"It will be the greatest achievement Imperial Germany has yet brought about in America," he said, and his visitor smiled.
"And it will make America our unwilling ally."
THE MUNITIONS CAMPAIGN
The conference over the blue prints in Ambassador Von Bernstorff's rooms in Washington was followed by months of seeming inaction on the part of Germany's paid agents. While war held its dreadful sway over Europe and armies battled, some for right and in defense of a broken kingdom, the others for territory and conquest at the behest of a war-mad ruler, the manufacture of munitions for the warring nations and especially the Allied armies received an impetus which started their humming with feverish activity.
During this time the A.T.R. Munitions plant was erected near New York. Machinery of the latest type was installed, and experienced and competent labor employed. In the offices of the company, of which L.E. Marquis was president, long conferences were held with representatives of the French Government over plans received from Paris calling for French "75's" and "155's" in unstinted numbers. French gold went into the safes of the company and French names were signed to the mortgages and various documents necessary to the fulfillment of contracts involving millions of dollars and indirectly millions of lives. That Imperial Germany was linked with this industry in any way would have been unbelieveable, that the A.T.R. Munitions Company could be lending aid to Germany while manufacturing arms for the French Army was inconceivable, to any but those acquainted with the depths of treachery to which it was possible for Imperial Germany to descend.
The plans from Paris received the O.K. of the president of the company and its directors. They were given into the hands of one man—true, the company's secretary—but the man who had conferred with Ambassador Von Bernstorff in Washington, months before—J.S. Slakberg, smooth, suave, ingratiating, agent of the Imperial German Government and its war-crazed Kaiser!
A week or so after the final plans of the French Government had been approved by the directors of the Munitions works, Slakberg found occasion to call upon Captain Franz von Papen, Military Attache of the German Embassy in his office at 60 Wall Street, New York. That his visit was not unexpected was indicated by the obvious impatience with which the little group gathered in Von Papen's office awaited his coming. About the polished table sat Captain Karl Boy-Ed, German Naval Attache, Dr. Heinrich Albert, Von Papen and Ambassador Von Bernstorff.
Brief greetings were exchanged at Slakberg's entrance. No time was wasted in arriving at the gist of his business.