_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._
It was in Paris that my next adventure occurred. I had gone there
following one of those agreeably indefinite conversations with my tutor
which always preceded some especial undertaking. “Why not take a rest
for a few weeks?” he would say. “You have not seen Paris in some time.
You would enjoy visiting the city again—don’t you think so?” And I would
obligingly agree with him—and in due course would receive whatever
instructions were necessary.
It may seem that such methods are needlessly cumbersome and a little too
romantic to be real; but in fact there is an excellent reason for them.
Work such as mine is governed too greatly by emergencies to admit of
definite planning beforehand. A contingency is foreseen—faintly, and
as a possibility only—and it is thought advisable to have a man on the
scene. But until that contingency develops into an assured fact, it would
be the sheerest waste of energy to give an agent definite instructions
which might have to be changed at any moment.
[Illustration: General Villa and Colonel Trinidad Rodriguez, von der
Goltz’s commanding officer.]
[Illustration: General Raul Madero, the brother of the murdered President
of Mexico.]
So I had become accustomed to receive my instructions in hints and stingy
morsels, understanding perfectly that it was part of my task to discover
for myself the exact details of the situation which confronted my
government. If I were not sufficiently astute to perceive for myself many
things which my superiors would never tell me—well, I was in the wrong
profession, and the sooner I discovered it the better.
I went to Paris in just that way and put up at the Grand Hotel. So far as
I knew I was on genuine leave of absence from all duties and I proceeded
to amuse myself. Though under no obligations to report to anyone, I did
occasionally drop around to the Quai d’Orsay—where most of the embassies
and consulates are—to chat with men I knew. One day it was suggested
to me at the Germany Embassy that I lunch alone the next day at a
certain table in the Café Americaine. “I would suggest,” said one of the
secretaries, “that you wear the black derby you have on. It is quite
becoming,”—this with an expressionless face. “I would suggest also that
you hang it on the wall behind your table, not checking it. Take note of
the precise hook upon which you hang it. It may be that there will be a
man at the next table who also will be wearing a black derby hat, which
he will hang on the hook next to yours. When you go out be careful to
take down his hat instead of your own.”
I asked no questions. I knew better. Old and well known as it is, the
“hat trick” is perennially useful. Its very simplicity makes it difficult
of detection. It is still the best means of publicly exchanging documents
between persons who must not be seen to have any connection with each
other.
I went to the Café Americaine, that cosmopolitan place on the Boulevard
des Italiens near the opera. My man had not yet come, I noticed, and I
took my time about ordering luncheon, drank a “bock” and watched the
crowd. Near by was a party of Roumanians, offensively boisterous, I
thought. An American was lunching with a dancer then prominent at the
Folies. Two Englishmen—obviously officers on leave—chatted at another
table, and in a corner, a group of French merchants heatedly discussed
some business deal. The usual scene ... almost commonplace in its variety.
Slowly I finished luncheon, and when I turned to get my hat, I saw, as
I expected, that there was another black derby beside it. I took the
stranger’s derby, and when I reached my room in the Grand Hotel I lifted
up the sweatband. There on thin paper were instructions that took my
breath away. For the time being I was to be in charge of the “Independent
Service” of the German Government in Paris—that is, the Strong Arm Squad.
This so-called “Independent Service” is an interesting organization of
cut-throats and thieves whose connection with diplomatic undertakings
is of a distinctly left-handed sort, and is, incidentally, totally
unsuspected by the members of the organization themselves. Composed of
the riff-raff of Europe—of men and women who will do anything for a
consideration and ask no questions—it is frequently useful when subtler
methods have failed and when by violence only can some particular thing
be accomplished. As an organization the “Independent Service” does not
actually exist: the name is merely a generic one applied for convenience
to the large number of people in all great cities who are available
for such work, and who, if they fail and are arrested or killed, can be
spared without risk or sorrow.
Naturally in illegal operations the trail must not lead to the embassy;
and for that reason all transactions with members of the “Service”
are carried on through a person who has no known connection with the
Government. To his accomplices the Government agent is merely a man who
has come to them with a profitable suggestion. They do not question his
motives if his cash be good.
My connection with this delightful organization necessitated a change of
personality. I went round to the Quai d’Orsay and paid a few farewell
calls to my friends there. I was going home, I said; and that afternoon
the Grand Hotel lost one guest and _Le Lapin Agile_ on the hill of
Montmartre gained a new one. Acting under instructions I had become a
social outcast myself.
The place where I had been told to stay had been a tavern for centuries.
Once it was called the _Cabaret of the Assassins_, then the _Cabaret of
the Traitor_, then _My Country Place_ and now, after fifty years, it was
_The Sprightly Rabbit_. André Gill had painted the sign of the tavern, a
rabbit which hung in the street above the entrance. After I had taken my
room—being careful to haggle long about the price, and finally securing a
reduction of fifty centimes—for one does well to appear poor at _Le Lapin
Agile_—I came down into the cabaret. It was crowded and the air was thick
and warm with tobacco smoke. Disreputable couples were sitting around
little wooden tables, drinking wretched wine from unlabeled bottles;
an occasional shout arose for “tomatoes,” a specialty of Frederic, the
proprietor, which was, in reality, a vile brew of absinthe and raspberry
syrup. There was much shouting and once or twice one of the company burst
into song.
“Tomatoes,” I told the waiter who came for my order. As he went I slipped
a franc into his hand. “I want to see _The Salmon_. Is he in?”
He nodded.
A moment later a man stood before me. I saw a short, rather thick-set
fellow, awkward but wiry, whose face bore somewhere the mark of a
forgotten Irish ancestor. He was red-haired. I did not need his words to
tell me who he was.
“I am _The Salmon_,” he said. “What do you want?”
I studied him carefully before replying, appraising him as if he were a
horse I contemplated buying. It was not tactful or altogether safe, as
_The Salmon’s_ expression plainly showed; but I wished to be sure of my
man. After a moment:
“Sit down, my friend,” I told him. “I have a business proposition to
make. M. Morel sent me to you.”
He smiled at the name. The fictitious M. Morel had put him in the way of
several excellent “business propositions.”
“It is a pleasure,” responded _The Salmon_. “What does Monsieur wish?”
I told him....
In order to make you understand the business I was on, it is necessary
that I pause here, abandoning _The Salmon_ for the moment, and recall to
your memory a few facts about the political situation as it existed in
this month of February, 1911. Europe at the time was alull—to outward
seeming. As everybody knows now the forces that later brought about the
War were then merrily at work, as indeed they had been for many years.
But outwardly, save for the ever impending certainty of trouble in the
Balkans, the world of Europe was at peace.
But in America a storm was brewing. Mexico, which for so many years had
been held at peace under the iron dictatorship of Diaz, was beginning
to develop symptoms of organized discontent. Madero had taken to the
field, and although no one at the time believed in the ultimate success
of the rebellion, it was evident that many changes might take place in
the country, which would seriously affect the interests of thousands
of European investors in Mexican enterprises. Consequently Europe was
interested.
I do not purpose here to go into the events of those last days of Diaz’s
rule. That story has already been told, many times and from various
angles. I am merely interested in the European aspects of the matter, and
particularly in the attitude of Germany.
Europe was interested, as I have said. Diaz was growing old and could
certainly not last much longer. Then change must come. Was the Golden
Age of the foreign investor, which had so long continued in Mexico, to
continue still longer? Or would it end with the death of the Dictator?
To these questions, which were having their due share of attention in
the chancellories as well as in the commercial houses of Europe, came
another, less apparent but more troublesome and more insistent than any
of these. Japan, it was rumored, although very faintly, was seeking
to add to its considerable interest in Mexico, by securing a strip of
territory on the western coast of that country—an attempt which, if
successful, would almost certainly bring about intervention by the United
States.
My government was especially interested in this movement on the part
of Japan. It knew considerably more about the plan than any save the
principals, for, as I happened to learn later on, it had carefully
encouraged the whole idea—for its own purposes. And it knew that at that
very time, the financial minister of Mexico, Jose Yves Limantour, was
conducting preliminary negotiations in Paris with representatives of
Japan, regarding the terms of a possible treaty. It knew that even then a
protocol of this treaty was being drawn up.
There was only one thing that my government wanted—a copy of the
protocol. It was that which I had been instructed to get!
The personality of Limantour is one of the most interesting of our day.
Brilliant, incorruptible, unquestionably the most able Mexican of his
generation, he had for seventeen years been closely associated with the
dictator, and for a considerable portion of that period had been second
only to Diaz in actual power. His presence in Paris at this time was
significant. He had left Mexico on the 11th of July, 1910, ostensibly
because of the poor health of his wife, although it had been reported
that a serious break had taken place between himself and Diaz. He had
spent a certain amount of time in Switzerland, and had later come to
Paris to arrange a loan of more that $100,000,000 with a group of
English, French and German bankers. But that task had been completed
in the early part of December, and in view of the unsettled conditions
in Mexico, there was no good reason for his continuing in Paris, save
one—the negotiations with Japan.
It was this man against whom I was to fight—this man who had proven
himself more than a match for some of the best brains of both continents.
The prospect was not reassuring. I knew that already several attempts
had been made by our agents to secure the protocol, with the result that
Limantour was sure to be more on his guard than he ordinarily would have
been. Yet I _must_ succeed—and it was plain that I could do so only by
violence.
Violence it should be, then; and with the assistance of my friend _The
Salmon_—to whom, you may be sure, I did not confide my real object—I
prepared a plan of campaign, which we duly presented to a group of
_The Salmon’s_ friends, who had been selected to assist us. To these
men—Apaches, every one of them—I was presented as a decayed gentleman
who for reasons of his own had found it necessary to join the forces of
_The Salmon_. I was a good fellow, _The Salmon_ assured them, and by way
of proving my friendship I had shared with him my knowledge of a good
“prospect” whom I had discovered.
“The man,” I said, “always carries lots of money and jewelry.” Of course
I did not tell them his name was Limantour. I said he always played cards
late at the club. “To stick him up,” I said, “will be the simplest thing
in the world, but we must be careful not to hurt him badly—not enough to
set the police hot on our trail.” The Apaches fell in with the proposal
enthusiastically. We would attempt it the following night.
Now the instructions which came to me under the sweatband of the
black derby in the Café Americaine informed me that every night quite
late Limantour received at the club a copy of the report of the day’s
conference with the Japanese envoy. It was prepared and delivered
to Limantour by his secretary and it was his habit to study it, upon
returning home, and plan out his line of attack for the negotiations of
the following day. I concluded that Limantour therefore would have it
(the report) on his person when he left the club.
Accordingly I had my Apaches waiting in the shadows. There were five
of us. Limantour started to walk home, as I knew he was frequently in
the habit of doing. We followed and in the first quiet street that he
ventured down, he was blackjacked. In his pockets we found a little money
and some papers, one glance of which assured me were of no value.
My carefully planned _coup_ had failed. You can imagine how I felt about
such a fiasco and how very quickly I had to think. Here was my first big
chance and I had thoroughly and hopelessly bungled it. Limantour was
already stirring. The blow he had received had purposely been made light.
If he recovered to find himself robbed merely of an insignificant sum of
money and some papers his suspicions would be aroused. I could not hope
for another chance at him. I knew that Limantour was too clever not to
sense something other than ordinary robbery in such an attack upon him.
Furthermore my Apaches had to be bluffed and deceived as thoroughly as
he was. I had promised them a victim who carried loads of money and at
the few coins they had obtained there was much growling. Luckily I had a
flash of sense. I resolved to turn the mishap to my advantage.
“We hit the wrong night, that’s all,” I muttered. “You take the coins and
get away. I am going to try to fool him.” Like rats they scurried away.
When Limantour came to he found a very solicitous young man concerned
with his welfare.
“I saw them from down the street,” I told him, “they evidently knocked
you out, but they cleared out when I came. Did they get anything from
you? Here seem to be some letters.” And from the sidewalk I picked up and
restored to him the papers I had taken from his pockets, not two minutes
before.
Limantour accepted them and I knew that my audacity had triumphed.
“They are not of very much importance,” said Limantour, “and I had only a
few francs on me.”
Then suddenly, as if he just realized that he was alive and unharmed,
Jose Limantour began to thank me for my assistance. I thought of those
who had told me he was a cold, hard distant man. Limantour flung
his arms around my neck. I was his savior! I was a very brave young
gentleman. If I had not come up so boldly and promptly to his aid, he
might have been very badly beaten, perhaps even killed. For all he knew
he owed me his life. He must thank me. He must know his preserver. Here
was his card. Might he have mine? I had been wise enough to keep some of
my old cards when I changed the rest of my personality from the Grand
Hotel to Montmartre. I gave him one of them.
“A German,” he exclaimed, “and a worthy representative of that worthy
race.” Limantour was enchanted. “And you live at the Grand Hotel?”
That was better still. I was only a sojourner in Paris and one might
venture to offer me hospitality—no? Next day he would send around a
formal invitation to come and dine at his house and meet his family. They
would be delighted to meet this brave and intrepid hero and would also
wish to thank me.
In a nearby café we had a drink and parted for the night. Next morning of
course I had to appear again at the Grand Hotel. On foot I walked away
from _Le Lapin Agile_, jumping into a taxi when I was out of sight. The
taxi took me to the _Gare du Nord_; there I doubled in my tracks and
presently, as if just having left a train, I took another taxi and was
driven with my luggage to the hotel. I dropped around that afternoon to
the Quai d’Orsay and called upon some of my acquaintances, remarking that
I had come back for a little holiday. That night I had the pleasure of
dining with Limantour.
Thereafter I had to lead a double life. By day, I was an habitue of
prominent hotels, restaurants, and clubs. I associated with young
diplomats and occasionally took a pretty girl to tea. By night I lived
in _Le Lapin Agile_ and consorted with thugs and their ilk. It cost me
sleep, but I did not begrudge that in view of the stakes. All this time I
was cultivating the acquaintance of Limantour and those around him.
Shortly afterward I succeeded in taking one of the members of his
household on a rather wild party and when his head was full of champagne
he babbled that Limantour and his family were planning to sail for Cuba
and Mexico on the following Saturday. I was also informed that on Friday,
the day before the sailing, there would be a farewell reception at one
of the embassies. Knowing Limantour’s habits of work as I did by this
time, I was able to lay my plans with as much certainty as prevails in
my profession. After weighing all the possibilities I decided to defer
my attempt on him until this last Friday night. I reasoned that he would
probably receive a draft of the agreement from his secretary at the club
late than night. He would take it home with him and go over it with
microscopic care. The next forenoon—Saturday—he would meet the Japanese
envoy just long enough to finish the matter and then he would hurry to
the steamer. Of course Limantour might have acted in a different way.
That was the chance one has to take.
Friday night came. In his luxurious limousine, Limantour and his family
went to the farewell reception of the embassy. Comparatively early, he
said his farewell—leaving Madame to go home later—and in his car he
proceeded to the club. I saw him pass through the vestibule after leaving
his chauffeur with instructions to wait. My guess as to Limantour’s
movements had been right, so the plans I had made worked smoothly.
I, too, had an automobile waiting near his club. Two of my men sauntered
over to Limantour’s car. Under pretence of sociability they invited his
chauffeur to have a drink. They led him into a little café on a side
street near by, the proprietor of which was in with the gang. Limantour’s
chauffeur had one drink and went to sleep. My men stripped him of his
livery, which one of them donned. Presently Limantour had a new chauffeur
sitting at the wheel of his limousine.
An hour later Limantour was seen hurrying out of the club. As a man will,
he scarcely noticed his chauffeur but cast a brief “home” to the man at
the wheel. His limousine started, following a route through deserted
residential streets, in one of which I had the trap ready. Half blocking
the road was a large automobile, apparently broken down. It was the
automobile in which I had been waiting outside the club. In it were four
of my Apaches. Limantour’s car was called upon to stop.
“Can you lend me a wrench?” one of my men shouted to Limantour’s false
chauffeur.
His limousine stopped. That free masonry which existed in the early
days between motorists lent itself nicely to the situation. It was
most natural for the chauffeur of Limantour’s car to get out and help
my stalled motor. Indeed, Limantour himself opened the door of the
limousine and half protruding his body, called out with the kindest
intentions.
To throw a chloroform-soaked towel over his head was the work of an
instant. In half a minute he was having dreams—which I trust were
pleasant. It was still necessary to keep my own men in the dark, to
give these thugs no inkling that this was a diplomatic job. This time
I was prepared; for I had learned of Limantour’s habits in regard to
carrying money on his person. In my right hand overcoat pocket there were
gold coins and bank notes. With the leader of the gang, I went through
Limantour’s clothes. In the darkness of that street, it was a simple
matter to seem to extract from them a double fist-full of gold pieces and
currency, which I turned over to _The Salmon_.
“Perhaps he has more bank notes,” I muttered, and I reached for the
inner pocket of his coat. There my fingers closed upon a stiff document
that made them tingle. “I’ll just grab everything and we can go over it
afterwards.” Out of Limantour’s possession into mine came pocket-book,
letters, card-case and that heavy familiar feeling paper.
Dumping the unconscious Limantour into his limousine we cranked up our
car and were off, leaving behind us at the worst, plain evidence of a
crime common enough in Paris. It was to be corroborated next morning by
the discovery of a drunken chauffeur, for we took pains to go back and
get him once more into his uniform and full of absinthe. But it did not
come to even that much scandal. Limantour, for obvious reasons, did not
report the incident to the police. The next morning it was given out
that Limantour had gone into the country and would not sail for a week.
He had had a sudden recrudescence of an old throat trouble and must rest
and undergo treatment before undertaking the voyage to Mexico—so the
specialist said. This report appeared in Paris newspapers of the day. Of
the protocol nothing was said at that time or later—by Señor Limantour.
I turned it over to the proper authorities in Berlin, and very soon
departed from Montmartre, leaving behind me a well-contented group of
Apaches, who assured me warmly that I was born for their profession. I
did not argue the question with them.
There the matter might have ended; but Germany had another card to play.
On February 27, 1911, Limantour left Paris for New York, to confer
with members of the Madero family, in order if possible to effect a
reconciliation and to end the Madero revolt. He landed in New York on
March 7th. On that very day, by an odd coincidence, as one commentator[2]
calls it, the United States mobilized 20,000 troops on the Mexican border!
It was no coincidence. The Wilhelmstrasse had read the proposed terms of
the treaty with great interest. It had noted the secret clauses which
gave Japan the lease of a coaling station, together with manoeuver
privileges in Magdalena Bay, or at some other port on the Mexican coast
which the Japanese Government might prefer. It had noted, too, that
agreement which, although not expressly stipulating that Japan and Mexico
should form an offensive and defensive alliance, implied that Japan would
see to it that Mexico was protected against aggression.
And then Germany—acting always for her own interests—forwarded the treaty
to Mexico, where it was placed in the hands of the American Ambassador,
Henry Lane Wilson.
Mr. Wilson immediately left for Washington with a photograph of portions
of the treaty. A Cabinet meeting was held. That night orders were sent
out for the mobilization of American troops, the assembling of United
States marines in Guantanamo and the patrolling of the west coast of
Mexico by warships of the United States.
Within a week Mr. Wilson held a conference in New York with Señor
Limantour. Limantour left hurriedly for Mexico City, arriving there March
20th. Conferences were held. Japan denied the existence of the treaty
and Washington recalled its war vessels and demobilized its troops.
But barely seven weeks after Limantour arrived in Mexico, Madero, the
bankrupt, with his handful of troops “captured” Ciudad Juarez. And
shortly after, Diaz, discredited and powerless, resigned from the office
he had held for a generation.
That is the story of the fall of Diaz so far as Germany was concerned
in it. There were other elements involved, of course—but this is not a
history of Mexico.
Germany had done the United States a service. It is interesting to
consider the motives for her action.
Those motives may be explained in two words: South America.
Germany, let it be understood, wants South America and has wanted it for
many years. Not as a possession—the Wilhelmstrasse is not insane—but as
a customer and an ally. Like many other nations, Germany has seen in the
countries of Latin America an invaluable market for her own goods and an
unequaled producer of raw supplies for her own manufacturers. She has
sought to control that market to the best of her abilities. But she has
also done what no other European nation has dared to do—she has attempted
to form alliances with the South American countries which, in the event
of war between the United States and Germany, would create a diversion in
Germany’s favor, and effectively tie the hands of the United States so
far as any offensive action was concerned.
There was just one stumbling block to this plan: the Monroe Doctrine.
It was patent to German diplomats that such an alliance could never
be secured unless the South American countries were roused to such a
degree of hostility against the United States that they would welcome an
opportunity to affront the government which had proclaimed that doctrine.
And Germany, casting about for a means of making trouble, had encouraged
the Japanese-Mexican alliance, hoping for intervention in Mexico and the
subsequent arousal of fear and ill-feeling toward the United States on
the part of the South American countries.
_And Germany had been so anxious for the United States to intervene in
Mexico that she had not only encouraged a treaty which would be inimical
to your interests, but had made certain that knowledge of this treaty
should come into your government’s hands by placing it there herself!_
The United States did not intervene and Germany for the moment failed.
But Germany did not give up hope. The intrigue against the United States
through Mexico had only begun.
It has not ended yet.