Chapter Twelve.
Other Recent Cases. Bibliography.
The work of the supply ship captured recently in a port on the east coast of Scotland hardly comes within the limits of this book, but it is significant as showing the daring of German methods, which apparently include the obtaining of supplies from an enemy’s country by means which endanger neutral shipping—so long as the neutral ships can be found to take the risks. It was noted by the naval authorities that German submarines had been displaying activity at such a distance from their legitimate ports of supply as to render probable and almost certain the existence of other sources of supply. A watch was consequently kept for suspicious neutral shipping, and in the end a capture was made.
A vessel came into port and proceeded to load for departure, and the customs officers could find nothing wrong with her. Her papers were in order, her cargo contained nothing in the nature of contraband of war, and there was no cause for detaining her, as far as could be seen. But there were noted on the deck of the vessel, neatly coiled, cables and cables, enough to furnish a whaler on a three-years’ sailing voyage and leave over sufficient to start a ropemaker in business. All over the decks bulky coils of hawser lay, and though, at any other time, the hawsers might have passed without notice, it was felt by the customs men that the superabundance of rope justified further investigation than had already been bestowed on the boat.
So one of the coils was unfastened, its wrappings removed, and the cable itself was uncoiled. Then was it found that there was merely a shell of rope, which served as covering for a steel drum containing oil fuel suited for the use of submarine engines. And there the story ends.
The other case which I propose to quote shows equal audacity. At the Guildhall Court there appeared, on October 5, George Newton Spencer, who described himself as a clerk, and gave his address as Lubeckerstrasse, 33, Hamburg, Germany. He was charged with “unlawfully inciting Mr Frank Henry Houlder (Houlder Brothers, Limited, Leadenhall Street and Liverpool) to trade with the enemy.”
Mr Humphreys stated in opening the case for the prosecution that the charges against the accused were based on the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1914. The accused was a British subject (as they all seem to be) who had been long resident in Germany, and had been clerk to a shipping company with a rather long name, but which might be translated as the Transport Shipping Company of Hamburg. The accused appeared to have been sent over to this country by his employers towards the end of September for the purpose of negotiating what, from their point of view, was a most important transaction. Although an Englishman, and of the age of thirty-two years, no difficulty was made by the German military authorities over the accused obtaining a pass to travel in Germany and leave the country. There was little doubt that the object of his visit was known to the authorities, who gave him that permission, although, from the German Emperor’s point of view, he was an alien enemy.
The prisoner arrive in London on September 22, and on the next day he called on Mr Houlder. He introduced himself by producing a document in English, signed by his employers, which contained the proposal which had been made the subject of the charge. The proposal was as follows: There were six ships owned by the company at Hamburg, on which Messrs Houlder had mortgages amounting to about 30,000 pounds. These ships, on the outbreak of the war, and certainly in September—were either in neutral ports, and therefore temporarily lost to their owners, or were prizes of war, and as such temporarily—and probably finally—lost to their owners. The proposal to Messrs Houlder—to whom was payable 20,000 pounds on November 11, and 13,000 pounds on November 15, was to the effect that they should pay over 15,000 pounds to the Hamburg firm, and take over three of the steamers. The result would be that the mortgages on all six of the vessels would be wiped off, and Messrs Houlder would become the owners of them, while the steamship company at Hamburg would have 15,000 pounds in cash to enable them to carry on their business. The fact that one of the steamers was a prize of war in Gibraltar, and would probably be sold as such, made the proposal still more remarkable. Since, under these circumstances, Messrs Houlder could have no title, the Hamburg firm were virtually, asking for cash for nothing.
Mr Houlder did not seriously consider the proposition, but, having made up his mind what to do, told the defendant he would have to consult his solicitors, and mentioned the existence of the proclamation which he assumed would prevent them from carrying out the transaction. Defendant replied to the effect that his employers had communicated with the German Foreign Office—as they had no proclamation—and had received permission to carry out the transaction. He handed Mr Houlder a bundle of documents in German, which showed that the defendant’s employers in Hamburg, before ever they attempted to put this transaction in form, obtained leave from their own authorities, to whom they stated their own frank view-point with regard to the matter. It was set out that monetary benefit to a certain amount would accrue to the Hamburg company as a result of the transaction, and that the vessels were all old freight steamers, of no possible use to the German Navy—neither were they fit for transport purposes. The Berlin Secretary of State for Home Affairs replied that no objection would be taken to the transaction.
Mr Houlder communicated with the Admiralty instead of with his solicitors, and in the meantime the defendant went to a firm of marine insurance agents and made a similar proposal—this time to the extent of about 13,400 pounds cash benefit to the Hamburg firm. In neither case was any application made to the authorities in England for a licence to break the law regarding trading with the enemy. The total effect of the proposals, had they been carried through, would have been to place the Hamburg company in possession of about 28,000 pounds, with no compensating advantage whatever to the British firms—and the defendant was committed for trial. He received sentence of imprisonment for his treachery on October 14, 1914, after due and proper trial.
The only point worthy of comment in connection with this case is the doubtful morality, in a business sense, of German firms. We may set aside the fact that a contravention of an enemy’s law was attempted, for no country would consider or regard the laws of a country with which it was at war, unless they involved principles of definite conduct and were the laws of civilisation rather than the laws framed for the protection of the said enemy in time of war. The point at issue is that a shipping company of Hamburg, by its offer of valueless titles in exchange for hard British cash, was attempting such a form of sharp practice as would land any British trader in the criminal courts for fraud. One is forced to the conclusion that among many Germans, and even among German firms whose standing ought to guarantee the cleanliness of their hands in business, there is no such thing as honesty, at least where dealing with a foreign firm is concerned. These people asked two London firms to break British law, and to be swindled. By German ethics, evidently, this is fair play and just dealing. It is an effect of the spy system on the moral fibre of the nation, rather than an instance of the working of the spy system itself—though the British subject who passed out from Germany at an acute point of the war between the two countries, without being questioned by German authorities, looks perilously like a spy at work, and the nature of his other missions in England, had he been left at liberty, calls for some speculation.
Much may be learned with regard to the present working of German spies by intelligent perusal of the war reports, especially those coming from France, for the Russian theatre of war is so tremendous and so far off that the small details seldom come through—the details small in themselves, but of far-reaching import. As an instance may be again mentioned the way in which German troops, occupying a town, chalk on certain doors “Spare this house”—there is a world of enlightenment in the three words. Similarly, in advance and retreat the Germans have their agents with them or near them, and often the report makes tacit admission of the fact, in such a way that it is clear to one who reads with the espionage system in mind. The work of these agents is as endless as it is dishonourable and deadly—a poison that works just as efficiently as the legitimate weapons of war—and often more efficiently, since one can guard against an open weapon, but against the treachery that uses naturalisation and all things to further the ends of the monster trampling across the earth, there is no guard that soldiers can use as they use their weapons against troops opposed to them.
The bibliography of espionage—German espionage—is a brief one, so far as books of value are concerned. First and foremost stand Stieber’s Memoirs, which tell all that Stieber chose to tell—and that is a good deal. The work has been translated into French, but not into English. There is the “Indiscretions” of Wollheim, a book which gives some idea of the system, but is mainly concerned with incident. The Memoirs of Busch, Bismarck’s friend, afford further light on the system, but only in a fragmentary way. “Military Espionage in Peace and War,” by W.N. Klembovski, a Russian Staff Officer, is more a manual of what ought to be done by purely military spies than a book descriptive of the German system. “Espionage Militaire,” by Lieutenant Froment of the French Army, is open to the same class of criticism, as is to a certain extent “Espionage,” by N. de Chilly, though the last named is a more informative book. “The German Spy System in France,” an English translation of Paul Lanoir’s book on the subject, is a brief but well-compiled review of what Germany has accomplished in the way of espionage since 1870 in France, and although rather pessimistic in tone as regards French counter-measures, ranks as a work of value.
As a rule “confessions” of spies may be disregarded, though they make good melodramatic reading. The nature of the subject is such that those who would tell the whole cannot, and those who can will not. Bearing in mind the effect of thorough espionage on the German nation as a whole, it is to be hoped that in the near future the whole system will be swept away, together with the form of government that gave it birth and room to grow.