Chapter I: Have a Rendezvous with Death (2)

“‘We wet the photograph,’ said Ruroede, ‘and then we affix the picture of the man who is to use it. The new photograph also is dampened, but when it is fastened to the passport there still remains a sort of vacuum in spots between the new picture and the old because of ridges made by the seal. So we turn the passport upside down, place it on a soft ground—say a silk handkerchief—and then we take a paper-cutter with a dull point, and just trace the letters on the seal. The result is that the new photograph dries exactly as if it had been stamped by Uncle Sam. You can’t tell the difference.’

NABBED AT SEA

“Through Adams’ efforts Ruroede and four Germans, one of them an officer in the German reserves, were arrested on January 2, on the Scandinavian-American liner _Bergensfjord_ outward bound to Bergen, Norway. They had passports issued through Adams at Ruroede’s request under the American names of Howard Paul Wright, Herbert S. Wilson, Peter Hanson and Stanley F. Martin.

“Von Wedell himself was a passenger on the _Bergensfjord_, but when he was lined up with the other passengers, the Federal agents, who did not have a description of him, missed him and left the vessel. He was later (January 11) taken off the ship by the British, however, and transferred to another vessel for removal to a prison camp. She struck a German mine and sank, and von Wedell is supposed to have drowned.”

An explicit letter from von Wedell to von Bernstorff dispelled any possibility of doubt that the German Ambassador was fully cognizant of the false passport frauds.

“Ruroede was sentenced to three years in Atlanta prison. The four reservists, pleading guilty, protested they had taken the passports out of patriotism and were fined $200 each.

“The arrest of Ruroede exposed the New York bureau, and made it necessary for the Germans to shift their base of operations, but did not put an end to the fraudulent passport conspiracy. Capt. Boy-Ed assumed the burden, and hired men to secure passports for him.”

But the increased vigilance and thoroughness of the British reduced this service to a negligible quantity before the entrance of the United States into the war squelched it entirely.

© _Underwood and Underwood._

From the Fighting Top of the Battleship _Wyoming_

The _Wyoming_ is 562 feet in length, of 26,000 tons displacement, and carries twelve 12-inch and twenty-one 5-inch guns.]

An incident in connection with the arrest of Ruroede is related by French Strother in his story “Fighting German Spies” published in _The World’s Work_. Ruroede “was being urged by the Assistant United States District Attorney to ‘come across’ with the facts about his activities in the passport frauds, and he had stood up pretty well against the persuasions and hints of the attorney and the doubts and fears of his own mind. About eleven o’clock at night, as he was for the many’th time protesting his ignorance and his innocence, another agent of the Bureau of Investigation walked across the far end of the dimly lit room—in one door and out another—accompanied by a fair-haired lad of nineteen.

“‘My God!’ exclaimed Ruroede, ‘have they got my son, too? The boy knows nothing at all about this.’

“This little ghost-walking scene, borrowed from _Hamlet_, broke down Ruroede’s reserve, and he came out with pretty much all the story, ending with the melancholy exclamation ‘I thought I was going to get an Iron Cross; but what they ought to do is to pin a little tin stove on me.’”

A SENSATIONAL CAPTURE

In addition to von Papen, Dr. Albert and Boy-Ed, one of Bernstorff’s effective agents was Wolf von Igel, who was the leader of the dynamite men of the conspiracy. He set up at 60 Wall Street ostensibly in the “advertising” business. Attention was attracted to him by the fact that his visitors during the two years he was undisturbed were Germans who had nothing whatever to do with advertising. Moreover, conspicuous in his office was a large safe bearing the insignia of the German Imperial Government. Suspicions were aroused and by degrees these suspicions were strengthened by circumstances and incidents that indicated von Igel as a German agent. Therefore, as the New York _Times_ reported, one morning in April, 1916, while von Igel was engaged preparing a mass of papers taken from the safe for transfer to Washington, the office was entered by four United States Secret Service agents from the Department of Justice, who made their way past the guardians always on duty, put von Igel under arrest, and undertook to seize the papers. The German was powerful and brave. With the aid of one associate he stubbornly fought the officers, striving to rescue the papers, to close the safe, to get to the telephone and communicate with his superiors. Revolvers were drawn by the Secret Service men. They produced no effect upon the intrepid von Igel.

“This is German territory,” he shouted. “Shoot me and you will bring on war.”

There was no shooting. But after a protracted struggle the defenders were overpowered and the papers seized. The German Embassy at once entered its protest. These were official papers. They were sacrosanct. The diplomatic prerogative of a friendly nation had been overridden and the person of its representative insulted. To this the State Department replied that the invaded premises at 60 Wall Street were described in the contract as a private business office for the carrying on of advertising, and that von Igel had not been formally accredited as a German representative.

When the papers were examined by the Department of Justice the reason for von Igel’s determined fight became apparent. Here, in the form of letters, telegrams, notations, checks, receipts, ledgers, cashbooks, cipher codes, lists of spies, and other memoranda and records were found indications—in some instances of the vaguest nature, in others of the most damning conclusiveness—that the German Imperial Government, through its representatives in a then friendly nation, was concerned with—

Violation of the laws of the United States.

Destruction of lives and property in merchant vessels on the high seas.

Irish revolutionary plots against Great Britain.

Fomenting ill-feeling against the United States in Mexico.

Subornation of American writers and lecturers.

Financing of propaganda.

Maintenance of a spy system under the guise of a commercial investigation bureau.

Subsidizing of a bureau for the purpose of stirring up labor troubles in munition plants.

The bomb industry and other related activities.

One of the most significant papers in the von Igel collection was a letter directly convicting von Papen of paying money to a plotter (Paul Koenig, manager of an alleged Bureau of Investigation established by the Hamburg-American Steamship Company for secret service purposes) designing to blow up merchant ships sailing from the port of New York. Koenig had reported the make of the bombs which it was proposed to use. They were made to look like lumps of coal, to be concealed in the coal laden on steamers of the Allies. By this or other means thirty ships carrying munitions to the Allies were sunk.

MORE BERNSTORFF CRAFT

Closely related to and to some extent under the guidance of von Igel was the German and Austro-Hungarian Labor Information and Relief Bureau, with central headquarters at 136 Liberty Street, New York City, and branches in Cleveland, Detroit, Bridgeport, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Chicago. The head of the enterprise was Hans Liebau, from whom it took its familiarly accepted name of the “Liebau Employment Agency.” During the trying days which followed the arrest of the Welland Canal conspirators it was unwaveringly asserted that the Liebau concern was a bona fide employment agency and nothing else, with no object other than to secure positions for German, Austrian, or Hungarian workmen seeking employment. That was for publication only. In von Igel’s papers the truth appears, brought out by the refusal of the Austro-Hungarian Embassy to continue its subsidies to the bureau.

That the Austro-Hungarian Embassy had taken official cognizance of the bureau previously, however, is disclosed in the letter written by the Ambassador to the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Foreign Affairs, which was found in the possession of James F. J. Archibald by the British authorities August 30, 1915. In this letter the Ambassador stated:

“It is my impression that we can disorganize and hold up for months, if not entirely prevent, the manufacture of munitions in Bethlehem and the Middle West, which, in the opinion of the German Military Attaché, is of importance and amply outweighs the comparatively small expenditure of money involved.”

Representations on behalf of the bureau’s efficiency were made, under date of March 24, 1916, in a letter to the German Ambassador, von Bernstorff:

“Engineers and persons in the better class of positions, and who had means of their own, were persuaded by the propaganda of the bureau to leave war material factories.”

The report comments with unconcealed amusement upon the fact that munitions concerns innocently wrote the bureau for workmen (which, of course, were not furnished) and continues in reviewing later conditions in the munitions industry:

“The commercial employment bureaus of the country have no supply of unemployed technicians.... Many disturbances and suspensions which war material factories have had to suffer, and which it was not always possible to remove quickly, but which on the contrary often led to long strikes, may be attributed to the energetic propaganda of the employment bureau.”

The captured documents contained letters and communications that established intimate relations between the German Diplomatic Service and the Irish revolutionary movement. Among others was the letter concerning a Justice of the New York Supreme Court, Daniel F. Cohalan, beginning, “Judge Cohalan requests the transmission of the following remarks.” The remarks are then quoted as follows:

“The revolution in Ireland can only be successful if supported from Germany, otherwise England will be able to suppress it, even though it be only after hard struggles. Therefore help is necessary. This should consist, primarily, of aerial attacks in England and a diversion of the fleet simultaneously with Irish revolution. Then, if possible, a landing of troops, arms, and ammunition in Ireland, and possibly some officers from Zeppelins. This would enable the Irish ports to be closed against England and the establishment of stations for submarines on the Irish coast and the cutting off of the supply of food for England. The services of the revolution may therefore decide the war.”

“He asks that a telegram to this effect be sent to Berlin,” the letter continues. It is but fair to say that Judge Cohalan has denied making the request.

Other documents revealed the German Secret Service dealings with Sir Roger Casement, subsequently executed by the British for treason, but though the Department of Justice had this incriminating evidence, it did not reach the Attorney General until the afternoon following the arrest of Casement. The cause of Casement’s arrest was not, therefore, information furnished by the Department, as was loosely charged at the time.

LANSING’S REVELATION

The most sensational of the revelations of German plotting in the United States was made by Secretary Lansing on September 21, 1916, when he published without comment a telegram written by Ambassador Bernstorff himself and asking his government for $50,000 to be used in influencing Congress. This was not one of the papers taken from von Igel, but was of much later date, and Mr. Lansing stated that the cablegram had not been sent to Germany through the State Department, leaving it to be implied that it went by way of some neutral legation.

There was a veritable storm of excitement in Congress over the imputation of bribery, some Congressmen in the heat of the moment intimating that they knew what members had benefited from the fund. But later it was made evident that Bernstorff had no idea of bribery but of starting a volume of letters and telegrams from various parts of the country to influence Congressmen against a declaration of war. Some time afterwards Secretary Lansing made public the fact that when Bernstorff asked for the $50,000 to influence the American Congress he was already aware that Germany was about to resume her ruthless submarine warfare which she had assured the United States would be abandoned.

THE BOLO PASHA FOLLY

The most amazing instance thus far discovered of the German government’s lavish waste of the German people’s money for useless intrigues in other countries is that revealed after the arrest of Paul Bolo, alias Bolo Pasha, in Paris, Sept. 29, 1917. The following account is taken from the _New York Times Current History_:

“Bolo had long been under suspicion and had been temporarily under arrest several weeks before, but only upon receipt of important evidence from the United States was he imprisoned without bail. He is a Frenchman, born at Marseilles, and, according to an article in the Paris _Matin_, is a brother of an eloquent French prelate of that name. He has had an adventurous career in various countries, including Egypt, and at the beginning of the war he was penniless; but when in Switzerland in March, 1915, he met Abbas Hilmi, former Khédive of Egypt, and apparently concluded an arrangement by which he was to receive $2,500,000 to be used in influencing the French press in favor of a German peace. The plan was approved by Gottlieb von Jagow, German Foreign Minister, who was to pay the money partly through the ex-Khédive and partly through Swiss and American banks.

“In accordance with this arrangement $1,000,000 was paid by roundabout methods through Swiss banks, to avert suspicion. Abbas Hilmi and an associate are said to have collected $50,000 as a commission. After that time Bolo Pasha and Abbas Hilmi seemed to have fallen out, for their relations ceased. At the time of his arrest Bolo was said to have received $8,000,000 from Germany, of which $2,500,000 had been traced to the Deutsche Bank. Large portions of this sum were said to have been paid through an American channel. The actual facts, now proved by the documents, go far toward confirming those original estimates.

“Bolo arrived in New York on February 22, 1916, and left on March 17 following. He had rooms at the Plaza Hotel, and was careful not to be seen in public with German agents. He saw Bernstorff secretly in Washington.

“When the French government got an inkling of his traitorous activities it appealed to Governor Whitman of New York for evidence, and ten days’ work by Merton E. Lewis, the Attorney General of the State, assisted by an expert accountant, resulted in sensational disclosures which were made public on the evening of October 3. The evidence, which included photographic reproductions of many telltale checks, letters, and telegrams, revealed the fact that Count Bernstorff, then German Ambassador at Washington, had eagerly fallen in with Bolo’s proposition to betray France by corrupting the press in favor of a premature peace and had advanced him the enormous sum of $1,683,500 to finance the plot. The State Department and Ambassador Jusserand examined the evidence and attested its genuineness.

From _Punch_, Sept. 9, 1914.

India for the King

The man on horseback is a Hindu. To his right is a Mohammedan, to his left a Parsee. This cartoon from _Punch_ depicts the loyalty of the natives of India in the World War.]

“Many banks had been used to confuse and hide the transaction, but the persons and agencies who figured knowingly in it are Bolo Pasha, Ambassador von Bernstorff, and two bankers—Hugo Schmidt, former New York agent of the Deutsche Bank of Berlin, who acted as Bernstorff’s financial agent, and Adolph Pavenstedt, former head of the New York banking house of G. Amsinck & Co.

“Of the mass of documents exhibited by Attorney General Lewis, the most important was a letter written by Bolo Pasha to the New York City branch of the Royal Bank of Canada on March 14, 1916, three days before he sailed to return to France. That letter reads:

“‘New York, March 14, 1916.

“‘The Royal Bank of Canada, New York, N. Y.

“‘Gentlemen: You will receive from Messrs. G. Amsinck & Co. deposits for the credit of my account with you, which deposits will reach the aggregate amount of about $1,700,000, which I wish you to utilize in the following manner:

“‘First—Immediately on receipt of the first amount on account of this sum pay to Messrs. J. P. Morgan & Co., New York City, the sum of $170,068.03, to be placed to the credit of the account with them of Senator Charles Humbert, Paris.

“‘Second—Establish on your books a credit of $5,000, good until the 31st of May, in favor of Jules Bois, Biltmore Hotel, this amount to be utilized by him at the debit of my account according to his needs, and the unused balance to be returned to me.

“‘Third—Transfer to the credit of my wife, Mme. Bolo, with agency T of Comptoir National d’Escompte de Paris a sum of about $524,000, to be debited to my account as such transfers are made by you at best rate and by small amounts.

“‘Fourth—You will hold, subject to my instructions, when all payments are complete, a balance of not less than $1,000,000.

“‘Yours truly,

“‘BOLO PASHA.’

“That is how the $1,683,500, which was the exact amount Bernstorff ordered Schmidt to place at the service of Bolo, came into the latter’s actual possession.

BERNSTORFF THE MASTER MIND

“Direct evidence that Count Bernstorff was the master mind behind the plot on this side of the Atlantic came to light in five dispatches that were made public by Secretary Lansing on October 5. These messages were exchanged in the Spring of 1916:

“‘_The Department of State communicates to the press the following telegrams bearing upon the case of Bolo Pasha, exchanged between Count von Bernstorff and Herr von Jagow, German Minister of Foreign Affairs._

* * * * *

“‘Number 679, Feb. 26. I have received direct information from an entirely trustworthy source concerning a political action in one of the enemy countries which would bring peace. One of the leading political personalities of the country in question is seeking a loan of one million seven hundred thousand dollars in New York, for which security will be given. I was forbidden to give his name in writing. The affair seems to me to be of the greatest possible importance. Can the money be provided at once in New York? That the intermediary will keep the matter secret is entirely certain. Request answer by telegram. A verbal report will follow as soon as a trustworthy person can be found to bring it to Germany.

“‘BERNSTORFF.’

* * * * *

“‘Number 150, Feb. 29. Answer to telegram Number 679. Agree to the loan, but only if peace action seems to you a really serious project, as the provision of money in New York is for us at present extraordinarily difficult. If the enemy country is Russia have nothing to do with the business, as the sum of money is too small to have any serious effect in that country. So, too, in the case of Italy, where it would not be worth while to spend so much.

“‘JAGOW.’

* * * * *

“‘Number 685, March 5. Please instruct Deutsche Bank to hold nine million marks at disposal of Hugo Schmidt. The affair is very promising. Further particulars follow.

“‘BERNSTORFF.’

_Drawn by Joseph Cummings Chase._

Sergeant William M. Butterfield

_32nd Division, 125th Infantry, Company “G”_

A descendant of the famous Rebel general, Milo J. Butterfield. He was made a corporal and requested to be reduced to the rank of private, in order to get to the front more quickly. He participated in three drives: Château-Thierry, Soissons, and Argonne. He was made a Sergeant in Company “G” as a reward for his splendid fighting in the latter offensive.]

* * * * *

“‘Number 692, March 20. With reference to telegram Number 685, please advise our Minister in Berne that some one will call on him who will give him the passport Sanct Regis and who wishes to establish relations with the Foreign Office. Intermediary further requests that influence may be brought to bear upon our press to pass over the change in the inner political situation in France so far as possible in silence, in order that things may not be spoiled by German approval.

“‘BERNSTORFF.’

* * * * *

“‘Number 206, May 31. The person announced in Telegram 692 of March 20 has not yet reported himself at the legation at Berne. Is there any more news on your side of Bolo?

“‘JAGOW.’

“In France the most sensational feature of the case was Bolo’s payment of $170,000 to Senator Charles Humbert, owner of _Le Journal_. The money was in part payment for 1,100 bonds of that newspaper. Senator Humbert immediately came out with a statement to prove that he was entirely unaware of the treasonable purpose of the purchases. He gave facts showing that Bolo Pasha had used his contract with _Le Journal_ to extract money from Germany. On Oct. 12, the French Military Court appointed a sequestrator for the money advanced to Senator Humbert. It amounted in all to $1,200,000 and was handed over to the care of the Deposit and Consignment office, a section of the Ministry of Finance.

“Whatever the total number of millions extracted from the German government by Bolo Pasha, the utter futility of the expenditure, so far as Germany is concerned, must remain one of the most striking features of the case.”

A CONTINUING EVIL

The exposures of German intrigue and the departure from this country of the official representatives of Germany who had so grossly abused their diplomatic privileges did not by any means put an end to pro-German activities and expenditures. They were uninterrupted though necessarily transferred to channels of less commanding importance. What was true late in 1917, was practically true of the major part of 1918, before the armistice. Societies as well as individuals continued to distribute German money and carry on pro-German or anti-English propaganda. The _New York Times_ said in October, 1917:

“The thing needs no proof. She is paying every man who will accept pay for the same purpose for which, before the war began, she was paying every man who would accept pay to handicap and weaken the arm of the American government.

“How are we to recognize the trail of her money? Before the war she was organizing strikes, blowing up factories, and purchasing the creation of a false public opinion against trading with the Allies. The outbreak of war somewhat altered her aims; there have been no purchased strikes lately and no dynamiting of factories. Her aim, which is always the same—the weakening of the government’s arm—can now be best attained by creating a false public opinion in favor of laying down our arms and consenting to peace before the objects of the war are attained. All her own moves from Berlin are now directed to that end, and when we find a movement in the United States which duplicates the moves from Berlin it is safe to assume that Germany is backing it in the same way in which she backed other movements, to quote von Bernstorff, ‘on former occasions.’

“It makes no difference that some of the men who are engaged in this movement may be merely foolish or deluded and not in receipt of money from Wilhelmstrasse. There are others who are, and these dupes are merely their tools. One and all they are doing the work for which Germany pays those who get the pay and those who do not. The ignorant zealot goes where the paid traitor sends him. That the ignorant zealot does not know the paid traitor is paid does not alter in the slightest the deadly effect of his action, the deadly effect calculated on and purposed by the German paymaster.”

The _New York Tribune_, commenting on the facility of espionage and propaganda by Germans, said:

“Conditions are incredible. These enemy aliens, acting as spies and carriers of information, are everywhere.

“They are going freely to and fro.

“They are in the Army and Navy.

“They occupy hundreds of observation posts.

“They are in possession of hundreds of sources of information of military value.

“They are in factories producing war-materials.

“They are in all the drug and chemical laboratories.

© _Underwood and Underwood._

Tribitsch Lincoln

The man in the middle, exmember of parliament, is hand-cuffed to a detective. He confessed that he was a spy for the German government.]

“‘If you discharge the Germans,’ says Herman A. Metz, a manufacturer of drugs and chemicals, ‘you will close every chemical plant in the country.’”

ORGANIZED PROPAGANDA

To quote again from _The German Secret Service in America_:

“Many of the peace movements which were set going during the first three years of the war were sincere, many were not. A mass meeting held at Madison Square Garden in 1915 at which Bryan was the chief speaker, was inspired by Germany. In the insincere class falls also the ‘Friends of Peace,’ organized in 1915. Its letterhead bore the invitation: ‘Attend the National Peace Convention, Chicago, Sept. 5 and 6,’ and incidentally betrayed the origin of the society. The letterhead stated that the society represented the American Truth Society (an offshoot of the National German-American Alliance), The American Women of German Descent, the American Fair Play Society, the German-American Alliance of Greater New York, the German Catholic Federation of New York, the United Irish-American Societies and the United Austrian and Hungarian-American Societies. Among the ‘honorable vice-chairmen’ were listed Edmund von Mach, John Devoy, Justices Goff and Cohalan (a trinity of Britonophobes), Colquitt of Texas, ex-Congressman Buchanan (of Labor’s National Peace Council fame), Jeremiah O’Leary (a Sinn Feiner, mentioned in official cables from Zimmermann to Bernstorff as a good intermediary for sabotage), Judge John T. Hylan, Richard Bartholdt (a congressman active in the German political lobby), and divers officers of the Alliance.

“The American Truth Society, Inc., the parent of the Friends of Peace, was founded in 1912 by Jeremiah O’Leary, a Tammany lawyer later indicted for violation of the Espionage Act, who disappeared when his case came up for trial in May, 1918; Alphonse Koelble, who conducted the German-American Alliance’s New York political clearing house; Gustav Dopslaff, a German-American banker, and others interested in the German cause. In 1915 the Society, whose executives were well and favorably known to the German embassy, began issuing and circulating noisy pamphlets, with such captions as ‘Fair Play for Germany,’ and ‘A German-American War.’ O’Leary and his friends also conducted a mail questionnaire of Congress in an effort to catalogue the convictions of each member on the blockade and embargo questions. Their most insidious campaign was an effort to frighten the smaller banks of the country from participating in Allied loans, by threats of a German ‘blacklist’ after the war, to organize a ‘gold protest’ to embarrass American banking operations, and in general to harass the Administration in its international relations.

“So with their newspapers, rumor-mongers, lecturers, peace societies, alliances, bunds, vereins, lobbyists, war relief workers, motion picture operators and syndicates, the Germans wrought hard to avert war. For two years they nearly succeeded. America was under the narcotic influence of generally comfortable neutrality, and a comfortable nation likes to wag its head and say ‘there are two sides to every question.’ But whatever these German agents might have accomplished in the public mind—and certainly they were sowing their seed in fertile ground—was nullified by acts of violence, ruthlessness at sea, and impudence in diplomacy. The left hand found out what the right hand was about.”

PAUL KOENIG, THE ATLAS LINE’S MAN

One of the delectable agents of the Bernstorff-von Papen intrigues was a “bull-headed Westphalian” named Paul Koenig, who had been one of the Hamburg-American Line’s detectives in service with the subsidiary company, the Atlas Line. His duties brought him into close relations with sailors, tug-captains, wharf-rats, longshoremen and keepers of dives of the lowest sort. That experience, coupled with the fact that he was, as his apelike countenance suggests, crafty and brutal, made him an ideal man for von Papen’s more dastardly purposes, especially as Koenig had under him the company’s police force of ten or twelve men, obedient to his will. Here was a nice little organization ready to hand.

On von Papen’s request the Atlas Line put Koenig entirely at his disposal, and no time was lost in making use of his service. Under von Papen, Koenig became the chief of a majority of the German Secret Service groups in the eastern part of the country. Gradually his work extended to the execution of commissions for the higher-ups, Bernstorff, Dr. Albert, the curious Austrian Ambassador, Dr. Dumba, as well as the orders of von Papen. He was a sort of factotum to them on various occasions, guard, messenger, investigator, etc. But to preserve the air of unsuspicious employment the Line continued to pay his wages, his work for the conspirators being covered by special bills and von Papen’s special checks. Koenig kept a book in which were listed the names of hundreds of persons—German-Americans and Americans, clerks, army reservists, scientists, city and federal employees, etc.—indicating his wide range of sources of information and the effectiveness of his system of poisonous propaganda.

His staff had numbers and special initials as well as aliases for identification in correspondence and telephone or other communications. He provided against the tapping of his telephone wires by talking in code. His code seems to have been devised with some sense of humor in the possibility of sending listeners-in on wild-goose chases, which was often the result. Then to prevent being shadowed he had one or two of his own men trail him, ready to notify him by signal if he seemed to be the object of too persistent attention. It is said he had the trick, when being followed, of suddenly turning a corner and waiting until the detective came up, when, taking a good look to identify the follower, he would go on with a boisterous laugh. By this trick he came to know quite a number of the agents of the Department of Justice. Such a cunning and cautious fellow of course gave the police a deal of trouble to keep tabs on him. Mr. John Price Jones says in his book:

A SUPERSUBTLE KNAVE

“So elusive did he become that it was necessary to evolve a new system of shadowing him in order to keep him in sight without betraying that he was under surveillance. One detective, accordingly, would be stationed several blocks away and would start out ahead of Koenig. The ‘front shadow’ was signaled by his confederates in the rear whenever Koenig turned a corner, so that the man in front might dart down a cross-street and maneuver to keep ahead of him. If Koenig boarded a street car the man ahead would hail the car several blocks beyond, thus avoiding suspicion. In more than one instance detectives in the rear, guessing that he was about to take a car, would board it several blocks before it got abreast of Koenig.

“It was impossible to overhear direct conversation between Koenig and any man to whom he was giving instructions. Some of his workers he never permitted to meet him at all, but when he kept a rendezvous it was in the open, in the parks in broad daylight, or in a moving-picture theater, or in the Pennsylvania Station, or the Grand Central Terminal. There he could make sure that nobody was eavesdropping. If he met an agent in the open for the first time he gave him some such command as this:

“‘Be at Third Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street at 2:30 to-morrow afternoon beside a public telephone booth there. When the telephone rings answer it.’

“The man would obey. On the minute the telephone would ring and the man would lift the receiver. A strange voice told him to do certain things—either a definite assignment, or instructions to be at a similar place on the following day to receive a message. Or he might be told to meet another man, who would give him money and further orders. The voice at the other end of the wire spoke from a public telephone booth and was thus reasonably sure that the wire he was talking over was not tapped.”

But cunning, like vaulting ambition, sometimes “doth o’erleap itself,” and Koenig’s fall into the clutches of the law was due to that excess of caution that forbade him to trust any of his men or assistants. His rule was to employ no one man more than once in any service that gave him a “hold” on Koenig sufficient to warrant blackmail or threaten exposure. The detectives found this out, by observation. Then they noticed that one George Fuchs, a young relative with whom Koenig had been quite chummy at first, came to be seen less and less in his company. The detectives thereupon set about making the acquaintance of Fuchs and getting into his good grace. It did not take them long to learn that he was resentful of his unappreciative relative, and they gave sympathetic ear to his complaints. The desired result was the betrayal of Koenig to the authorities.

AS TO SPIES IN ENGLAND

A Dozen Were Shot, Hundreds Were Imprisoned, But “Cherished Spies” Were Allowed To Go Free Because Their Work Was So Bad.

There has never been a war since the one in which the daughter of Jupiter and Leda, the inconstant Helen, figured so conspicuously, that has not had its fact or fiction of “beautiful” women. Whether it be Homer or Timothy Tubbmutton who wields the recording pen, there is always the woman beautiful to flavor the narrative. And usually the “beautiful” is a clever spy who casts a seductive spell over diplomats, statesmen, generals or, if need be, corporals of the guard. Inevitably a war of a magnitude to take in every clime and nation offered alluring field for the play of the reportorial or literary imagination, and we have had—in novel, movie and magazine as well as in the columns of the press—stories unlimited about beautiful women spies.

It goes without saying that, with the rarest possible exception, beauty is not a feature of the type of person whose mentality delights in “treasons, stratagems and spoils.” But we seldom have an authoritative pronouncement on the subject, and for that reason it is particularly interesting to reproduce in part an interview Miss Gertrude Lynch had with an English secret service official in 1917 while the war was still very much on. Miss Lynch was one of the “Vigilantes,” an association of American writers whose object was to “help win the war” by the dissemination of educative information. The interview with the English official was to get some light on the German espionage system as applied to England. Though not named, the official is described as the spy expert of England. A great many spies, of one and another sort, were nabbed in England. The article says:

ONLY A DOZEN SHOT

“There have only been twelve spies shot since the beginning of the war, but hundreds are either in penal servitude for life or serving shorter sentences. The actual number was not known to the official who talked with me on this topic—with the distinct understanding that I should not mention his name or title. He is the acknowledged authority on the spy evil. Not far from where we sat, in a formidable cabinet which looked as if it held other interesting documents, the papers taken from von Papen were carefully locked.

_Courtesy of Leslie’s Weekly._

French and German Soldiers as Comrades in Death

Clearing a battlefield after the advance of the French armies in September, 1915. The fallen of both armies were loaded together on wagons and hauled to convenient places for interment. Their identity was learned from numbered metal tags on cords around the neck, or sewn into the clothing.]

“‘No woman spies have been shot in England and only one among the feminine lot—a bad lot—who are serving sentence could possibly lay claim to being a “beautiful lady” spy. This woman had all the hall-marks of the fiction and cinema character, charming in manner, well gowned, having plenty of money, traveling about luxuriously, and was finally nabbed with the incriminating papers on her. But the popular conception of the feminine secret agent rarely exists outside of sensational stories because only women without moral sense can take up this profession, and when a woman is devoid of moral sense she is sure to be devoid of the other qualities that might make her work efficacious.

“‘There are, of course, numberless men and women who would be spies if they had not been interned, and, among the 30,000 Germans who are at this moment so confined, there are doubtless several who treasure the belief that they would have been of inestimable use to their country; but as they will never get a chance to prove themselves wrong that poor solace is permitted them.

“‘We have,’ continued my informant, ‘a great number of “cherished spies” with us. These are the spies who go about plying their profession and believing themselves the personification of that cleverness the Germans demand for this work. That is why we have dubbed them “Our Cherished Ones.” They are carefully watched. We let them go on doing bad work because it is much better to keep a bad spy doing bad work than it is to take him and perhaps have a spy who might do good work sent in his place.

“‘We would hate to lose our “cherished spies.” We don’t intend to!

“‘America has the job of the century. I wouldn’t know where to tell her to begin. Spies that were there and have left had plenty of time to lay their plans before the unrestricted submarine warfare began.

“‘With 8,000,000 Germans in America, what you have to find out is whether or not a German has been denationalized, a process that can only be gone through in Germany. It is not enough to know that he has been naturalized and that he claims to be a good citizen to your country. The fact that he has become a naturalized citizen does not free him from the call to fight for his own land. If he is denationalized as well as naturalized you are then safe, but not before. In England we had only a very small number who were found to be denationalized, a fairly negligible unit.

“‘I should say that the rush by foreigners immediately after the declaration of war in America was not because before they had been indifferent or hostile, but because they feared to be called upon to fight for their own countries. You will probably find that many of the Germans had been denationalized and were finishing up the process.’”

AMERICA’S HIGH-CLASS SPIES

America had a monopoly of the so-called high-class spies, according to this authority. The average German spy was described as a man who has one or more convictions hanging over his head—an unsentenced criminal—and these men were paid only about $250 a month. The statement continues:

“‘The last spy we caught was only a day or so ago. We had been after him for some time and he was traveling with a perfectly good American passport.

“‘The high-class spies with you are responsible for the sabotage, for the strikes on the docks and in the factories. They are pacifists, anticonscriptionists. It is a situation terribly serious for you. They are going to delay what they can not prevent. Don’t flatter yourselves that the important spies have been driven out. If I had been a spy in America and the warning had been given to me so long in advance, I would have laid my lines very well. Look out for those lines; you may trip.

“‘What should be done with a spy in America? He should be shot as soon as his espionage has been proved. No weakness should be permitted because he has many affiliations there.

In certain areas in France the German commanders feared that the inhabitants would give information to the French armies, and so moved all the population either into concentration camps near the front or to points a long way in the rear of the lines. Here is shown a wagon train filled with peasants who had been forced to leave their homes with only the few necessities these civilian heroes could carry.]

“‘I was in Germany eight years ago. Everywhere I was asked, “Are you ready to fight America?” That was the pretty little German game. Even then they were dying to rub into us the fact that America was our enemy. In the beginning, when the commercial party—Herr Ballin and his clique—were in power, they pretended a great affection for you. It was contrary to their desire that the submarine warfare became so terrible—not because they hated its brutalities, don’t make any mistake about that, but because they thought it a diplomatic blunder. Then and now they have a press which harps on the unfriendly feeling that exists between you and us. That often reiterated phrase that “America is fighting Great Britain’s battles for her” was made in Germany.

“‘I’m not such a fool as to think that America loved us in the past, but that she ever hated us as the Germans have said and that we have hated her as they still say in subtle, indefinable ways in some of your papers, is unbelievable by either of the parties concerned. Nations have faults as do individuals. We’ve made mistakes. We may have talked a little too much about the _Shannon_ and _Chesapeake_ and you too much about Bunker Hill and that tea-party in Boston Harbor. Let’s have an end to it—it all helps Germany too much. Take away the text-books from your children which teach them to hate us. If you try it, the German school-teachers will try to keep them, see if they don’t.

“‘America ought to love us now if she has not in the past, if national love is founded on respect, as it should be. We can point to ourselves with pride. We have given up in this war the thing we most believed in—personal freedom. We have made untold sacrifices and we are ready to give up everything—everything. Anything in your press that makes you see these facts in a distorted way is false, spy-work of the subtle, underground, submarine mentality sort that the Germans excel in.

“‘Look out for it. It isn’t the work of the “lovely lady spy” or that of the man with a conviction suspended while he does their dirty work that you are in danger from. It is just where I have pointed out.

“‘You asked me a while ago what England would do in case Germany won. I will tell you and you can draw from it the lesson of spy—and other German effort.

“‘If Germany should win, there won’t be any one here when it happens to know anything about it.’”

EDITH CAVELL’S BETRAYER

A Traitor of Belgium Posing as an Allied Soldier Served the Germans

The basest of the spies in the German Service of whom there is any account probably was Gaston Quien, the betrayer of Edith Cavell. He was a degraded moral type, and had been convicted of various minor offenses before the war, being a “bad citizen.” He was at St. Quentin when the Germans arrived there, and according to testimony he at once placed himself on familiar terms with them. He was nicknamed “Doublemetre” (Two-yarder) because of his great stature. The Germans saw that they could make use of him, and proceeded to do so.

The circumstances of his employment were about as follows:

In 1915 the German commanders in Northern France and Belgium were angered at the fact that hundreds of Belgian and Allied soldiers hidden in various villages were eventually smuggled through the lines into Holland or France by an organization known to have its headquarters in Brussels.

Quien opportunely arrived in Brussels and posed as an Allied aviator who had been obliged to alight behind the German lines, and, after burning his plane, had evaded capture. Along with several French soldiers, he was hidden for a time at the château of Prince and Princess Crouy. There Louise Thuliez, the school teacher decorated early in 1919 with the Legion of Honor, secretly passed him on to Brussels, by way of Mons. At Brussels he was lodged for several days in Miss Cavell’s nursery. Finally an engineer named Capiau and Mme. Bodart accompanied him and a group of Allied soldiers to the Dutch frontier, where, by payment of $15 a head to smugglers, they were conducted into Dutch territory.

Once at The Hague, Quien made no further effort to get into France. Instead, he returned to Brussels and betrayed to the Germans the entire organization for helping Allied soldiers out of Belgium.

Miss Cavell was tried and executed soon afterward. Miss Thuliez also was sentenced to death, but pardoned. Princess Crouy, Mme. Bodart and Capiau were sentenced to twelve years at hard labor. An architect named Bauco, also betrayed by Quien, was shot at the same time Miss Cavell met her fate. Quien continued in the employ of the Germans in various capacities, finally establishing himself in Interlaken, where he worked with their most noted spies. After the armistice he was arrested and tried for treason in a Belgian court. He was found guilty, but was not executed, pending an appeal.

EDITH CAVELL

_By_

George Edward Woodberry

The world hath its own dead; great motions start
In human breasts, and make for them a place
In that hushed sanctuary of the race
Where every day men come, kneel, and depart.

Of them, O English nurse, henceforth thou art,
A name to pray on, and to all a face
Of household consecration; such His grace
Whose universal dwelling is the heart.

O gentle hands that soothed the soldier’s brow,
And knew no service save of Christ the Lord!
Thy country now is all humanity!
How like a flower thy womanhood doth show
In the harsh scything of the German sword,
And beautifies the world that saw it die!

By permission of _Scribner’s Magazine_ and author.

Painting by Joseph Cummings Chase.

Corporal John R. O’Brien

_Second Division, 23rd Infantry, Company K_

After his platoon commander had been severely wounded and his sergeant had been killed on June 6, 1918, he assumed command, kept the men on the line, controlled their fire, and by good advice and judgment conserved life.]

THE SPY MILL

It Did Not Wait for Winds to Swing Its Arms for German Guidance

In a book, recently published, called _Espions, Espionnage_, one story has to do with a windmill: “Celebrated along the whole Aisne front, there existed at Craonne a mill boldly designated, ‘Mill of the Spy.’... The miller, devoted to the interests of our enemies, had found the means of informing them of the movements of our troops by disposing the arms of the mill in different positions.” The French has a beautifully final sound—“the miller, devoted to the interests of our enemies.” “But to tell the truth, neither the miller himself nor the actual information which he was able to impart, made a great deal of difference in the fighting. What it was, that made, or almost made, the difference, I believe, has never been satisfactorily ascertained. The miller at least was not there, then. Of course he may have had confederates, but if so, the destruction of the mill was so sudden, so complete, that there was left no trace of them.”

The information given by the mill to the Germans was almost entirely negligible, and would have penetrated to them anyway through the medium of the spies with which both lines were always swarming. Of course, at first, before they realized the agency of the mill, the French were not a little troubled and disconcerted by the amount of data the Germans seemed to possess, and the speed with which it was acquired. For instance, for a while the Boches amused themselves with knowingly greeting each regiment as it moved up to take its turn in the front line trench. There was a measure of clairvoyance implied in the big white board with black lettering that would go up on top of the German barbed wire as surely as there was a change of guard on the French side: “Bonjour, 77e!” or the number of French trench casualties: “Morts ——,” “Blessés ——.” And so it went on day after day.

A week of this, in dull, rainy weather, was enough to set nerves on edge, but then they caught the miller, whose execution put, it was thought, the quietus on the mill. And upon the morning of the 27th of November, they moved forward stealthily to the surprise attack.

Then a poilu looked back. It was a miserable, gray, shrouded morning, when the shadow cast by any object is merely a blur around that object—the whole a blot upon a cloudy plain. The mill stood, a black, spectral shape in the fog, on a slight eminence, the most commanding point in the surrounding country. As he looked, suddenly a long, black arm fell, abruptly, while the corresponding one, lighter in color, rose a foot or two. Besides the troops, it was the only moving thing in that breathless landscape. “Sacré-bleu!” a poilu exclaimed. As one and another began to gape behind them at his sudden start of surprise, slowly the whole motion was reversed. Light arm down, black arm up. Nothing more occurred. The mill was as motionless as they, though afterwards some of them declared that they had been able to see Tom Bene himself, hanging, with a ghastly face, athwart the arms, as men are sometimes hung to the spokes of a wheel. Then, as a sound came from the German trenches, as with one impulse, the men rushed—back toward the mill, which they literally, by means of fire and bombs, tore shred from shred. Then they turned to meet the Germans, who, warned by this extraordinary wigwagging, by whatever agency or agencies, had instituted a counter-attack. The French were not driven, but they stood the attack in their own trenches. “Afterwards, to those who had been there to see, more vivid than the angels at Mons, more vivid than the vision of the Little Corporal, to those who thought they saw it, was that gray morning, the foiled attack, and this malevolent motion of a secret intelligence in a dream landscape.”

© _Century._

Belfry of the Cathedral at Ypres

No city had more bombardments than Ypres during the World War. The Germans used heavy siege-guns which made great holes often 50 feet across and 30 feet deep. This picture shows the effect of the great shells on the great cathedral of Ypres.]

ALOIS THE SILENT

He Planned to End the War by Slaying Its Instigator and Failing—Died

One of the hero-martyrs of Belgium was Alois Van Keirsbilk, a well-to-do citizen of Thielt, beloved of his townspeople, a man of family, and a zealous patriot. He did what he might to serve, and many, they say in Thielt, were the services rendered. But there came a day when the rumor went round that the German Kaiser and his entourage were to visit Thielt, and Van Keirsbilk suddenly conceived a great project for the salvation of Belgium, for the liberation of the world from the nightmare of war. Egbert Hans tells the story of Alois Van Keirsbilk and it was first published in its completeness in the _New York Times_ of Sunday, June 22, 1919. But a little abbreviated, it is here reproduced as Hans told it:

“Thielt was the headquarters of the Fourth German Army and sheltered the Commander-in-Chief with a staff of hundreds of officers. Alois Van Keirsbilk was chief conductor on the railway between Thielt and Bruges. Also he was the chief of a secret organization which had only one object—‘help to our boys and death to the enemy.’ The organization was in communication with the Belgian army through spies who made regular trips into Holland across the ‘cable of death,’ and many a German plan originated at headquarters in Thielt failed, thanks to the activity of Alois and his men.

“It was not long before Alois saw his chance for a big stroke. The Kaiser was coming to Thielt on the first of November. A desperate attack was to be made against the Belgian forces along the Yser and from there on against Ypres and Dunkirk, and Wilhelm II in person was to inspect the preparations.

“Kill the Kaiser and the war will be over, was the firm conviction of Alois and his friends, and they set to work. Alois acquired all the information that his organization could procure as to the movements and schedule of the imperial visitor, and sent all the details to his agents in the Belgian army, with the request that airmen be sent at the opportune moment ‘to kill the Kaiser!’

“Only one of the three messengers who were sent out reached the other side of the electric cable, for at that time the guards were doubled. But one was sufficient, and when the first of November came Alois felt confident that something would happen.

“THE BEST LAID PLANS”