Chapter SIXTEEN

Spies and Spying--I am the First to Warn Britain of the Coming
War--Everybody Derides Me--How I Knew that the Kaiser
was Plotting War--I Bring Documentary Evidence to London
and Place it before Earl Roberts and the Cabinet--It is
Stolen by German Agents--I Write _The Invasion_, and am
Denounced by the Premier in the House of Commons as a
Scaremonger--The Premier Apologizes Privately and Says he
has Discredited Me for Political Reasons--Earl Roberts,
Lord Charles Beresford and Mr. Lloyd George Stick by Me--I
Become a Secret Agent of Great Britain and Manage to See
Over the Ehrardt Gun Factory in Düsseldorf, where Big Guns
were in the Making--_The Invasion_ is Translated into
Twenty-seven Foreign Languages--The Germans Invite Me to Go
Over to Them and Offer to Pay Me Well!

I think I can claim to be the first person to warn Great Britain that the Kaiser was plotting a war against us.

I discovered, as far back as 1905, a great network of German espionage spread over the United Kingdom. I found out the secret through a friend in Berlin, who was at the time under-director of the Kaiser’s Spy Bureau, and who had married an Englishwoman who was believed by all, except her husband, to be German. As is usual in Germany, his master did not exactly “play the game” with him, and, therefore, in 1905, he told me frankly what was in progress.

I came back from Germany and endeavoured to awaken public opinion concerning the peril, but my voice was, alas! that of one crying in the wilderness. Spies! What on earth did Germany want to spy upon us for? Were we not good friends with Germany? Had not the Kaiser assured Lord Haldane of his peaceful intentions? Did not the great War Lord in his golden helmet come to Buckingham Palace, and did he not parade the Embankment on his way to the Mansion House?

No, Le Queux was a writer of romance. Who could believe a word he said? So nobody would listen to me. No newspaper would publish any article that I wrote, although I asked no payment for it. I sent four London daily newspapers a letter of warning, asking the Editor to publish it. All returned it. The editor of one of the most powerful organs wrote:

“MY DEAR LE QUEUX,--We cannot publish this! Spies exist only
in your imagination. We don’t want to alarm the public.”

Alarm the public? I, who knew the truth, was walking about London telling people a story at which they only laughed!

Now, to my friend Earl Roberts I related what I had discovered. He listened to me attentively and declared that he, too, was very suspicious of Germany’s intentions. I introduced him to Lord Northcliffe and we all three discussed the peril for over an hour.

I next consulted Colonel Lockwood, M.P. for Epping, now Lord Lambourne. He heard me, instituted his own inquiries in Essex, and three weeks later entirely agreed with me. He realized the danger, and one day put a question in the House, whereupon the whole of our legislators laughed him to scorn. Spies! It was Le Queux with a bee in his bonnet again!

I saw Prince Louis of Battenberg and Lord Charles Beresford who, on my producing facts that I had at my own expense obtained, fully agreed that a serious peril existed.

In this way the small circle of the men I have named first became aware of Germany’s elaborate system of espionage that was working in every direction for one purpose only--a coming war.

The Admiralty had a kind of scratch intelligence service at the time, and so had the War Office. If any officer happened to obtain a tit-bit of information he sent it “to the proper quarter” where it was pigeon-holed and nobody ever again referred to it. Scotland Yard with its much vaunted Special Branch, looked after wild Irishmen and political undesirables, but spies--oh! it was all very absurd.

The greatest Empire of the world, sucking down daily the soothing syrup handed out by a pro-German press, declared Lord Roberts, Lord Northcliffe and myself to be a set of scaremongers.

I was in a quandary, but just at that moment, when nobody would publish a word concerning the spy peril, my old friend Mr. D. C. Thomson, proprietor of the _Dundee Courier_ and a group of influential newspapers in Scotland and England, heard what I had to say, and after consulting with one of his Editors, Mr. G. B. Duncan--one of the most able and popular journalists in the Kingdom--resolved to make some investigations. With Mr. Duncan I travelled for some weeks about Scotland, gathering a quantity of information. On our return to Dundee, Mr. Thomson decided that as the public refused to believe in the actual existence of German spies among us, or of the Kaiser’s intentions for war, I should write a series of articles based on the facts that we had gathered.

Thus I wrote the first story ever written about spies, called _Spies of the Kaiser_. It was published by Mr. Thomson in _The Weekly News_, a journal that has a huge circulation throughout the United Kingdom.

It also appeared later in book form, and, when the scales at last fell from the eyes of the public, I had many imitators, who obtained much kudos and made much money out of the kind of article I had inaugurated.

Still the Government was much against my having dared to tell the truth to the public. The octopus hand of Germany was on every walk of life, and I knew myself to be a marked man. My old friend in Berlin--who had, long years before, been a fellow student of mine in Paris--warned me one day when we met at the Hôtel des Indes at the Hague, that if I proceeded with my exposures I should certainly be ruined in some way or another.

I laughed and expressed defiance. If I had not done so and had withdrawn from the attitude I had taken up, I might have to-day been a rich man.

I came back to London and in Lord Roberts’ study in Portland Place, I one morning told him what Herr N---- had told me.

“I feel that all is hopeless,” I said to the gallant old Field-Marshal. “I have done my level best, and nobody will hear me. I know the truth, but because I dare to tell it, people think I am a lunatic. My popularity as a writer will wane--and I have to earn my living by my pen!”

“My dear Le Queux,” said the white moustached old soldier, holding out his hand in a fatherly manner, “the world thinks me a lunatic also, because, after my forty years service in India, I have come home and dared to tell England that she is unprepared for war. I know you fear that you will earn unpopularity if you persevere with your good work. But stand by me--follow me. Charles Beresford and I will support you in every way, and we will, between us, try and convince these careless money-making people around us, that they are living on the brink of a volcano.”

I grasped his outstretched hand, and thus the compact was made.

Lord Roberts became Commander-in-Chief, and almost his first work was the formation--entirely apart from the official one--of a new voluntary Secret Service Department, of which I became a member. Half-a-dozen patriotic men in secret banded themselves together. Each paying his own expenses, set to work gathering information in Germany and elsewhere that might be useful to our country in case of need. Italy and the Near East were the regions allotted to me, but my travels took me also to Russia, to Germany, and to Austria.

We soon discovered in our midst most remarkable ramifications of Germany’s spy system. As time after time I came home to report to Lord Roberts what I had found out in the course of my travels as a wandering novelist, the great military leader became more than ever convinced of the Kaiser’s slow but sure preparations for war.

Suddenly I received a guarded note from my German friend, Herr N----, asking whether I could meet him in Switzerland as he wished to renew my acquaintance. He would be in Zurich on a certain date.

I read between the lines that he wished to see me, so I travelled to Zurich, where in my bedroom at the Dolder Hotel he handed me a document that, when I brought it to London, caused the greatest sensation in certain quarters.

It was the full report of a secret council held a month before at Potsdam, at which the Emperor presided, Prince Henry of Prussia--a clever man whom I knew personally, having been on one of his motor-tours--the representatives of the leading Federal States, and the chiefs of the army and navy--including my informant--being also present.

At this secret council the Kaiser appeared in naval uniform, pale, determined, and somewhat nervous and unstrung, my friend told me, and went on to describe the scene. The Emperor spoke for more than two hours, illustrating his speech with many maps and diagrams as well as models of new air-craft and long-range guns designed for the coming war.

At first the Emperor’s voice had been almost inaudible, and he looked haggard and worn, but his words, according to the transcript that my friend gave me--and which I eventually produced in my book _German Spies in England_, after being forced by hostile public opinion to keep it secret for seven years--were significant enough. He openly declared that he intended to have war.

“In calling this council this evening,” the Emperor said, “I have followed the Divine Command. Almighty God has always been a great and true ally of the House of Hohenzollern, and it is to Him that I--just as my august ancestors did--look for inspiration and guidance in the hour of need. After long hours of fervent prayer light has, at last, come to me. You, my trusted councillors and my friends, before whom I have no secrets, can testify that it has been, ever since I ascended the Throne, my most ardent desire to maintain the peace of the world and to cultivate, on a basis of mutual respect and esteem, friendship and goodwill with all the nations on the globe. I am aware that the course followed by me did not always meet with your approval, and that on many an occasion you would have been glad to see me use the mailed fist rather than the silken glove chosen by me in my dealings with certain foreign nations. It was a source of profound grief to me to see my best intentions misunderstood, but, bullet-proof against public censure and criticism, and responsible only to the Lord above us for my acts, I calmly continued to do what I considered to be my holy duty to the Fatherland. True to the great traditions of Prussia, and the House of Hohenzollern, I believed in the necessity of maintaining a great army and an adequate navy as the best guarantee of peace. In our zeal for the preservation of peace we were compelled to keep pace with the ever-increasing armaments of our neighbours, until the limit seems now to have been reached.

“We find ourselves now face to face with the most serious crisis in the history of our new German Empire. Owing to the heavy taxation and the enormous increase in the cost of living, the discontent of the masses is assuming alarming proportions, and even infecting the middle and upper classes, which have, up to the present time, been the strongest pillar of the monarchy. But, worst of all, there are unmistakable signs that the discontent is spreading even among the troops, and that a secret well-organized anti-military movement is afoot, calculated to destroy all discipline, and to incite both my soldiers and sailors to open disobedience and rebellion.

“As, according to the reports of my Secret Service, a similar movement is making itself felt in nearly all the states of Europe, all indications point to the fact, which admits, indeed, no longer of any doubt, that we have to deal with an international revolutionary organization whose voiced object is the overthrowing of throne and altar, and the establishment of a Republican government....

“‘Breakers ahead!’ is the call of the helmsman of the Imperial ship of state, and I am ready to heed it. How to find an honourable and satisfactory solution of the problem is a question to which I have devoted the closest attention during these last months. The outlook is, I admit, dark, but we need not despair, for God, our great Ally, has given into our hands the means of saving our Empire from the dangers which are threatening it. You know what I mean.

“It is the wonderful invention which Count Zeppelin was able, through the grace of the Lord, to make for the safeguarding and glory of our beloved Fatherland. In this invention God has placed the means at my disposal to lead Germany triumphantly out of her present difficulties and to make once and for all good the words of our poet, ‘_Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!_’ Yes, gentlemen, Germany over everything in the world, the first power on earth both in peace and war.

“That is my irrevocable decision. At present we are, thanks to our airships and our new monster guns, which will be a surprise for our enemies, invincible, and can carry at will war into the enemy’s own country.

“Of course it is too early yet to fix the exact date when the blow shall be struck. But I will say this, that we shall strike as soon as I have a sufficiently large fleet of Zeppelins at my disposal. I have given orders for the hurried construction of more airships of the improved Zeppelin type, and when these are ready we shall destroy England’s North Sea, Channel, and Atlantic Fleets, after which nothing on earth can prevent the landing of our army on British soil, and its triumphant march to London. Do you remember, my Generals, what our never-to-be-forgotten Field-Marshal Gebhard Lebrecht von Blücher exclaimed, when looking from the dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral upon the vast metropolis at his feet? It was short and to the point. ‘What a splendid city to sack!’

“You will desire to know how the outbreak of hostilities will be brought about. I can assure you on this point. Certainly we shall not have to go far to find a just cause for war. My army of spies scattered over Great Britain and France, as it is over North and South America, as well as all the other parts of the world where German interests may come to a clash with a foreign power, will take good care of that. _I have issued already some time since secret orders that will, at the proper moment, accomplish what we desire!_”

In due course I gave the document to Lord Roberts, and also showed it to Lord Charles Beresford, Lord Northcliffe, Prince Louis of Battenberg, Rear-Admiral H. W. Wilkin, and a number of officers of high rank. In addition, it was placed before the Cabinet, who pooh-poohed it. Yet six years later the Kaiser carried out his programme almost to the very letter, and came very near achieving his dastardly object.

My friend from Berlin had given the report of that speech to me with these words:

“There is war coming; I am certain of it. And though I am a German, I am one who does not believe in war. Therefore I think your friends should know what is intended, and be warned in time. For that reason I give it to you, assuring you that those words are the exact words used by His Majesty, and trusting to your honour always to regard your source of information as secret.”

I gave him my hand in pledge, and have never divulged his name, even though during the war his ingenuity regarding the organization of enemy spies was very often pitted against my own.

I have said that when I brought it to London the speech created a great sensation among those to whom I showed it in confidence. Very naturally its authenticity was doubted by some members of the Cabinet, and all the machinery of the official Secret Service was set to work to try and discredit it. But certain facts were brought to light that left no doubt of its genuineness.

I spoke to several publishers of my intention of writing a book exposing the Kaiser’s intentions for war, but they one and all dissuaded me, saying that such a subject would be unpopular. The country laughed at any idea of German treachery, and the book would in consequence be a complete failure.

Now the German Government, by some means, learned that I was in possession of a report of that secret speech of the Kaiser’s, and a curious incident resulted. In September, 1909, I determined to write a book pointing out that Germany meant war. With that object I showed Eveleigh Nash, whose offices were then at Fawside House, Covent Garden, the opening chapters of my manuscript, together with the speech in question. He, in my presence, locked them in a drawer of the writing-table in his private room. Two days later, when Mr. Nash opened that drawer, he found they had been stolen! German secret agents undoubtedly committed the theft--which was reported in certain newspapers at the time--for I have since learnt that my manuscript is now in the archives of the Secret Service in Berlin! This, in itself, is sufficient proof of how eager the Kaiser was to suppress his declaration of war. It was fortunate that I had kept a copy of the speech, which I did not publish till the outbreak of war.

I was utterly disheartened at the apathy of the nation. I was doing my utmost, spending my hard-earned money in travelling and discovering the truth, yet nobody, except the few men I have already mentioned, would listen to me. I was openly told that my patriotism would spell ruin to me, as, alas! it eventually did, thanks to the same pro-German influence then at work, officially deluding, reassuring, and lulling the public to sleep, even as it is to-day.

I was in despair, and one afternoon, when I sat with Lord Roberts in his library, I told him that all I had endeavoured to do was without avail; for I was being denounced on every hand as a scaremonger, and told that I was a novelist and should stick to my profession of writing fiction.

“If people prefer your fiction to your fact, why not write a work of fiction--a description of what would happen if a great war came and we were invaded?” the Field-Marshal suggested.

The idea seemed a good one, but I pointed out that, not being a military man, I would make many technical blunders. Whereupon he said:

“I have the country’s welfare at heart, just as you have. I will prepare the scheme of attack and defence, and give you hints, if you will write the book.”

“And who will publish it?” I queried.

“Try Lord Northcliffe,” was his advice.

I did. Next day I saw my old friend whom the _Daily Mail_ staff called “The Chief.” Within an hour he had given me an open commission. I was to write, regardless of expense, a forecast of “The Invasion” for the _Daily Mail_, besides being promised a very handsome price for it.

“I know your pocket has suffered very much, Quex,” he said, for he always called me by that name. “Write a good stirring forecast. Tell Lord Roberts we will both try and wake up the country to a sense of its peril.”

In high spirits I went back to Portland Place and told the gallant old soldier, and that same evening we started to plan out an imaginary German invasion.

Having _carte blanche_ in the matter of expense, I sought the aid of Colonel Cyril Field, R.M.L.I., and Major Matson, both military experts, while H. W. Wilson, the well-known naval expert, was eager and ready to assist me in connection with naval matters.

For four months we reconnoitred the whole of East Anglia, from the Tyne to the Thames, making notes, marking maps, and finding out the most vulnerable points--including Weybourne Gap, in Norfolk, which was no doubt one of the points marked by the Germans for their disembarkation at the proper moment--and then, on my return to London, I was appalled to find that I had spent over three thousand pounds on what some would have termed “a joy ride.”

Lord Northcliffe paid it, remarking that, provided the forecast was well done, he would not mind the expense.

Then I took a flat in Queen Anne’s Mansions, Westminster, and there began to write. It was a colossal task as may well be imagined by anyone who has read the book, and further I had to surmount a heavier barrier than any I had ever dreamed might obstruct my way.

Thus, when at last I had, after a year’s work, finished the manuscript, and Lord Roberts had read every line and corrected any mistake I had made, and one morning--as will perhaps be remembered--the whole front pages of _The Times_, the _Daily Telegraph_, the _Morning Post_, the _Daily Mail_, and the _Daily Chronicle_, as well as the front pages of certain great provincial papers, bore a map of England, showing the districts that would be invaded, and announcing that the publication of my forecast, “The Invasion,” would commence in the _Daily Mail_ on the morrow, the Campbell-Bannerman Government determined that every word I wrote should be discredited and held in derision.

That same afternoon in the House of Commons a question was asked of the Prime Minister whether his attentions had been directed to the advertisements. The campaign against me had now started in real earnest!

Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman replied that he had seen the advertisements, and, denouncing me as a mere scaremonger, declared that such work was pernicious literature, “calculated to inflame public opinion abroad and alarm the more ignorant public at home.”

I at once wrote asking how he could criticize a work he had never read; and, moreover, why he accused his electors, the British public, of being more ignorant than their neighbours across the Channel. I knew it was a poser. But of the jugglery of politics there is no end, so I smiled and forgave him when next day he sent by special messenger a note in his own handwriting marked “Strictly Private” and in which he apologized for the words he had used. He meant “the more ignorant _section_ of the public at home,” and hoped that I would not, in the exigencies of politics, take any word of his as being personally offensive. He concluded by asking me to call at Downing Street when I could, as he wanted to make full explanation!

Next day the _Daily Mail_ appeared with the opening chapters of my work. It proved a huge success. Everyone congratulated me on it. At the Savage Club, at the Devonshire, at Boodles, at the Reform, at the houses I visited, I was hailed as the man-who-dared-to-tell-the-truth.

_I therefore wish you every success in your endeavour to
impress upon the people of this country that the possession
of a world-wide Empire carries with it defensive obligations
commensurate with the commercial and other advantages which it
confers, and that, without concerted and patriotic effort, we
may not improbably lose what our ancestors won.--_

_Believe me
Yours very truly
Roberts._

Extracts of Lord Roberts’ famous letter of warning.]

Naturally I was much gratified, for among the letters I received was one that I here publish for the first time:

“47 PORTLAND PLACE,
“LONDON, W.,
“_22nd August, 1906_.

“DEAR MR. LE QUEUX,--I return with many thanks the enclosure
of your letter of 2nd August.

“The imaginary scheme seems carefully thought out, and it
forcibly illustrates the risk we should run under present
military conditions, if, owing to the temporary absence
or inferiority of our fleet, a Continental power (meaning
Germany) were able to seize an opportunity for landing a large
force of picked soldiers in this country.

“The maintenance at home of an adequate number of well-trained
and organized troops and reservists would not only set free
the navy for offensive action and the protection of our
sea-borne commerce, by relieving it to an appreciable extent
of the onerous obligation which it has lately undertaken of
defending these shores without military co-operation, but
would also enable such reinforcements to be despatched to our
Colonies and dependencies as might be required to preserve the
integrity and safeguard the interests of the British Empire.

“I therefore wish you every success in your endeavour to
impress upon the people of this country that the possession
of a world-wide Empire carries with it defensive obligations
commensurate with the commercial and other advantages which it
confers, and that, without concerted and patriotic effort, we
_may not improbably lose what our ancestors won_.

“Believe me,
“Yours very truly,
“ROBERTS.”

Have we not already lost Ireland, and are we not daily losing grip on Australia and on Canada? Is the reader aware that the newspapers in the latter country, when advertising for a man to do a job, add: “No English need apply”?

I received a flood of other congratulatory letters from, among others, the Duke of Northumberland, the Duke of Argyll, the Duke of Fife, the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Rosebery, the Earl of Wemyss, Viscount Milner, Viscount Hardinge, Lord Brassey, Lord Tweedmouth, Lord Newton, Field-Marshal Sir George White, Lieut.-General Sir William Nicholson, Sir Ralph Moor, Major-General Sir J. Wolfe Murray, Sir Albert Rollit, M.P., Sir William Holland, M.P., Sir Joseph Dimsdale, M.P., Sir Charles Lawson, Sir Francis Tress Barry, M.P., Sir Henry Seton-Karr, Sir Theodore V. S. Angier, Major-General Sir Edwin Collen, Sir John Turney, Sir Henry W. Tyler, Colonel Sir Reginald Hennell, General Sir Stanley Edwardes, Sir Alfred Newton, Sir Fortescue Flannery, M.P., Colonel Sir Henry Rawlinson, Alderman and Sheriff Sir Vesey Strong, Sheriff Sir George Woodman, and Mr. Spenser Wilkinson, all of whom became my personal friends and supporters. I found myself popular among those who knew of the pro-German propaganda and its financial influence.

At last England seemed about to wake up!

Shortly afterwards I attended with Earl Roberts a meeting to consider national defence, which was called by the London Chamber of Commerce and presided over by the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House. The Field-Marshal had stated in the House of Lords that our armed forces were as absolutely unfitted and unprepared as they had been in 1899.

“What the nation requires, especially that portion of it occupied with the great business interests of the country,” he told the crowded meeting, “is peace and security not only from actual war but from alarms and panics. Such security, I regret to say--and I think you will agree with me--cannot be ensured by diplomacy alone or by a policy of conciliation alone, as some would have us believe. The only true safeguard is that the armed forces of the Crown should be in such a state of readiness and efficiency that it would not be to the interests of any Power to risk war with us.”

Thus, in a splendid, vigorous speech, he put before them facts showing our hopeless insecurity, and strongly urged that the country should awaken to the peril of the apathy into which it had fallen. Afterwards Lord Brassey, in proposing a vote of thanks, made a fine speech, and later, when Earl Roberts introduced me to him in the Lord Mayor’s parlour, he congratulated me on “The Invasion.”

The _Daily Mail_ had scored a success, even though the staff themselves had at first expressed some doubts as to its reception. Then, on Eveleigh Nash publishing it in book-form, with an introduction by Earl Roberts, it at once went through many editions.

It caused such widespread attention--because no critic could pick a hole in the invasion scheme, designed as it was by one of the greatest strategists of our time--that it was translated into no fewer than twenty-seven languages, including Arabic, Urdu, Icelandic, Syrian, Japanese, and Chinese. Naturally I was much gratified at having at last aroused the British nation, and others, to realize that the Kaiser’s pretensions of friendship were false.

My friends saw that we were drifting towards war, yet, though I had made a success with _The Invasion_, its result was exactly the opposite to what I had hoped.

The world read my book eagerly. They devoured the scenes of how our shores were invaded, of the fierce battles in Essex, Lancashire, and Yorkshire, and of the enemy’s advance on London. Then, on finishing the book, they simply set it aside, and, admitting that it was quite an exciting work of imagination, set me down as a second-class Jules Verne!

But a greater disillusionment came when a plausible round-faced German came over from Berlin, called on Mr. A. P. Watt, my literary agent, and arranged with him to pay a very handsome sum for the German rights of the book.

I was in Naples when I received my agent’s letter, and by telegram accepted the terms of the Concordia Press, in Berlin, congratulating myself that even our enemies would learn the truth that they could not invade us with success!

Judge my chagrin when, six months later, I saw an illustrated edition of _The Invasion_ in German, the conclusion of which had been entirely rewritten, making the result of the invasion a _German success_! And there were pictures of Germans sacking London!

Worse! It was published, and bound in gilt, as a prize for German boys at school!

I walked into the “Chief’s” room at the _Daily Mail_ offices filled with fury and disgust.

“Under English law I’m an Englishman, and I love England!” I said to Lord Northcliffe. “But, being the son of a French father, I’m also a Frenchman, and I thank God for it!”

Those were my first words when I entered his room, and they caused him to turn quickly from his chair, where he was dictating letters to his secretary, Miss Owen.

“Hulloa, Quex! You’re not well! What’s up?” he asked. “Max has just been in with a bad stomach-ache. He’s got a chill through wearing a new fancy vest that hasn’t been aired.”

He referred to Max Pemberton.

I fear I used some rather strong language, but in his usual humorous way he calmed me, and asked me down to Elmwood, his place near Broadstairs, for the week-end.

I saw that we had advanced no farther in arousing the public. Had it not been for Earl Roberts, Lord Northcliffe, Mr. Lloyd George, Lord Charles Beresford, and a few other intimate friends, I should have given up. But when bent on achieving an object I am perhaps rather tenacious, so the money that I received in royalties from _The Invasion_ I again spent on travelling Europe as a secret agent of Great Britain.

I parted with my money freely, leading a gay life with the one idea of gaining information of use to Great Britain. I was the only Englishman who ever entered the great gun-factory of Ehrardt’s, in Düsseldorf, where they were then constructing big guns. If my identity had been discovered I should have spent the remainder of my life in a German fortress. My escapade cost me a large sum in bribery, which I paid to a certain adventurer in Constantinople, but I got the knowledge that I wanted.

In due course the result of my adventure was reported by me, docketed, and sent to those dusty pigeon-holes in the War Office. The staff there, all keen and eager, dare not, after Lord Roberts retired, show any alertness or enterprise. The Government had said, “There are no spies,” and the staff of the Intelligence Branch was compelled to assume a lack of intelligence.

It is curious, as a writer in the _Daily Mail_ pointed out recently, that in _The Invasion_, written five years before the Great War, not only was the Battle of Jutland forecasted, but several of the ships sunk were actually described as sunk, while, in addition, the bombardment of Scarborough was predicted and some of the houses struck by shells actually named! Strange coincidences, at least.

* * * * *

The whole situation in 1910 to 1913 was hopeless. All I could do was to write novels in which I took as my villain a spy. They became popular. One could write spies in fiction, but to say there were spies in real life was almost an offence against King and country.

One September night in 1910 I had an adventure in London that opened my eyes widely to what was in progress, and to how our national existence was at stake, though the nation was so entirely ignorant.

I received a note from General Sir Alfred Turner, who lived in Cheyne Walk and whom I had not met, declaring that he greatly admired my patriotism, and asked me to dine _en famille_ one Sunday evening. I accepted the invitation, and went. To my great surprise, I found among the guests the German Ambassador, the Chancellor of the Embassy, the Military and Naval Attachés with their ladies, Lady Tree, Miss Viola Tree, Mr. Lewis Waller, Lady Westmorland, Lady Dorothy Nevill, and others.

In a corner of the drawing-room after dinner I found myself chatting with the German military attaché--a man who was hail-fellow-well-met with every journalist in London--who turned the conversation round to my anti-German writings. By his invitation I met him at his club next day. He entertained me to an expensive luncheon, and then suddenly laughed at me for what he termed my misguided propaganda.

“There will be no war between your country and mine,” he assured me. “You are so very foolish, my dear Mr. Le Queux. You have ruined your reputation by these fixed ideas of yours. Why not change them? We desire no quarrel with Great Britain, but we also, of course, realize that you are doing only what you consider to be your duty.”

“It _is_ my duty,” I responded.

My diplomatic friend sucked at his cigar, and laughed.

“As a literary man you, of course, write to interest the public. But you would interest your public just as easily by writing in _favour_ of Germany--and I tell you that we should quickly recognize the favour you do us, _and recompense you well for it_.”

I rose from my chair.

I confess that I grew angry, and I told him what was in my mind.

I gave him a message to his own Secret Service in Berlin, which was very terse and to the point, and then I left his club.

I give this as one single instance of the cunning manner in which the German Secret Service endeavoured to nobble and bribe me, so as to close my mouth and thus combat my activity.

Another instance was when the Nord-Deutscher Lloyd Line, of Bremen, kindly invited me to take a voyage round the world, free of expense, so that I might visit the various German colonies and write descriptions of them. And, on a third occasion, German diplomats were amazingly kind to me, both in Constantinople and in Belgrade, and again broadly hinted at their readiness to win me over to their side.

How pitiable, how absolutely criminal was our apathy!

Here is another instance. One August morning in 1913, a year before the war, I was sauntering along the village street at Southborough on the Hill, three miles south of Tonbridge, in Kent. I was dressed as a City man taking a country holiday, and had a camera hanging from a strap over my shoulder. I had a girl with me, in order to complete the picture. I was down in that rural retreat in order to watch certain things that were in progress.

What I saw and photographed was certainly of great interest.

About twenty-five German officers in mufti, all speaking German and making no disguise of their nationality, rode through Southborough, and during the whole day actually reconnoitred very carefully the hills between Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells, taking many bearings, deliberating on sites for guns, and taking photographs. _They were preparing for the invasion of England!_

That night the party returned to London, where they were entertained by the German Ambassador at Carlton House Terrace.

Such a deliberate survey of our own country by a foreign army was outrageous. I showed my photographs to Lord Roberts, and he, much incensed, urged me to write to the Press. I did so, but the British public had been doped, and not a single newspaper published a line concerning the enemy’s survey of the Kentish hills. One editor wrote to me declaring me to be a fool. That was only a year before the outbreak of war.

I often wonder by whose orders it was that all the motor signs on high roads from the Kentish coast to London were marked by the black-and-white stripes of German official direction-posts! It would be interesting to discover, for they silently pointed the way from the coast to the capital, and the public little dreamed of why they were black-and-white.

That the Germans intended to effect a sudden and unexpected landing on the east and south coasts was proved in many ways. Earl Roberts, Lord Northcliffe, and myself tried to point it out time after time, but our warnings always fell on deaf ears. It was given over to me to investigate. I found that on the east coast from Hull to Felixstowe most hotels facing the sea had either a German manager or proprietor, or, if not, there were Germans occupying private houses or boarding-houses on the sea-front of every town.

Again, wherever a tenant was wanted for a public-house a German-born applicant was ready to accept almost any condition to take up the licence, while in no fewer than forty-two cases--as I reported to the War Office--Germans or pretended Frenchmen or Swiss were living either next door, or next door but one, to the most important telegraph offices, ready to make a dash, and seize or destroy the instruments on “The Day.”

Happily “The Day of the Invasion” never came, but it was not prevented by any effort on the part of the pro-German Party, which in 1914 existed in Britain, just as it exists here to-day. By that staff-ride of German cavalry in Kent it was plain that the downfall of England was being plotted, but who cared so long as officialdom had its pickings and enjoyed its own social standing? I was only laughed at for the trouble I had taken to watch it.

Do not the souls of the millions who died on the battlefields of France, of Belgium, of Italy, and of the East rise against the plotters? Does not the onus of the frightful loss of the flower of our dear English lads lie, not on our four-hundred-a-year legislators, but on some of the golfing, dividend-seeking, pushful pro-Germans with old-world English names, often assumed, who have ruled our country through past years?

What will be the opinion of those who come after us?

Without politics, I repeat--for I am no politician, and have never voted in my life--I would pay a tribute--the tribute that the whole nation should pay--to Mr. Lloyd George and his advisers, who came in for so much adverse criticism before the war. I declare as my opinion--an opinion that millions share--that the manner in which he, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, faced and grappled with the financial situation at the outbreak of war was an illustration of British pluck, coolness, and readiness unequalled in our history. As I have already stated, my only feeling is one of pure patriotism towards the country that gave me birth. Any of these plain statements of fact, which I here set down, I defy any political or official juggling to disprove.

Though we are at peace to-day, there are signs everywhere of another war in the very near future. The writing-on-the-wall is there for those who are intelligent enough to read it. To-day throughout the world there is frantic and gigantic effort to produce fresh war material of a far more destructive nature--fast bombing aeroplanes, poison-gases, microbe-bombs, and high explosives such as the world has never before seen. And against whom? Great Britain, without a shadow of doubt.

Though we once cleared the enemy out of our island, he is here again in full force.

From the widespread and insidious Secret Service of Germany nothing is sacred. Details of our new helicopter were known in Berlin two days after its secret trials, while of a new war-vessel launched in secret this summer photographs reached Berlin within a week. Germany laughs at our apathy, and still boasts that she knows all about us, our political, military, and civil population alike. I know that from the inside. In the archives of Herr Steinhauer’s department in Berlin there are thousands on thousands of detailed reports--furnished constantly throughout the past ten years--regarding the lives and means of prominent persons in England, with descriptions of their homes wherein, one day, the undefeated enemy hope to billet their troops.

Then we have those unscrupulous people, men and women who act as “fixed-posts”--and it is no exaggeration to say that there are still dozens back again in England notwithstanding all official assurances to the contrary--who have all gone through an elaborate system of training in signalling, in reducing messages to code, and in decoding them, in map-making, in the use of carrier pigeons, and of secret wireless.

To-day, more than ever, the German nation hopes to strike in secret a staggering blow against London and our ports, not by invasion from the sea, but, after paralysing us from the air, to land an army. I fear that no political soothing-syrup, by whatever party, has any effect whatever on me, because I happen to know what I am writing about. I have not forgotten that Mr. McKenna told us that all German spies in our country were “safely under lock and key,” though a week later there were arrested a number of dangerous spies, two of whom were afterwards executed. Nor have I forgotten what trouble I got into for publicly mentioning this fact at a lecture I gave one afternoon at Buxton. After my speech all the London Press, both morning and evening, were served with notices forbidding them to publish my remarks! Charles Palmer, of the _Globe_, showed me the notice served on him, and laughingly said:

“Does not that, in itself, bear out your argument that certain authorities ruled by the Hidden Hand of Germany are afraid of your merciless exposures?”

Well, I tried to be patriotic, and have ever endeavoured to do my best for my country, even though it was all unavailing. But I feel strongly that I should still continue to raise my voice in warning and declare that Germany still means to attack, and, if possible, conquer, Great Britain, and is actually at the moment stirring up strife for that purpose.