henry W. Tyler, Colonel
Sir Reginald Hennell, General Sir Stanley Edwardes, Sir Alfred
Newton, Sir Fortescue Flannery, M.P., Colonel Sir Henry Rawlinson,
Alderman and Sheriff Sir Vesey Strong, Sheriff Sir George Woodman,
and Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, all of whom became my personal friends
and supporters. I found myself popular among those who knew of the
pro-German propaganda and its financial influence.
At last England seemed about to wake up!
Shortly afterwards I attended with Earl Roberts a meeting to consider
national defence, which was called by the London Chamber of Commerce
and presided over by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House. The
Field-Marshal had stated in the House of Lords that our armed forces
were as absolutely unfitted and unprepared as they had been in 1899.
“What the nation requires, especially that portion of it occupied
with the great business interests of the country,” he told the
crowded meeting, “is peace and security not only from actual war but
from alarms and panics. Such security, I regret to say--and I think
you will agree with me--cannot be ensured by diplomacy alone or by a
policy of conciliation alone, as some would have us believe. The only
true safeguard is that the armed forces of the Crown should be in
such a state of readiness and efficiency that it would not be to the
interests of any Power to risk war with us.”
Thus, in a splendid, vigorous speech, he put before them facts
showing our hopeless insecurity, and strongly urged that the country
should awaken to the peril of the apathy into which it had fallen.
Afterwards Lord Brassey, in proposing a vote of thanks, made a fine
speech, and later, when Earl Roberts introduced me to him in the Lord
Mayor’s parlour, he congratulated me on “The Invasion.”
The _Daily Mail_ had scored a success, even though the staff
themselves had at first expressed some doubts as to its reception.
Then, on Eveleigh Nash publishing it in book-form, with an
introduction by Earl Roberts, it at once went through many editions.
It caused such widespread attention--because no critic could pick
a hole in the invasion scheme, designed as it was by one of the
greatest strategists of our time--that it was translated into no
fewer than twenty-seven languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Icelandic,
Syrian, Japanese, and Chinese. Naturally I was much gratified at
having at last aroused the British nation, and others, to realize
that the Kaiser’s pretensions of friendship were false.
My friends saw that we were drifting towards war, yet, though I
had made a success with _The Invasion_, its result was exactly the
opposite to what I had hoped.
The world read my book eagerly. They devoured the scenes of how our
shores were invaded, of the fierce battles in Essex, Lancashire, and
Yorkshire, and of the enemy’s advance on London. Then, on finishing
the book, they simply set it aside, and, admitting that it was quite
an exciting work of imagination, set me down as a second-class Jules
Verne!
But a greater disillusionment came when a plausible round-faced
German came over from Berlin, called on Mr. A. P. Watt, my literary
agent, and arranged with him to pay a very handsome sum for the
German rights of the book.
I was in Naples when I received my agent’s letter, and by telegram
accepted the terms of the Concordia Press, in Berlin, congratulating
myself that even our enemies would learn the truth that they could
not invade us with success!
Judge my chagrin when, six months later, I saw an illustrated
edition of _The Invasion_ in German, the conclusion of which had
been entirely rewritten, making the result of the invasion a _German
success_! And there were pictures of Germans sacking London!
Worse! It was published, and bound in gilt, as a prize for German
boys at school!
I walked into the “Chief’s” room at the _Daily Mail_ offices filled
with fury and disgust.
“Under English law I’m an Englishman, and I love England!” I said to
Lord Northcliffe. “But, being the son of a French father, I’m also a
Frenchman, and I thank God for it!”
Those were my first words when I entered his room, and they caused
him to turn quickly from his chair, where he was dictating letters to
his secretary, Miss Owen.
“Hulloa, Quex! You’re not well! What’s up?” he asked. “Max has just
been in with a bad stomach-ache. He’s got a chill through wearing a
new fancy vest that hasn’t been aired.”
He referred to Max Pemberton.
I fear I used some rather strong language, but in his usual humorous
way he calmed me, and asked me down to Elmwood, his place near
Broadstairs, for the week-end.
I saw that we had advanced no farther in arousing the public. Had
it not been for Earl Roberts, Lord Northcliffe, Mr. Lloyd George,
Lord Charles Beresford, and a few other intimate friends, I should
have given up. But when bent on achieving an object I am perhaps
rather tenacious, so the money that I received in royalties from _The
Invasion_ I again spent on travelling Europe as a secret agent of
Great Britain.
I parted with my money freely, leading a gay life with the one idea
of gaining information of use to Great Britain. I was the only
Englishman who ever entered the great gun-factory of Ehrardt’s,
in Düsseldorf, where they were then constructing big guns. If my
identity had been discovered I should have spent the remainder of
my life in a German fortress. My escapade cost me a large sum in
bribery, which I paid to a certain adventurer in Constantinople, but
I got the knowledge that I wanted.
In due course the result of my adventure was reported by me,
docketed, and sent to those dusty pigeon-holes in the War Office.
The staff there, all keen and eager, dare not, after Lord Roberts
retired, show any alertness or enterprise. The Government had said,
“There are no spies,” and the staff of the Intelligence Branch was
compelled to assume a lack of intelligence.
It is curious, as a writer in the _Daily Mail_ pointed out recently,
that in _The Invasion_, written five years before the Great War,
not only was the Battle of Jutland forecasted, but several of the
ships sunk were actually described as sunk, while, in addition, the
bombardment of Scarborough was predicted and some of the houses
struck by shells actually named! Strange coincidences, at least.
* * * * *
The whole situation in 1910 to 1913 was hopeless. All I could do was
to write novels in which I took as my villain a spy. They became
popular. One could write spies in fiction, but to say there were
spies in real life was almost an offence against King and country.
One September night in 1910 I had an adventure in London that opened
my eyes widely to what was in progress, and to how our national
existence was at stake, though the nation was so entirely ignorant.
I received a note from General Sir Alfred Turner, who lived in Cheyne
Walk and whom I had not met, declaring that he greatly admired my
patriotism, and asked me to dine _en famille_ one Sunday evening.
I accepted the invitation, and went. To my great surprise, I found
among the guests the German Ambassador, the Chancellor of the
Embassy, the Military and Naval Attachés with their ladies, Lady
Tree, Miss Viola Tree, Mr. Lewis Waller, Lady Westmorland, Lady
Dorothy Nevill, and others.
In a corner of the drawing-room after dinner I found myself chatting
with the German military attaché--a man who was hail-fellow-well-met
with every journalist in London--who turned the conversation round to
my anti-German writings. By his invitation I met him at his club next
day. He entertained me to an expensive luncheon, and then suddenly
laughed at me for what he termed my misguided propaganda.
“There will be no war between your country and mine,” he assured me.
“You are so very foolish, my dear Mr. Le Queux. You have ruined your
reputation by these fixed ideas of yours. Why not change them? We
desire no quarrel with Great Britain, but we also, of course, realize
that you are doing only what you consider to be your duty.”
“It _is_ my duty,” I responded.
My diplomatic friend sucked at his cigar, and laughed.
“As a literary man you, of course, write to interest the public. But
you would interest your public just as easily by writing in _favour_
of Germany--and I tell you that we should quickly recognize the
favour you do us, _and recompense you well for it_.”
I rose from my chair.
I confess that I grew angry, and I told him what was in my mind.
I gave him a message to his own Secret Service in Berlin, which was
very terse and to the point, and then I left his club.
I give this as one single instance of the cunning manner in which the
German Secret Service endeavoured to nobble and bribe me, so as to
close my mouth and thus combat my activity.
Another instance was when the Nord-Deutscher Lloyd Line, of Bremen,
kindly invited me to take a voyage round the world, free of expense,
so that I might visit the various German colonies and write
descriptions of them. And, on a third occasion, German diplomats were
amazingly kind to me, both in Constantinople and in Belgrade, and
again broadly hinted at their readiness to win me over to their side.
How pitiable, how absolutely criminal was our apathy!
Here is another instance. One August morning in 1913, a year before
the war, I was sauntering along the village street at Southborough on
the Hill, three miles south of Tonbridge, in Kent. I was dressed as
a City man taking a country holiday, and had a camera hanging from a
strap over my shoulder. I had a girl with me, in order to complete
the picture. I was down in that rural retreat in order to watch
certain things that were in progress.
What I saw and photographed was certainly of great interest.
About twenty-five German officers in mufti, all speaking German and
making no disguise of their nationality, rode through Southborough,
and during the whole day actually reconnoitred very carefully the
hills between Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells, taking many bearings,
deliberating on sites for guns, and taking photographs. _They were
preparing for the invasion of England!_
That night the party returned to London, where they were entertained
by the German Ambassador at Carlton House Terrace.
Such a deliberate survey of our own country by a foreign army was
outrageous. I showed my photographs to Lord Roberts, and he, much
incensed, urged me to write to the Press. I did so, but the British
public had been doped, and not a single newspaper published a line
concerning the enemy’s survey of the Kentish hills. One editor wrote
to me declaring me to be a fool. That was only a year before the
outbreak of war.
I often wonder by whose orders it was that all the motor signs on
high roads from the Kentish coast to London were marked by the
black-and-white stripes of German official direction-posts! It would
be interesting to discover, for they silently pointed the way from
the coast to the capital, and the public little dreamed of why they
were black-and-white.
That the Germans intended to effect a sudden and unexpected landing
on the east and south coasts was proved in many ways. Earl Roberts,
Lord Northcliffe, and myself tried to point it out time after time,
but our warnings always fell on deaf ears. It was given over to
me to investigate. I found that on the east coast from Hull to
Felixstowe most hotels facing the sea had either a German manager or
proprietor, or, if not, there were Germans occupying private houses
or boarding-houses on the sea-front of every town.
Again, wherever a tenant was wanted for a public-house a German-born
applicant was ready to accept almost any condition to take up the
licence, while in no fewer than forty-two cases--as I reported to
the War Office--Germans or pretended Frenchmen or Swiss were living
either next door, or next door but one, to the most important
telegraph offices, ready to make a dash, and seize or destroy the
instruments on “The Day.”
Happily “The Day of the Invasion” never came, but it was not
prevented by any effort on the part of the pro-German Party, which
in 1914 existed in Britain, just as it exists here to-day. By that
staff-ride of German cavalry in Kent it was plain that the downfall
of England was being plotted, but who cared so long as officialdom
had its pickings and enjoyed its own social standing? I was only
laughed at for the trouble I had taken to watch it.
Do not the souls of the millions who died on the battlefields of
France, of Belgium, of Italy, and of the East rise against the
plotters? Does not the onus of the frightful loss of the flower
of our dear English lads lie, not on our four-hundred-a-year
legislators, but on some of the golfing, dividend-seeking, pushful
pro-Germans with old-world English names, often assumed, who have
ruled our country through past years?
What will be the opinion of those who come after us?
Without politics, I repeat--for I am no politician, and have never
voted in my life--I would pay a tribute--the tribute that the whole
nation should pay--to Mr. Lloyd George and his advisers, who came
in for so much adverse criticism before the war. I declare as my
opinion--an opinion that millions share--that the manner in which he,
as Chancellor of the Exchequer, faced and grappled with the financial
situation at the outbreak of war was an illustration of British
pluck, coolness, and readiness unequalled in our history. As I have
already stated, my only feeling is one of pure patriotism towards the
country that gave me birth. Any of these plain statements of fact,
which I here set down, I defy any political or official juggling to
disprove.
Though we are at peace to-day, there are signs everywhere of another
war in the very near future. The writing-on-the-wall is there for
those who are intelligent enough to read it. To-day throughout the
world there is frantic and gigantic effort to produce fresh war
material of a far more destructive nature--fast bombing aeroplanes,
poison-gases, microbe-bombs, and high explosives such as the world
has never before seen. And against whom? Great Britain, without a
shadow of doubt.
Though we once cleared the enemy out of our island, he is here again
in full force.
From the widespread and insidious Secret Service of Germany nothing
is sacred. Details of our new helicopter were known in Berlin two
days after its secret trials, while of a new war-vessel launched in
secret this summer photographs reached Berlin within a week. Germany
laughs at our apathy, and still boasts that she knows all about us,
our political, military, and civil population alike. I know that from
the inside. In the archives of Herr Steinhauer’s department in Berlin
there are thousands on thousands of detailed reports--furnished
constantly throughout the past ten years--regarding the lives and
means of prominent persons in England, with descriptions of their
homes wherein, one day, the undefeated enemy hope to billet their
troops.
Then we have those unscrupulous people, men and women who act as
“fixed-posts”--and it is no exaggeration to say that there are still
dozens back again in England notwithstanding all official assurances
to the contrary--who have all gone through an elaborate system of
training in signalling, in reducing messages to code, and in decoding
them, in map-making, in the use of carrier pigeons, and of secret
wireless.
To-day, more than ever, the German nation hopes to strike in secret
a staggering blow against London and our ports, not by invasion from
the sea, but, after paralysing us from the air, to land an army. I
fear that no political soothing-syrup, by whatever party, has any
effect whatever on me, because I happen to know what I am writing
about. I have not forgotten that Mr. McKenna told us that all German
spies in our country were “safely under lock and key,” though a
week later there were arrested a number of dangerous spies, two of
whom were afterwards executed. Nor have I forgotten what trouble I
got into for publicly mentioning this fact at a lecture I gave one
afternoon at Buxton. After my speech all the London Press, both
morning and evening, were served with notices forbidding them to
publish my remarks! Charles Palmer, of the _Globe_, showed me the
notice served on him, and laughingly said:
“Does not that, in itself, bear out your argument that certain
authorities ruled by the Hidden Hand of Germany are afraid of your
merciless exposures?”
Well, I tried to be patriotic, and have ever endeavoured to do my
best for my country, even though it was all unavailing. But I feel
strongly that I should still continue to raise my voice in warning
and declare that Germany still means to attack, and, if possible,
conquer, Great Britain, and is actually at the moment stirring up
strife for that purpose.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
About other Spies--I am Shown the List of British Traitors
Paid by Germany--For that Reason I am Feared in Certain
Quarters--Why Scotland Yard Withdrew its Protection from
Me--My Campaign Against Enemy Aliens--Efforts to Discredit
Me--Poisonous Gossip in Society--A Report is Set About
that I Am a German Spy!--Our Silly Censorship--I Defy
it, and As a Patriot Await Prosecution--The Traitors
Fear Lest I May Make Ugly Disclosures--Prominent Men Who
Supported Me--Humours of Lecturing--I Meet the Mock Monk
Rasputin--Herr Steinhauer, Chief Spy of the Kaiser--The
Identity of “Jack the Ripper” Disclosed for the First Time.
The British public are even to-day ignorant of the widespread and
powerful pro-German influence that was at work in our country before
the outbreak of war, during the struggle for our national existence,
and continues even to-day.
I am a thorn in the side of the traitors. There is no doubt whatever
of the truth a certain Cabinet Minister told me when he said:
“There are a good many people in England who are wishing that
something would happen to you, Le Queux.”
“I know,” I said. “And I know the reason.”
In high quarters, strings were being pulled constantly against me,
much to my detriment. The penalty I paid for daring to write _The
Invasion_ proved of very serious consequences to me, inasmuch as
the newspapers that did not agree with my patriotic endeavours
tried to suppress me by refusing to publish any more of my novels
serially! And by this I lost a very considerable part of my income.
Nevertheless, my friends encouraged me in the work I was striving to
do, and I felt sufficiently rewarded to know that when the war came
my efforts were appreciated, even by many of those who had hitherto
turned a deaf ear to all my warnings.
And now let me explain why I was such a thorn in the side of our
traitors who, working in unison, constituted the Hidden Hand. They
feared me because I possessed knowledge of their identities, and in
many cases of the sums secretly paid to them by Germany! The truth
was that in 1912 my friend Herr N----, for my personal information,
showed me a list of persons in England to whom German money had been,
and was still being indirectly paid. And he was their pay-master!
I was aghast at the sight of this list. I sat staggered. It was
appalling that persons whom the nation considered highly patriotic
and upright, and who were afterwards loudest in their praise of “our
gallant fellows,” should have fallen into the insidious tentacles of
the great German octopus.
I know that this sensational statement will be questioned, but I
vouch on my honour and all I hold most sacred as to its truth.
Remember the traitors unearthed in France--Lenoir, Bolo Pasha, and
many others--and what Germany was doing in France she did also in
England, though here our betrayers have remained undiscovered and are
allowed to go free in full possession of their blood-money.
The names I read in that list were mostly well-known throughout the
country, and embraced persons of the higher and official classes.
Members of Parliament and others, including two influential writers
who were my friends. I asked to be allowed to make a copy of the
list, but my request was refused, therefore I could only carry the
names in my memory. In it the Foreign Office, Home Office, India
Office, Admiralty, and War Office were all represented; and all
should have faced the firing party instead of living to-day, lolling
in their cars and enjoying themselves on the price of their treachery.
“Now you see for yourself how Germany is working,” my friend said,
as he replaced that amazing document in his pocket. “You know the
truth concerning your own betrayers. But, of course, you will regard
what I have shown you as strictly confidential. _One day, if we are
conquered, we may publish those names! Who knows?_”
My lips have been sealed till to-day. There are traitors in every
camp, and Britain was, and still is, no exception. Would that Germany
would publish those names and the amounts annually paid to each. I
hinted at what I knew to my friends, and for that reason I believe
Lord Charles Beresford one day, during the war, turned on a certain
politician in his bluff fiery way and declared him in my presence to
be among the traitors. And the politician only laughed!
During the war many events proved beyond all doubt that we were being
betrayed by some persons in authority. Therefore the facts speak
for themselves. I make no charge against any Government as a whole.
Each did its best in turn, but our betrayers were in our midst and
secretly pulled the wires that worked the Hidden Hand.
Many persons have wondered why I have met with much hostility in
certain official circles, but what I here reveal for the first time
is surely sufficient explanation. By some means it had become known
to the traitors that I had gained knowledge of them and, in fear lest
I should make disclosures of how they had been bribed by German gold,
they united to discredit me and to wreck my reputation.
To what extent this was carried is shown by an incident that occurred
two days after war was declared.