German spy, they conclude that he went to his death with the courage
of a soldier. Since his execution it has been whispered that he had
a romance with a young girl in Berlin, and that had he succeeded in
returning to Germany, he would have been welcomed with open arms by a
rosy-cheeked damsel who loved him for the dangers he had braved. In
some ways his case was similar to that of the unfortunate Major André,
who was captured as a British spy during the American revolution and
condemned to death. On the night before he was executed, Lody spent his
time in the Tower writing letters to those nearest and dearest to him.
One of these pathetic missives was addressed to his sister and read as
follows:
“_My darling_: I have trusted in my God and He has decided.
Through many of the dangers of life He has guided me and has
always saved me. More than to millions of others He has shown
to me the beauties of this world and I may not complain. My
hour has struck and I must take my way through the dark valley
as many of my good, brave comrades have during this dreadful
struggle of nations.
“Where I am going there is no worry and there are no alarms.
May my life be judged worthy to be an humble sacrifice on
the altar of the Fatherland. The death of a hero on the
battlefield is perhaps more beautiful, but that has not been
my lot. I die here in a hostile land, silent and unknown; yet
the consciousness that I die in the service of my country makes
death easier. I shall die as an officer, not a spy.”
It is estimated that nearly one hundred persons have been tried for
espionage in Belgium alone and that at least thirty of these have been
put to death by the Germans. The list includes a former burgomaster of
Hisselt. The spirit of the Belgians, in spite of their trying position,
has amazed friend and foe alike.
The story of a young woman who tried to serve her country and the
Allies reads like the pages of an old romance. She managed to get a
passport from a German officer giving her the right to leave Belgium,
but before going she got into the German camp and became possessed of
some valuable information relating to the future movements of the army.
This was sketched on thin paper, placed inside the lining of her hat.
Her whole aim now was to get out of Belgium without being searched.
She secured a conveyance and started for the border. At intervals of
every few miles she was halted and searched.
But as her passport was a letter of recommendation, these searches were
fortunately of a perfunctory character. At last she reached the point
where it was needful to pass only one more sentinel. As she approached
this point, near the border, she heard the order:
“Halt—who goes there?”
The vehicle was stopped and the sentinel, after looking at her papers,
made the customary search. It revealed nothing of a forbidding nature.
She was congratulating herself that all was well when the wife of a
German officer advanced and asked the sentinel:
“Have you looked in the lining of her hat?”
The girl’s heart fell, as well it might. The sentinel made a second
search and found the incriminating document. She was tried, convicted
and shot as a spy.
Another tale relates to a German spy who actually enlisted with a
Scottish regiment in France. He was blonde and looked like a native
of Scotland. Indeed, there was no trace of German accent in his
conversation. He must have lived in Scotland for some years as he had
an astonishing amount of information concerning that country. Some of
his fellow soldiers insisted that he even had a bit of burr on his
tongue, so much did his conversation resemble that of a real Scot. At
all events, he is said to have gained command of a company of Scotch
Fusiliers. He gave the order to charge and led his men into a trap.
Whether he tried to escape is not known, but, at all events, the ruse
was discovered and an investigation made. The result satisfied the
authorities that a spy was in their midst, and under orders from the
colonel of the regiment this pretended Scot was taken out and shot.
Another case that has caused no end of discussion concerns a woman
known as Fanny La Place. It was said at one time that she was German
and her case has been compared with that of Edith Cavell, the British
nurse who was put to death at Brussels. But this parallel is denied
strenuously by the French, who give out a statement to the contrary.
According to this information, her right name was Felice Pfast. She
was a French woman born at Nancy in 1890. She went to Metz in 1914
and later received permission to visit her mother in Belgium. While
there, it is said, a German official proposed that she gather military
information in Paris. She spent three weeks in Paris and then reported
the results to Germans, who, she admitted, paid her 5,000 francs to
undertake another mission. She was caught in the act of spying at
Marseilles and admitted she had been commissioned to gather military
information. On July 10 she was unanimously condemned to death by a
court-martial.
Another alleged spy in the great war was Captain Otto Feinat of the
Russian army. He was well known in Ruman and was in charge of the
judicial proceedings following the Jewish massacres at Kishineff in
1903. He held responsible military positions after that, but it was
lately claimed that he had been in some compromising correspondence
with some friends in Germany. The evidence against him was
circumstantial. He protested from the outset that he was loyal to
Russia, but in spite of this he was condemned and sent to Siberia for a
long term of penal servitude.
Was he guilty? Who can tell? He had the consolation—maybe a poor
consolation—of knowing that scores of other Russian officers have
lately been sent into banishment on circumstantial evidence.
Then there is the remarkable story of Colonel Miassoyedorff, who
was attached to the staff of the Russian Tenth army corps in East
Prussia. The Tenth was one of those that met with disastrous defeat
in the Mazuirian lake district. It was under the command of General
Rennykampf, and in one of these defeats lost 70,000 prisoners. In a
second defeat it lost 50,000. The circumstances in each case were
similar. The unexpected arrival of a large force of Germans served
to defeat the invaders, and caused them to take to their heels, thus
transforming an anticipated victory into a most humiliating rout.
[Illustration: WILLIAM J. FLYNN]
An investigation was started and all of the circumstances pointed in
the direction of Miassoyedorff, an interpreter on the staff of the
Tenth army. One soldier said that he recognized Miassoyedorff as a man
who had been connected at one time with the German army. It was further
alleged that at the outbreak of hostilities he had been the head of
the German spy system and one of the highest officers of the political
police. Charged with these former connections, he denied them most
emphatically.
“I deny the charge,” he cried, “and I defy my enemies to produce the
slightest proof of its truth.”
Further charges were made that while he was in command of frontier
guards at Verjoblova, only a few miles from the border, he had
repeatedly visited the Kaiser and made reports to him. When asked what
he had to say to this second charge he merely folded his arms, smiled
and said:
“I deny it!”
But appearances were against him, and after the defeats they had
just sustained, the Russians were in a mood to accept any explanation
of their humiliation. So Colonel Miassoyedorff, in spite of his
protestations, was declared guilty and was executed.
Was he an innocent man, or was he the spy of the Kaiser?
History may tell us the truth, but history in cases of this kind is
just as apt to be in error as contemporaneous reports. Such men are
unknown, unhonored and unsung for two reasons. The first is that the
very nature of their profession renders it necessary for them to lead
a dual existence. If they are innocent, their innocence is rarely
proclaimed because it would be an admission of error. And whoever heard
of such an admission? On the other hand, if they are actually spies
those who care for them most would fain permit their memory to rest in
peace.
The story of the activity of German spies in the United States would
make a book in itself, but it would be disconnected, fragmentary and
unsatisfactory. There have been any number of unproved charges, any
amount of unfinished stories and countless plots that never came to a
head. But enough has been proven to indicate that this country has been
filled with spies and special agents of the Kaiser. Chief Flynn, of the
United States Secret Service, with the comparatively small force under
his direction, has performed wonders in ferreting out these offenders
against the peace and honor of this country. Scores of arrests have
been made and there have been a number of important convictions. Most
of these have been in connection with the destruction of munition
plants, and a few have been violations of our laws in an endeavor to
hatch plots against Great Britain and France.
Perhaps the most striking instance of pernicious activity on the part
of German representatives was that of Captain Karl Boy-Ed and Captain
Franz von Papen, naval and military attachés, respectively, of the
German Embassy at Washington. For a long time they were a thorn in
the side of the American Government. The President and the Secretary
of State were reluctant to act because of their desire to preserve
friendly relations with the German nation. Finally, conditions became
unbearable, and on the last of October, 1916, the State Department
asked for the recall of Boy-Ed and von Papen. It was announced at the
time that the action of this Government against the German attachés
was due to no single incident in either case, but was based on an
accumulation of improper activities connected with the handling of
German military and naval matters in this country. It was hinted at
the time that one of the strongest reasons for the action was the
connection of one of the attachés with a movement to set up a scheme in
Mexico detrimental to the interests of the United States.
One can only marvel at the patience of our Government under the
circumstances. Captain Boy-Ed’s name at the time was prominently
mentioned in connection with the Richard Peter Stengel passport case,
with the Werner Horn dynamiting case, and with the queer diplomatic
fiasco in connection with the case of Dr. Constantine Dumba, the
Austrian Ambassador. Germany informed the United States on December 6,
1916, that she desired to know upon what grounds the State Department
asked for the withdrawal of Captains Boy-Ed and von Papen. Secretary
Lansing, on the following day, replied that the military and naval
activities of the attachés constituted their principal offense, but did
not discuss the facts or the sources of information. On December 10,
Count von Bernstoff, the German Ambassador, informed Secretary Lansing
that the German Emperor had acquiesced in the request of the United
States for the withdrawal of the attachés, and before the end of the
year both of them had departed for Germany.
Events moved rapidly in the United States after that. On Saturday,
February 3, Ambassador Bernstoff was given his passports, and on April
6, 1917, the Congress, upon the recommendation of the President,
declared that a state of war existed with Germany. From that day forth
the Secret Service, and all of the forces of the Government were used
in rounding up and arresting spies and suspects.
Many hundreds of arrests Were made by Secret Service agents and other
officers of the Government and a score of convictions secured. A large
number of suspected persons were interned at Fort Oglethorpe, in
Georgia. Probably not one of the arrested persons could be ranked as a
great military spy, and yet when all of their activities were pieced
together they must have been of great value to the Imperial German
Government. The varied character of the work they were doing for the
enemy indicated that it must have been more or less systematized, and
that it was in all probability under the direction of some one person
acting as the master spy.
For instance, on the 15th of July, 1917, an alien was indicted by the
Federal Grand Jury, in New Orleans, on the charge of being a spy. It
was learned that the man had been hovering in the neighborhood of the
local naval station for many days at a time. Once he was seen to be
making notes in a book. At a given time his rooms were searched, and
the authorities found a number of blue prints and plans of the naval
station in his possession. He was indicted on the charge of obtaining
this information clandestinely “and for the purpose of supplying it
to the enemy, the Imperial German Government, against the peace and
dignity of the United States.” The case attracted much interest because
it was the first time since the days of reconstruction that any one had
been indicted in New Orleans for a plot against the United States.
About the time of the New Orleans incident a German nobleman was
arrested in Toledo, Ohio, for activity in the interest of the Kaiser.
The man had made a sensational escape from Canada, about eighteen
months previously. He had been arrested in Quebec on a spy charge,
and was being taken in an automobile to St. Thomas, Ontario. Near the
outskirts of the town he attacked the official who was driving the car,
and knocking him into a state of insensibility, escaped. He took the
badge and the revolver of the stricken man, and made his way to the
United States, coming into this country by way of the Niagara Falls
bridge. He admitted that he had once been a captain in the German
army, but denied that he had engaged in any unlawful business in the
United States.
In the early days of the participation of the United States in the war,
and when the people of this country did not even know of the departure
of our war vessels for the other side of the Atlantic, the fact of
their departure was published in Berlin, four days before they actually
arrived in Queenstown. This was a serious leak, to say the least. The
American newspapers scrupulously observed the request of the Secretary
of the Navy to avoid publishing the date of the departure or arrival of
any vessel. Where did the Berlin authorities obtain their information?
That was a question which agitated many persons. It was solved when
the Secret Service, early in July, of 1917, arrested three men in New
York, for conducting a private postal service, in the interest of
Germany. It was claimed that for months they had been sending “mail”
to Scandinavian countries for transmission to Germany. These letters
were entrusted to the sailors on the ships, and ordered to be handed
to certain persons in Norway and Sweden, and by them sent to their
destination in the German Capital.
Several bundles of these letters were seized by the representatives
of the American Government. It is a significant fact that many of
them were in code. They came from all parts of the United States,
and from Mexico and South and Central America. The letters were
written in English, Spanish and German. Some of them were business
communications, and were admittedly harmless. It was proven that this
novel “mail service” worked in both directions, letters going to and
from Germany. It was also shown that remote parts of Mexico were in
wireless communication with Berlin. Significance was also attached to
the fact that parts of wireless outfits had been brought in on some
of the Scandinavian boats, and that these were afterward erected in
Mexico. None of the men were subjected to any pressure on the part of
United States officials, and all were told that they had the right to
be represented by counsel, if they so desired.
But these arrests in different sections of the country, almost
simultaneously, and the varied character of the activity of the men
involved, helps to confirm the statement, made on the floor of the
Senate, that during and before the war, we had thousands of German
spies in the United States.
THE END
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation and spelling were made consistent when a predominant
preference was found in this book; otherwise they were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; occasional unbalanced
quotation marks retained.
Ambiguous hyphens at the ends of lines were retained; occurrences of
inconsistent hyphenation have not been changed.
Redundant Chapter titles have been removed from this eBook.
Page 163: “exclaimed Tandy” was printed as “explaimed Tandy”.