CHAPTER X
AMBASSADOR DUMBA, GERMANY’S CO-CONSPIRATOR
“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 suavity 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 which 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.
MORE PASSPORT FRAUDS
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 reservists 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: