MY ADVENTURES AS A GERMAN SECRET AGENT
[Illustration: The Bridgeman H. Taylor passport upon which von der Goltz
returned to Germany and later went to England. In the upper right hand
corner is the visé of the American Embassy at Berlin.]
My Adventures
AS A
German Secret Agent
BY
CAPT. HORST VON DER GOLTZ
FORMERLY MAJOR IN THE MEXICAN CONSTITUTIONAL ARMY.
SOMETIME CONFIDENTIAL AIDE TO CAPTAIN VON PAPEN,
RECALLED MILITARY ATTACHÉ TO THE IMPERIAL
GERMAN EMBASSY AT WASHINGTON,
GERMAN SECRET AGENT.
_ILLUSTRATED_
NEW YORK
ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
1917
Copyright, 1917
by
ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & COMPANY
Published, 1917
“One must at times separate a gentleman and a diplomat from his official
acts performed under orders from his home government, otherwise great
confusion and injustice will occur. Some governments have a little way of
telling those who represent them abroad ... to get such and such a thing
done, and done it must be. Nor would those high Government officials at
home care often to hear painful details of the successful execution of
many such orders which are given.”
from _“The Strangling of Persia,” by W. Morgan Shuster_.
TO THE
UNITED STATES OF GERMANY—WHENEVER
THEY MAY COME TO BE—I
DEDICATE THIS BOOK AND MY HOPES.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
Foreword 1
I—I find an old letter, containing a strange bit of scandal—and
its contents draw me into the service of the Kaiser 5
II—I Impersonate a Russian Prince and steal a treaty. What the
treaty contained and how Germany made use of the knowledge 22
III—Of what comes of leaving important papers exposed. I look
and talk indiscreetly—and a man dies 45
IV—I am sent to Geneva and learn of a plot. How there are more
ways of getting rid of a King than by blowing him up with
dynamite 61
V—Germany displays an interest in Mexico, and aids the United
States for her own purposes. The Japanese-Mexican treaty
and its share in the downfall of Diaz 88
VI—My letter again. I go to America and become a United States
soldier. Sent to Mexico and sentenced to death there. I
join Villa’s army and gain an undeserved reputation 111
VII—War. I re-enter the German service and am appointed aide to
Captain von Papen. The German conception of neutrality and
how to make use of it. The plot against the Welland Canal 151
VIII—I go to Germany on a false passport. Italy in the early
days of the war. I meet the Kaiser and talk to him about
Mexico and the United States 173
IX—In England—and how I reached there. I am arrested and
imprisoned for fifteen months. What von Papen’s baggage
contained. I make a sworn statement 190
X—The German intrigue against the United States. Von Papen,
Boy-Ed and von Rintelen, and the work they did. How the
German-Americans were used and how they were betrayed 212
XI—More about the German intrigue against the United States.
German aims in Latin America. Japan and Germany in Mexico.
What happened in Cuba? 236
XII—The last stand of German intrigue. Germany’s spy system in
America. What is coming? 264
ILLUSTRATIONS
The false passport upon which Capt. von der Goltz went to
England FRONTISPIECE
FACING PAGE
Photograph of Capt. von der Goltz taken outside the Cuartel at
Juarez 28
Raul Madero and his staff 42
A group of recruits in Villa’s Army 42
Von der Goltz’s commission as Major in the Mexican
Constitutional Army 64
Colonel Trinidad Rodriguez, Capt. von der Goltz’s first
commander, and General Villa 88
General Raul Madero 88
A telegram from General Villa to Capt. von der Goltz 112
A group of Constitutional soldiers 124
The six months’ leave of absence from the Mexican Army, granted
to Capt. von der Goltz at the outbreak of the European War 140
A letter of recommendation given to Capt. von der Goltz by Raul
Madero 140
A letter from Dr. Kraske, German vice-consul at New York to
“Baron” von der Goltz 152
Captain von Papen’s letter to the German consuls at Baltimore
and St. Paul, asking for their assistance in Capt. von der
Goltz’s enterprise 166
How Capt. von der Goltz secured explosives for his Welland
Canal Expedition. Two communications from Capt. Tauscher 178
Bills from the du Pont de Nemours Powder Co. for “merchandise”
furnished Capt. von der Goltz 180
The check which almost cost Capt. von der Goltz his life 196
Safe Deposit receipts for papers which von der Goltz left in
Rotterdam 210
The British order for the deportation of Capt. von der Goltz 240
Photograph of the cover of the British white paper containing
Capt. von der Goltz’s confession 256
FOREWORD.
I have not attempted to write an autobiography. This book is merely
a summary—a sort of galloping summary—of the last ten years of my
existence. As such, I venture to write it because my life has been bound
up in enterprises in which the world is interested. It has been my
fortune to be a witness and sometimes an actor in that drama of secret
diplomacy which has been going on for so long and which in such a large
way has been responsible for this war.
There are many scenes from that drama that have no place in this
book—many events with which I am familiar that I have not touched upon.
My aim has been to describe only those things with which I was personally
concerned and which I know to be true. For a full history of the last
ten years my readers must go elsewhere; but it is my hope that these
adventures of mine will bring them to a better understanding of the
forces that have for so long been undermining the peace of the world.
Inevitably there will be some who read this book, who will doubt the
truth of many of the statements in it. I cannot, unfortunately, prove all
that I tell here. Wherever possible I have offered corroborative evidence
of the truth of my statements; at other times I have tried to indicate
their credibility by citing well recognized facts which have a direct
bearing upon my contentions. But for the rest, I can only hope that this
book will be accepted as a true record of facts which by their very
nature are insusceptible of proof.
So far as my connection with the German Government is concerned, I
may refer the curious to the British Parliamentary White Papers,
Miscellaneous Nos. 6 and 13, which contain respectively my confession
and a record of the papers found in the possession of Captain von Papen,
former military attaché to the German Embassy at Washington, and seized
by the British authorities on January 2 and 3, 1916. There are also, in
addition to the documents reproduced in this book, various court records
of the trial of Captain Hans Tauscher and others in the spring of the
same year. Of German activities in the United States, the newspapers bear
eloquent testimony. I have been concerned rather with the motives of
the German Government than with a statement of what has been done. These
motives, I believe, you will not doubt.
But there is one point which I must ask my readers not to overlook. I
have told that I became a secret agent through the discovery of a certain
letter which contained very serious reflections upon one of the most
important personages in the world. I have told, also, how the possession
of that letter had an important bearing upon the course of my life—how
it led me to America, and how in the struggle for its possession, I very
nearly lost my life. This, I know, will be severely questioned by many.
Before rejecting this part of my story, I ask merely that you consider
the fate that overtook Koglmeier, the saddler of El Paso, whose only
crime was that he had been partially in my confidence. I ask you to
recall that another German, Lesser, who had been associated with me at
the same time, mysteriously disappeared in 1915, shortly before von Papen
left for Europe. No one has been able to prove why these men were treated
as they were. And if I did not have in my possession _something_ which
the German Government regarded as highly important, why the surprising
actions of that Government, actions none the less astonishing because
they are well known and authenticated? Consider these things before you
doubt.
Finally, let me say that I have taken the liberty of changing or omitting
the names of various people who are mentioned in these adventures,
merely because I have had no wish to compromise them by disclosing their
identity.
[Illustration: H. von der Goltz]
New York, July 8, 1917.
_ERRATA_
_Page 5. Chapter I. First line_: March 28th, 1917 should read March 29th,
1916.
_Page 41_: Kut el Amerara should read Kut el Amara.
_Page 140. Last two paragraphs_: December 23rd should read December 20th.
_Page 171. Second paragraph_: October 8th should read October 3rd, 1914.
=Transcriber’s Note:= The errata have been corrected.
My Adventures as a German Secret Agent
CHAPTER I
_I find an old letter, containing a strange bit of scandal—and
its contents draw me into the service of the Kaiser._
On March 29th, 1916, the steamer _Finland_ was warped into its Hudson
River dock and I hurried down the gang plank. I was not alone. Agents
of the United States Department of Justice had met me at Quarantine;
and a man from Scotland Yard was there also—a man who had attended me
sedulously since, barely two weeks before, I had been released under
rather unusual circumstances from Lewes prison in England; the last of
four English prisons in which I had spent fifteen months in solitary
confinement waiting for the day of my execution.
My friend from Scotland Yard left me very shortly; soon after, I was
testifying for the United States Government against Capt. Hans Tauscher,
husband of Mme. Johanna Gadski, the diva. Tauscher, American agent of
the Krupps and of the German Government, was charged with complicity in
a plot to blow up the Welland Canal in Canada during the first month of
the Great War. During the course of the trial it was shown that von Papen
and others (including myself) had entered into a conspiracy to violate
the neutrality of the United States. I had led the expedition against the
Welland Canal and I was telling everything I knew about it. Doubtless you
remember the newspapers of the day.
You will remember how, at that time, the magnitude of the German plot
against the neutrality of the United States became finally apparent. You
will remember how, in connection with my exposure came the exposure of
von Igel, of Rintelen, of the German Consul-General at San Francisco,
Bopp, and many others. With all of these men I was familiar. In the
activities of some of them I was implicated. It was I, as I have said,
who planned the details of the Welland Canal plot. I shall tell the true
story of these activities later on.
But first let me tell the story of how I became to be concerned in these
plots—and to do that I must go back over many years; I must tell how I
first became a member of the Kaiser’s Secret Diplomatic Force (to give
it a name) and incidentally I shall describe for the first time the real
workings of that force.
* * * * *
I have been in and out of the Kaiser’s web for ten years. I have served
him faithfully in many capacities and in many places—all over Europe,
in Mexico, even in the United States. I served the German Government as
long as I believed it to be representing the interests of my countrymen.
But from the moment that I became convinced that the men who made up
the Government—the Hohenzollerns, the Junkers and the bureaucrats—were
anxious merely to preserve their own power, even at the expense of
Germany itself, my attitude toward them changed. That is why I write this
book—and why I shall tell what I know of the aims and ambitions of these
men—enemies of Germany as well as of the rest of the world.
I was not a spy; nor was I a secret service agent. I was, rather, a
secret diplomatic agent. Let me add that there is a nice distinction
between the three. A secret diplomatic agent is a man who directs
spies, who studies their reports, who pieces together various bits of
information, and who, when he has the fabric complete, personally makes
his report to the highest authority or carries that particular plan to
its desired conclusion. His work and his status are of various sorts.
Unlike the spy, he is a user, not a getter, of information. He is a free
lance, responsible only to the Foreign Office; a plotter; an unofficial
intermediary in many negotiations; and frequently he differs from an
accredited diplomatic representative, only in that his activities and
his office are essentially secret. Obviously men of this type must be
highly trained and reliable; and their constant association with men of
authority makes it necessary that they, themselves, be men of breeding
and education. But above all, they must possess the courage that shrinks
at no danger, and a devotion, a patriotism that knows no scruples.
This, then, was the calling into which I found myself plunged, while
still a boy, by one of the strangest chances that ever befell me, whose
life has been full of strange happenings.
As I recall my adolescence I realize that I was a normal boy, vigorous,
wilful, fond of sport, of horses, dogs and guns, and I know that but for
the chance I speak of, I should have grown up to the traditions of our
family—Cadet school—the University—later a lieutenancy in the German
Army—and to-day, perhaps, death “somewhere in France.”
And yet, in that boyhood that I am recalling, I can remember that there
were other interests which were far greater than the games that I loved,
as did all lads of my age. Mental adventure, the matching of wits against
wits for stakes of reputation and fortune, always exercised an uncanny
fascination over my mind. That delight in intrigue was shown by the books
I read as a boy. In the library of my father’s house there were many
novels, books of poems, of biography, travel, philosophy and history; but
I passed them by unread. His few volumes of court gossip and so-called
“secret history” I seized with avidity. I used to bear off the memoirs of
Maréchal Richelieu, the Cardinal’s nephew, and read them in my room when
the rest of the household was asleep.
I recall, too, that there was another tendency already developed in me. I
see it in my dealings with other boys of that day. It was the impulse to
make other people my instruments, not by direct command or appeal, but by
leading them to do, apparently for themselves, what I needed of them.
Such was I, when my aunt who had cared for me since the death of my
parents some years before, fell ill and later died. I was disconsolate
for a time and wandered about through the halls and chambers of the
house, seeking amusement. And it was thus that one day I came upon an
old chest in the room that had been hers. I remembered that chest. There
were letters in it—letters that had been written to her by friends made
in the old days when she was at court. Often she had read me passages
from them—bits of gossip about this or that personage whom she had once
known—occasionally, even, mention of the Kaiser.
Doubtless, too, I thought, there were passages which she had not seen fit
to read to me: some more intimate bits of gossip about those brilliant
men and women in Berlin whom I then knew only as names. With the eager
curiosity of a boy I sought the key, and in a moment had unlocked the
chest.
There they lay, those neat, faded bundles, slightly yellow, addressed
in a variety of hands. Idly I selected a packet and glanced over the
envelopes it contained, lingering, in anticipation of the revelations
that might be in them. I must have read a dozen letters before my eye
fell upon the envelope that so completely changed my life.
It lay in a corner of the chest, as if hidden from too curious eyes—a
yellow square of paper, distinguished from its fellows by the quality of
the stationery alone, and by its appearance of greater age. But I knew,
before I had read fifty words of it, that I was holding in my hands a
document that was more explosive than dynamite!
For this letter, written to my aunt years before, by one of the most
exalted personages in all of Germany, contained statements which, had
they been made by any one else, would have been treason to utter, and
_which cast the most serious doubts upon the legitimacy of the Kaiser,
Wilhelm II_.
I realize fully that what I have written will seem grossly improbable to
most of my readers. I know that few persons will believe me. And since
I cannot prove what I have said, since the letter is no longer in my
possession, I can ask you only to consider the facts and to weigh for
yourself the probabilities of my statement.
Those of you whose memories go back to the last twenty years of the
nineteenth century, will readily recall the notorious ill-feeling that
existed between Wilhelm II and his mother, Victoria, the Dowager Empress
Friederich. Stories have too often been told of this enmity, culminating
in the virtual banishment from Berlin of the Queen Mother, for me to
need do more than mention them. But what is not so generally known is
the small esteem in which Victoria was held by the entire German people.
During the twenty years of her married life as the wife of the then
Crown Prince Friederich, she was treated by Berlin society with the
most thinly-veiled hostility. Even Bismarck made no attempt to conceal
his dislike for her, and accused her—to quote his own words—of having
“poisoned the fountain of Hohenzollern blood at its source.”
Victoria, for her part, although she seems to have had no animosity
toward the German people, certainly possessed little love for her eldest
son, and did her best to delay his ascension to the Imperial throne as
long as she could. When in 1888 Wilhelm I was dying, she tried her utmost
to secure the succession to her husband, who was then lying dangerously
ill at San Remo. “Cancer,” the physicians pronounced the trouble, and
even the great German specialist, Bergman, agreed with their diagnosis.
There is a law that prevents any one with an incurable disease, such
as cancer, from ascending the Prussian throne; but Victoria knew too
well the attitude of her son, Wilhelm, toward herself, not to wish to do
everything in her power to prevent him from becoming Emperor so long as
she could. In her extremity she appealed to her mother, Queen Victoria of
England, who sent Mackenzie, the great English surgeon, to San Remo to
report on Friederich’s condition. Mackenzie opposed Bergman and said the
disease was _not_ cancer; and the physicians inserted a silver tube in
Friederich’s throat, and in due course he became Emperor Friederich III.
But in spite of Mackenzie and the silver tube, Friederich III died after
a reign of ninety-eight days—and he died of cancer.
Now what was the reason for this hostility between mother and son
and between Empress and subjects? There have been many answers
given—Victoria’s love for England, her colossal lack of tact, her
impatient unconventionality. Berlin whispered of a dinner in Holland
years before, when Victoria had entertained some English people she
met there—people she had never seen before—and had finished her
repast by smoking a cigar. That in the days when the sight of a
woman smoking horrified the German soul! And Berlin hinted at worse
unconventionalities than this.
As for the animosity of the Kaiser, that was attributed to the fact that
he held her responsible for his withered left arm.
Plausible reasons, all of these, and possibly true. But consider, if
you will, the rumors that followed Victoria all her life—the story of
an early attachment to the Count Seckendorf, her husband’s associate
during the Seven Weeks’ War of 1866—the reports, sometimes denied but
generally believed, of her marriage to the Count not long before her
death. Consider, too, the dissimilarity between the Kaiser and the other
men of his race—big, slow-minded, amiable men—so unlike Wilhelm II, with
his aggressive, alert personality, his quick mind and his Piedmontese
face. And can you not imagine the attitude of a woman who had been guilty
of infidelity and yet retained her sense of national honor—the hesitancy
she might feel at seeing the child of this infidelity upon the throne,
and so perpetrating a gigantic fraud upon a people and a husband whom she
respected if she did not love? And have not women been known to hate,
rather than love, the offspring of a guilty union?
True or not, these suppositions—what does it matter? You can see, can
you not, why I believed that my letter told the truth, and why I knew
that here was a plaything which would astound the world, if made public?
But what to do with this letter to which I attached so much importance?
Something impelled me not to speak of it to my family. But who else was
there?
In my perplexity I did an utterly foolish thing. I put my whole
confidence in a man’s word. There was, serving at a nearby fortress, a
General Major von Dassel, who was in the habit of coming to our house
quite regularly. To him I went, and under pledge of silence I told him my
story. Of course, he broke the pledge and left immediately for Berlin.
All doubts, if I had any, as to the importance of the document vanished
with him. And if I had any misgivings concerning my own importance they
quickly vanished, too. Back from Berlin, with General Major von Dassel
came an agent of the _Reichs Kanzler_. He did not come to our house;
instead von Dassel sent for me to go to his headquarters in the fortress.
I met there a solemn frock-coated personage who, so he said, had come
down from Berlin especially to see me. Imagine my elation! I was in
my element; what I had hoped for had at last happened. The pages of
Richelieu and of my secret histories were coming true. Another man and I
were to lock our wits in a fight to the finish—that pleasure I promised
myself. He was a worthy opponent, an official, a professional intriguer.
As I looked into his serious, bearded face, I built romances about him.
The agent of the Chancellor wanted my document and my pledge to keep
silent about its contents. Through sheer love of combat, I refused him
on both points. He tried persuasion and reason. I was adamant. He tried
cajolery.
“It is plain,” he said, in a voice that was caressingly agreeable, “that
you are an extremely clever young man. I have never before met your
like—that is, at your age. A great career will be possible to such a
young man if only he shows himself eager to serve his government, eager
to meet the wishes of his Chancellor.”
Of course, I was delighted with this flattery, which I felt was entirely
deserved. I began to believe that I was a person of importance. I became
stubborn—which always has been one of my best and worst traits. I saw
that the gentleman in the frock-coat was becoming angry; his serious eyes
flashed. Apparently much against his will, he tried threats; he suavely
pointed out that if I persisted in my resolve not to turn over the
document, destruction yawned at my feet. The threats touched off the fuse
of my romanticism. I felt I was leading the life of intrigue of which I
had read.
“If you will wait here,” I told him, “I shall go home and get the
document for you.”
The Chancellor’s representative stroked his beard, deliberated a moment
and seemed uncertain.
“Oh, the Junge will come back all right,” put in the General Major von
Dassel. But the Junge did not come back. My family had always been
excessively liberal with money, and I had enough in my own little “war
chest” to buy a railroad ticket, and a considerable amount besides. So
I promptly ran off to Paris; and to this day I don’t know how long the
gentleman in the frock-coat waited for me in von Dassel’s office.
The terrors and thrills and delight of that panic stricken flight
still make me smile. No peril I have since been through was half as
exciting.... Berlin!... Köln!... Brussels! It was a race against
apprehension. I was happily frightened, much as a colt is, when it shies
at its own shadow. Although I was in long trousers and looked years
older than I was, I had not sense enough to see the affair in its true
light—a foolish escapade which was quite certain to have disagreeable
consequences. And so I fled from Berlin to Paris.
From Paris I fled, too. There, any circumstance struck my fevered
imagination as being suspicious. After a day in the French capital,
I scurried south to Nice and from Nice to Monte Carlo. Precocious
youngster, indeed, for there I had my first experience with that favored
figure of the novelist, the woman secret agent. No novelist, I venture to
say, would ever have picked her out of the Riviera crowd as being what
she was. She wore no air of mystery; and though attractive enough in a
quiet way, she was very far from the siren type in looks or manners. The
friendliness that she, a woman of the mid-thirties, showed a lonely boy
was perfectly natural. I should never have guessed her to be an agent
of the Wilhelmstrasse had she not chosen to let me know it. Of course,
the moment she spoke to me of “my document,” I knew she had made my
acquaintance with a purpose. If the dear old frock-coated agent of the
Chancellor had been asleep, the telegraph wires from Berlin to Paris and
Nice and Monte Carlo had been quite awake.
The proof that I was actually watched and waited for thrilled me anew.
It also alarmed me when my friend explained how deeply my government was
affronted. Soon the alarm outgrew the thrill and in the end I quite broke
down. Then the woman in her, touched with pity, apparently displaced the
adventuress. We took counsel together and she showed me a way out.
“Your document,” she said, “has a Russian as well as a German importance.
Why not try Petersburg since Berlin is hostile? For the sake of what you
bring, Russia might give shelter and protection.”
Remember, I was very young and she was all kindness. Yes, she discovered
for me the avenue of escape and she set my foot upon it in the most
motherly way. And I unknowingly took my first humble lesson in the great
art of intrigue. For as I learned years afterwards, that woman was not a
German agent but a Russian!
But at that time I was all innocent gratitude for her kindness. I was
thankful enough to proceed to Petersburg by way of Italy, Constantinople
and Odessa. Of course, she must have designated a man unknown to me to
travel with me, and make sure that I reached the Russian capital. To my
hotel in Petersburg, just as the woman had predicted, came an officer of
the political police, who courteously asked me not to leave the building
for twenty-four hours. The next day the man from the _Okrana_ came again.
This time he had a droshky waiting, with one of those bull-necked, blue
corduroy-robed, muscular Russian jehus on the box. We were driven down
the Nevsky-Prospect to a palace. Here I soon found myself in the presence
of a man I did not then know as Count Witte. He greeted me kindly, merely
remarking that he had heard I was in some difficulties, and offering me
aid and advice. My letter was not referred to and the interview ended.
So began the process of drawing me out. A fortnight later the matter of
my information was broached openly and the suggestion was made that if I
delivered it to the Russian Government, high officials would be friendly
and a career assured me in Russia, as I grew up. But by that time Germany
had changed her attitude. Her agents also reached me in St. Petersburg.
From them I received new assurance of the importance of the document. If
I would release it—so the German agent who came to my hotel told me—and
keep my tongue still, Berlin would pardon my indiscretion and assure
me a career at home. Russia or Germany? My decision was quickly made.
That very night I was smuggled out of Petersburg and whisked across the
frontier at Alexandrovna, into Germany; and the letter passed out of my
hands—for the time being.