The German Spy in America

CHAPTER IV VON IGEL AND KOENIG, TWO OF THE KAISER’S FAITHFUL WORKERS — WHO WAS VON IGEL? — HANDLING MONEY FOR EVIL ENDS — “P.K.” — KEEPING WATCH ON SPIES — SHADOWS FOLLOWING SHADOWS — STARTING TROUBLE IN CANADA — VARIOUS ALIASES — SPIES IN BANKS — SECRET INFORMATION ON BANKS

Wolf von Igel, von Papen’s Man Friday and custodian of his secret documents, was hustling about his private office on the twenty-fifth floor of 60, Wall Street, on the morning of April 19, 1916. He was hurried. His full, grey eyes glistened with excitement and he curled his stubby moustache as he glanced upon heaps of papers carefully arranged on the long council table and on the floor. Then squaring his stocky shoulders, he turned again to the big safe, bearing the seal of the Imperial German Government, and swinging back the heavy doors, extracted another bundle of papers which he ranged among the other sheets with military precision.

“It’s eleven o’clock and Koenig should be here now,” he said in German to another employé of von Papen’s who was with him. “These papers must be packed up at once.”

89He paused and then began a mental inventory of each stack of papers to make sure none was missing. All these documents—there were hundreds of them, and their weight, as revealed by a government agent, was seventy pounds—had belonged to von Papen. They revealed the inner workings of the German spy system in America and a great part of the world. They told many of the details. Those papers, connecting the German Government with violators of law in America, were a vast responsibility for any officer of von Igel’s age. Naturally, the young man was keyed to a high pitch of excitement; for hitherto they had come from the safe only piecemeal, and to permit daylight to reach so many at one time was almost a little more than von Igel’s nerve could stand.

Perhaps he had a presentiment. In fact, secret agencies had been at work to instil in him a feeling of uneasiness. Von Igel, stopping again and again to twirl his moustache, knew that von Papen and Captain Tauscher had been indicted on a charge of plotting to blow up Welland Canal. Word also had come to him that still more ominous events were portending and the idea—by stealthy prearrangement—had been given to him to ship all the documents to Washington, 90where they would be absolutely safe. Therefore von Igel was both busy with his packing and intensely perturbed.

“A man to see you, Herr von Igel,” announced a stout German attendant. “He refuses to tell his business except that it is important.”

Von Igel was gruffly directing his agent to make the stranger specify his name and mission when the door was flung open. In dashed Joseph A. Baker, of the Department of Justice, in charge of Federal Agents Storck, Underhill and Grgurevich.

“I have a warrant for your arrest!” shouted Baker, who had a warrant charging the German with complicity in the Welland Canal enterprise. Von Igel eyed the intruders for the fraction of a second. With one spring he reached the safe, and swinging the doors shut, was turning the combination when Baker leaped upon him bearing him to the floor. Then followed a battle of four Americans against two Germans, the attendant having been quieted by the flash of revolvers.

“This means war,” yelled von Igel. “This is a part of the German Embassy and is German territory. You’ve no right here.”

“You’re under arrest,” said Baker soothingly, as he pulled a revolver.

91“You shoot and there’ll be war,” answered von Igel, while Storck and Underhill grappled with a third. “I’m connected with the Embassy and you can’t arrest me.” The first skirmish was quickly ended by von Igel, realizing the importance of the documents entrusted to his care and straining every resource to outwit his captors, he fought again and again, facing revolvers and braving fists to reach the telephone to call for the help of the German Ambassador and prevent the officers from gathering up the documents. But he was unsuccessful. As the agents led him from the office, they met Koenig, von Igel’s associate, and von Papen’s agent in many enterprises just entering. Koenig, who was already facing three charges growing out of his activities, was rendered speechless by the sight of von Igel in custody and some of his documents in possession of the government.

The mass of documents—it makes no difference whether the Secretary of State, for reasons of State or of law, orders their return—not only set forth the secrets of Germany’s activities in this country; but they also told what part von Igel and Koenig played in the invisible war in America. They show how both men were errand boys, carriers of cash and of messages for von Papen and Boy-Ed.

Concerning young von Igel there is much mystery. At the outbreak of the war he was reported to be wandering around looking for a job, willing to work for any wages. Then von Papen picked him up, paying him a salary of $238 a month. There is a rumour, too, that he is a grandson of Graf von Waldersee, one time Germany’s Chief of Staff. That he is a man of importance is indicated by the manner in which he was trusted by von Papen, Boy-Ed, and Dr. Albert. When in an automobile ride from Captain Tauscher’s home on Long Island with von Papen and Dr. Albert, he met with an injury, he was hurried secretly to a hospital. Every effort was made to hide his identity; but Dr. Albert and von Papen visited him frequently. Von Papen paid the hospital bills and charged them up to “War Intelligence.”

Almost immediately upon beginning service under von Papen, he leased the offices in Wall Street, putting down in the contract “advertising” as the purpose to which the rooms were to be devoted and never making any statement as to 93his connection with the German Embassy. He quickly gave von Papen every reason to trust him fully and won the respect of the reckless attaché. Though he did not begin work for von Papen until September, 1914, he had, it is charged, a hand in the first Welland Canal enterprise.

Von Igel also handled money for von Papen. For instance, on March 27, 1915, the latter gave to his secretary a cheque payable to his order for $1,000 and on the counterfoil of his cheque-book he wrote “for A. Kaltschmidt, Detroit,” who since has been accused by the Canadian authorities as an accomplice in the project against Canadian armouries and munition factories. It was von Igel, furthermore, who cashed many cheques for von Papen, the proceeds of which were to go to secret agents starting on missions to the enemy’s country. He carried confidential messages which von Papen would not put in writing. He handled the code books in compiling and deciphering messages. He carried orders to Koenig, conferring with him and directing him when to meet von Papen.

When von Papen was preparing to leave the country at the request of President Wilson, he 94began to turn over his documents to von Igel for safe keeping. He gave him instructions as to the custody of the papers and the cleaning up of work left undone. In his regard, he undoubtedly followed Dr. Albert’s instructions put in a letter from San Francisco: “If you should leave New York before my return, we must try to come to some agreement about pending questions by writing. Please instruct Mr. Amanuensis Igel as precisely as possible. You will then receive in Germany the long-intended report of the expenses paid through my account on your behalf.”

So von Igel, as a trusted clerk, took unto himself the duties of confidential man for von Papen and for other big Germans who began but were obliged to leave unfinished certain projects in this country. There were many lines of information and activities converging to von Papen, afterwards to von Igel. After von Rintelen left this country, part of his schemes were entrusted to von Igel, who saw men with whom von Rintelen or his assistants had dealt. For instance, he has been indicted jointly with Dr. Scheele, Captain Gustave Steinberg, von Rintelen’s aid, for complicity in a plan to ship articles abroad under fraudulent manifests and thus deceive the Allies. 95One of these schemes was to export lubricating oil, much needed in Germany, to Sweden as fertilizer. Some of the payments for this purpose were made after von Rintelen sailed for home.

With von Papen gone and Koenig arrested, von Igel became a somewhat important person, taking upon himself the attaché’s prestige and a lot of Koenig’s work after the latter’s arrest. Many, many cheques were cashed by von Igel in the four months intervening between the attaché’s departure and the former’s arrest. He carried on von Papen’s work in a miniature way, conferring with many secret agents, giving orders and preparing reports in code for despatching to Germany.

While von Igel, in point of family, education and confidential association with the big German agents in America, is an important link in the Teutonic spy chain, Paul Koenig (“P. K.”), is more striking because of his rough activities, his underground connections and his associations with law-breakers. He was a sort of business manager of Germany’s secret service in the eastern part of America.

“P. K.,” as his hirelings called him, was a sort of boss, an unmerciful autocrat in the lower world, 96physically fearless, trusting no man and driving every man to work by the use of violent abusive language, boastful of his skill, physical prowess and his craft. In appearance, he gives this impression. A tall, broad-shouldered man, he has bony fingers and arms long and powerful reaching almost to his knees. His dark, sharp eyes dart suspiciously at you from beneath black, arching eyebrows, showing defiance and yet a certain caution. A truly typical person he is for the work for which he was selected, and though perhaps a little too boastful, such supreme confidence undoubtedly is a necessary attribute of any man who would acquire any degree of success in such undertakings.

Koenig is another product of the Hamburg-American Steamship Line—the Kaiser’s very own. Prior to the war he was superintendent of the company’s police, having a half-score men under him and keeping watch on the pier workers or investigating complaints received by the management. He had grown to that task from similar training in the Atlas Service, a subsidiary corporation. He had spent years among longshoremen, bossing them and cursing them. He knew wharf rats, water-front crooks, and was thoroughly acquainted with their schemes—as naturally 97such a man would be. He understood thoroughly how to handle men of the rough type.

When the war started and von Papen was searching for an assistant organizer, he found in Koenig’s little police force a splendid nucleus of just what he needed. At his request the Hamburg-American Line quickly put Koenig at von Papen’s disposal and straightway von Papen began to link up to Koenig’s police a number of channels of information, to supply him with reservists for special assignments, to suggest to him how to spread out and instal spies in various places to gather important facts. Koenig accordingly became the business manager of a part of Germany’s secret service, not only gathering information, but acting as a link in the labyrinth system employed by von Papen in communicating with the reservist or agent selected to do certain work in behalf of the Fatherland.

How varied and steady was his work for von Papen is revealed by the latter’s cheques. Here are a few excerpts: “March 29, 1915, Paul Koenig (Secret Service bill), $509.11; ... April 18, Paul Koenig (Secret Service bill), $90.94; ... May 11, Paul Koenig (Secret Service), $66.71; ... July 16, Paul Koenig (compensation for 98F. J. Busse), $150; ... August 4, Paul Koenig (5 bills Secret Service), $118.92,” and so on. Remember also that von Papen only paid from his cheque account for a part of Koenig’s expenses, other German officials who employed him receiving a bill for the special work.

“P. K.” also kept a most carefully prepared note-book of his spies and of persons in New York, Boston and other cities who were useful in furnishing him information. In another book he kept a complete record of the assignments on which he sent his men, the purpose and the cost. In this book of names were several hundred persons—German reservists, German-Americans and American clerks, scientists and city and Federal employés—showing that his district was very large and that his range for picking facts and for supervising other pro-German propaganda was broad. For his own hirelings or reservists, over whom he domineered, he had specially worked out a system of numbers and initials to be used in communicating with them. These numbers were changed at regular intervals and a system of progression was devised by which the agent would 99know when his number changed. He also employed suitable aliases for his workers. These men likewise had codes for writing letters and for telephone communication, and they knew that on fixed days these codes changed.

Always alert for a listening ear or a watchful eye—because playing the eavesdropper was his job—he looked for spies on himself. He believed that his telephone wire was tapped and that he was overheard when he spoke over the telephone. Accordingly, he instructed his men in various code words. For instance, if he told an agent to meet him at five o’clock at South Ferry that meant: “Meet me at seven o’clock at Forty-second Street and Broadway.”

His wire was not tapped, but P. K. kept the men who were spying on him exceeding busy and worried. He would receive a call on the telephone and would direct the man at the other end of the wire to meet him in fifteen minutes at Pabst’s, Harlem. Now from Koenig’s office in the Hamburg-American Building to 125th Street, it is practically impossible to make the journey in a quarter of an hour; but his watchers learned that Pabst’s, Harlem, meant Borough Hall, Brooklyn. Just as he eluded espionage for days and months, this man, skilled in shadowing others and in doing 100the vanishing act whenever necessary, boasted that the Federal authorities or the police never would get him. “They did get Dr. Albert’s portfolio,” he said one day, “but they never will get mine, for I won’t carry one.”

He sought likewise to elude Americans trailing him. He never went out in the daytime that he did not have one or two of his agents trailing him to see whether he was being shadowed. He used to turn a corner suddenly and stand still so that a detective following came unexpectedly face to face with him and betrayed his identity. Koenig would laugh heartily and pass on. He loved to jibe the American authorities and ofttimes he would dodge around a corner and then reappear to confront the detective with a merry jest and pass on. By that means he came to know many agents of the Department of Justice and many New York detectives. When he started out at night he used to have three of his own men follow him, and by a prearranged system of signals inform him if any strangers were following him.

The task, consequently, of keeping watch of Koenig’s movements was most difficult and required clever guessing and keen-headed work on 101the part of the New York police. So elusive did Koenig become that it was necessary for Captain Tunney to evolve a new system for shadowing Koenig and yet not betray to him the fact 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 kept informed by a series of signals whenever Koenig turned a corner so that the man in front might dart down the street beyond and by a series of manœuvres again get ahead of him. If Koenig boarded a street car, the man ahead would hail the car several blocks beyond, thus avoiding any suspicion from Koenig. In other instances, detectives, guessing that he was about to take a car would board it several blocks before it got abreast of Koenig. Because of his alertness, he kept Detectives Barnitz, Coy, Terra and Corell always on the edge; but they finally ran him down.

It was never possible to overhear any conversation between Koenig and any man to whom he was giving instructions. Koenig always made it a point to meet his agents—some of his workers he never permitted to meet him at all—in the open, in parks in broad daylight, in the Pennsylvania Station, or the Grand Central Station. 102There, as he talked to them, he could make sure that nobody was eavesdropping. In the open he met many a man for the first time, talked with him and then said:

“Be at Third Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street at 2.30 to-morrow afternoon beside a public telephone booth there. When the telephone rings, you answer it.”

The man would obey the request. Promptly at the minute named, the telephone rang and the man answered the telephone. A strange voice spoke to him and told him to do certain things, perhaps to be at a similar place on the following day and receive a message, or he would receive instructions as to what he should do and where he should go to meet another man, who would give him money and instructions as to what he should do. The voice at the other end of the wire was speaking from a public telephone booth and was thus reasonably sure also that the wire was not tapped.

Koenig trusted no man. He never sent an agent out on a job without detailing another man to follow that man and report back to him the movements of the agent and the person whom that man met. He was severe with his men when they made their reports to him, and always insisted that 103they do exactly what he told them and never permitted them to use their own initiative. So stubborn was he in sticking to his own ideas that some of his men used to call him “the Westphalian, bull-headed Dutchman.”

As to the outline of Koenig’s activities, his book of spies, the great mass of information gained by trailing him, and by study of the documents seized in his office, show that he had spies along the water front on every big steamship pier. He had eavesdroppers in hotels, telephone switchboards, among porters, window-cleaners, among bank clerks, corporation employés and in the Police Department.

To Roger B. Wood, formerly assistant United States District-Attorney in New York, is due the credit for the unfolding of the intricate and varied schemes charged against Koenig. He studied the evidence for months as it was developed by Federal agents under Superintendent Offley of the New York office and Captain Tunney, and prepared for trial the cases against the German agent.

One of Koenig’s spies was listed in his book as “Special Agent A. S.,” namely Otto F. Mottola, a detective in the warrant squad of the New York police force whom he paid for special work. The note-book revealed Mottola as Antonio Marino, 104afterwards changed to Antonio Salvatore. Evidence was produced at Mottola’s trial at Police Headquarters that Koenig paid him for investigating a passenger who sailed on the Bergensfjord; that he often called up Mottola, asked questions and received answers which Koenig’s stenographer took down in shorthand. In other words, Koenig sought to keep closely informed as to the developments at Police Headquarters, and to be advised, perhaps, of the inquiry being made by the police into the activities of the Germans. Mottola was dismissed from the force because of false statements made to his superiors when asked about Koenig.

“P. K.” also despatched men to Canada to gain information concerning the Canadian preparations for war, and facts that could be used by the Germans here in planning attacks upon munition factories, railroads and transportation facilities in the Dominion. An Irish employé of the Atlas Line has been arrested on a charge of planning with Koenig to start a “military enterprise” against the Dominion. The employé, named Justice, is accused of going to Quebec to ascertain the number of troops which were being transported 105by the Dominion of Canada to ports in France and Great Britain; the names of the steamships on which said troops were being transported; the kind and quantity of supplies which were being shipped from the Dominion to France and Great Britain, and other information which would or might be of value to the German Government, and which would assist the military operations of the German Government.

The complaint stated that the undertaking was one of hazard, and came within the purview of the statute forbidding the undertaking of any military venture with this country as a basis of operation. It says, further, that Justice and Metzler, Koenig’s secretary, left New York on September 15, 1914, and went to Quebec; that Koenig left New York on September 18 and met Metzler in Portland, Me., and that he went to Burlington, Vt., where on September 25 he conferred with Justice. The authorities also say that Metzler and Justice gained a varied assortment of information in Quebec; that they inspected the fortifications there, went to the training camps, observed the number of men, the condition of the men and estimated the time when they would be sent to the front.

In his meetings with various persons who had been picked for some daring enterprise, Koenig is accused of having employed various names. The Federal authorities give him at least thirteen, among which are Wegenkamp, Wegener, Kelly, Winter, Perkins, Stemler, Rectorberg, Boehm, Kennedy, James, Smith, Murphy and W. T. Munday.

After indictments had been returned against some of the Hamburg-American officials for conspiring to defraud the United States of legal clearance papers, Koenig, assisted by a private detective in the pay of Captain Boy-Ed, developed a scheme to get affidavits from tugboat captains to the effect that they had supplied English war vessels patrolling off Sandy Hook with provisions.

The plan was to turn sentiment against the British by proving that the British were doing the same thing that had been charged to the Germans. Accordingly, Koenig called a number of tugboat captains to a room in the Great Eastern Hotel, New York, and offered them a contract to haul provisions to the English cruisers. He told 107them that the captains were extremely suspicious of boats approaching the war vessels, and the affidavits were necessary to allay their fears that the tugboats might have a few Germans with bombs on board. So, in return for sworn statements from them to the effect that they already had been carrying supplies out to other English cruisers, he, Koenig, was to give them a monthly contract to do the work. Many of the tugboat captains signed the affidavits; but the scheme was exposed before the Germans really made any use of the documents. So carefully did Koenig work that he made the stenographers who took the statements transcribe the notes in his presence, give him the shorthand notes and he immediately destroyed them.

Through the arrest of Koenig and the facts obtained thereby, one of the mysteries concerning the Germans’ method of getting information about the shipment of munitions of war to the Allies was cleared. They knew the number of the freight car rushing to the Atlantic seaboard and its exact contents. They knew the ship’s hold into which that product was to be placed; but how they got this data was a mystery until 108Koenig was caught. Then Metzler, Koenig’s secretary, made a confession that cleared the mystery. Agent Adams got the confession.

Besides having spies in some of the factories throughout the country, the Germans had one great fountain of information in the foreign department of the National City Bank, an institution that has carried hundreds of millions of dollars in financing the purchase of supplies for the Entente Powers. That source was Frederick Schleindl, a German who has since been convicted of selling stolen information and sentenced to three years in a New York State prison.

Schleindl, only twenty-three years old, came to this country from Germany several years ago, obtained work with a private banking firm, and after the war started was shifted to the National City Bank. He had influence to get the position, and, incidentally, it may be said, that for years prior to the war German agents, trained financiers, have been stationed in New York, making friends and learning conditions, so that at the critical time they could, by underground means, succeed in getting positions for such men as Schleindl who would betray their trust.

When the war started Schleindl registered with the German Consul, giving his address and his place of business. One day word reached him that a German wished to see him, and going to the Hotel Manhattan he was approached by a man who introduced himself as Koenig. The latter sounded him thoroughly as to his sentiments on the war, and then outlined the scheme by which Schleindl was to help Germany and make $25 a week. Schleindl was to keep his eyes open for all letters and cable messages bearing on the deposits of the Allies with the bank, the payments of orders and other facts bearing on the war.

The bank clerk succumbed, either through patriotism or love of money. And Koenig had placed his finger on exactly the right spot; so accurate was he that there seems no doubt that he received guidance from a master spy higher up, who knew banking operations thoroughly, and where to go for information. It quickly developed that Schleindl could obtain information of two very important kinds.

First, he received in his department cable messages 110bearing on war orders and deposits by the Allies. The day he was arrested he had in his pocket certain messages and letters addressed to the National City Bank. One had come from the Banque Belge pour Etrangers in regard to a shipment of two million rifles that was being handled through the Hudson Trust Company. Another message that he picked up and handed over to Koenig had come from the Russian Government, directing the bank to place at the disposal of Colonel Golejewski, a Russian naval attaché, a large amount of money for the purchase of war materials.

Secondly, the bank paid for orders of goods as soon as they had been inspected and delivered on board ships at the seaboard. The manufacturers sent their bills of lading to the bank, showing the carload shipments and the vessel to which they were consigned. Thus accurate information was obtained as to every item, the railroad route of shipment and the name of the vessel. All this information was turned over to Koenig, who passed it along for dissemination to the proper persons. Consequently, the Germans knew exactly what ships to attack; in what vessels to place their fire bombs or other explosives.

Schleindl was accustomed to meet Koenig 111almost every night and hand him papers. Sometimes he would go to Koenig’s office, where “P. K.,” Metzler and Schleindl would spend many hours copying the documents. Other times Schleindl would give the papers to Koenig and receive them on his way to work, so that they would be in their proper place the moment any bank official desired them. Koenig pleaded guilty in the Court of Special Sessions to an information charging him with having corrupted the boy to sell such information. Koenig was set free on a suspended sentence.

The National City Bank leak is only one of a hundred channels through which Koenig and his agents received information. Koenig compiled it with the aid of his secretary, conferred with von Papen or Boy-Ed. He would spend a few weeks gathering facts, and then he would pack hundreds of papers into a trunk and run down to Washington. Arriving there, he would take a taxi to a rooming house, where he would unpack his trunk, and put the contents into another trunk in an adjoining room.

As weeks went by and Koenig believed he was escaping police and Federal espionage, he grew bolder, more defiant of the authorities, and louder in his talk. He treated his employés with less 112consideration. He always followed a principle of never hiring the same reservist for a second job. Then he quarrelled with George Fuchs, a relative whom he had employed to go to Buffalo with him. The police heard of that quarrel, and quickly got into the confidence of Fuchs, obtained his confession, and enough information on which to arrest Koenig. He has been indicted by the Federal authorities twice on charges that may get him six years, if convicted.

The two men were active workers for a time. Koenig continues in New York, but von Igel sailed with Count Bernstorff when the latter was dismissed from this country.

CHAPTER V CAPTAIN KARL BOY-ED, THE EMPEROR’S SOCIAL DANDY AND VON TIRPITZ’S TOOL — BOY-ED’S CAREER — NAVAL STUDENT IN TIMES OF PEACE — WATCHING BRITISH VESSELS — SMUGGLING SUPPLIES TO RAIDERS — RISKY WORK FOR SKIPPERS — MONEY SPENT FREELY — QUEER WIRELESS CODES — CUTTING IN ON MESSAGES — FRAUDULENT PASSPORTS — NEW YORK, THE CENTRE FOR SPIES — LODY SENT TO DEATH — INVOLVING AMERICA IN THE MEXICAN MUDDLE — PLANNING WAR WITH THE UNITED STATES

In the days before the Kaiser booted his spur through the treaties of Europe, you could observe, almost any afternoon, a faultlessly-attired man—well built, his big round head resting firmly on a powerful neck—sauntering down Connecticut Avenue, the Rotten Row or Fifth Avenue of Washington. Jauntily swinging his cane and puffing at his inevitable cigarette, he would bow gracefully in greeting the members of the capital’s smart set. He could be seen later at tea at the Chevy Chase Club, then among government officials and diplomats at the Metropolitan Club, or a guest at the Army and Navy Club. He was much desired at the most brilliant functions in New York in the winter, or at the resorts where, in the summer, the wealthiest and most exclusive Manhattanites gathered. One always found him 114graceful, suave, clever at repartee, effervescing natural humour—the object of admiration on the part of matchmaking mothers, and the reported seeker after an American heiress—but always mingling with the persons in official, diplomatic and navy circles who knew the innermost government secrets.

He was Germany’s Beau Brummel, Captain Karl Boy-Ed, the Kaiser’s naval attaché, seemingly more interested in the frills, foibles and gaieties of society than in the supremacy of the German Navy. Very much like an American in appearance, Oriental in his sense of luxury, and possessing the French quality of subtlety in rapid-fire wit, he lacked apparently every vestige of the much vaunted Teutonic efficiency. He would occasionally, however, drop out of the scenes of beauty and charm, travelling about the country, visiting warships, tramping over coast country, scrutinizing fortifications, or places where Uncle Sam would have coast defences, until finally it began to be whispered that Captain Boy-Ed knew as much about the American Navy and coast forts as did the naval officers themselves. Under the veneer of lightness and graceful ease, the naval attaché hid with the craft to which that Turkish part of his ancestry made him 115heir, the persistent methodical thoroughness of his German ancestry.

And, when the Kaiser set the dogs of war loose, Boy-Ed shunted aside the cloak of frivolity, disappeared almost entirely from festive gatherings, settled down by day to room 801, No. 11, Broadway, New York, receiving code messages as “Nordmann,” and by night to his suite in the German Club, where he delved into records, conferred with associates and elaborated plans for activities on the seven seas. From a hale, jolly fellow he became—as if by the shift of the magic wand of a Turkish sorcerer—a veritable machine, mind and body, working for the Kaiser. A man of great brain power, erudite, fertile in schemes, for long an aid to Admiral von Tirpitz, he assumed charge in America of all enterprises dealing with the naval phases of the Teutonic warfare in this country and in or near American waters. These were activities which, despite his boast: “They haven’t got any evidence against B. E.,” caused his dismissal from America by President Wilson.

Born of a Turkish father and German mother—the latter, Ida Boy-Ed, a novelist much loved in Germany—he possessed an unusual combination 116of traits, a mingling of Oriental subtlety, the brutal frankness of the Prussian, and the artistic genius of his mother. He elected for the navy, and early displayed qualities that attracted von Tirpitz’s attention. The admiral took him up and made him one of his “Big Six,” young German officers who were admitted to the naval lord’s most secret councils and trained for just such executive work and such emergencies as the great war produced. Having both a literary and constructive ability, in addition to unusual qualities as a tactician and naval officer, he was selected by Grand Admiral von Tirpitz as his chief lieutenant, and was made the head of the news division. As such, he had charge of propaganda enlightening the German people and arousing a demand for a bigger navy. He prepared articles for the newspapers and compiled pamphlets arguing for many battleships, in all of which he cleverly instilled a distrust of England. Prior to each appropriation for an increase in the German fleet, Boy-Ed carried on a Press campaign designed to educate the public as to the urgent necessity for more Dreadnoughts and submarines. By this means, an appropriation equal to a hundred million dollars was obtained in 1910.

For five years, prior to his arrival in Washington 117in 1911 as the Kaiser’s naval representative, he served under von Tirpitz, making trips around the world, observing and working out the details of Germany’s plans for breaking Great Britain’s sea-power. Because of the work which he performed, the unusual ability which he displayed, and because Germany was seeking to surpass the naval power of the United States, then the second only to Great Britain, he was sent to this country. When he arrived here, he impressed Americans by his knowledge of America and American ideas. With ample tact and keen insight into American customs, he began immediately to make himself almost an American. Speaking English fluently and possessing an unusually attractive personality, he made himself extremely popular.

His duties in peace times, naturally, were to study the American Navy and gain whatever facts he could about American war vessels, the personnel of the navy, the government’s plans for increasing the fleet’s power and building up coast defences; also to pick up whatever he could, openly or stealthily, about the secret plans of America in the use of her battle-fleet. When the 118war started, a thousand and one more tasks devolved upon him. As von Papen was in Mexico, he had for a time to look after the military attaché’s secret service, and, after being relieved of that, he devoted himself to the manifold details peculiar to naval intelligence. Like von Papen, he, too, had a staff of experts. They began, under his direction, delving into every phase of American naval activities, seeking information about the naval plans of the Allies, striving to exert their influence to prevent the shipment of arms and ammunition from this country. Boy-Ed’s work lay also in supervising the registration of naval reservists with the German consuls, providing for the return of as many as possible of them to the Fatherland, assigning spies to the country’s enemies, and collecting all naval information bearing upon the war.

Seated in his room 801, Captain Boy-Ed gathered a great mass of facts of value to Germany from enemy sources and from neutral nations. From his room, which was stacked with maps of the sea and steamer routes, he sent directions to his spies. He forwarded information about ships—English merchantmen and British 119warships—that could be utilized by the German Government in raids on Allied commerce. He also gave directions for provisioning the German raiders scouring the Seven Seas for enemy ships—an enterprise just as romantic—though in violation of American laws—as the spectacular dashes of the Karlsruhe, Emden and the Prince Eitel Friedrich.

Here was a project in which before the war and in preparation for it, the German Admiralty and the Hamburg-American Steamship Company participated; and after hostilities began, it was simply necessary for the captain through his staff of assistants or in person to issue orders. The Atlantic phase of the enterprise, its financing, its spectacular features and its illegality were presented to a Federal court in New York by Roger B. Wood, the Assistant United States Attorney, at the trial and conviction of several Hamburg-American Line officials: Dr. Karl Buenz, its general representative in America, George Koetter, supervising engineer, Adolf Hachmeister, purchasing agent, and Joseph Poeppinghaus, second officer and supercargo, on the charge of conspiring to obtain from the collectors of the ports false clearances for ships in connection with the coaling and provisioning of raiders. The Pacific 120phase of the scheme has been unearthed by United States District Attorney Preston in San Francisco.

Two years before Germany sent a declaration of war to England, and just when a crisis in European affairs was impending, Dr. Karl Buenz, who never before had engaged in steamship business, came to New York as the American head of the Hamburg-American Line. Prior to that he had been a judge in Germany, a consul in Chicago and New York, and a minister to Mexico. One of the first things which came to his attention was the completion of a contract between the Admiralty Division of the German Government and the steamship company for the provisioning, during war, of German warships at sea from America as a base. Arrangement also was made for communication between these ships and the company by the Admiralty’s code. The documents dealing with this agreement were kept locked up in the German Embassy in Washington, and the Hamburg-American officials declined to produce them at the trial, “because in that agreement,” Prosecutor Wood asserted, “I venture to say the whole plan whereby false clearances 121should be obtained is worked out in detail.”

When Germany stood on the brink of war and England stood ready to pen her in by a blockade, the Admiralty Division sent its orders to make ready to provision the raiders. Dr. Buenz himself, on July 31, 1914—before the war—received a cable which he read, and then at once sent to the German Embassy for safe-keeping. Straightway Boy-Ed was in and out of Dr. Buenz’s office, giving directions as to the warships needing supplies and whither the provision ships should proceed by routes outside the regular freight lines. He kept urging upon Dr. Buenz the necessity of haste, and even before the German Government advanced the cash, the ships were chartered—others purchased—under bonds that guaranteed payment to the owners in the event of seizure. Twelve or more ships in all set forth from Atlantic ports, carrying coal and food supplies bought with Hamburg-American cash.

The steamship Berwind, which had been chartered and loaded in a hurry, was the first to sail. When some of the conspirators met in Dr. Buenz’s office, there was hesitancy as to who should apply for clearance papers—documents of which Dr. 122Buenz testified he knew nothing. They finally told G. B. Kulenkampf, a banker and exporter, that the Berwind was loaded with coal—she had coal and provisions—and told him to get the clearance papers. He did so, swearing to a false manifest, as he afterwards admitted. In getting such clearance papers, Germany’s agents aimed to prevent the Allies from learning about the supply ships. Germany desired, naturally, to carry on this work secretly in order to deceive her enemies and prevent her adversaries from knowing where the German cruisers were.

Such a ruse may be a legitimate trick in war, but the German Government or her agents had no right to use the American Government in such an enterprise. So men employed by the Hamburg-American Line went to the collector of the ports from which these ships sailed, making affidavits as to the cargo—generally false—and the destination for which they sailed—also false. On board these ships—the Berwind and the Lorenzo, sailing from New York presumably for Buenos Aires on August 5 and 6, 1914, respectively; the Thor from Newport News for Fray Bentos, Uruguay; the Heina from Philadelphia in August, for La Guayra; the Mowinckle, Nepos and others—the officials put supercargoes bearing 123secret instructions. These men had authority to give sailing orders to the captains once they were outside the three-mile limit. They knew that the ships were not bound for the ports designated, but to lonely spots on the high seas, where they would lie in wait for the arrival of the German cruisers, whose captains would receive the “tip” by wireless.

Very few of the supercargoes, however, accomplished their aims. The Berwind reached a point near Trinidad where Supercargo Poeppinghaus directed the ship to lie to. Presently five German ships, the Cap Trafalgar, Pontus, Elinor Woerman, Santa Lucia and Eber appeared, and after the task of transferring the supplies to them was begun, the British converted cruiser Carmania came up. A brisk fight ensued between the Carmania and the Cap Trafalgar, lasting for two hours, and ending when the German ship sank.

One representative of the Hamburg-American Line sought to use bribery to effect his purpose. One of the ships chartered was the Unita, in charge of Eno Olsen, a Canadian citizen of Norwegian birth. The German supercargo made a 124mistake in thinking that Olsen was friendly to Germany. When, however, the supercargo explained to him after they had got out to sea, what the purpose of the cruise was, Captain Olsen baulked.

“‘Nothing doing,’ I told the supercargo,” Captain Olsen testified, with a Norwegian twist to his pronunciation. “So the supercargo offered me $500 to change my course. ‘Nothing doing—nothing doing for a million dollars,’ I told him.

“The third day out he offered me $10,000. ‘Nothing doing.’ So,” concluded Captain Olsen with finality, “I showed him my citizenship paper. I said the Unita cleared for Cadiz; and to Cadiz she goes. After we got there I sold the cargo and looked up the British Consul.”

The provisions for each ship were ordered under directions from the Hamburg-American officials who eventually provided the money. The Hamburg-American Company received three payments of $500,000 each from the Deutsche Bank in Berlin. In addition, $750,000 was sent to Boy-Ed by exchange through Kulenkampf’s firm, Wessels, Kulenkampf & Company, from the Deutsche Bank, making $2,225,000 in all. Telling of the receipt of the money, Kulenkampf testified:

125“Some time after that, Captain Boy-Ed came to me and asked if I had received money from Berlin. I said, ‘Yes,’ and he told me that it was for him. I asked him to obtain instructions, and a little later I was telephoned to hold the money at the disposal of Boy-Ed. I followed the instructions of Captain Boy-Ed. He instructed me at different times to pay over certain amounts, either to banks or to firms. I transferred $350,000 to the Nevada National Bank in San Francisco, $150,000 to the North German Lloyd, $63,000 to the North German Lloyd. That left a balance of approximately $160,000, which was placed to the credit of the Deutsche Bank with Gontard & Company, successors of my former firm. That amount was reduced to about $57,000 by payments drawn by Captain Boy-Ed’s request to the order of the Hamburg-American Steamship Company.”

How part of the money was spent is shown by the following account of payments through the Hamburg-American Line:

But Boy-Ed’s supervision of supplies to the raiders covered both the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. While the Hamburg-American took charge of handling the supplies in the North and South Atlantic, another German agency is accused of doing similar work on the Pacific. That accounts for Boy-Ed’s transfer of money to the West, where his cash also was used in the purchase of at least one ship. Boy-Ed’s funds, amounting to more than $600,000, have been traced to the Pacific. In following these payments it is important to observe how differently and more cleverly Boy-Ed handled his money than von Papen. Unlike the military attaché, he paid out little money by personal cheque; but he had accounts with various commercial firms 127to whom he gave orders for payments. Working with the ingenuity of an adept in covering up his tracks, he caused money in large amounts to be shifted from one bank to another, from one firm to another, through various cities until after myriad devious turnings and twisting it finally reached its destination. He used various commercial concerns as his bankers.

Out on the Pacific Coast, Boy-Ed employed members of the German consulate to distribute the money and supervise provisioning. Two indictments returned against Germans and others in San Francisco charge that an effort was made to employ that port as a “naval base” for provisioning the German raiders; that false manifests were filed for the succouring of merchantmen; that supplies were transferred to the German raiders. More than $150,000, it is specifically charged, was paid out for this purpose by the German consulate.

The outfitting of the steamships Sacramento, Olsen and Mahoney, Mazatlan and the barque Retriever are said to be charged to the defendants. One device employed in San Francisco Bay to outwit the Government officers watching for violations of the neutrality laws was to fill the Retriever with coal, and then announce that the 128vessel would be used for an expedition on the high seas to take cinema pictures of a stirring sea drama. But the officials were not hoodwinked. The steamer Sacramento, formerly the German-owned Alexandria, which, after the war started, was bought by the Northern and Southern Steamship Company and which flew the American flag, left port piled high with supplies of all sorts, including sauerkraut and beer, and reached Valparaiso, Chile, empty. All her supplies were transferred to German cruisers and a German supply ship at Masefuero Island, near the Chilean coast.

Captain Fred Jebsen, a lieutenant in the German naval reserve, took a cargo of coal south on his boat, the Mazatlan, for delivery at Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico. He transferred it to lighters, which carried it to the German cruiser Leipzig. Jebsen also is said to have planned to pilot a ship to India, and being frustrated, made his way in disguise to Germany, where he is reported to have been drowned by the sinking of a submarine. The Olsen and Mahoney, a steam schooner, was loaded with supplies, but after considerable controversy with customs officials, was unloaded. In the early days of the war, the cruisers Leipzig and Nürnberg lay off San Francisco. The 129Leipzig put to port for supplies which were granted in quantities permissible under international law. Efforts to supply still further quantities are alleged by the Government.

One of the picturesque incidents of the provisioning, which reveals how minutely Captain Boy-Ed looked after finances and sets forth other phases of his work on the high seas, as directed from No. 11, Broadway, is revealed in the piratical cruise of the good ship Gladstone, rechristened under German auspices Marina Quezada. Her owner, when she bobbed into the view of Captain Boy-Ed, was a Norwegian syndicate; but what money was behind that group it has not been possible to learn. Under the name of Gladstone, the ship had plied between Canada and Australia; but shortly after the outbreak of the war she put into Newport News. Then Captain Hans Suhren, a sturdy German formerly of the Pacific coast, appeared in New York, called upon Captain Boy-Ed, who took most kindly interest in him, and then departed for Newport News. Here he assumed charge of the Gladstone.

“I paid $280,000 in cash for her,” he told First Officer Bentzen. After making arrangements for his crew, he flitted back to New York, where he received messages in care of “Nordmann, 130Room 801, 11, Broadway, N. Y. C.” Meantime, in consultation with Captain Boy-Ed, the captain received instructions to erect a wireless plant on his ship—the equipment having already been shipped to the Marina Quezada—and to hire a wireless operator. Boy-Ed handed Suhren a German naval code book, gave him a map with routes marked out and sailing instructions that would take him to the South Seas, there to await German cruisers. Food supplies, ordered for a steamer which had been unable to sail, were waiting on the piers at Newport News and Captain Boy-Ed ordered them put on the Marina Quezada. Two cases of revolvers also were sent to the boat. In a like manner, it may be observed, ships on the Pacific had been equipped secretly with arms and wireless.

Again Suhren went back to his boat, kept the wireless operators busy, hurried the loading of the cargo, which was under the supervision of an employé of the North German Lloyd, and needing more money before sailing in December, 1914, he drew a draft for $1,000 on the Hamburg-American Line, wiring Hachmeister, the purchasing agent, to communicate with “Room 801, 11, Broadway,” the office of our friend Boy-Ed.

Prior to his departure, the skipper had difficulty 131with the registration of his ship. Though he insisted he owned her, a corporation in New York whose stockholders were Costa Ricans were laying claim to ownership, for they really christened her, and got provisional registration for her from the Costa Rican minister in Washington. It was necessary, however, in order for the ship to get permanent registration, to go to Port Limon, Costa Rica, and register there. So hauling down the Norwegian flag, that had fluttered over the ship as the Gladstone, Captain Suhren ran up the Costa Rican emblem. Then, having loaded his ship and having obtained false clearance papers stating his destination as Valparaiso, based upon a false manifest, sailed for Port Limon. But the Costa Rican authorities declined to give Suhren permanent papers, and, accordingly, being without authority to fly any flag and in such status not permitted under international law to leave port, Suhren was in a plight. He waited, however, until a heavy storm came up one night, then quietly slipping his anchor, he sped out into the high seas, a veritable pirate. Finally, as he neared Pernambuco, he ran up the Norwegian flag, put into port and got into such difficulties with the authorities that his ship was interned. His supplies never reached the raiders, 132and Boy-Ed, at No. 11, Broadway, learned from Suhren of another fiasco. Suhren is supposed to have been taken prisoner to Canada.

Had the Hamburg-American officials carried out their part of the enterprise by means of the false clearance papers—and the same applies to Boy-Ed—a guest of the nation and to others engaged in the project—they would have put the American Government in the position of officially endorsing their work of deceit and stealth. “Is it a nice thing,” asked Prosecutor Wood, “to have this Government endorse the lies of these defendants?”

Boy-Ed, furthermore, violated the clause of The Hague Conference of 1907, which says: “Belligerents are forbidden to use neutral ports and waters as a base of naval operation against their adversaries.”

Another operation that appealed to Captain Boy-Ed’s ingenuity was the use of the wireless to frustrate the enemy. He had given implicit instructions to Skipper Suhren in regard to the use of the wireless. Members of the crew of the Sacramento are accused of breaking the Government seal and using the radio plant. The Government 133officials also found such extensive misuse of the German-owned wireless plants in America that they were obliged either to close them down or take them over. The Sayville, Long Island, plant, finally was taken over and operated by the government.

But Boy-Ed delighted in circumventing the Federal authorities. A few instances have been published, but there remain hundreds of cases which the Federal radio inspectors have uncovered. To Chief Flynn of the Secret Service and Charles E. Apgar, an inventor, much credit is due for detecting one ingenious method used by Boy-Ed and others for sending out wireless messages. Apgar, an enthusiastic wireless operator, spent much time “listening in” to the messages sent every night from the wireless plants at Sayville, Long Island, to Germany. Finally he hit upon the scheme of recording the splash and splutter of the radio in a phonograph. After perfecting his device he began to “can” the Berlin messages—coming and going—every night. Then reeling off these messages on his phonograph, he would study again and again the dots and dashes of each word. He observed that messages had 134been repeated by the Sayville operator, that numbers were thrown in at intervals and finally that between words there were gaps of varying lengths—all means undoubtedly of sending messages in code—a new language of science invented by the Germans. Many messages were sent by Boy-Ed, himself. It was after a thorough study of these canned messages that the government began to operate the Sayville plant itself.

Like von Papen, Boy-Ed was under orders to send spies to the adversaries’ countries, to make arrangements for naval reservists to return to Germany, all of which required the use of fraudulent passports. While there have been charges that Germany had a factory for forging passports and while the New York World charged, at the time of Boy-Ed’s recall, that he had dealings with a gang of forgers and counterfeiters, who made passports, there is evidence that the naval attaché did pay money to German reservists, who procured passports fraudulently. One of these men was Richard Peter Stegler, a Prussian, thirty-three years old, who had served in the German Navy, and afterwards came to this country to start on his life work. Before the war 135he had applied for his first citizenship papers; but his name had not been removed from the German naval reserve list.

“After the war started,” says Stegler, a well-dressed young man with rather stern features, “I received orders to return home. I was told that everything was in readiness for me. I was assigned to the naval station at Cuxhaven. My uniform, my cap, my boots and my locker were all set aside for me, and I was told just where to go and what to do. But I could not get back at that time and I kept on with my work.”

Stegler then became a member of the German secret service in New York. “There is not a ship that leaves the harbour, not a cargo that is loaded or unloaded, but that some member of this secret organization watches and reports every detail,” he said afterwards. “All this information is transmitted in code to the German Government.” In January, 1915, if not earlier, Stegler was sent to Boy-Ed’s office, and there he received instructions to get a passport and make arrangements to go to England as a spy. Boy-Ed paid him $178, which he admits, but denies that it was to buy a passport. Stegler immediately got in touch with Gustave Cook and Richard Madden, of Hoboken, and made use of Madden’s birth 136certificate and citizenship in obtaining a passport from the American Government. Stegler has pleaded guilty to the charge and the two men were convicted of conspiracy in connection with the project. Stegler paid $100 for the document. Stegler, Cook and Madden each served a term on Blackwell’s Island.

“I was told to make the voyage to England on the Lusitania,” continued Stegler. “My instructions were as follows: ‘Stop at Liverpool, examine the Mersey River, obtain the names, exact locations and all possible information concerning warships around Liverpool, ascertain the amount of munitions of war being unloaded on the Liverpool docks from the United States, ascertain their ultimate destination, and obtain a detailed list of all the maritime ships in the harbour.’”

“I was to make constant, though guarded inquiries, of the location of the Dreadnought squadron which the Germans in New York understand was anchored somewhere near St. George’s Channel. I was to appear as an American citizen soliciting trade. Captain Boy-Ed advised me to get letters of introduction to business firms. He made arrangements so that I received such letters 137and in one letter were enclosed some rare stamps which were to be a proof to certain persons in England that I was working for the Germans.

“After having studied Liverpool, I was to go to London and make an investigation of the Thames and its shipping. From there, I was to proceed to Holland and work my way to the German border. While my passport did not include Germany, I was to give the captain of the nearest regiment a secret number which would indicate to him that I was a reservist on spy duty. By that means, I was to hurry to Eisendal, head of the secret service in Berlin.”

Stegler did not make the trip because his wife learned of the enterprise and begged him not to go. He also had been detected by Federal Agent Adams and was placed under arrest in February, 1915, shortly after he decided to stay at home. In his possession were all the letters and telegrams exchanged between him and Boy-Ed, none of which, however, said anything about passports. There was one telegram from “Winko,” who was Captain Boy-Ed’s servant.

Stegler also said that he had been told that Boy-Ed previously had sent to England Karl 138Hans Lody, the German who in November, 1915, had been put to death as a spy in the Tower of London. Lody also had been in the navy, had served on the Kaiser’s yacht and then had come to this country and worked as an agent for the Hamburg-American Line, going from one place to another.

Still another man who had a fraudulent German passport was a German naval reservist, who had shipped as a hand on the freighter Evelyn carrying horses to Bermuda. On one trip that he took, practically all of the horses were poisoned and were lost. He, however, was arrested by Federal authorities on the charge of using the name of a dead man in order to get an American passport.

In passport matters and the handling of spies, Captain Boy-Ed was more acute and more subtle than his colleague, von Papen. Nevertheless, the Government officials succeeded in getting a clear outline of his activities. It seems quite likely that after the arrest of Ruroede in December, 1914, when suspicion was directed to von Papen as the superintendent of the passport bureau, the management thereof was switched to Boy-Ed. The exposure of Boy-Ed’s connection with Stegler made it necessary for the German Government to change its system once more.

139Boy-Ed, as has been shown, had supervision of naval affairs and matters pertaining to the sea. He issued information to the Press bearing on Germany’s conduct of her naval warfare. He made pleas for an embargo on the export of arms and ammunition. He received from Count von Bernstorff all information which the Ambassador obtained bearing on that question, and, on one occasion, the Count sent him a list of the countries which had forbidden the export of war supplies.

The conviction throughout the country has been steadily growing, since the exposure of von Papen’s methods, that Boy-Ed was not an innocent associate of the military attaché. The Federal authorities, in fact, have unearthed a large amount of evidence to show active participation by Boy-Ed in these enterprises, for to him they simply were part of the war of Germany on her enemies. Colonel Roosevelt, who has made a special study of Germany’s crimes on neutral territories, has expressed the sentiment of Americans in a speech at the Academy of Music, Brooklyn, on January 30, 1916, in these words:

“The German and Austrian Governments through their accredited representatives in the embassies here have carried on a campaign of bomb and torch against our industries. The 140action our government should have taken in view of this campaign was not action against Dumba, von Papen and Boy-Ed, but the holding of the German and Austrian Governments themselves responsible for every munition plant that was blown up or damaged.”

The roll of Boy-Ed’s associates, as indicating his knowledge of plots of violence, is illuminating. He employed Paul Koenig for a series of secret activities. He was said to have known Captain Eno Bode, dock superintendent of the Hamburg-American Steamship Line in Hoboken, and Captain Otto Wolpert, another dock superintendent, both of whom, it is charged, were involved in a bond conspiracy.

Boy-Ed and von Papen, in many secret conferences on board the Vaterland in Hoboken, where they were sure of no eavesdroppers, developed details of their war on America and the campaign of violence on land and on sea to stop the carrying of munitions of war to England, France and Russia. Von Papen superintended the campaigns on land and projected his work upon the seas. The moment, however, the schemes, as papers found in von Igel’s possession prove, had anything to do with the sea, he consulted Boy-Ed.

One of the causes for the summary dismissal of both Boy-Ed and his confrère, von Papen, from America, was their schemes to involve this nation in a conflict with Mexico, to bring about American intervention in that country and thus prevent America’s supply of explosives and rifles from being used exclusively against Germany. Boy-Ed, prior to the war, had opposed the suggestion of intervention, but he changed his mind when he began to appreciate the fact that America in arms would take the powder, high explosives and rifles that Europe was buying. He always was a warm supporter of General Huerta, for, when von Papen was in Mexico, getting acquainted with Huerta, Boy-Ed, addressing his colleague there, wrote: “I was especially pleased by what you wrote about Huerta, the only strong man in Mexico. In my opinion, Admiral von Hintze was not quite right in his estimate of him. For Huerta can scarcely be such a drunken ruffian as Hintze often implies, if only because a chronic drunkard could hardly have kept so uncertain a position under such uncommonly difficult circumstances. I met a number of people in Mexico 142City who were in close touch with Huerta, and without exception they all spoke very highly of the President’s patriotism, capacity and energy.”

Of Boy-Ed’s schemes to do his share in preparing, from a naval standpoint, for war between Germany and the United States, of the plots to create disorganization in the American seaports and to render the German merchantmen useless to Americans, much evidence has been gathered by Federal investigators. Of his methods in getting information secretly from the Navy Department and from battleships, of his placing spies, ready for any deed of daring, on the warships, a greater amount of information has been learned than ever will be made public by the Government. Suffice it to say precautions already have been taken against those schemes. All these formed the basis for the decision to hand Boy-Ed his passport. Summing up Boy-Ed’s work for the Kaiser in America, accordingly, we have his supervision of the shipment of supplies to the German raiders, his activities in fraudulent passports and his co-operation with Dr. Dumba. When President Wilson requested the Kaiser to recall his military and naval representatives, he 143made the announcement that his action was due to “their improper activities in military and naval affairs,” a double-barrelled assertion applying to both men.

Captain Boy-Ed, on his return home, received from the Kaiser the decoration of the Order of the Red Eagle, third class, with sword, in “recognition of his services in the United States.” He would undoubtedly, for “those services,” except for the immunity granted him as a member of a diplomat’s official family, be facing prison in the United States with Dr. Karl Buenz and other officials of the Kaiser’s own steamship line.

CHAPTER VI CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER — PICTURES OF VON RINTELEN — VON RINTELEN’S VALUE — A SECRET AGENT’S TRAINING — BACK TO GERMANY — JEKYLL AND HYDE — A PLOTTER AT WORK — IN THE MAZE — THE “LUSITANIA” GOES DOWN — STIRRING UP MEXICO

When the German spy system was working smoothly and giving gleeful satisfaction to its builders, the War Staff in Berlin sent to America a masterly schemer who threw sand into the machinery. He was Franz von Rintelen, a finished product of the Prussian war-mould. He had been born with a supreme confidence in the conquering destiny of Germany. He had been trained for his work in that order of things and he had subordinated to the needs of the Empire, his business, wealth, brains, energy—yes, his very soul. He had been ordered here to undertake, with the aid of Germany’s agents, the enormous task of isolating commercial and financial America, as a base of war supplies, from Europe. In trying to accomplish his aim, he sought to wreck American institutions and to use the United States as a battlefield in a rear attack on the Allies.

Highly imaginative, keen of foresight, a master 145of detail, a superb organizer, and conscienceless in the execution of his plans, he seemed like a man so perfectly trained for the emergencies of war that under no circumstances would he lose his poise. And yet when put face to face with his own misjudgments and forced to take measures to retrieve himself, he lost the very quality which his training was meant to insure—a carefully calculating eye and a cool head. His strategic moves consequently proved to be ridiculous errors that led to his own confusion.

In a brief sojourn in America he moved in the shadows of mystery, employing the vast network of German spies, hiring Americans, using thugs and setting in motion manifold plans for gigantic enterprises that involved the entire governmental, industrial and financial organizations of the country. When he went away, his work unfinished, his aims unaccomplished and a large amount of money wasted, there remained a multitude of trails, isolated facts and incidents suggesting his activities. Seizing these clues, Federal agents under A. Bruce Bielaski and William M. Offley, began to dig up von Rintelen’s associates, to get their stories and to obtain proof of his doings—his letters and telegrams, his agents’ speeches and the instructions which they tried to carry 146out. Taking these facts, Raymond H. Sarfaty, then Assistant United States Attorney in New York, working with patience and skill, fitted the details together into a series of great mosaics—depicting conspiracy, fraud, purchases of strikes, bribery, perjury, forgery, sedition, almost treason. Those pictures show how hidden forces—Americans and Germans working in secret—during von Rintelen’s presence in this country, plotted to cause commotions in political, industrial and financial spheres, and all to aid Germany in derogation of our rights.

In every one of them, von Rintelen looms as the audacious plotter, man of mystery, user of a hundred aliases, supreme egotist, a vaunted aid to the Kaiser and a Teutonic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. In one picture, you see him in exclusive homes on Fifth Avenue, a “mould of form”—scarcely thirty-eight years old, slim and upstanding, with stalwart shoulders, the bearing of an aristocrat, short stubborn hair, a moustache with a like independent twist, and greenish-grey eyes that sparkled defiance. He garbed himself in the cut of London’s most artistic tailors and selected the colours of his ties, his shirts and his socks with 147a view to perfect harmony. He was the “glass of fashion” on the tip-toe of courtesy, beguiling with his gallant quips and charming his hearers by his fascinating stories and comments.

Other pictures show him under an assumed name, in conference with conspirators. He might meet them secretly in offices, or in hotels, or he might pick them up in an automobile, whizzing along at full speed and handing gold to hirelings who for a price were ready to undertake some criminal job. He might be seen dining in one of Broadway’s most alluring cabarets, ordering the rarest of wines and boasting of his schemes to accomplish in America what would be equivalent to Germany’s capture of Paris.

And who is this man? He is so important that when made a prisoner in England, the Kaiser offered to exchange for the nobleman any ten British prisoners that King George might select. He is so esteemed in Germany that large amounts of gold were placed at the disposal of Americans to go to England and by hook or crook effect his escape. Rumour has sought to make him a relative of the Hohenzollerns. Another report has put him down actually as the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. 148But persons, who knew him well in Berlin, saw him in the United States and at the prison camp in England, say he is von Rintelen. He is said to be the son of a former member of the Kaiser’s Cabinet; but the German “Wer Ist’s” does not credit that man with a son. Still, von Rintelen married into one of the wealthiest families in Berlin, his wife being a member of the von Kaufmann family, and he had a commanding social position in Germany.

He is wealthy in his own name, his fortune being estimated at $15,000,000. He is a director of the Deutsche Bank and the National Bank für Deutschland. He is, or was, a member of the big financial group of Germany, and as such was one of the Emperor’s financial advisers. His knowledge and advisory sphere included England, the United States and Mexico; and of the financial and industrial resources of these countries he was supposed to have a broad and comprehensive knowledge. He had influence also because he was a friend of the Kaiser and a close associate of the Crown Prince.

Von Rintelen’s work was cut out for him in his early youth. His qualifications were considered 149and he was assigned to studies in preparation for the tasks he gave promise of performing most efficiently. At the gymnasium and the university, he divided his time between economics and finance. In addition, he spent considerable time in the navy, finally became a Captain-Lieutenant, and as such qualified for the General Navy Staff. He, too, was one of von Tirpitz’s young men chosen for definite lines of naval secret service and financial campaigns that would be of value to the further development of the navy.

Finance may have been a mere cloak for the real nature of von Rintelen’s naval assignments abroad, or his secret service training may have been a necessary part of his training for a high place in the Teutonic financial world. Graduating from the university and finishing the prescribed part of his tutelage under von Tirpitz, he went to London where he obtained employment in a banking house. While there, he was learning not only finance, but he was a part of that branch of Germany’s spy system that radiated through banking institutions to the various concerns allied therewith. Under the guidance of wise heads in Berlin, he grasped far more facts about banking conditions than ever were suspected by his English associates.

150Next he came to America. He entered the banking house of Ladenburg, Thalmann & Co., spending a short time there and then moving to other banking institutions, some of which were branches of English and Canadian banks. He obtained letters of introduction from big bankers to bankers scattered throughout the United States. He grew in knowledge, learned American banking methods, the connections of banks with big industries, and sought to make affiliations of benefit to German institutions. He served, meantime, as Germany’s naval representative at the exercises in commemoration of John Paul Jones. His entrance into New York’s society was paved for him through the German Embassy’s friends. He was a guest at social functions where only the most favoured were invited. He was accepted as a member of the New York Yacht Club. He was entertained at Newport. He made friends among the biggest men in New York; for he was attractive, a remarkable cosmopolite, extremely learned, versed in international questions, speaking English, French and Spanish fluently, and, above all, he was an inimitable raconteur. He showed himself at all times an ardent pro-German, arguing for a union of Germany and the United States in the event of war.

151Through his wide acquaintanceship and innumerable avenues open to him, he gained information about America such as only the most favoured business men in America possess. He left this country finally saying he would go to Mexico to investigate conditions there, hoping that eventually he might be able to open Mexican and South American branches of a German bank. But before going, he had acquired insight not only into American banking connections with Canada, but also with Mexico. He knew the big financial groups interested in the development of the natural resources of those countries and he knew thoroughly America’s actual and industrial preparedness for war.

So, returning to Berlin in 1909, he again took up his banking business and continued his close affiliation with von Tirpitz and the Big Navy crowd, setting forth the facts he obtained and making recommendations for the development of Germany’s secret service in America. He became more prominent socially than ever, making it a point to entertain Americans. When his American acquaintances turned up in Berlin, they invariably found von Rintelen a most cordial and 152extravagant host. He obtained introductions at court for some; and he introduced others to the Crown Prince. When the war started, Americans who besought von Rintelen for help in the exciting days, found him most obliging.

But before circumstances that brought von Rintelen to this country arose, he received several Americans. One was a wealthy American manufacturer who owns a large factory in France. Being on intimate terms with von Rintelen, he called upon him and explained how the plant had been closed down with the invasion of the Germans, causing a big financial loss. He appealed for von Rintelen’s intercession to have the concern continue business. He got von Rintelen’s promise of aid but returned to the United States before any definite action was taken as von Rintelen was too crafty to make any move before he was ready to ask his compensation.

Von Rintelen was ordered, in January, 1915, the General War Staff to come to America. It had become necessary to send a man here to buy supplies of copper, rubber and cotton and to take extensive precautionary measures against the Allies getting war munitions from America. He was scornful of American facilities for filling Allies’ orders and backed by the authority of the 153War Staff and a group of Berlin’s ablest bankers, he made arrangements for his trip. Knowing he must elude the English, he obtained the Swiss passport of his sister Emily V. Gasche, who was with her husband in Switzerland. He erased the “y” of Emily and had the passport altered in other ways to suit his needs, travelling as Emil V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen. As he bade goodbye to his wife and two little daughters, he talked arrogantly of a quick trip to America past English spies, promised big accomplishments for the Emperor and an early return home.

Von Rintelen, confident and daring, is said to have gone first to England. After gathering facts about the manufacture and importation of munitions of war and England’s method of increasing the supply, he disappeared suddenly and is believed to have gone to Norway. When he was on the high seas due to arrive in New York on April 3 he sent a wireless message to the American owner of the factory in France, asking an interview at the pier. Von Rintelen, acting at what was the time best suitable to himself, had succeeded in having the American’s factory opened. He wished, on landing, to give him this information and in return get help in the plans that he wished to put into effect. As the American 154did not go to the pier, the nobleman, always alert and suspicious, hired a detective who spent a week investigating. He finally met this man, told him in part the purpose of his trip to America, and used him as a means of getting introductions to men who would prove valuable to him.

Herr von Rintelen, having dropped the guise of E. V. Gasche, immediately began to play Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll, visiting the Yacht Club, and calling upon wealthy friends, proved a more charming, more delightful von Rintelen than ever, meeting influential business men who were selling supplies to the Allies. He was presented to society matrons and débutantes, whom, by flattery and subtlety, he sought to use to further his purposes. To these, he was Herr von Rintelen in America on an important financial mission. But occasionally, he made wild boasts of plans. As a typical Mr. Hyde he sought information from von Bernstorff, von Papen, Boy-Ed, about the production of war supplies. Astounded by what he learned from them and corroborated from other sources, he began to realize how utterly he had misjudged America’s 155potential resources and what a blunder he had made in his statement to the General War Staff.

Within a brief time von Rintelen realized, with a vividness that chilled him, the capacity of America to hand war materials to the Allies and her rapidly increasing facilities to turn out still more ammunition and bullets. The facts which he obtained struck him with triple force because of the knowledge he had about the war moves. It is upon a basis of the supplies of munitions in the Allied countries, particularly Russia, as von Rintelen knew them, that his acts are best judged and upon this basis only can sane motives be assigned to the rash projects which he launched.

He understood these three striking facts thoroughly: (1) that the German drive on Paris had failed because in two months the Germans had used up ammunition they confidently expected to last a half a year; (2) that the English and French in the west could not take up the offensive because ammunition was not being turned out fast enough; and (3) that the Russian drive on Germany and Austria would soon fail for lack of arms and bullets.

In the winter and spring of 1915 the Russians had made a drive into Galicia and Austria, hurling the Austrians and Germans back. In May 156they had advanced victoriously through the first range of the Carpathian mountains. Meantime the German General Staff, as von Rintelen knew, was preparing for a big offensive against the Russians. The War Staff knew of Russia’s limited capacity to produce arms and ammunition, knew that during the winter with the port of Archangel closed by ice, her only source for new supplies lay in the single-track Siberian railway, bringing material from Japan. He realized that by spring the Russian resources would well nigh be exhausted, and that with the beginning of the projected Austro-German offensive the crucial necessity lay in shutting off supplies from Russia. He knew that England and France could not help her, and, therefore, the American source must be cut off absolutely. But spring had already come, ships were sailing for Archangel laden with American explosives, shells and cartridges.

Von Rintelen, startled by his mistaken estimate of American industrial preparedness, and frantically determined that Russia’s supplies must be crippled, that the cargoes going to France and England must be held back, began mapping out his gigantic enterprises. These conditions were 157the big compelling motive; for von Rintelen’s reputation was at stake. The work for which he had been so carefully trained was bound to fail unless he acted quickly. Desperate measures were necessary. With that situation in view he exchanged many wireless communications with his superiors in Berlin—messages that looked like harmless expressions between his wife and himself in which the names of Americans who had been in Berlin were used both as code words and as means to impress upon the American censor their genuineness. He obtained as a result still greater authority than he had received on the eve of his departure from Germany.

In his quick fashion, he often boasted, and there is foundation for part of what he said, that he had been sent to America by the General Staff, backed by $50,000,000 to $100,000,000; that he was an agent plenipotentiary and extraordinary, ready to take any measure on land and sea to stop the making of munitions, and to halt their transportation at the factory or at the seaboard.

He mapped out a campaign, remarkable for detail, scope, recklessness and utter disregard of American laws. These plots proved von Rintelen, or the German General Staff, a master of thoroughness and ingenuity, for he took into consideration 158the psychology, the customs, habits, and reported weaknesses of Americans.

His schemes in brief were (1) the purchase of war materials for Germany as a means of inflating prices; (2) the fomenting of war between the United States and Mexico as a means of compelling the American Government to seize all available war munitions; (3) a campaign of publicity and the arousing of public sentiment to bring about an embargo on arms shipments; (4) strikes in American industries; and (5) a series of acts of violence against factories and munition-carrying vessels.

Von Rintelen rapidly mobilized his forces of money and men. He went first to the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company, where he was known by his right name and where he arranged his finances. Money was transferred from Berlin through the usual German channels—large corporations with German affiliations—and placed to his credit in various banking institutions. He deposited large amounts in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company and large amounts, totalling millions, in other banks. He next rented an office on the eighth floor of the same building that housed the trust company and had a telephone running to it through the switchboard of the 159banking institution. He registered with the county clerk as the E. V. Gibbon Company, a purchaser of supplies, signing his name to the document as “Francis von Rintelen.”

Using the name of Fred Hansen, he received persons in that office. There he summoned to his help a part of the German espionage system. He did not hesitate to call upon any German for assistance, and thousands of willing workers were at his disposal. If he wished a naval reservist, he knew where to get him; if a member of the landsturm was needed for any detail, he was called. From Boy-Ed, he received data about the sailings of ships; from von Papen, facts about munition factories. He met Koenig and assigned numerous tasks to him, particularly the location of munition factories, their products and exports.

His first task, merely incidental in importance compared with his other aim, was the succouring of the Fatherland and the blocking of the Allies through purchases. He participated with influential Germans in the scheme of buying the leading munition factories. He attempted the running of the British blockade. Dr. Albert also was buying goods, but von Rintelen, working on a much larger scale, commensurate with his fertile imagination, and employing a staff of agents, 160took charge of the shipments of raw products and food. Carrying on these purchases through E. V. Gibbon Company, using the name of Gibbon and Hansen, he had as aid Captain Steinberg, a German naval officer. Through him, von Rintelen chartered ships, purchased materials, caused false manifests to be made for the cargoes, and arranged for shipment to Italy and the Scandinavian countries, whence they were trans-shipped.

This officer, it is charged, had dealings with Dr. Walter T. Scheele, the alleged manufacturer of fire bombs, and arranged with him to mix lubricating oil, so urgently needed in Germany, with fertilizer, and ship the oil as “commercial fertilizer.” The oil was to be extracted by a chemical process in Germany. Von Rintelen, through Steinberg, importuned Dr. Scheele to ship munitions as farming implements, giving him $20,000 for that purpose. Dr. Scheele did bill the shipment as requested, but he did not lie because he shipped farming machinery, taking a fat commission. Again von Rintelen was hoodwinked. The officer, von Igel and Dr. Scheele have been indicted on a charge of conspiring to defraud the United States by false manifests.

161“The British blockade,” von Rintelen used to boast with purring pride, “is a myth. I can send to Germany all the goods that I wish.”

So skilfully did he plan—he was a master of detail and a consummate artist in concealing his movements—and so many different aliases did he employ, that at first he attracted no attention, and after a time his doings were credited to a German Red Cross lecturer. Because of the German method of switching agents to cause confusion to the enemy’s spies, it is probable that some Red Cross agents did figure in the purchases. The investigations of the Federal authorities, however, have laid to von Rintelen the schemes carried on from April to June, 1915.

Von Rintelen boasted that he bought provisions, amounting to $2,000,000 a week, for shipment to Germany through Denmark. More than $25,000,000 was consumed by von Rintelen in his blockade-running, many of the boats being seized by British warships.

Von Rintelen also took a flier at the most elusive and puzzling diversions of war-brokers, namely the purchase of the 350,000 Krag-Jorgensen rifles which the United States Government had condemned just prior to the outbreak of the war. Around those rifles was centred more intrigue and deceitful 162scheming than was incited by almost any other single article connected with the war. Even after the Government had announced emphatically that they were not for sale, and President Wilson had told one banker: “You will get those rifles only over my dead body,” every belligerent tried to get them.

Von Rintelen heard that by bribing Government officials he could obtain the guns. He was stirred; for if an official would accept money for one thing, he could be influenced to do other things to help Germany. Sending out agents, he offered to purchase the rifles. He encountered a man who put a price of $17,826,000 on them, part of the amount being intended, von Rintelen was told, as bribes of several millions of dollars for Government officials.

Things looked bright to von Rintelen. “So close am I to the President,” said the agent who promised to deliver them, “that two days after you deposit the money in the bank you can dangle his grandchild on your knee.” But von Rintelen apparently came to realize that he was dealing with the secret agent of another government, who was laying a trap for him, and he quickly withdrew.

Then the Lusitania was torpedoed. Americans who were connected with von Rintelen’s schemes to ship supplies to Denmark and to buy the Krags, became alarmed over the prospect of war with Germany. They cut off negotiations with him and fearing possible government investigations, they began to talk. Part of the activities of a mysterious German of the name of Meyer and Hansen reached both the Government officials and newspapers. A reporter on the New York Tribune who got a “tip” of the real facts and who hunted for von Rintelen, frightened the German agents from the office of the E. V. Gibbon Company. Steinberg skipped back to Germany disguised as a woman carrying a trunk full of reports showing the necessity of concerted action to prevent the Allies from getting American war materials.

Von Rintelen slipped away to an office in the Woolworth Building. On disclosing something of his schemes to men there, he was quickly ordered out. He moved to the offices, in the Liberty Tower, of Andrew M. Meloy, who had gone to Germany hoping to interest the German 164authorities in a scheme having the same purpose as von Rintelen’s. In Meloy’s office he posed as E. V. Gates—still retaining the initials of E. V. G. So effective was von Rintelen’s “getaway,” that he was reported to have gone abroad as a secretary. Those newspaper stories again gave von Rintelen cause to chuckle over his cleverness and his elusiveness, and encouraged him to still more reckless projects. He was reporting meantime to Berlin by means of apparently innocuous commercial messages sent by wireless, and also by cablegrams via England and Holland.

Von Rintelen, always scheming to prevent arms and ammunition from going to the Allies, reached into Mexico to use that country as another angle from which to harass the United States. He planned—and this project was a part of his vast campaign—to embroil Mexico and this country in war, or to cause such a jumble of revolutions within the Mexican borders that the United States would be compelled to intervene. He pictured this country in war with Mexico, a mobilization of the regular army and the militia, an assembling of the American fleet. That would require a large part of the output of the munition factories. The horses that were being shipped to the Allies, the arms, the clothing for soldiers, the 165shoes and the hundreds of other things which American factories were busily turning out, would be required for a large American army moving south of the Rio Grande.

He seized, therefore, upon President Wilson’s opposition to General Huerta, and he planned to start a revolution in Mexico with the aim of returning Huerta to power and thus placing the United States in a position where it would be compelled to go into Mexico and restore order. The United States would not be in a position then to dictate terms for the settlement of the Lusitania controversy, would seize the war supplies going to the Allies, and, incidentally, would be hampered for the remainder of the European war.

Ensconced in Meloy’s office, von Rintelen had as his daily associate a man of his own age and of much the same appearance, tall, slender, splendidly dressed, namely, a Mexican of German ancestry and a banker of Parral. These two, who had known each other for years, met in New York. The banker was versed in Mexican affairs, and the young German-Mexican knew some of von Rintelen’s plans which had been set in operation before the latter’s arrival in America.

166German agents had been sent to Barcelona, Spain, to confer with General Victoriano Huerta, former dictator of Mexico, and dazzle him with the prospect of returning to power. Von Rintelen appreciated keenly the fact that Huerta in Mexico virtually meant a declaration of war by the United States, and, therefore, he wanted to put him there.

Having coaxed the old warrior to the United States, von Rintelen got Boy-Ed and von Papen to map out Huerta’s plans. The two attachés, with von Rintelen standing, invisible, far in the background and pulling the strings, had many secret conferences in New York hotels, overheard by Federal agents. They developed the plans for Huerta’s dash into Mexico, and the uprising of Mexicans to support him. Von Rintelen, Boy-Ed and von Papen made trips along the Mexican border, arranged for the mobilization of Mexicans, for the storing of supplies and ammunition and for furnishing funds. Von Rintelen deposited in Cuban banks and in banks in Mexico City more than $800,000 for Huerta’s use. When the aged general, stealing away from New York, reached Texas, he was nipped, while attempting to jump the international border.

While the Huertista faction was amply financed, 167it was only one of seven groups, five of which were in Mexico, to which von Rintelen passed out money. Striving to stir up trouble and still more trouble for the United States, he poured gold upon gold into Mexico, hoping that President Wilson, nervous and harassed, would raise a big army for a march.

Next, as an English banker making a special study of Mexican railway securities, he called one day upon Villa’s representative in New York, and discussed the Mexican situation with him, and afterwards he sent money to Villa. He gave support to Carranza. He financed Zapata, and he started two other small revolutions in Mexico. He gave $350,000 to one agent who hurriedly left the country carrying the cash with him. He sent $400,000 travelling through devious channels to help one of the revolutionary parties; but that money was recovered by von Rintelen’s superiors after a most exciting scramble. The reckless agent is reported to have expended $10,000,000 in his Mexican enterprises, and airily he said he would spend $50,000,000 if necessary.

CHAPTER VII CAPTAIN FRANZ VON RINTELEN, GERMAN ARCH-PLOTTER — BEFUDDLING THE PACIFISTS — PAYING THE HIRELINGS — CONSPIRACY GROWS BOLDER — CRIMINALS SET TO WORK — EXIT VON RINTELEN — A VALUABLE PRISONER — A COSTLY FAILURE

But von Rintelen had still bigger projects afoot. While his precise, swiftly moving mind supervised the Mexican conspiracy, and carefully watched over shipments of supplies to the Fatherland, he was launching a series of concerted conspiracies designed to cut off this country almost entirely from Europe. His vivid imagination had led him to picture a Utopian fantasy wherein Americans who believed so absolutely in universal peace—despite the war raging abroad—that the labourers would refuse to make munitions of war, the farmers would decline to sell food to warring nations, and the Government would take over all the war factories. Von Rintelen, accordingly, determined to bring such a dream into real life, not for altruistic purposes, but to help Germany conquer the Allies.

He had made his plans before he left Germany, 169and he had sent ahead for information concerning Americans as his aids, who were skilled in finesse and underground work. He wanted men who, while men of brains, might be led by lust for gold or hatred of England to espouse the criminal schemes which he had originated. He sought leaders whose logic and oratory could sway the rank and file. The man of whom he had heard while in Berlin as a likely assistant was David Lamar, now serving a term of imprisonment for having impersonated a Congressman, whose craftiness and ingenious methods in using politicians in his stock operations had won him the title of “The Wolf of Wall Street.” The two men were brought together.

One can see von Rintelen, enthusiastically speaking in millions of dollars, as he outlined his schemes to Lamar, his equal in grace of manner and deceit, and Lamar cloaking his avarice with smiles and sophistry.

Von Rintelen’s first step, as he outlined it to Lamar, was to use the horrors of the European War as an appeal for universal peace, and to enlist the labouring men and the farmers of America in raising their united voice against the exports of arms and ammunition. And thus a great labour 170peace propaganda was originated by a German whose patriotism had driven away his scruples, and an American who had gone money-mad. The details of the organization were set forth, and soon von Rintelen had a staff of workers at his command, though they all may not have known he was paying their salaries. His agents, in secret interviews with labour leaders, were soliciting their aid, flashing rolls of gold-tinted certificates. The men who guiltily handled the money which von Rintelen drew from the bank had only one complaint, namely, that the denominations of the bills were entirely too large.

Two of von Rintelen’s agents following Samuel Gompers, president of the National Federation of Labour, to Atlantic City one day, offered him $500,000 for his services in endorsing the peace propaganda and participating in the work. Mr. Gompers scorned the offer. Other big labour leaders, whose aid was solicited, began immediately to warn their associates against the anti-American activities of German agents.

By June, 1915, von Rintelen’s schemes were moving apace. A big advertising campaign had been started in the early spring with von Rintelen’s cash. Newspaper propaganda picturing the glories of universal peace began to appear.

171By the aid of Lamar, who kept von Rintelen in the background, the German soon had many persons working and talking in the interest of universal peace. It has been stated that the services of Frank Buchanan, Representative in Congress and former labour leader, and of H. Robert Fowler, ex-Congressman, were obtained. Whether they were aware of von Rintelen and his motives is a question for a jury to answer, for they have been indicted in connection with the alleged activities of the Labour’s National Peace Council.

Within a short time, thousands of invitations were scattering throughout the country to labour leaders, small and large, and to heads of farmers’ granges, to attend the national convention of the peace propaganda at the expense of the organization. All railroad fares, hotel expenses and a liberal allowance for spending money were promised.

Under the fostering financial auspices of von Rintelen, who hovered conveniently near the New Willard Hotel, the members of a peace movement gathered in Washington, expenses paid. They adopted resolutions saying they desired “to promote peace.” The resolutions demanded the enactment of laws that would enable the Government to take over as exclusive government business the 172manufacture of all arms, instruments and munitions of war; demanded an immediate embargo upon shipments of war supplies to the belligerents; denounced the maintenance of military and naval forces, and called for a special session of Congress to promote “peace universal.” The executive board went immediately into executive session.

“How is this movement to be financed?” one of the newly-elected executive board asked another. He and one of the vice-presidents waited for an answer. They got none, he says, and the question was repeated by another. Then one of the officers answered:

“This thing is big enough, so that I do not care where the money comes from to finance it.”

Another member asked:

“What, after all, does this council want to do?”

“We want,” was the answer, “to stop the exportation of munitions to the Allies. Germany can manufacture all the munitions she wants.”

Von Rintelen’s deposit in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company meantime was growing smaller by jumps of $100,000. It was drawn by cheques payable to cash, placed in another bank, quickly withdrawn, and on one occasion the money in 173bills was taken to the headquarters of a peace organization in a suit-case. Bank accounts of von Rintelen’s peace propagandists began to jump.

The executive board was busy. One of the first moves was a statement filed with Secretary of State Lansing alleging that nine ships in various American ports were taking on cargoes of ammunition in violation of the neutrality laws. That charge, undoubtedly prepared with von Rintelen’s aid upon information gathered by German spies, showed an accurate knowledge of the merchantmen loading with supplies for the Allies. There was, however, no violation of law, because the vessels were officered and manned by ordinary seamen who had no connection with the Allied governments.

The second step was the preparation of a complaint charging as a violation of law the issuance of Federal Reserve notes by national banks on the ground that the New York banks had lent money to the Allies which was being used in payment for war supplies, and that some of those banks had rediscounted notes with the Federal Reserve Bank. Here again was displayed a remarkably detailed knowledge of the business of the Federal Reserve Banks. This charge also fell flat.

A third move was against Dudley Field Malone, 174Collector of the Port of New York. Resolutions were adopted accusing him of exceeding his authority in having granted clearance papers to the steamship Lusitania when that vessel was ladened with munitions, and authorizing an action to be started against him. No suit, however, was begun. In this connection, it may be mentioned that one member of the peace committee was attorney for a woman of Chicago, who, months afterwards, started suit for $40,000 against Collector Malone and Captain Turner, of the Lusitania, on the ground that the ship illegally carried explosives.

These public acts mentioned above, however, are stated by the Federal Government to have been merely a cloak, covering a more extensive conspiracy financed by von Rintelen. By a series of strikes in munition factories, humming with the Allies’ war orders; on railroads carrying the articles to the seaboard, and on steamships, von Rintelen, it is alleged, sought to cut off commerce among the United States and the Allied countries. Von Rintelen and several others are accused in the Federal indictment of doing six different acts in a conspiracy in restraint of 175foreign commerce. They are charged with conspiring to use “solicitation, persuasion and exhortation” to influence the workers to go on strike or to quit work, to bribe officers of labour unions to get the men to strike, and “by divers other means and methods not specifically determined upon by the defendants, but to be decided as the occasion arose.”

Von Rintelen was busy now jumping from town to town, sending orders under one name, then another, and paying out money. There took place in June and July, 1915, many strikes which, the national labour leaders of the respective trades said, were absolutely unauthorized by the national bodies. The German agent was delighted to read in the newspapers of strikes at the Standard Oil plant in Bayonne, N. J.; of strikes at the Remington Arms Company in Bridgeport, Conn., and in the General Electric Plant in Schenectady, N. Y. His agents would approach him gleefully with the newspapers containing these accounts, and immediately would receive another bundle of bills with the exhortation, “That is fine. Go out and start some more.”

Another projected strike in connection with which Germans were mentioned in correspondence, but in which von Rintelen is not named, 176is presented here because it fits in the general scheme of the German plotting. That is the conspiracy on part of moneyed representatives of Germany in May and June, 1915, to start a strike simultaneously among the 23,000 ‘longshoremen on the Pacific and Atlantic coasts. Such a walkout would absolutely have paralysed American shipping, completely stopped the movement of explosives to the Allies at a most critical moment. A leader of the big ‘Longshoremen’s Union told Chief William J. Flynn, of the United States Secret Service, that $1,035,000, or $45 for every man, was offered to keep the men out on strike for four weeks. After the sinking of the Lusitania, the man who approached the ‘longshoremen wrote under the name of “Mike Foley,” asking if an “S.” (strike) was to be called, that because of the “L. (Lusitania) affair,” his people were not going to do anything at present, and because the “Big Man” (who preceded von Rintelen) was going away. It will be recalled that after the sinking of the Lusitania, Dernburg was dismissed from the country because of his comments concerning the attitude of Germany towards submarine warfare.

While von Rintelen was reaching out in so many directions in his frantic endeavour to build a barrier between the United States and the Entente Powers, he did not hesitate to resort to criminals. Keeping his quick eyes on the progress of the peace propaganda, he had schemes which, while distinctly separated from that organization, were designed to work in harmony with the developments in the strike propaganda. Von Rintelen planned by aid of reservists and crooks to take other measures in munition factories to stop, delay, injure the production of materials destined for the Allies’ battle fronts.

He sent trained German reservists to get employment in factories with orders to collect information and do what they could to cause trouble. Resorting again to the well-developed system of German secret agents in New York, under new aliases, he got in touch with organized bands of criminals in New York, and, the authorities say, hired them to start depredations on the ships being loaded with supplies for the Allies in New York harbour. To von Rintelen or some other person associated with him is attributed the origin of a plot for widespread 178attacks by thieves on cargoes being lightered from railroad piers to merchantmen. These thefts of sugar, automobile tyres and magnetos have amounted to millions of dollars. For instance, one of the sugar thieves stealing bags of sugar from a lighter said to a comrade:

“Take some more bags. The ship won’t ever reach the other side, anyway, and nobody will know.”

To the persons who doubt these varied, reckless and extensive activities of von Rintelen, it may be suggested that von Rintelen asserted frequently to his associates that he had come to America to take every step, including peaceful or violent measures, to stop the shipment of munitions.

The doubter must not overlook the supervision which von Rintelen exercised over the manufacturer of fire bombs which German reservists are accused of hiding on the Allies’ merchantmen, and the fact that von Rintelen’s aid visited a bomb man in his Hoboken laboratory frequently; that on one occasion he scored him roughly because the fire bombs were not proving effective. Furthermore, Fay, after his arrest, and long before the indictment of the bomb plotters, told 179Captain Tunney of a wealthy German, then a prisoner of war in England, who had paid $10,000 to a Hoboken chemist to make fire bombs.

Though von Rintelen, during the months of June and July, was exuberant over the reports—most of them false—which were carried to him concerning the progress of peace, the strikes and other schemes, and though he was kept drawing money from the bank until the $800,000 in the Trans-Atlantic Trust Company was reduced to $40,000, he began to have doubts about Lamar and about the effectiveness of the latter’s management of some of the projects. He knew that Lamar and his associates were planning for a second rousing meeting in Washington, but, becoming suspicious, he suddenly cut off the money. He had received estimates of activities that required more money. After deliberation he finally decided to slip away to Berlin, get away from Lamar entirely and after making a report to the War Office return to America to broaden his scope of work.

All told, von Rintelen had failed to perceive any falling off in the exports to the Allies. They were, in fact, rapidly increasing, and von Rintelen’s schemes thus far had proved ineffective, though he still was optimistic that eventually he would 180have all his forces working in unison and thus accomplish his aims.

He did not go to Washington when a second peace convention was in session, and the word had slipped out to some of the workers that von Rintelen was about to sail. Still, the meeting with the members claiming a representation of 8,000,000 voters, was more denunciatory and enthusiastic over its aims, than ever. There were attacks on President Wilson and demands for an embargo on war munitions. There was an intense pro-German feeling.

Differences, meantime, began to arise among the members of the executive board. One of the vice-presidents resigned just before the second session convened, saying emphatically that the financing of the organization was under suspicion. Another quietly quit, not making the fact public until weeks afterwards. Lamar flitted away to a magnificent country home which he had bought in Pittsfield, Mass. There was no money left. The propaganda died.

Von Rintelen was on the high seas. He had left $40,000 in the bank in charge of his friends, and some of the plotters tried to get that on the 181strength of a promise to stop the Anglo-French bond sale of $500,000,000. Before sailing he had applied for a passport as an American citizen named Edward V. Gates, of Millersville, Pennsylvania. But whisperings concerning von Rintelen’s activities had reached the White House from society folk who had heard von Rintelen’s rash talk and who knew of some of the unscrupulous things he had attempted. The State Department ordered an investigation and finally sent his passport on to New York the day before the sailing of the Noordam, in care of Federal agents; but von Rintelen did not claim it. Though he had bought a ticket on the boat under the name of Gates, and had obtained drafts payable on that name, he did not occupy the Gates cabin but at the last minute engaged passage under the name of Emil V. Gasche, a Swiss citizen.

On board ship, he set to work preparing for the close scrutiny of British naval officers when the ship neared Falmouth. He handed over many of his documents to Andrew D. Meloy, his travelling companion, and Meloy’s secretary. He dictated a long document about financial conditions of Mexican railways purporting to be the report of himself as commissioner for a group of English bondholders. He sought to make it appear 182that he had been sent to the United States as a representative of the bondholders’ committee of Mexican railways. When the British officers came on board and searched him, von Rintelen put up a skilful bluff, but finally surrendered as a prisoner of war. Meloy, who had aided von Rintelen in his application for the American passport, was sent back to this country by the British authorities.

While von Rintelen, after his strenuous days in America, was resting comfortably in a luxurious prison camp at Donington Hall, England, the American authorities were busily delving into his record. Mr. Sarfaty presented witness after witness and thousands of documents to the Federal Grand Jury. Von Rintelen and Meloy were indicted, first, for the fraudulent passport conspiracy; and Meloy finally made a confession to the Government authorities. Von Rintelen’s agent, called before the Grand Jury and refusing to answer, was adjudged in contempt of court and spent a night in the Tombs prison. Another agent, summoned before the Grand Jury and asked about his dealings with von Rintelen, refused to answer on the ground 183that it might tend to degrade and incriminate him, but he afterwards was arrested on a firebomb charge.

Von Rintelen was indicted on the charge of forgery on the passport application, and upon that as a basis, application was made to the English authorities for his extradition. After months of investigation, indictments finally were filed against von Rintelen, Lamar, and his associates on a charge of conspiring to restrain foreign trade.

The moment a United States District-Attorney, equipped with a mass of documentary evidence, telegrams, letters, minutes of secret meetings, and the statements of hundreds of witnesses, laid facts before the Grand Jury who brought an indictment against a Congressman, the House of Representatives, without waiting for the trial of the defendant, immediately ordered an inquiry which in substance amounted to a fishing expedition by the sub-committee to ascertain just what evidence Mr. Marshall and Mr. Sarfaty had dug up against one of their members. Congress did not take any action, and finally, after a spectacular play, decided to let the matter drop.

From the viewpoint of picturesqueness, fantastic conceptions, recklessness, extravagance, and a remarkable mastery of detail, von Rintelen stands forth as the most extraordinary German agent sent to America. Boy-Ed and von Papen are now telling their friends in Berlin that their recall was due not to what they did but to what von Rintelen did and said.

The energetic nobleman had hoped to cause an absolute cessation of exports from this country to the Allies and to create a political situation where the United States would be powerless to make any protest on Germany’s submarine warfare. To bring these conditions about he had not hesitated to try to foment war between the United States and Mexico, to violate various American neutrality laws, to attack American institutions and American ideals with the aim of causing an industrial stagnation. Yet how little he actually accomplished!

His Mexican plans were a failure. His schemes to influence legislation came to naught. While a few strikes were started and quickly settled, the activity of the Germans proved hurtful to the 185working men. Von Rintelen did get a few supplies over to Germany; but many of his ships were seized by the English. His enterprises are said to have cost many millions of dollars, and the supplies which he shipped are about the only thing that Germany got out of his gigantic schemes. U. S. Attorney Marshall has a passport issued to Edward V. Gates which von Rintelen can have any time he wishes to come and get it. Should he ever step upon American shores, he will face charges which upon conviction furnish a total sentence of anywhere from fifty to sixty years. Never did Germany aim through one man to accomplish so much yet effect so little as through Franz von Rintelen, the Crown Prince’s friend.

CHAPTER VIII THE STORY OF THE LUSITANIA — WARRIORS AT WORK IN AMERICA — BERLIN GIVES WARNING — FATEFUL MAY 1, 1915 — BERLIN’S DELIBERATIONS — THE EXPLOSION THAT ROCKED THE WORLD — AMERICA REVOLTED AND APPALLED — LIES AND DECEIT

The Lusitania was, in the eyes of the German Admiralty, the symbol of Great Britain’s supremacy on the seas. The big, graceful vessel, unsurpassed in speed, had defied the German raiders that lurked in the Atlantic hoping to capture her and had eluded the submarines that tried to find her course. Time and time again, the Germans had planned and plotted to “get” the Lusitania, and every time the ocean greyhound had slipped away from them—every time save when the plot was developed on American territory.

To sink the Lusitania, the German Admiralty had argued, was to lower England’s prestige and to hoist the black eagle of the Hohenzollerns above the Union Jack. Her destruction, they fondly hoped, would strike terror to the hearts of the British, for it would prove the inability of the English navy to protect her merchantmen. It 187would prove to the world that von Tirpitz was on a fair way of carrying out his threat to isolate the British Isles and starve the British people into submission to Germany. It would be a last warning to neutrals to keep off the Allies’ merchantmen and would help stop the shipment of arms and ammunition to the Allies from America. It would—as a certain royal personage boasted—shake the world’s foundations.

Gloating over their project and forgetting the rights of neutrals, the mad war lords did not think of the innocent persons on board, the men, the women and babies. The lives of these neutrals were as nothing compared with the shouts of triumph that would resound through Germany at the announcement of the torpedoing of the big British ship, symbol of sea power. The attitude was truly expressed by Captain von Papen, who on receiving news of the sinking of the Lusitania remarked: “Well, your General Sherman said it: ‘War is Hell.’”

So the war lords schemed and the plots which resulted in the sinking of the Lusitania on May 7, 1915, bringing death to 113 American citizens, were developed and executed in America, through orders from Berlin.

The agents in America put their heads together 188in a room in the German Club, New York, or in a high-powered limousine tearing through the dark. These men, who had worked out the plot, on the night of the successful execution had assembled in a club and in high glee touched their glasses and shouted their devotion to the Kaiser. One boasted afterwards that he received an Iron Cross for his share in the work.

On the night of the tragedy, one of the conspirators remarked to a family where he was dining—a family whose son was on the Lusitania—when word came of the many deaths on the ship: “I did not think she would sink so quickly. I had two good men on board.”

In their secret conferences the conspirators worked their way round obstacles and set their scheme in operation. Hired spies had made numerous trips on the Lusitania, and had carefully studied her course to and from England, and her convoy through the dangerous zone where submarines might be lurking. These spies had observed the precautions taken against a submarine attack. They knew the fearful speed by which the big ship had eluded pursuers in February. They also had considered the feasibility of sending 189a wireless message to a friend in England—a message apparently of greeting that might be picked up by the wireless on a German submarine and give its commander a hint as to the ship’s course. In fact, they did attempt this plan. Spies were on board early in the year when the Lusitania ran dangerously near a submarine, dodged a torpedo and then quickly eclipsed her German pursuer.

Spies also had brought reports concerning persons connected with the Lusitania, and had given suggestions as to how to place men on board in spite of the scrutiny of British agents. All these reports were considered carefully and the conclusion was that no submarine was fast enough to chase and get the Lusitania; that it was practically impossible to have the U-boats stationed along every half mile of the British coast, but that the simplest problem was to send the Lusitania on a course where the U-boats would be in waiting and could torpedo her. The scheme was, in substance, as follows:

“Captain Turner, approaching the English coast, sends a wireless to the British Admiralty asking for instructions as to his course and convoy. He gets a reply in code telling him in what direction to steer and where his convoy will meet 190him. First, we must get a copy of the Admiralty Code and we must prepare a message in cipher, giving directions as to his course. This message will go to him by wireless as though from the Admiralty. We must make arrangements to see that the genuine message from the British Admiralty never reaches Captain Turner.”

That was the plan which the conspirators, aided and directed by Berlin, chose. Upon it the shrewdest minds in the German secret service were set to work. As for the British Admiralty Code, the Germans had that at the outbreak of the war and were using it at advantageous moments. How they got it has not been made known; but they got it and they used it, just as the Germans have obtained copies of the codes used by the American State Department and have had copies of the codes used in our Army and Navy. While the codes used by the British officials change almost daily, such is not the case with merchant vessels on long voyages.

The next step of the conspirators was to arrange for the substitution of the fake message for the genuine one. Germany’s spy machine has a wonderful faculty for seeking out the weak characters holding responsible positions among the enemy or for sending agents to get and hold positions among their foes. It is now believed 191that a man on the Lusitania was deceived or duped. Whether he was a German sympathizer sent out by the Fatherland to get the position and be ready for the task, or whether he was induced for pay to play the part he did—has not been told. Neither is his fate known.

Communication between New York and the German capital, ingenious, intricate and superbly arranged, was almost as easy as telephoning from the Battery to Harlem. Berlin was kept informed of every move in New York and, in fact, selected the ill-fated course for the Lusitania’s last voyage in English waters. Berlin picked out the place where the Lusitania was to sink.

Berlin chose the deep-sea graves for more than one hundred Americans. Berlin assigned two submarines to a point ten miles south by west off Old Head of Kinsale, near the entrance of St. George’s Channel. Berlin chose the commander of the U-boats for the most damnable sea-crime in history.

Just here there is a rumour among U-boat men in Europe that the man for the crime was sent from Kiel with sealed instructions not to be opened till at the spot chosen. With him went “a shadow” armed with a death warrant if the U-boat commander “baulked” at the last moment.

The German officials in Berlin looking ahead, sought to prearrange a palliative for their crime. Their plan, which in itself shows clearly how carefully the Germans plotted the destruction of the Lusitania, was to warn Americans not to sail on the vessel.

While the German Embassy in Washington was kept clear of the plot and Ambassador von Bernstorff had argued and fought with all his strength against the designs of the Berlin authorities, he, nevertheless, received orders to publish an advertisement warning neutrals not to sail on the Allies’ merchantmen. Acting under instructions, this advertisement was inserted in newspapers in a column adjoining the Cunard’s advertisement of the sailing of the Lusitania:

Travellers intending to embark on the Atlantic voyage are reminded that a state of war exists between Germany and her Allies and Great Britain and her Allies; that the zone of war includes the waters adjacent to the British Isles; that, in accordance with formal notice given by the Imperial 193German Government, vessels flying the flag of Great Britain or any of her Allies are liable to destruction in these waters and that travellers sailing in the war zone on ships of Great Britain or her Allies, do so at their own risk.

Germans in New York, who had knowledge that German submarines were lying in wait off the Irish coast to “get” the Lusitania, sent intimations to friends before the sailing of the ship.

The New York Sun was told of the plot and warned Captain Turner by wireless after the ship sailed. The German secret service in New York also sent warnings to Americans booked on the Lusitania. One of the persons to receive such a message signed “morte” was Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt. Many other passengers got the same warning that the ship was to be torpedoed; but they all laughed at it. They knew she had outrun submarines on a previous voyage and tricked them on another voyage. Besides, before the horrors of this war, optimistic Americans firmly believed the world was a civilized place. It was only after the destruction of the Lusitania that many neutral Americans could credit the atrocity stories of Belgium.

So when the Lusitania backed from her pier in the North River on the morning of May 1, 1915, there was more than the average levity that makes the sailing of an ocean liner so absorbing. On the pier were anxious friends somewhat perturbed by the mysterious whisperings of impending danger. Mingling among them also were men who knew what that danger was, and who had just delivered final instructions to German hirelings on board. On the deck of the great vessel, as she swung her nose down-stream toward Sandy Hook, was not only the man who had promised to see that the false message in code reached Captain Turner, but there also were those two friends, good and true, of von Rintelen’s—men who, in the event that the Lusitania should run into the appointed place at night, would flash lights from port holes to give a clear aim to the commanders of the stealthy submarines.

On board the vessel swinging out past Sandy Hook into the ocean lane were a notable group of passengers, many of them representative Americans of inestimable value to this country. Besides 195Mr. Vanderbilt, there was Charles Frohman, a talented theatrical producer, who had furnished by his artistic shows genuine amusement to millions; Elbert Hubbard, talented and inspiring writer; Charles Klein, writer of absorbing plays; Justus Miles Forman, novelist, and Lindon W. Bates, Jr., whose family had befriended von Rintelen. Merchants, clergymen, lawyers, society women, a large list of useful men and women in the 1,254 passengers.

These, added to the crew of 800, made more than 2,000 lives under the care of the staunch, blue-eyed captain. Of that number, 1,214 were being rushed over the waves to doom. And as the ship sped eastward, submarines leaving their bases at Cuxhaven and Heligoland clipped their prows under the waves, and made for Old Head of Kinsale on the south coast of Ireland, where they were instructed to pause, upon sealed instructions, and obey them to the letter.

Meantime, Berlin, counting almost to the hour when the Lusitania would near the British Isles, prepared the exact wording for the false instructions to Captain Turner. This was sent to New York by wireless, where it was put into British code. The next step was to have this message substituted for the British Admiralty’s instructions 196to the Lusitania. The inside details of how this substitution was effected—can only be surmised. This secret is buried with the British Admiralty and with the Bureau in Berlin.

For such intricate action Germany had been preparing with infinite patience both before and after the war began. Prior to the outbreak, representatives of Germany had started the building of the wireless plant at Sayville, Long Island, by which aerial communication was established with Berlin. After the war began, the equipment of the station was increased, and instead of 35 kilowatt transmitters, 100 kilowatt transmitters were installed, the machinery for tripling the efficiency of the plant having been shipped from Germany via Holland to this country. Wireless experts, members of the German navy, also slipped away from Germany to direct the work of handling messages between the two countries.

Everything was in readiness at Sayville, consequently, to catch the directions that were flashed through the air. There was an operator specially trained to take the message coded for the deception of Captain Turner, and send it crackling 197fatefully through the air. Everything was ready and only the request of the operator on the Lusitania for directions south of Ireland was needed. All this was in violation not only of our neutrality laws, but also in disregard of American statutes governing wireless stations.

Meantime, the vessel had reached the edge of the war zone decreed by Germany in violation of international law, and Captain Turner sent out his call for instructions. Presently the order came. It was hurried to Captain Turner’s state-room.

Captain Turner, carefully decoding the message by means of a cipher book which he had guarded so jealously, read orders to proceed to a point ten miles south of Old Head of Kinsale, and run into St. George’s Channel, making the bar at Liverpool at midnight. He carefully calculated the distance and his running time, and adjusted his speed accordingly. He felt assured, because he relied on the assumption that the waters over which he was sailing were being thoroughly scoured by English cruisers and swift torpedo boats in search of German submarines.

The British Admiralty also received his wireless message—just as the Sayville operator had 198snatched it from the air, and despatched an answer. The order from the head of the Admiralty directed the English captain to proceed to a point some seventy or eighty miles south of Old Head of Kinsale and there meet his convoy, which would guard him on the way to port. But Captain Turner never got that message, and the British convoy waited in vain for the Lusitania to appear on the horizon.

The Lusitania headed north-east, going far away from the vessels that would have protected her. Swiftly she slipped through the waves on the afternoon of May 7. Unsuspecting, the ship moved directly toward certain death. The proud, swift liner steered straight between two submarines, lying in wait.

The details of what happened after the torpedo blew out the side of the great ship have been told—told so fully, vividly, so terribly that they need not be repeated here. As Captain Turner heard the explosion of the torpedo he instantly knew that there had been treachery. He knew he had been decoyed away from the warships that were to escort him to his pier.

The manner in which the captain had been lured to the waiting submarines was made clear at the secret session of the Board of Inquiry that 199investigated the sinking of the ship. Captain Turner told at the Coroner’s inquest how he had been warned, supposedly by the British Admiralty, of submarines off the Irish coast, and that he had received special instructions as to course. Asked if he made application for a convoy, he said:

“No, I left that to them. It is their business, not mine. I simply had to carry out my orders to go, and I would do it again.”

At the official inquiry, the captain produced the orders which he had received, directing him to proceed south-west of Old Head of Kinsale. The British Admiralty produced its message which had directed Captain Turner to go by an utterly different course. It produced also orders which had been issued to the convoy to meet the Lusitania. The orders did not jibe. They showed treachery, and further investigation pointed to Sayville.

The indignation and the revulsion of Americans against Germany because of the destruction of the Lusitania with the appalling loss of life was a surprise to the Kaiser and his war staff. They apparently had believed that the warning 200contained in the official announcement of Germany, declaring the waters about the British Islands a war zone, and the advertisement published would be sufficient excuse, and that their act would be accepted calmly by America. They were not prepared for Colonel Roosevelt’s invective stigmatizing the act as piracy, or the editorial denunciation throughout the country. Their effrontery was displayed by one of their agents, who announced that American ships also would be sunk. But this agent’s removal from the country and mob violence threatened other agents was emphatic proof of America’s state of mind.

Immediately Germany turned as a defence to the argument that the Lusitania carried munitions of war and other contraband in violation of the United States Federal statute. But the American laws were quoted to Ambassador von Bernstorff to prove to him that cartridges could be transported in a passenger ship. That argument proved of no avail.

Secretary Bryan’s note, written by President Wilson, and forwarded to Berlin, demanded a disavowal of the sinking of the Lusitania, an apology and reparation for the lives lost. But Germany sought to parley with a reply that would lay the blame on Great Britain, and asserting 201that the Lusitania had been an armed auxiliary cruiser, requested an investigation of these alleged facts, and refused to stop her submarine warfare until England changed her trade policy. But this note again aroused the wrath of Americans.

German secret agents began to manufacture evidence to support the Kaiser’s contentions. Here a hireling of Boy-Ed looms as an obedient servant of the naval attaché, whether he knew all the facts or not. It was Koenig, who, using the alias of Stemler, obtained from Gustave Stahl an affidavit to the effect that he had seen four fifteen-centimetre guns on the decks of the Lusitania before she left port on her ill-fated voyage. There were three other supporting affidavits. All these documents were handed to Boy-Ed on June 1, 1915, and the following day were in the hands of von Bernstorff, who turned them over to the State Department in Washington.

It required but little work on the part of Federal agents to establish the untruth of Stahl’s affidavit. Stahl, a German reservist, appeared before the Federal Grand Jury, where he again repeated his lies. He was indicted for perjury 202and upon a plea of guilty was sent to the Federal prison at Atlanta.

It was Koenig who had hidden Stahl away after the latter had made his affidavit, and it was Koenig who, at the command of the Federal authorities, produced him.

So here again Germany’s efforts to deceive and to justify her piratical act came to naught, and left her even more damned before the world. Time came within a few days for President Wilson to reject forcibly the flimsy defence made by Germany, but before that note was drafted, the United States authorities by a thorough investigation of Sayville, and a scrutiny of the German naval officers employed there, discovered that the fake code message that drove the Lusitania to her grave in the sea had been flashed out from neutral territory; that the conspiracy had been developed in America, though the details were not obtainable at that time as they are presented here.

President Wilson was determined to demand absolute safety for Americans at sea. Though Bryan resigned, Mr. Wilson sent a note, asserting that the Lusitania was not armed, and had not carried cargo in violation either of American or international law. The action of Bryan weakened the position of America in demanding a cessation 203of Germany’s submarine warfare. It gave encouragement to Austria, after Germany had promised to obey international law, to try a series of similar evasions. It gave impetus to Germany’s plans to make a settlement of the submarine controversy and to try to divide Congress on the issue.

The loss to America was 113 lives and a great amount of prestige; to Germany, a tremendous amount of sympathy. But through it all stand out the pictures of secret agents, boasters, schemers and reckless adventurers, one of whom, having aided in the sinking of the Lusitania and the drowning of hundreds of her passengers and crew, had still the audacity to dine on the evening of this ghastly triumph at the home of an American victim. One agent high in international affairs, overcome by the force of the tragedy done in answer to the Kaiser’s bidding, had still enough decency left to remark:

“Oh, what foul work!”

CHAPTER IX DR. HEINRICH F. ALBERT, GERMANY’S BAGMAN AND BLOCKADE RUNNER — THE EQUIPMENT OF A COLOSSUS — HIS VIEW OF THE FUTURE — A MAN OF MYSTERY — WHAT HIS SECRET CORRESPONDENCE REVEALED — GERMANY IN THE STOCK MARKET — THE SHIP PLOTS — NEWSPAPER PROPAGANDA — EFFORTS TO OUTWIT THE BRITISH BLOCKADE — A TWO-FACED PROPAGANDIST

“And tell him that the struggle on the American front is sometimes very hard.”—Dr. Albert.

To outwit John Bull on the high seas by running his blockade is a big task. To compete against the combined commercial generals of England, Russia, France and Italy in seeking trade in the Americas is a still larger undertaking. But for one man to attempt both, while incidentally keeping watch on the industrial growth of the United States and being a big factor in Germany’s spy system, seems like a pigmy grappling with a Hercules. The qualities requisite for the man who would accept such a battle are diplomatic finesse of the highest degree, strength compared to one of America’s kings of industry, a vast economic knowledge, the shrewdness of a 205Yankee and the cleverness of the Kaiser’s ablest strategist. Yet the responsibilities of such a manifold enterprise, romantic in its infinite details and its vastness, were assumed by one German.

You could find him almost any day until the break with Germany in a small office in the Hamburg-American Building, the Kaiser’s beehive of secret agents, at No. 45, Broadway, New York. He was a tall, slender man, wonderfully supple-looking in spite of the conventional frock coat and the dignified dress of a European business man. His clear, blue eyes, his smooth face, thoughtful and refined, his blonde hair, and his regular features suggested a man of thirty-eight, or even younger, though you would look for a middle-aged or older man as selected for a position requiring so many nice decisions. When you entered his room—and few persons gained admission—he would rise and bow low and most courteously. He spoke in a soft, melodious voice, was deliberate in the choice of his words and encouraged conversation rather than made it. He was the quintessence of politeness, a marked contrast to the clear-cut, energetic, brusque, American business man—a smooth polished cog in the steel machinery of Prussian militarism.

Yet this man was the centre of Germany’s 206business activities in America. Upon him has rested the task of spending between $2,000,000 and $3,000,000 a week for the German Government in the purchase of supplies and in propaganda. His expenditure in furthering the cause has cost him thirty millions of dollars outside the vast amounts spent in the purchase of supplies, and he admits he wasted a half million or more dollars.

He was Dr. Heinrich F. Albert, privy councillor to the German Embassy and fiscal agent in America for the German Government. He was the source of the funds used by the representatives of Germany, her secret diplomatic and consular agents. He was the channel through whom money flowed from the Imperial exchequer—unwittingly it may have been on his part—to men who, in the interest of Germany, have violated American laws.

His job was a big one because this war has demanded the help of industry, as no other previous war. Just as it has resolved itself into an enormous race between the industries of the combating nations in turning out shells and arms, so Geheimrath Albert’s duties became all the more multitudinous, really a part of the great conflict itself.

Dr. Albert had just as important work as his 207colleagues, the military and naval attachés, but in a different field. With industrial preparedness of greater importance in this than in any other war it is natural that the commercial attaché and his staff of agents should prove a most important asset to Germany’s secret service in America. Geheimrath Albert’s duties in the economic field have been bound inextricably with the aims of the Fatherland’s secret service. While directing and financing the collection of data for use in the preparation of reports to the home government, he has also worked side by side with the other representatives of his Government.

Albert was equipped for the gigantic task, as few men in the world have been equipped. He knew finance, the economy of industry, the finesse of diplomacy and the odd, yet scientific twists of the inventor’s mind. He had been trained in the things that interested kings and the problems that appealed to the labouring man. His field of knowledge was broad, for in preparation for his tasks he had to seek the best commercial, banking, industrial methods and inventions of the world to help Germany. So successful was he that his friends have termed him “The German Yankee.”

208Around no German official in America has there hovered so much mystery. A great bulwark of Germany’s propaganda—though no participation in any illegal or criminal acts has been charged against him—he might have remained the greater part of the war under cover had it not been for the activity of secret service agents and for a little nap which Geheimrath Albert, the courteous and overworked, took upon an elevated train one day. When he awoke, his dossier was gone. That portfolio contained a mass of wonderfully illuminating documents, so many and so varied that if the privy councillor is accustomed to take up in one day so many diverse matters it almost staggers the imagination to try to conceive of the tasks which this war brought him. Through them public and official attention was fastened upon him, serving to deepen the folds of mystery about him. Through them the public in America first learned of the vastness of German propaganda. Dr. Albert lost his portfolio in August, 1915.

In the quietness of his little office above humming Broadway and within calling distance of the gold-lined Wall Street into which he so constantly pried, Geheimrath Albert discussed momentous economic problems with Germany’s other 209big men. In the German Club in the evenings he continued those consultations. In trips to Washington and Chicago and New Orleans and San Francisco, he and his agents conferred with big German business men.

His close confidant was Count von Bernstorff, with whom he had a joint account of several millions of dollars in the Chase National Bank, New York. His two active colleagues were Captain von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed. The association with these men must have been very close and keen; for on von Papen’s recall Dr. Albert wrote him: “I shall feel your departure most keenly; our work together was excellent and was always a great pleasure to me. I hope that in the Fatherland you will have an opportunity for making use of your extraordinary talent in dealing with economic questions. When I think of your and Boy-Ed’s departure and that I alone remain behind in New York, I could—well, better not!”

Dr. Albert learned the output of the steel industries and the financial connections of the big corporations. He had accurate information about the electrical manufacturing concerns in this country, their output, their inventions, the ability and the accomplishments of the engineers 210at the head of those plants, their training and personal history. He knew all about America’s transportation systems, their financial strength and the real mechanical and constructive ability of the scientific men connected with those systems. His information was as broad as his American activities. Suffice it to say that it was Dr. Albert’s business to get these facts—and he did so.

How Dr. Albert looked to the future is set forth in a report which was prepared for him on June 3, 1915, by a trade representative in the German General Consulate, New York, on the effect of the British embargo. This document, compiled by a scientist, was undoubtedly only one of hundreds of such instruments worked out by Germans in this country for the help of the Fatherland. In this paper the writer, named Waetzoldt, says:

“There can be no doubt that the British Government will bring into play all power and pressure possible in order to complete the total blockade of Germany from her foreign markets, and that the Government of the United States will not make a strenuous effort to maintain its trade with Germany....

211“It has been positively demonstrated during this time that the falling off of imports caused by the war in Europe will in the future be principally covered by American industry....

“The complete stopping of importation of German products will, in truth, to a limited extent, especially in the first part of the blockade, help the sale of English or French products, but the damage which will be done to us in this way will not be great....

“The Lusitania case did, in fact, give the English efforts in this direction a new and powerful impetus, and at first the vehemence with which the anti-German movement began anew awakened serious misgivings, but this case also will have a lasting effect, which, unless fresh complications arise, we may be able to turn to the advantage of the sale of German goods....

“The war will certainly have this effect, that the American business world will devote all its energy toward making itself independent of the importation of foreign products as far as possible....

“If the decision is again brought home to German industry it should not be forgotten what position the United States took with reference to Germany in this war. Above all, it should not be forgotten that the ‘ultimate ratio’ of the United States is not the war with arms, but a complete prohibition of trade with Germany, and, in fact, through legislation. That was brought 212out very clearly and sharply in connection with the still pending negotiations regarding the Lusitania case.”

Dr. Albert received among many reports one giving an analysis of the trade here in war materials:

“The large war orders, as the professional journals also print, have become the great means of saving American business institutions from idleness and financial ruin.

“The fact that institutions of the size and international influence of those mentioned could not find sufficient regular business to keep them to some extent occupied, throws a harsh light upon the sad condition in which American business would have found itself had it not been for the war orders. The ground which induced these large interests to accept war orders rests entirely upon an economical basis and can be explained by the above-mentioned conditions which were produced by the lack of regular business.... These difficulties resulting from the dividing up of the contracts are held to have been augmented, as stated in business circles, by the fact that certain agents working in German interest succeeded in further delaying and making worse American deliveries....

“So many contracts for the production of picric acid have been placed that they can only be filled to a very small part.”

Naturally one of the most vital problems that stirred Dr. Albert was the British Order in Council in regard to the blockade of Germany from which resulted the seizure of meat and food supplies and cotton by British war vessels. He was always on the alert for information as to what was the attitude of the Administration and the people of the United States toward the blockade. That he used secret and perhaps devious means to get it is revealed by a confidential report which he received under most mysterious circumstances concerning an interview by a man referred to as “M. P.” with President Wilson and Secretary Lansing. “M. P.,” according to the conversation, claimed to have received from the President “a candid, confidential statement in order to make clear not only his own opposition, but also necessarily the political opportunity.” A striking part of this conversation follows:

“L. advises regarding a conference with M. P. Thereafter M. P. saw Lansing as well as Wilson. He informed both of them that an American syndicate had approached him which had strong German relations. This syndicate wishes to buy up cotton for Germany in great style, thereby to 214relieve the cotton situation, and at the same time to provide Germany with cotton. The relations of the American syndicate with Germany are very strong, so that they might even possibly be able to influence the position of Germany in the general political question. M. P. therefore asked for a candid, confidential statement in order to make clear not only his own position, but also necessarily the political opportunity. The result of the conversation was as follows:

“1. The note of protest to England will go in any event whether Germany answers satisfactorily or not.

“2. Should it be possible to settle satisfactorily the Lusitania case, the President will bind himself to carry the protest against England through to the uttermost.

“3. The continuance of the difference with Germany over the Lusitania case is ‘embarrassing’ for the President in carrying out the protest against England....

“4. A contemplated English proposal to buy cotton in great style and invest the proceeds in America would not satisfy the President as an answer to the protest....

“5. The President, in order to ascertain from Mr. M. P. how strong the German influence of this syndicate is, would like to have the trend of the German note before the note is officially sent, and declares himself ready, before the answer is drafted, to discuss it with M. P., and eventually 215to so influence it that there will be an agreement for its reception, and also to be ready to influence the press through a wink.

“6. As far as the note itself is concerned, which he awaits, so he awaits another expression of regret, which was not followed in the last note—regret together with the statement that nobody had expected that human lives would be lost and that the ship would sink so quickly.

“The President is said to have openly declared that he could hardly hope for a positive statement that the submarine warfare would be discontinued.”

Dr. Albert also was in close communication with the American branches of German industries. This fact is apparent from secret correspondence found in his dossier, showing how after much deliberation and consultation a group of German representatives in America forbade the American branch of a German firm to fill a Russian war order. This correspondence shows that the American branch first sought information as to whether or not it should fill the order either as a means of making money or, secondly, as a means of delaying the Russian Government in getting the material. One of the Embassy staff wrote suggesting that the Ambassador approve of the 216acceptance of the order as a means of hindering the Allies. After a conference it was reported:

“In my opinion it would be hazardous for your firm to ship locomotives, cars, or wheels to Russia. All these transportation means would lighten the transport of troops, ammunition and provisions for the Russian Government, and your firm would, within the meaning of Paragraph 89 of the (German) Penal Code, be rendering aid to the enemy thereby.... That you are in a position to delay the delivery of the order to the prejudice of the hostile country ordering them will in no measure relieve you from liability.”

When it appeared that the Kaiser would not yield to demands made by the President, the prices of stocks went down and Germans bought stocks cheaply. After they loaded up a liberal supply, word would come that Germany was yielding and the stock market would become buoyant, thus allowing the German group to sell hundreds of thousands of shares on a substantial profit. There is absolutely no doubt that as a result of every crisis the German Government realized millions of dollars in the market.

An instance of how Dr. Albert had opportunity 217to get into the market is revealed in a secret letter written to Dr. Albert on July 8, 1915, by a well-known Board of Trade German in Chicago, and associated with a group of German traders. In this letter he refers to Dr. Albert’s “principal,” presumed to be no other than the German Government or the Kaiser himself. His letter says:

“Provisions have been horribly depressed by severe liquidation. We firmly believe that purchase of September lard will make your principal a great deal of money. September lard closes tonight at $8.65. This, with high freight added, will cost under 10 cents delivered Hamburg, where actual prices are around 35 cents per pound.

“I do not want to appear over persistent, but there never was a better proposition than buying this cheap lard for September delivery.”

One of Dr. Albert’s functions was to sift this commercial information and make recommendations to Berlin. He would confer with his coworkers on all military and naval matters having a commercial phase. That he did so is proved by the reports which they made and which went to Dr. Albert for his consideration and further recommendation. Captain von Papen, on July 7, 1915, submitted to Dr. Albert a memorandum headed, 218“Steps taken to Prevent the Exportation of Liquid Chlorine,” in which he tells of the efforts made by England and France to buy that chemical in America, tells of the output here, and the firms turning it out.

Another matter of importance to which he gave thought was the problem which had been in every German mind and mouth since the beginning of the war, namely, the prevention of the shipment of war supplies to the Allies. A letter mailed to Dr. Albert from Chicago under date of July 22, 1915, sets forth how zealously his agent was working on an embargo conference with the aim of arousing sentiment in this country against the export of arms and ammunition. The letter says that he had obtained the co-operation of a United States Senator, a Congressman and other Americans in this project.

One letter from Albert’s agent runs thus:

“I must refrain from communicating the above facts in my report to the Ambassador, as the matter could be too easily compromised thereby. Perhaps you will find an opportunity to inform Count von Bernstorff verbally. As soon as the matter has first gained more headway, I believe 219Mr. von Alvensleben, who has taken part in the whole development here, will come to New York in order to inform the Ambassador fully regarding prevailing frame of mind here as well as regarding the movement, provided, however, that is desired.”

Letters from Detroit suggested a plan for a general strike of the automobile workers in that city as a mighty protest against shipment of arms. The strike would cost about $50,000.

To Dr. Albert also was assigned the task of studying sentiment in this country regarding the war and taking steps to influence it in favour of Germany—in other words, highly paid press work. Through Dr. Albert arrangements also were made for many German professors, either in Germany or connected with American institutions, to give up their occupations as teachers and devote themselves in America exclusively to lectures before high-class audiences. In these talks the speakers devoted themselves to showing the friendly relations between Germany and the United States, the similar aims of both countries in industry and international affairs, and to arguing for the cordial support of Germany’s cause.

220A complete organization was tabulated of journalists throughout the country who were sympathetic with the German cause. These men received news for publication in various papers, also instructions. By the aid of these men a vast amount of information was gathered and shunted along to Dr. Albert. In addition Dr. Albert gave consideration to still more elaborate plans for the purchase of newspapers, the starting of news syndicates and information bureaus which, apparently neutral, should be secretly allied with the German cause and supported by German money. These facts were shown by a number of papers bearing on publicity and methods of acquiring it which were found in his dossier. The papers show that in one instance he was subsidizing a weekly paper and that in return he demanded a certain policy.

The following letter throws some light on the subject:

“I request the proposal of a suitable person who can ascertain accurately and prove the financial condition of your paper. From the moment when we guarantee you a regular advance, I must—

“1. Have a new statement of the condition of your paper.

221“2. Practice a control over the financial management.

“In addition to this, we must have an understanding regarding the course in politics which you will pursue, which we have not asked heretofore. Perhaps you will be so kind as to talk the matter over, on the basis of this letter, with ——.”

Plans for the purchase of an English daily in New York which would support the German cause were worked over at length by Dr. Albert and his assistants. Proof also that Dr. Albert and his associates contemplated the creation of news bureaus in New York and Berlin which would furnish and disseminate throughout the United States news favourable to the German Government is given in the memorandum prepared apparently by an expert newspaper man, outlining the plan and cost of organization and giving certain suggestions.

Dr. Albert gave consideration to the suggestion of paying the expenses of American newspaper men who would go to Germany and send back articles favourable to the German cause. He did so under orders from von Bethmann-Hollweg, the German Imperial Chancellor, who caused one of his aids to write to the German Ambassador 222a letter suggesting that certain journalists be invited to visit Germany.

Varied and important as were these various duties, already mentioned, still the paramount task to which Dr. Albert devoted himself was a scheme to outwit England’s blockade of Germany. This tall, silent man, working in his little office, was concerned with the purchase of millions and millions of dollars’ worth of supplies—cargo after cargo—for shipment to Germany, direct or through neutral countries. In this campaign he used every means of deceiving the enemy that were in his power.

Let it be said that this is meant as no reflection on Dr. Albert. In war one nation may establish a blockade and the other nation will attempt to run it. International lawyers agree that one nation has a right to establish such a blockade. If the shipowner obtains ingress to the port he makes big profits by the sale of his goods, but if he is caught by the other belligerent he loses his ship and cargo. It is a gamble.

It has already been established as a part of international law, through decisions of Lord Stowell in England more than a century ago and of the 223United States Supreme Court during the Civil War, that if it can be shown that shipments of supplies to a neutral country are really designed for transhipment to a belligerent, then the enemy has a right to seize and confiscate those goods.

After the Orders in Council were issued by England, Dr. Albert sought first to make the embargo unpopular in America. Letters and other documents in his dossier show that plans were submitted to him for stirring up sentiment in this country against what was denounced by pro-Germans as arbitrary seizures on the part of Great Britain. For instance, Edward D. Adams of 71, Broadway, New York, who for many years was a representative in that city of the Deutsche Bank, sent a letter to Dr. Albert in which he makes the following suggestion:

“The South politically is of very great importance to the Democratic Party and to the re-election of its representatives at our next Presidential election. The Cabinet and Congress have represented in them Southern men to a considerable number who are keenly alive to the importance of keeping the Democratic Administration in close touch with the Southern voters, and it takes such action from time to time as will secure their sympathy and support.”

224Likewise plans were worked out for the arousing of the meat packers in Chicago to protest to Washington over the seizure of meat ships bound for Germany by way of neutral ports.

German representatives studying public sentiment in this country also suggested to Dr. Albert that indignation against Great Britain could be aroused by making it appear as if the British blockade was hurting America in preventing the receipt here of various non-contraband articles from Germany. One associate wrote to Dr. Albert:

“From a German standpoint, the pressure on the American Government can be strengthened by the interruption of deliveries from Germany even if the British Government should permit exception. Those shipments especially should be interrupted which the American industries so badly require; withholding of goods is the surest means of occasioning the placing before the Administration in Washington of American interests. Those protests have the most weight which come from American industries which employ many workmen.”

In the early months of the war Dr. Albert was a buyer of enormous supplies of cotton, wheat, copper, lubricating oil and other articles needed 225by Germany for the prosecution of the war. He signed contracts for meat and other supplies amounting to millions of dollars and he made payment the moment the ships were loaded here so that the American seller got his money regardless of what happened to the cargo while on the high seas. Of course, after the German Government seized all food supplies, the British Government took the attitude that all food supplies bound for Germany were intended for the Government and were therefore contraband. In the next place all purchases of food or other material by Dr. Albert as the official representative of the German Government made them Government supplies and therefore contraband of war. The moment the British Government discovered that these articles were purchased by Albert, no matter whether they were bound for neutral countries, or not, England argued she was justified in seizing the ships and confiscating them. But as a fact, England paid the American shippers in most instances.

All the facts in the vast scheme mapped out by Dr. Albert for outwitting John Bull’s blockade, have been developed by the Attorney-General of England and set forth in the prize courts there. It has been shown that Albert backed the purchase 226of cotton by the shipload, that he acquired vessels under neutral flags for carrying these cargoes to neutral countries. He spent millions of dollars in the purchase of meat. For instance, Dr. C. T. Dumba, Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, writing to Baron Burian from New York, tells of an interview in Chicago with a beef packer.

“No fewer than thirty-one ships, with meat and bacon shipments from his firm to Sweden, with a value of $19,000,000, have been detained,” he says, “in British ports for months under suspicion of being ultimately intended for Germany. The negotiations have been long drawn out, because Mr. Meagher and his companion will not accept a lame compromise, but insist on full compensation or release of the consignments in which the bacon may still remain sound.”

Dr. Albert issued a statement which purports to be a complete reply to the charges in regard to a secret German propaganda in the United States. He said that the purchase of ammunition plants in this country was justifiable, argued for an embargo on arms and ammunition, charged Great Britain with piracy on the high seas, denied that the German Government financed press 227agents, and asserted that the German Government had not started any under-cover newspaper campaign in this country. He said it was inevitable that all sorts of wild and irresponsible offers, proposals and suggestions should be addressed from every conceivable quarter to one holding the official position in which he was placed as an accredited agent of one of the great nations engaged in this unfortunate world-wide war. He referred to the strike letters as junk, and said that he should not be held responsible for every crank that wrote him a letter.

That statement was for the American public. Dr. Albert’s real sentiments are shown vividly in a letter which he wrote to Captain von Papen from San Francisco after the announcement of the President’s decision to send the military attaché out of the country. Here is part of it:

“Well, then! How I wish I were in New York and could discuss the situation with you and B. E.! Many thanks for the telegram. The ‘Patron’ also telegraphed that I was to continue the journey. So we shall not see each other for the present. Shall we at all before you leave? It would be my most anxious wish; but my hope is small. For this time, I suppose, matters will move more quickly than in Dumba’s case. I wonder whether our Government will respond in 228a suitable manner! In my opinion, it need no longer take public opinion so much into consideration, in spite of its being artificially and intentionally agitated by the Press and the legal proceedings, so that a somewhat ‘stiffer’ attitude would be desirable, naturally quiet and dignified!

“If you should leave New York before my return, we must try to come to some agreement about pending questions by writing. Please instruct Mr. Amanuensis Igel as precisely as possible. You will receive then in Germany the long-intended report of the expenses paid through my account on your behalf. I would be very thankful to you if you would then support the question of a monetary advance which you know of, although I know that I was mistaken in my opinion, that I acted as your representative and according to your wishes.”

When all the work of Dr. Albert is summed up and taken into consideration with his propaganda in association with Captain von Papen and Captain Boy-Ed, the impression remains that he, a guest of the United States, was immersed in plans that were aimed at the honour and integrity of this republic.

CHAPTER X AMBASSADOR DUMBA, GERMANY’S CO-CONSPIRATOR — MORE PASSPORT FRAUDS — MUNITION PLOTS — PLANS FOR STRIKERS — EXIT DUMBA

“If I wanted to flatter the American people, I would make a statement before my departure, but I say nothing.”

This was the sentiment of Dr. Constantin Theodor Dumba, veteran diplomat and Austro-Hungarian Ambassador at Washington, just after he had received his passports from Secretary of State Lansing. He was dismissed from this country in September, 1915, because of his pro-Teutonic activities, which were adjudged by the State Department to amount to interference with the internal affairs of the nation.

The diplomat, regarded at the time as the ablest in Washington, did not relish the notoriety of being the ninth diplomat to be expelled from America; and, when questioned by reporters on the eve of his departure, he revealed the acrid feeling regarding Americans which his wonted 230suavity and self-control hitherto had enabled him to conceal. The next day, however, he did unbend to the extent of saying something about “wonderful United States”—and then sailed away.

Dumba, master of intrigue and remorseless in the attempted execution of any scheme that he regarded as beneficial to the welfare of his country, had been the supervising authority of the Austro-Hungarian espionage system in America, which was linked almost chain for chain with the German machinery. The joint activity of the German and the Austrian organizations was aimed at the same end as those described in connection with the duties of the German agents and their executives. He had as his active assistants, Baron Erich Zwiedinek von Sudenhorst, counsellor to the Austrian Embassy, and after the dismissal of Dumba, Chargé d’Affaires; Dr. Alexander Nuber von Pereked, Consul-General in New York, and several other Austrian consuls throughout the country. He is said to have been the originating genius of many of the ideas which the German agents tried to put into effect.

The charges against him are based on a series of exposures concerning the secret propaganda in which Dr. Dumba participated and concerning 231which evidence was gathered by the Secret Service and the Department of Justice. They rest on secret diplomatic messages which Dr. Dumba wrote and entrusted to Captain James F. J. Archibald, an American, travelling in August, 1915, on the steamship Rotterdam for Holland, whence he expected to confer with the Foreign Offices of both Germany and Austro-Hungary. Those documents were captured by the British and turned over to the American authorities. They expose much the same sort of illicit activity as set forth in German documents.

Attorney-General Gregory caused a thorough investigation of these documents and also of von Nuber’s office in New York. Many consular employees were taken before the Grand Jury and practically every member of the Consulate, excepting von Nuber and his immediate associates, was rounded up one night in the office of Superintendent Offley in New York. They were questioned, and they gave much information.

Baron Zwiedinek was a busy person at the summer Embassy at Manchester-by-the-Sea after the outbreak of the war. Hundreds of Austro-Hungarian 232reservists were bobbing up at various consulates and registering, eager for directions and for means of getting back to their country. Evidently, these matters came under his jurisdiction, for he wrote the following letter to von Nuber:

“On the 21st inst. the Imperial and Royal Embassy received the following telegram from the Imperial and Royal Consulate in San Francisco:

“‘Nine employees arrived here on the steamer Yokohama seek transportation New York at expense of State. Beg for telegraphic instruction whether Consulate should pay travelling expenses. Stay here would cause embarrassment.’

“The Embassy has instructed the Consular office mentioned to send these employees to New York. Thereupon the following telegram of the 22nd arrived:

“‘Attaché Hanenschild, Interpreter Nanternatz, Embassy, Tokio, as well as six employees, journeyed onward.’

“Since the Imperial and Royal Embassy is of the opinion that it is a patriotic duty of the reservists to do their utmost to reach the monarchy, will the Imperial and Royal Consulate 233please make all efforts in this connection to discover the proper transportation facilities for these employees who are shortly to arrive. Perhaps it would be possible also to produce suitable passports of neutral countries at comparatively slight expense.

“Concerning that which is done in this connection please report in due time.

“For the Imperial and Royal Embassy,

When that letter was shown to Baron Zwiedinek by Secretary of State Lansing, he admitted the authenticity of the signature, but denied he remembered anything of its contents. He explained that it was probably dictated by a clerk, and that in his haste he signed it without reading it. He also disclaimed any responsibility for it on the ground that Dr. Dumba was at the date of the letter the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador.

Part of the schemes considered and recommended by Ambassador Dumba to prevent the exportation of war munitions from the United States is set forth in the secret communications which he gave to Captain Archibald to carry to Baron Burian, Austrian Foreign Minister. The 234first document discusses the diplomatic efforts that have been made toward that end, deprecates the arguments put forth by the State Department in declining to take any action to forbid the export of war munitions.

“The true ground for the discouraging attitude of the President,” wrote Dumba, “lies, as his confidant, Colonel House, already informed me in January, and has now repeated, in the fact that authoritative circles are convinced that the United States in any serious crisis would have to rely on foreign neutral countries for all their war material. At no price, and in no case, will President Wilson allow this source to dry up.

“For this reason I am of the opinion that to return to the question whether by a reply from your Excellency or by a semi-official conversation between myself and the Secretary of State would not only be useless, but even, having regard for the somewhat self-willed temperament of the President, would be harmful.”

Dr. Dumba’s plans for causing strikes in munition factories in the United States are related by himself in the following official document which he sent to Baron Burian:

“Your Excellency: Yesterday evening Consul General von Nuber received the enclosed aide 235mémoire from the chief editor of the local influential paper Szabadsag, after a previous conversation with me in pursuance of his verbal proposals to arrange for strikes at Bethlehem in Schwab’s steel and munitions factory and also in the Middle West.

“Archibald, who is well known to your Excellency, leaves to-day at twelve o’clock on board the Rotterdam for Berlin and Vienna. I take this rare and safe opportunity of warmly recommending these proposals to your Excellency’s favourable consideration. 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 great importance and amply outweighs the comparatively small expenditure of money involved.

“But even if strikes do not come off, it is probable that we should extort under pressure more favourable conditions of labour for our poorly down-trodden fellow-countrymen in Bethlehem. These white slaves are now working twelve hours a day, seven days a week. All weak persons succumb and become consumptive. So far as German workmen are found among the skilled hands means of leaving will be provided immediately for them. Besides this, a private German registry office has been established which provides employment for persons who voluntarily have given up their places. It already is working well. We 236shall also join in and the widest support is assured us.

“I beg your Excellency to be so good as to inform me with reference to this letter by wireless. Reply whether you agree. I remain, with great haste and respect,

The enclosure, or “aide mémoire,” written in Hungarian, outlines the scheme which the diplomat recommended.

“I must divide the matter into two parts, Bethlehem and the Middle West business” (says this paper), “but the point of the departure is common in both, viz., press agitation, which is of the greatest importance as regards our Hungarian-American workmen. It means a press through which we can reach both in Bethlehem and in the West. In my opinion we must start a very strong agitation on this question in Freedom (Szabadsag), the leading organ, in respect to the Bethlehem works and the conditions there. This can be done in two ways and both must be utilized.

“In the first place, the regular daily section must be devoted to the conditions obtaining there, and a campaign must be regularly conducted 237against these indescribably degrading conditions. Freedom already has done something similar in the recent past, when the strike movement began at Bridgeport. It must necessarily take the form of strong, deliberate, decided and courageous action.

“Secondly, the writer of these lines would begin a labour novel in that newspaper much on the lines of Sinclair’s celebrated story. This might be published in other local Hungarian, Slovak and German newspapers. The Nepszava (‘Word of the People’) will undoubtedly be compelled willingly or unwillingly to follow the movement initiated by Freedom, for it is pleasing the entire Hungarian element in America, and is an absolutely patriotic act to which that open journal, the Nepszava, could not adopt a hostile attitude. Of course, it would be another question to what extent and with what energy and devotion that newspaper would adhere to this course of action without regard to other influences, just as it is questionable to what extent other local patriotic papers would go. There is a great reason why, in spite of their patriotism, American-Hungarian papers hitherto have shrunk from initiating such action.

“In these circumstances the first necessity is money.

“Bethlehem must be sent as many reliable Hungarian and German workmen as we can lay our hands on, who will join the factories and begin 238their work in secret among their fellow workmen. For this purpose I have my men, roll-turners and steel workers. We must send an organizer who in the interests of the union will begin the business in his own way. We must also send so-called ‘soap-box’ orators who will know how to start a useful agitation. We shall want money for popular meetings, possibly for organizing picnics. In general, the same applies to the Middle West. I am thinking of Pittsburg and Cleveland in the first instance, as to which I could give details only if I were to return and spend at least a few days there. I already have shown that much can be done with the newspapers. We must stir up the men’s feelings in Bethlehem. A sensation was caused by the articles which appeared at the time of the strike at Bridgeport. They brought Bethlehem into the affair.

“It is evident that the start of a movement from which serious results are to be expected requires a sufficiency of money at the very start. The extent of subsequent expenditure for the most part depends on the work effected. For example, the newspapers must not receive the whole sum intended for them all at once, but only half. To union agitators only a certain amount should be given at first, and a larger sum in case of success or of a serious strike on the formation of the union. It is my opinion that for the special object of starting the Bethlehem business and the 239Bethlehem and Western newspapers campaign $15,000 to $20,000 must be at our disposal, but it is not possible to reckon how much ultimately will be required.

“When a beginning has been made, it will be possible to see how things develop and where and how much it will be worth while to spend. The above-mentioned preliminary sum would suffice partially to satisfy the demands of the necessary newspapers and to a considerable extent those of the Bethlehem campaign. If circumstances are lucky and leadership is good, we can arrive at positive results in the West comparatively cheaply, whereas Bethlehem is one of the most difficult jobs.

“I will telephone at 8 a.m., and request you then to let me know where and when I can learn your opinion of my proposal, which requires a considerable amount of verbal exposition. Finally, I make bold to point out the fact that hitherto I have said nothing on the subject to any one connected with the newspapers, and am in the fortunate position that in the case of giving effect to the plan I can make use of names in case of necessity, for I have already in other matters made payments through other individuals. In any event, in the case of the newspapers the greatest circumspection is necessary. No one but the proprietor must know that money is coming to the undertaking from any source.”

Following the receipt of those documents by the State Department, Dr. Dumba and Secretary Lansing were in conference. The Ambassador admitted he had written the letter, and had consigned it to the care of Captain Archibald. He defended his course on the ground that he was under orders from his home government, and that he wished to prevent Austro-Hungarian workmen from committing high treason by helping turn out munitions for the Allies. President Wilson, however, insisted on the Ambassador’s recall, and Secretary Lansing, in his note to Austro-Hungary, made these charges against Dr. Dumba:

“By reason of the admitted purpose and intent of Mr. Dumba to conspire to cripple legitimate industries of the United States and to interrupt their legitimate trade, and by reason of the flagrant violation of diplomatic propriety in employing an American citizen, protected by an American passport, as a secret bearer of official despatches through the lines of the enemy of Austria-Hungary, the President directs us to inform your Excellency that Mr. Dumba is no longer acceptable to the Government of the United States as the Ambassador of his Imperial Majesty at Washington.”

241After the departure of Dr. Dumba, Baron Zwiedinek and von Nuber began a series of advertisements in racial newspapers, calling the subjects of Austria-Hungary out of the munition factories. If any workman wrote him regarding the matter, he sent a reply, in which he said: “It is demanded that patriotism, no less than the fear of punishment, should cause every one to quit his work immediately.”

CHAPTER XI GERMANY’S LOBBY IN CONGRESS — DISLOYAL CITIZENS — UNDERGROUND DIPLOMACY — HOLDING THE CLUB TO CONGRESS — PULLING WIRES BEHIND SCENES

President Wilson said in part of his Flag Day address in June, 1916:

“There is disloyalty in the United States, and it must be absolutely crushed. It proceeds from a minority, a very small minority, but a very active and subtle minority.... If you could have gone with me through the space of the last two years and could have felt the subtle impact of intrigue and sedition, and have realized with me that those to whom you have entrusted authority are trustees not only of the power, but also of the very spirit and purpose of the United States, you would realize with me the solemnity with which I look upon the sublime symbol of our unity and power.”

The President in those few words summed up the conspiracies of the Teutonic Powers aimed at the integrity of the United States. When he 243made his charge, he had behind him a vast amount of evidence which never has been and never will be made public. He had as proof the details of Germany’s scheme to control the Congress of this nation and to manipulate it in a manner that would have rendered not only the legislative bodies an absolute check to the administrative functions of the Government, but would have dictated the course of the Republic in international affairs just as if the United States were a dependency of the Fatherland.

“The subtle and active minority” to which the President made such a sensational reference is a group of Americans—German-Americans swayed by sentiment for Germany and Americans influenced by gold—who have been following the dictation of Teutonic agents in America. They have received orders and sought to carry them out. They have been puppets that worked and argued in the interest of the Central Powers when certain men pulled the strings. They have been active workers in carrying out clever political policies and agitations that were part of schemes devised in Berlin to benefit Germany against her enemy. True, there have been faithful American 244citizens who have sided with Germany’s arguments—and their loyalty cannot be questioned—but there have been citizens who knowingly worked with German agents against the best interests of the nation. When a man strives and schemes with foreign agents against the honest endeavours of an American official, who is seeking to execute the law, he is guilty not only of disloyalty but of sedition.

From the outset of the war Teutonic agents intrigued to get their clutches upon the Federal legislative body. They schemed to use it as an obstacle to any move by the President. They sought legislation that would prevent the shipment of munitions from this country, that would have prevented the Allies from floating any war bonds in America, and that would have stopped Americans from sailing on passenger vessels of Allied merchantmen. Their aim was to make Congress vote and the President act just as the Emperor of Germany deemed most suitable to the interests of the Fatherland.

To that end they tried to manipulate sentiment among the voters by means of insidious propaganda. They hired lobbyists to work among Representatives and Senators at the National Capitol, and so thoroughly and accurately did 245these men do their work that the line-up of the House of Representatives and of the Senate was reported almost daily to Berlin on any important legislation bearing on Germany’s interests in the war. They reported the change from day to day of any Congressman’s attitude and the reason therefore. They strove to create a sentiment among the voters so that appeals would pour in upon Congressmen, filling them with fear of defeat at the polls if they did not obey what amounted to the Kaiser’s dictation.

At the start of the European War there began in Congress a vehement debate over the question of imposing a legislative embargo on the shipments of arms and ammunition to the Allies. In these debates men participated who undoubtedly were sincere in the convictions they expressed. Nevertheless, they were button-holed by Americans working for German agents, but all the flowery oratory in favour of “universal peace” proved unavailing.

In the late winter and early spring of 1915, a hireling of the Germans began to seek secret conferences with Congressmen in a Washington hotel and to outline to them plans for compelling an embargo on munitions. Money was mentioned and offers were made to seven or eight different 246Congressmen. It is charged by Government officials that a large amount of money was spent—but the project was in vain.

Meantime, Count von Bernstorff and Dr. Dumba were seeking by diplomatic means to effect a stoppage of the flow of war equipment to the Allies. Each addressed appeals to the Secretary of State and each presented notes from his respective Government protesting against the shipment of munitions as unneutral. Their protests were unavailing and the answers of the Secretary of State were so clear and determined that it became clear to the Teutonic agents that their efforts along such a channel would be without success. Dr. Dumba ascribes the failure of Congress to shut off the export of munitions and the decision of the Administration against the Teutonic Powers, to the President, for in one of his letters to Burian he said in August, 1915:

“As last autumn, he (President Wilson) can always, through his personal influence, either force the House of Representatives to take his point of view against their better judgment, or, on the other hand, in the Senate can overthrow the resolution already voted in favour of prohibiting 247the export of guns and munitions. In these circumstances any attempt to persuade individual States to vote parallel resolutions through their legislative bodies would offer no advantages apart from the internal difficulties which the execution of this plan presents.”

With that letter Dr. Dumba enclosed a memorandum adroitly suggesting the use of England’s seizure of ships as a means of inciting Americans to support embargo legislation.

“President Wilson” (he wrote) “will not hear of Congress laying an embargo, for the reason, as he clearly explains, that to do so would be unneutral. The result of this is to stultify all attempts at agitation based on embargo. This is a matter entirely in President Wilson’s hands. It is, of course, always possible that, despite the President’s declaration, a resolution might be laid before Congress contemplating the prohibition of the export of munitions as a measure of reprisal against England for her illegal seizure of American ships; but we should indulge in no illusions as to the success likely to attend such an enterprise.”

The German agents, as has been told, did not cease their efforts to arouse the sentiment of the 248country, hoping to force Congress and the President to take steps in the direction that the Germans wished.

The fear which a Representative in Congress has of displeasing his constituents was a factor carefully taken into account by the German agents. Every means of impressing upon a Representative the belief that the men who voted for him wanted an embargo were used. These were the motives behind a plan for holding an embargo conference in the Middle West in the summer of 1915. The details were carefully developed and the conference would have been held had not the secret workings been divulged through the publication of the Albert papers. One letter addressed to Dr. Albert by Herr P. Reiswitz, in Chicago, reveals the scheme in detail and shows that Count von Bernstorff was aware of the inner organization. The letter, dated July 22, 1915, says in part:

“Everything else concerning the proposed embargo conference you will find in the enclosed copy of the report to the Ambassador. A change has, however, come up, as the mass meeting will have to be postponed on account of there being insufficient time for the necessary preparations. It will probably be held here in about two weeks.

249“H—— seemed to be very strong for the plan. He told our representative at a conference in Omaha: ‘If this matter is organized in the right way you will sweep the United States.’

“For your confidential information, I would further inform you that the leadership of the movement thus far lies in the hands of two gentlemen (one in Detroit and one in Chicago), who are firmly resolved to work toward the end that the German community, which, of course, will be with us without further urging, shall above all things remain in the background, and that the movement, to all outward appearances, shall have a purely American character. I have known both the gentlemen very well for a long time, and know that personal interest does not count with them; the results will bring their own reward.”

Germans made it a point to get behind resolutions presented to Congress in the early part of 1916 bearing on the submarine controversy. These measures, regardless of the aims of the legislators, had features that would be helpful to Germany in her desire to sink merchantmen on the high seas.

Senator Gore introduced a resolution “to prohibit the issuing of passports for use on vessels of a belligerent country,” and another bill “to 250prohibit a belligerent vessel from transporting American citizens as passengers to or from ports in the United States and to prohibit American and neutral vessels from transporting American citizens as passengers and contraband of war at one and the same time.” Representative Stephens of Nebraska and Representative McLemore also introduced bills and resolutions of similar character.

This lobbying and other secret propaganda in Congress was designed to render the President powerless in his demands upon Germany to cease torpedoing passenger ships. The Germans almost succeeded in getting Congress to enact resolutions, forbidding Americans to travel on such passenger vessels. While this legislation was under discussion, Berlin was kept accurately informed concerning the attitude of both the House and the Senate on those measures. The schemes of the Germans, however, fell through and President Wilson was upheld in his policy.

After President Wilson had sent his ultimatum to Germany, insisting that the attacks on passenger ships and merchantmen, in violation of the rules of international law, must cease, the entire horde of German propagandists, German spies and German sympathizers were lined up in a 251countrywide appeal to Congress to maintain diplomatic relations with Germany, no matter what her answer to America’s note might be. By a systematic scheme put into operation throughout the country, thousands of telegrams were sent to members of Congress and of the Senate beseeching harmonious relations with Germany. In the majority of instances these telegrams were according to formula and all the sender had to do was to sign his name to it. The telegraph charges were paid by an organization financed by German agents.

But their pleas were not needed, for Germany, facing at last—after many months of exchange of notes—the anger of the American people, finally yielded on the submarine question and the Lusitania controversy. All of Germany’s legislative propaganda and secret work had been futile. The exposure of the activities of her agents resulted only in causing many neutral Americans to revolt against her.

CHAPTER XII CHANGING THE SYSTEM — TWO AND A HALF YEARS OF HIGH TREASON — AMERICA’S VITAL QUESTION

After all the ramifications of the Teutonic system in America had been unearthed through the work of the Federal authorities, an order went forth to the spies to cease activities that were in violation of the laws. Meantime, the Chief Spy in Berlin began immediately to construct an entirely new system of espionage, for use in an emergency. The remnant of the old system, however, was kept at hand for the furthering of propaganda and such activities as could not arouse the objection of the Government, even though detected.

Count von Bernstorff, German Ambassador, took steps following the seizure of the von Igel papers, rather the papers showing the directorship of the system in America, to issue a warning to all Germans of the necessity of leading a purely and righteously neutral life. He sent forth a statement, which had been prepared by an attorney in New York, to all German consuls in the 253country, and took care to see that the State Department obtained a copy of this notice. The notice, dated some time in the early spring of 1916, said:

“In consequence of cases which have occurred of late, German Ambassador Bernstorff sent instructions to all German Consuls in the United States to strongly impress on German citizens living in their districts that it is their duty scrupulously to obey the laws of the states in which they reside.”

That notice, however, was simply a subterfuge employed by the Chief Spy in Berlin to throw Americans off his trail. In December, 1915, following the arrest of Paul Koenig and other German agents, a formal notice was sent forth from Berlin asserting that no citizen of Germany ever had been asked to disobey any laws. But that statement had proved merely a blind to cover other activities in the United States. With the seizure of the von Igel-von Papen papers, however, it had become necessary to make a strategic retreat, so to speak, and to rebuild the spy system.^[3]

254The necessity of such a move is clear because of the fact that the papers, documents and other evidence developed by the Secret Service and other Federal agents proved that the warriors and statesmen of Germany had, at the outset of the war, decided upon a campaign in America to injure the Allies and to weaken the American Government. The General War Staff had at their disposal in America a vast army of German reservists and secret agents, and straightway set them to work upon plans in violation of American laws.

Go back over the events since 1914, and study them in the light of the moves made by Germany or by her secret agents here, and you will realize how, in America, Germany has had a hand in practically every domestic or foreign event of any importance. Her agents sought to control the Congress. They planned trouble between the United States and Mexico with the aim of stopping the shipment of war supplies to the Allies, and of getting this country so absorbed in other matters that we could not call Germany to account for her murderous submarine warfare. They fomented trouble among labouring men. They schemed to bring about 255seditious uprisings in Cuba, and in the dependencies of the Allies, using this country as a base of operations.

By means of this secret organization, Germany carried on the scheme of buying fraudulent passports for the use of her reservists, developed a scheme for the illegal provisioning of the German cruisers, set on foot various military enterprises from the United States against Canada, schemed to destroy munition factories in America, to blow up merchantmen of the Allies sailing from American ports—and planned crimes of bribery, arson and assault.

But the alertness of the American Secret Service and the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice prevented the consummation of these plans. There was need for a shifting of the Germanic spies. Immediately after the publication of Count von Bernstorff’s warning, an exodus of known spies to South America began, and the development of an effective system of espionage in every country in South America is now under way.

The great question that confronts the American people is one of preparedness against this or a like system. Any foreign government that 256knows the moves of the United States before they are made is in a position to do the country much harm in peace, and tremendously greater harm in war. In view of the crimes perpetrated by Germans and Austrians in America in 1914, 1915 and 1916, it behoves the American Government to take steps to destroy the system, root and branch; to see to it that no nation ever builds up a similar system in these United States.

This Government must take such steps as will ensure it against treachery from within. The citizens of the United States must stand in time of danger as one man in defence of our lives, our liberties, our rights on land and sea, our homes and our national honour.

are pleased to announce Novels for the Spring of 1917 by the following LEADING AUTHORS, particulars of which will be found in the ensuing pages

The scenes of this story are laid chiefly in Brittany at the end of the fifteenth century; and it deals with conflicts, both of wills and weapons, which arise from marriage by trickery of a Breton lady, Yvonne de Vraye, to her family’s most bitter enemy and the murderer of her brother. It also introduces the plots of the Breton nobles to depose Pierre Landais from his high position in the Court of hautes as the chief favourite of the last Duke of Brittany.

The background of Miss Clarke’s new novel is Italy, and in the hands of one who is so sensible to the beauties of that country nothing could be more appropriate. Like her other books, it is a Catholic story, beautifully told in her limpid flowing language with which her readers are familiar.

Avril Waring has never known any other house than the charming villa overlooking Naples, where she lives till her twentieth year, when her mother’s death makes it necessary that she should sell it. The place is bought by Justin, a young man who has recently come into a fortune, and who is determined to enjoy his life to the full. Without disclosing the main theme of the story, we may say that Justin’s selfish course of life deeply affects Avril, but how he is at last brought to a sense of the worthlessness of his life is related with rare skill and feeling.

A new and very long novel by the Author of “The Way of an Eagle” and “The Bars of Iron,” of which 48,000 copies of the latter have already been sold in its original form.

“Men and women do jar upon each other so with the differences in their ways, that one thinks they must have been meant to live in separate worlds. A gulf yawns between them. There’s only one bridge that can span that gap—Love: the Bridge of Kisses!”

This is the story of the building of two bridges—one by the hero, a young Engineer-officer, and one by the heroine, an ingenuous girl, who has undertaken to find him a wife during the six weeks that he is billeted in her neighbourhood.

The scene is laid on the lofty coast of South Devon, where a Squire, who lost his fortune in the War, had founded a fellowship of poor authors, artists and musicians, in the restored mediæval monastery of Via Pacis, and the American millionaire who purchased his property and built a copy of Taormina on it. It is a strong love story, packed with exciting incidents as Mr. Sladen’s stories always are. The millionaire, a rugged Westerner, and the Rector’s grandson, who has been the idol of Rugby and Oxford, and goes to fight in France, are both of them in love with Grace Lorraine, the beautiful daughter of the Squire. Her decision and Roger’s fate form the crux of the book.

A natural and convincing Irish story by a familiar pen. Like all Miss Barlow’s novels, the characterization is particularly good.

Captain Moody, having been wounded in France, goes to Cornwall to spend three months’ leave alone with his young wife. Instead of the peace he expects, he is involved, through the agency of a woman, in strange and devastating happenings which lead perilously near to tragedy. Largely, however, through the wisdom of Deniss, his wife, the tragedy is averted, and the bridge which leads from disaster to security is safely negotiated.

In this long and fascinating romance we read of the intrigues that are necessary for Madame la Marquise de Mortain to employ in her endeavour to control her son and to stop his factory for the making of arms. The manner in which this intricate plot is worked out is worthy of the author of “The Elusive Pimpernel”; and for sustained interest and for situations that will hold the reader in breathless excitement, “A Sheaf of Bluebells” bears a resemblance to Baroness Orczy’s greatest novel, now in its 314th thousand.

The hero of this story, Ganymede Bunn, was formerly a clerk in a London store, when he receives an unexpected bequest from an aunt. He has always longed to ride and live in the country, and he resolves to speculate his capital in horses with a view to increasing his inheritance. He goes over to Ireland, where he makes plenty of good friends, not withstanding his odd language and other peculiarities, and he falls in love. His relatives try, but are not successful in their endeavours, to prove him mad.

Like the earlier novels by this writer, the present book is a convincing story of South African life. It is a fragment of life as it was and is lived in that country, the space of time covered in the narrative being considerable. The story, which opens shortly after the Boer war and closes with the annexation of South-West Africa in the present war, deals with the fortunes of a family. The young English widow of a Boer farmer in her need makes the desperate bargain with a Boer that he is to work as her partner for ten years, and her daughter, who will at the expiration of that period be seventeen, is to be his wife. What is the result of this compact must be left to the author to tell, but the end is not reached without many exciting complications.

This romance is fresh, original and dramatic in the simple presentation of the great truths of life and love. There is colour, vivacity and atmosphere in it. The love story is exceptionally interesting.

This novel, by the author of “Bindweed,” now in its fourth large edition, is a picture of modern French social life in Paris and on the Riviera, and the love story of a young Countess of Franco-Australian parentage. It deals with social and artistic circles in France, and incidentally with life in the Australian bush. It depicts the struggle between Ancient Vitality—as a revival of the Classic and Primitive—embodied by the god Pan, and the Modern Vitality embodied in the Futurist movement and Ultra-Modernist thought.

In “In Blue Waters,” as in “The Blue Horizon,” Mr. Stacpoole shows us not only the beauty and terror of the tropics, but the humour and tragedy of the sea. The humour of the sailor-man in his hands never becomes farcical, and he has discovered the fact that every ship has its own personality and character. Billy Harman, of “The Blue Horizon,” steps again into the pages of “In Blue Waters,” where this quaint and companionable scamp has sea dealings almost as extraordinary as those of Captain Slocum with his “Luck.”

“In Blue Waters,” like “The Blue Lagoon,” is a big sunlit book, a tonic book, full of the freshness of the sea.

Miss Willcocks’ new novel is the story of one who regained his eyesight after an operation with most disconcerting results. We are often told that it is folly to be wise if ignorance is bliss. In this novel we are asked whether, if blindness means happiness, one should therefore shrink from the light. It is a story more intense in its drama than her recent books, since, like “Wings of Desire,” it deals mainly with West Country types, and, like “The Wingless Victory,” it is a novel of temptation and of the love that conquered after a hard fight. Miss Willcocks has gone back to the old simple things that are as old as man and woman, though here, too, there is the interest of opposing social and religious atmospheres, and here again many of the “saints” are but whited sepulchres.

The story opens with the schooldays of Catherine Buckland at the old Belgian town of Dinant, the Citadel of which, in its dominating position, is impressed potently on her consciousness. In England she meets two men, who are friends, and who are both attracted by her. She becomes engaged to one of them, a devout Catholic, and whose mother is a fanatical one. She had vowed her son to the priesthood, but he turns his back on it, though in his heart he had heard the call. Later, the call comes again. The closing scenes are in Dinant, and a remarkably convincing description is given of the siege and sack of the town by the Huns. The novel is noteworthy for its fine feminine quality and charm, and for its interesting and natural characters.

The story of a man and a woman who, owing to the well-meant misrepresentations of the man’s sister, married under the impression that each was in love with the other. The man was an invalid, and the girl married him out of pity; he married her to give her a home. A dramatic incident leads to the man’s recovery, and they are becoming really attached to one another when they accidentally find out how they have been deceived. There are various carefully drawn minor characters, and the story holds the interest from first to last. It is one of the best the author has written, and will increase her world-wide popularity.

Mr. F. Frankfort Moore’s new novel concerns the progress—up to a certain point—of Raymond Monk, who, after passing with distinction through the English schools of music, goes to Italy to study for grand opera under a famous but eccentric maestro. He has been engaged to a charming English girl and remains faithful to her, in spite of the many temptations which surround a young and promising tenor, until a moment comes when his ambition to achieve a great career causes him to be blind to every other consideration. Happily, he recovers his sight and balance before it is too late. The means by which this is accomplished constitutes the greater part of the story; and it is made plain that when Raymond falls it is not “like Lucifer, never to rise again.” The sketches of the personnel of the opera company with which the hero is associated will be found equal to the best of the author’s work.

This highly humorous book purports to be a memoir, and is written in autobiographical style by a young girl—Griselda Lovejoy, who is remarkably ingenuous, and has been adopted by an Earl. Her blunders create extraordinary situations. All the characters, we are told, are living people with fictitious names. Hilaria, the Earl’s American wife, is delightful. She sympathizes with Griselda’s secret love for the Earl’s son, Lord Dwindle, and the way in which she manages her tempestuous husband and steers Griselda through her entanglements with the exclusive Sir John Sumpter-Mule and the democratic Mr. Washington Yanke, is most diverting. More than once tragedy draws near, but finally Griselda is steered into safety. The pictures of life, as led by our aristocrats, shown us in this “Peepshow,” may not flatter Society, but will certainly entertain it.

Tells how a young Prince employs a double to take tiresome jobs off his hands. The complications close with the Prince’s marriage to a charming Princess at the opening of war. Bletsoe, the Prince’s accomplished valet and majordomo, is a very clever character. There is a light, deft touch in the handling of characters and situations, and the story increases in interest as it proceeds to a happy ending for the Prince.

A novel with a most charming heroine. The treatment is quite original, the style refined, and the story very human and interesting. The characters are not the stereotyped fiction puppets; they are all very much alive.

This mystery story is concerned with the disappearance of Absalom, a little Christian boy, who is the assistant and the pet of a wealthy Burman, Mhtoon Pah, the keeper of a curio shop in Paradise Street, Mangadone. Besides Mhtoon’s former friend, but now sworn enemy, Leh Shin, who is suspected regarding the boy’s disappearance, there are several people belonging to the English colony, all of whom more or less are interested in solving the mystery. The intricate skein which envelops the boy’s fate is very skilfully worked out in this most unusual and enthralling detective story, the Burmese background contributing to its interest and fascination.

The brown amber which gives the title to the story is a bead of that somewhat unusual shade, reputed to have the gift of bringing a large measure of either good or ill fortune to its holder. In the opening chapter it is acquired from an itinerant vendor at Cairo by the hero, a young officer. By him it is bestowed upon a young lady who has lately become a widow, and with whom he has been upon terms which make him feel that he is bound in honour to marry her, should she expect what he himself has quite ceased to desire. This lady has other designs; yet she is not disposed to give the young man his liberty, and still less so when she discovers that he has fallen in love with a girl whom he cannot ask to marry him until he is set free. The story has the above situation for its pivot, and only reaches a satisfactory termination by means of divers events. In the course of these the amber passes through many vicissitudes, conferring good luck or the reverse by turns, until it finally finds its way back into the possession of the original purchaser.

No living novelist has written such charming stories of children as the Baroness von Hutten. Who is there that, once having made the acquaintance in her pages of Pam, will deny her the most completely sympathetic knowledge of childhood, with its own strange and wistful outlook on the world. In the present book she tells the story of the child Mag Pye, the daughter of a gentleman, broken in fortune by his own failings, who has married a pantomime girl. How the child grows up in the Chelsea Workmen’s Dwellings and how she fares, with her joys and sorrows, under her unworthy father’s vicissitudes, is related in the author’s most characteristic manner.

Mr. G. B. Burgin’s forthcoming Canadian novel, “A Puller of Strings,” is a powerful study of the harm a bad priest may do in his jealous attempts to counteract the work of a good one. Father Grondin is sent to Four Corners, and oppresses everybody until handsome Gaspardeau, “The Puller of Strings,” who has made a large fortune in New York, appears on the scene and unobtrusively sets to work to put things right. The real heroes of the story, however, are the good old gaoler and his half-witted friend Minyette, who are turned away from the gaol owing to the intrigues of Father Grondin. The picture of their life in the primitive Bush and the subjugation of the all-conquering Gaspardeau by a charming habitant maiden, are told with a freshness and verve which one would imagine impossible in an author who is already responsible for some fifty or sixty novels.

This is an uplifting novel of life in the North-West of Canada; it is full of feeling and freshness.

The story is dramatic and strong, and shows how a young man away in the hills fought and won, and how the girl of the right sort stuck to him; all the characters have the throb of real life in them.

This book, by the author of “Private Spud-Tamson”—the work of a soldier and a Highlander—is a tribute to the spirit, patriotism and courage of the Territorials. “With sure and sympathetic touch, he reveals the bright side and the grey, the pathos and the tenderness, the simple heroism that knows but duty, the inspiration of esprit de corps, and the unforgettable horrors of Gallipoli, where the Territorials won for themselves undying fame. We congratulate the author and thank him for a book brimming with laughter that cheers, and with deeds that urge to emulation.”

MADAME ALBANESI

 

The Cap of Youth

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

 

Oddsfish!

Initiation

Loneliness

An Average Man

Come Rack! Come Rope!

WINIFRED BOGGS

 

The Return of Richard Carr

DOROTHEA CONYERS

 

Meave

The Strayings of Sandy

Mrs. B. M. CROKER

 

A Rash Experiment

S. R. CROCKETT

 

Sandy’s Love Affair

MAUD DIVER

 

Lilamani

ELLEN THORNEYCROFT FOWLER

 

A Double Thread

ERIC HUDSON and H. GRAHAME RICHARDS

 

Ye Gods!

BARONESS VON HUTTEN

 

Sharrow

Maria

The Lordship of Love

The Green Patch

1016

JEROME K. JEROME

 

Paul Kelver

W. B. MAXWELL

 

The Devil’s Garden

BARONESS ORCZY

 

A Bride of the Plains

Petticoat Government

The Elusive Pimpernel

A True Woman

Meadowsweet

ALLEN RAINE

 

A Welsh Singer

Mrs. BAILLIE REYNOLDS

 

A Dull Girl’s Destiny

BERTA RUCK (Mrs. Oliver Onions)

 

His Official Fiancée

The Lad with Wings

MAY SINCLAIR

 

The Three Sisters

J. C. SNAITH

 

The Great Age

H. DE VERE STACPOOLE

 

The Children of the Sea

Father O’Flynn

KATHERINE CECIL THURSTON

 

Max

Each in crown 8vo, with pictorial covers

F. BANCROFT

 

Time and Chance

The Veldt Dwellers

DOROTHEA CONYERS

 

The Arrival of Antony

FRANK DANBY

 

Concert Pitch

Let the Roof Fall In

COSMO HAMILTON

 

Adam’s Clay

LUCAS MALET

 

Adrian Savage

W. B. MAXWELL

 

General Mallock’s Shadow

Mrs. Thompson

In Cotton Wool

KATHLYN RHODES

 

Sweet Life

The Will of Allah

BERTA RUCK (Mrs. Oliver Onions)

 

Khaki and Kisses

H. DE VERE STACPOOLE

 

The Ship of Coral

The Order of Release

Mrs. H. DE VERE STACPOOLE

 

Monte Carlo

RALPH STOCK

 

The Pyjama Man

CYNTHIA STOCKLEY

 

Virginia of the Rhodesians

1017“M. Dugard has done for the Army of Verdun what Lord Ernest Hamilton did for ‘The First Seven Divisions.’”

“It is to your glorious resistance that we owe our victory, which will start to-morrow.” Such were the words of General Joffre in an Order of the Day addressed to the Army of Verdun, at the end of June, 1916. All the world recognizes the truth of that remarkable prophecy. The Battle of Verdun is universally hailed as the turning point of the war.

“This will surely be one of the comparatively few war books which contemporaries will read and re-read and hand on to posterity.”—The Times.

Of this extraordinarily interesting narrative, The Times said: “This will surely be one of the comparatively few war books which contemporaries will read and re-read and hand on to posterity. Hundreds, nay, thousands, of subalterns saw much the same things that M. Genevoix saw, and went through equally ripening experiences. But if they were compelled to describe it all on paper the result in the great majority of cases would be simply a mass of material like unsmelted ore. Few, if any, would show the magic touch of this young lieutenant. The book is la vérité vraie.”

The German “veil” has been lifted during the war, and we have had discreet and generally prearranged peeps into the real Germany. But Mr. de Beaufort has done more than raise one corner for a fleeting glimpse. He has kept open the door behind it, for he had in his possession a magic key—a letter of introduction to Hindenburg himself from the Teutonic demigod’s nephew.

With such a passport it is small wonder that he passed easily into the very Holy of Holies of our chief enemy—Hindenburg’s headquarters—incidentally flouting the restrictions and wrath of the authorities in Berlin.

What Mr. de Beaufort has to tell us of the man whom Germany undoubtedly regards as the “Hub of the Universe,” is well worthy of the efforts and sacrifices he made to reach him.

The interview proved to be the prelude to a visit to the Eastern front of intense interest to us in the West, for whom that part of the Continental battle-area still seems somewhat remote and mythical. We get a succession of vivid war scenes in Poland and East Prussia, and the author throws light on campaigns such as the much-boomed “Battle of the Masurian Lakes,” of which too little is known in this country.

Not less interesting than the Author’s adventures in the field is his series of interviews with the most eminent men in the military, naval, political and industrial world of Germany, and his visit to the German naval bases.

While in Egypt the author was placed in command of a mule corps composed entirely of Jews for service in Gallipoli; his book is a record of the work of the corps there, but it is also a vivid description of the fighting generally. It is a story of actual happenings as he saw them, and he does not hesitate to criticize freely the way in which the campaign was attempted to be carried out. Written in a bright and attractive style, the book is excellent reading, as well as being most instructive, for it is the first book of the kind to be published.

“The picture he draws might pass for caricature if recent events had not attested its fidelity to fact. This illuminating book, derived from the pain-begotten wealth of twelve years’ experience, should be on the shelves of everyone who desires to identify the German of Louvain and Dinant with the German of Germany.”—Morning Post.

1020“It is a book of monumental industry, as full of knowledge as an egg of meat, and with much illuminating thought.”—Glasgow Herald.

At the present day M. Yves Guyot holds an unique position. He is not only the doyen of political economists but he is one of the best known, the most independent and clear headed publicists in Europe. M. Guyot has long been a staunch friend to England and he was one of the very few Frenchmen who publicly supported us during the critical period of the Boer War.

In his latest, and in some respects, his most important book he has employed his extensive knowledge of European history, diplomacy and political geography to account for the causes of the present war. Without exonerating the ruling classes in Germany from their guilt in devising the war, he shows how historical events have made it possible if not inevitable.

The book has made a great impression in France and is recognised as one of the most valuable and reliable contributions that has appeared in connection with the subject. It is a book that no public man, nor indeed anyone interested in current events, can afford to neglect.

Times Literary Supplement says:—“There is no denying or questioning the novelty of his treatment of some parts of a well-worn theme, or of his conclusions. M. Guyot’s service is to bring to the discussion of post-war problems unusually wide knowledge; to study the aspiration of the many ethnic groups, which the Central Empires have crushed, and to which this struggle has brought new hopes. All may profit by his remarks even if they disagree with his conclusions. We should do much less than justice to it if we failed to recognise its richness in suggestions, its wide outlook, and the generous spirit animating it.”

A concise epitome of all matters relating to the Arts of Painting, Sculpture, Engraving, and Architecture, and to Schools of Design which have occurred during the year 1916, together with information respecting the events of 1917.

A series of 32 cartoons reproduced from the famous periodical “Simplicissimus,” published in Munich. Beautifully printed on art paper, 12″ × 10″ paper cover, with mounted picture, 1s. net.

The stories of this author, dealing with the adventures of animals, of which “The Red Fox” is, perhaps, the best known, have for a long time enjoyed great popularity. In the present work Mr. Roberts gives us a story of a man in primeval times, and he introduces descriptions of the strange scenery and monstrous fauna of the time. This story bids fair to be one of the most successful of Mr. Roberts’ works of fiction. The interest of the volume is enhanced by the addition of the striking illustrations which excite the imagination.

Few British seamen of the first half of the nineteenth century had a longer or more eventful career than the subject of this volume. Entering the Navy at the age of thirteen, he served his Sovereign and country with great distinction for nearly sixty years in many parts of the world; while in 1833 he accepted the command of the Portuguese Constitutional Fleet, and, by his victory over that of the usurper Dom Miguel off Cape St. Vincent, largely contributed to place the little Queen, Donna Maria da Gloria, on her throne. A man of indomitable courage and boundless energy, a strict disciplinarian yet invariably just, and of the most kindly and generous disposition, “Black Charley,” as he was called in the Navy, enjoyed the esteem and confidence of all who served under him and was adored by the men; and it is sad to reflect that his last years should have been clouded by the shameful treatment he received at the hands of the incompetent and selfish politicians, who were muddling the affairs of this country during the war with Russia, and who did not hesitate to make him the scapegoat for their own blunders. To vindicate the memory of this great seaman, now recognised by all competent naval authorities to have been the victim of the most gross injustice, is one of the chief objects of this work, for which purpose a mass of valuable material, including the whole of Sir Charles Napier’s correspondence with the Admiralty during the Baltic Expedition of 1854, has been placed at the author’s disposal by his relatives; and the book, which contains a great number of interesting and amusing anecdotes of naval life in days gone by, cannot fail to appeal to a wide circle of readers.

In the course of his travels Captain Baudesson carefully observed the curious customs of the Moï and Chams, the uncultured people of Indo-China, among whom he dwelt for many years. The author not only describes their rites and habits, but he endeavours to show the origin of their ceremonies with those of civilization. The story of these travels is presented in vivid language and is full of local and picturesque colour. The reader is initiated into the life of the jungle, in which, day by day, the hardy pioneers lived. Tigers and elephants were frequently encountered during the journey of the mission, and many members of the expedition were wounded by the poisoned arrows of the natives, while jungle fever and malaria made havoc among them.

Mr. Stacpoole’s life of François Villon is the first attempt at a biography of the great French poet of the Middle Ages. Here we have for the first time set forth in English the affair of the Pet au Diable, the University life of the old University of Paris, the character of Thibault D’Aussigny, the Ogre of Meaning, and much more that will come as a surprise to those who fancy that they know all about Villon. Mr. Stacpoole demonstrates a fact that every other writer on the subject has ignored, the fact that between the two Testaments there is a difference as vast as the difference between body and soul. The difference between a mind heedless and ribald and the same mind developed through experience and adversity.

Mr. Frank Finn is well known as one of our chief authorities on all that concerns bird-life. Those who are familiar with his books are aware that he has made it a practice only to write from personal observation. His studies extend over many years, in the course of which he has noted a vast number of facts relating to the habits of birds. “Bird Behaviour,” the subject of his new book, has never before received serious attention, but it is one in which Mr. Finn is thoroughly at home. Some of the points treated in the volume relate to the locomotion of birds, their nutrition and the reasons for their choice of particular foods—the care of the young, nests, migration, senses of smell and sight. Their temper and intelligence, their songs and cries, and the possibility of understanding their language—Their weapons and mode of fighting—The storage of food, their pastimes, plumage and indeed practically every subject that can come within the scope of the title of this most interesting and valuable book is treated by the author.

From quite early days in the study of Entomology it has been generally known that certain Insects in the perfection of their industry might almost be accepted as the prototypes of the human artificer. Thus, the wasp was taken as the first paper-maker, a certain wild bee as a mason, and another bee as a carpenter. Most of the examples described will be quite new to the general reader for whom the work is intended; and the precision and ingenuity displayed is in many cases absolutely startling.

The history of each nation is treated separately, and not merged into a general historical abstract, as is the case of many so-called histories of the world. By this method the interest of the subject is maintained, and it is rendered more useful as a work of reference and eminently more readable.

The whole work contains 50 coloured plates and about 3,000 beautiful illustrations, besides numerous historical maps. A large number of the pictures are from drawings specially prepared for the work by some of our most eminent living artists. Many of the best known historical paintings are also included. Never before has a historical work been illustrated on the same extensive scale. The volumes form a wonderful gallery of art of all ages.

The best and most widely known authorities have supplied the text for the various sections of this work, and their united contributions constitute a most valuable permanent book for study or reference. Among those who have written for this work may be mentioned Prof. Flinders Petrie, D.C.L., Litt.D., LL.D., Ph.D., F.R.S., F.B.A., Prof. H. A. Giles, M.A., LL.D., Sir Richard Temple, Bart., C.I.E., F.R.G.S., Leonard W. King, M.A., F.S.A., Prof. J. P. Mahaffy, M.A., C.V.O., D.D., D.C.L., Prof. J. S. Reid, M.A., LL.M., Litt.D., Edward Foord, Dr. Israel Abrahams, Prof. Joseph Henry Longford, Prof. David Samuel Margoliouth, M.A., D.Litt., Arthur Hassall, M.A., and Dr. Henry Thomas.

In this work is given full authentic accounts in vivid and popular language of glorious acts of individual heroism which have been recognised and gained decorations, but which need to be fully recorded to bring them home to the heart. These undying stories of valour among officers and men from every part of the world and in all branches of the British service have been written in almost every case exclusively for this publication, from information supplied by the heroes themselves or by eye-witnesses, and have been obtained with infinite difficulty involving great labour over a long period of time. This finely illustrated record of the magnificent gallantry of the Sons of the Empire on the Field, on the Sea and in the Air, will constitute “a monument to keep alive the memory of high deeds.”

The work is superbly illustrated throughout, and printed on the best British Art Paper. Many fine Coloured Plates are included. The artists are leading men in their particular branch and working from authentic descriptions they have by reconstruction enabled us to visualize the scenes of these heroic deeds and give them reality. Amongst the artists are such favourites as W. S. Bagdatopulos, J. Bryan, Allan Stewart, Charles Dixon, R.I., G. Soper, D. C. J. de McPherson, Lacey, Maurice Randall, J. H. Valda, Ambrose Dudley and Montague Dawson.

A popular, pictorial and authoritative work on one of the Greatest Battles in History, illustrated by over 700 wonderful OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHS and CINEMATOGRAPH FILMS and other authentic pictures.

and a Pictorial and Authoritative Record of a Fair Country ruthlessly plundered and destroyed.

 

ROBERT HUGH BENSON

117

The Necromancers

126

None other Gods

28

The Conventionalists

47

The Dawn of All

66

A Winnowing

 

ROSA N. CAREY

18

Mollie’s Prince

2

My Lady Frivol

76

Life’s Trivial Round

 

MARY CHOLMONDELEY

3

Prisoners

 

FRANK DANBY

73

Let the Roof Fall In

132

Concert Pitch

 

ALPHONSE DAUDET

84

Fromont Junior and Risler Senior

 

SIR A. CONAN DOYLE

79

Sir Nigel

 

E. EVERETT-GREEN

115

The Evolution of Sara

127

The House of Silence

 

JUSTUS MILES FORMAN

23

The Stumbling Block

 

CHARLES GARVICE

90

Gold in the Gutter

130

That Strange Girl

116

Heart for Heart

109

Where Love Leads

120

Love Decides

124

At Love’s Cost

128

Paid For

108

Nell of Shorne Mills

 

H. RIDER HAGGARD

40

Fair Margaret

 

COSMO HAMILTON

103

A Sense of Humour

 

HENRY HARLAND

17

The Royal End

 

ANTHONY HOPE

45

The Indiscretion of the Duchess

 

JEROME K. JEROME

8

Tommy & Co.

75

They and I

 

1030A. FERGUSON KNIGHT

123

Mademoiselle Celeste

 

WILLIAM LE QUEUX

4

The Under Secretary

11

The Gamblers

 

A. W. MARCHMONT

78

A Dash for a Throne

 

W. B. MAXWELL

29

Seymour Charlton

 

DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY

7

A Rising Star

 

Mrs. BAILLIE REYNOLDS

38

The Supreme Test

 

H. GRAHAME RICHARDS

85

Lucrezia Borgia’s One Love

 

“RITA”

106

Calvary

118

Petticoat Loose

122

Half a Truth

125

The House Called Hurrish

 

RAFAEL SABATINI

110

The Shame of Motley

 

Mrs. BAILLIE SAUNDERS

20

The Mayoress’s Wooing

 

H. DE VERE STACPOOLE

112

The Order of Release

61

The Ship of Coral

 

Mrs. K. C. THURSTON

26

The Gambler

87

Max

 

Mrs. WILFRID WARD

100

Horace Blake

 

PERCY WHITE

25

Park Lane

 

AUGUSTA EVANS WILSON

 

(Author of “St. Elmo”)

57

The Speckled Bird

 

EMILE ZOLA

105

The Monomaniac

83

A Love Episode

A Series of COPYRIGHT NOVELS by the leading Authors, clearly and well printed, WITH ATTRACTIVE PICTORIAL COVERS IN COLOURS

 

MABEL BARNES-GRUNDY

382

Hilary on Her Own

 

M. E. BRADDON

394

Beyond These Voices

425

Miranda

 

CHARLOTTE M. BRAME

420

A Nameless Son

423

The Duke’s Secret

426

Thrown on the World

429

A Dark Marriage Morn

432

The Heiress of Hatton

 

G. B. BURGIN

403

A Lady of Spain

409

The Second Sister’s Daughter

415

Within the Gates

373

The Belle of Santiago

380

Dickie Dilver

390

Varick’s Legacy

 

ROSA N. CAREY

411

Dr. Luttrell’s First Patient

318

My Lady Frivol

 

MARY CHOLMONODELEY

310

The Danvers Jewels

 

DOROTHEA CONVERS

344

Aunt Jane and Uncle James

427

Some Happenings of Glendalyne

 

FRANK DANBY

293

The Heart of a Child

433

Let the Roof Fall In

 

Sir A. CONAN DOYLE

292

Sir Nigel

258

The Crime of the Congo

 

TICKNER EDWARDES

406

Tansy

 

EVELYN EVERETT-GREEN

391

The Evolution of Sara

 

BERYL FABER and COSMO HAMILTON

275

A Sense of Humour

 

1032Mrs. HUGH FRASER

431

Captain Corbeau’s Adventure

 

Mrs. HUGH FRASER and J. L. STAHLMANN

410

The Honour of the House

 

TOM GALLON

405

It Will Be All Right

 

CHARLES GARVICE

314

Country Love

151

Heart for Heart

123

Linked by Fate

81

Love Decides

122

Love the Tyrant

184

Olivia and Others

168

Nell of Shorne Mills

155

Kyra’s Fate

185

The Story of a Passion

222

The Marquis

206

At Love’s Cost

193

Paid For

203

Where Love Leads

198

A Girl of Spirit

224

Gold in the Gutter

236

A Life’s Mistake

299

Reuben

256

Sweet as a Rose

257

Signa’s Sweetheart

239

Leola Dale’s Fortune

235

Floris

230

The Heir of Vering

189

The Mistress of Court Regina

225

She Loved Him

284

Violet

263

Wicked Sir Dare

267

That Strange Girl

271

Miss Estcourt

276

Nellie

280

My Love Kitty

 

H. RIDER HAGGARD

354

The Way of the Spirit

 

Lieut.-Col. ANDREW G. P. HAGGARD

181

Love Rules the Camp

 

J. B. HARRIS-BURLAND

372

The Shadow of Malreward

378

The Lord of Iron Gray

389

The Secret of Enoch Seal

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE