Chapter Eight.
Women Spies.
In any account of the German spy system one invariably harks back to Stieber when passing to a review of any fresh branch of the system. Psychologist as he was, Stieber recognised that such a system as he proposed to establish in France prior to the war of 1870 could be rendered more effective if women were employed in conjunction with men. Thus he requested that there might be sent from Prussia to France a certain number of domestic servants, governesses, women-workers, and others who might, by gaining access to the family life of the French people, pass on to the fixed agents information which might be useful. Further, he requisitioned the services of a smaller number of attractive-looking girls who were to be placed out as barmaids, and in similar positions, where they could incite men to talk a little too freely for the benefit of the Grosser General Stab of Berlin. Stieber reckoned that women could learn what men would miss, in many cases, and the event proved him right.
He was careful, however, not to employ his women spies in positions of extreme trust, for he had learned, by the time that he was ready to organise his system, that the Prussian woman—it is unwise to include more—was not to be trusted with a secret. Out of the many failures to be credited to spies, most of all are laid to the accounts of women, mainly through the women in question having lost control of their heads through their hearts, and having become more or less infatuated with men whom they ought to have regarded as their prey, but whom they would no longer betray. It seems that the temperament in a woman which best fits her for spying also renders her likely to fall victim to her own affections, as far as her efficiency in espionage is concerned, for the German secret service, though it may overlook one mistake—no more—on the part of a male agent, disowns a woman spy as soon as she errs, without any exception.
The case of Lison, who ruined Lieutenant Ullmo, is partly a case in point. Not that this vampire lost her head in the things she did, or acquired any undue affection for Ullmo; but she bungled her case after having rendered good service to the German secret service. The mistake was not overlooked—the German secret service no longer knew that such a woman as Lison existed when once the trial of Ullmo had opened. Her error put her out of the spy system for ever, and, no matter what became of her, she never received another pfennig from her former paymasters.
The woman spy is largely utilised in the matter of internal espionage; in Berlin, for instance, society women are able to form salons, more or less worthy of that historic title, at which they can hold gatherings of men and women and gather up the tittle-tattle from which scandals are constructed, and consequent pressure can be brought to bear on various persons as desired. In another circle, women keep houses at which men congregate, and here the charmer of fiction is dimly reflected, for personal attraction on the part of the female spy plays a large part in her power of acquiring useful information. Still lower in the scale are domestic servants, who overlook correspondence, overhear conversations, and in many other ways act as bearers of news which would otherwise go unheard by the Berlin headquarters.
On foreign service women spies in responsible posts are rare, but dangerous in reverse proportion to their numbers. One of Stieber’s women learned all the secrets she sought, simply by supplying a young French officer with as much cocaine as he asked. Had the officer in question discovered other means of procuring as much powdered cocaine as he wanted, the spy in question would have been forced to offer some other reward for information. But he relied on the spy, and, in common with most drug-takers, was sufficiently morally enfeebled to be persuaded to give up all the information at his command.
Some of these foreign service female spies are artists in their profession. One may take the case of such a one who keeps a discreet establishment, say, in a garrison town. She welcomes visitors, and is a very tactful sympathiser with hard-worked officials in government offices. She offers encouragement, advice, and sympathy as regards work and worries, and sides with the complainant in any grievance regarding the arrogance of superiors. Her introductions, in the first place, give her a definite social standing, and, like the male fixed agent, she is so connected with the life of the place as to seem quite a part of it—she is above suspicion in every way. It follows, given the type of woman who attracts men, that men talk to her far more than to members of their own sex; they find her companionship restful and soothing—especially the younger men—and are easily led on to talk of themselves, their hopes and their work. They talk in all innocence, and are encouraged by the listener to talk always more and more; and, after a month, or two or three months, perhaps, there falls one sentence which is as a straw that marks the direction of the wind—and that sentence finds its way to Berlin, where it is card-indexed. Acquaintance ripens to friendship; to the outer world’s sight two people talk of things that interest them, but in reality the spy, having completely won the confidence of the man she set out to make her victim, leads him to talk of his work in a manner that he would have deemed impossible when first he met this attractive woman.