How Sixty Thousand Spies Prepared for the War
We have had a certain amount of experience of the German spy and his devious ways, but in France—the first country that the Huns had earmarked for destruction—the espionage system was even more fully developed. Ever since the beginning of the war the writer of this remarkable article has been engaged in collecting authentic information concerning German spies and their methods, and some of the results of his investigations are set forth. A startling light is thrown on the ramifications of a system that employed abroad more than sixty thousand men and women in every walk of life, and which is still far from having been eradicated.—Related in Wide World Magazine.
I—STORY OF A STARTLING DISCOVERY AT MONTE CARLO
In the early days of the war, when everything in the military and civilian life of France was still in a state of perturbation, certain undecipherable messages were picked up nightly by the wireless telegraphy station at Cros-de-Cagnes, a little fishing village on the French Riviera, some seven miles from Nice. Other stations in many other parts of the country and abroad likewise received those mysterious fragments from the unknown—partly in code, partly in unintelligible German—and transmitted them to military headquarters, where futile attempts were made to make head or tail of them. One thing, however, was certain: they emanated from an enemy source, a secret wireless installation somewhere, as the experts were convinced, either on the French or Italian Riviera. The problem of the whereabouts of the German or Austrian spies who thus dared to carry out their nefarious operations under the very noses of the French and Italian authorities at once became of intense interest to the police all the way between Marseilles and Genoa. But they searched for the culprits in vain.
Before the middle of August, 1914, however, thanks to a perspicacious English journalist, the mystery was elucidated.
Singularly well-inspired, he had gone to Monte Carlo to obtain war impressions. Had he searched all through France he could not have found a more fruitful subject for study than the little independent principality over which the Prince of Monaco and M. Camille Blanc et Cie. reign. For many years before the war the administrators of the gambling hall had done everything in their power to make Monte Carlo attractive to Germans and Austrians, in order to fill the void left by English visitors, a great many of whom had instinctively fled to Egypt or elsewhere, to get away from these ill-mannered or otherwise obnoxious guests. The Boches and their accomplices having been expelled from the principality on the second day of mobilization, our journalist found the authorities of the Casino still staggering under the blow which the cataclysm had dealt them. The Casino was closed, the palaces and villas and hotels on the hillside seemed to be sleeping more soundly than usual under the hot August sun, the Terrace overlooking the sea was deserted. Over everything was written, as it were, that stock phrase of the croupiers—who now sat, armed with fans in lieu of money-rakes, outside their own establishment—"Rien ne va plus."
With several pages of jottings in his notebook and his brain filled with impressions, the journalist, who intended to take an early afternoon train back to Nice, turned, on his way to the railway station, into the half-closed Café de Paris. Here, getting into conversation with a communicative garçon—a clearly well-informed Monagasque—he unexpectedly gleaned the most important item of intelligence he had yet come across, a piece of information so curious and so significant that he there and then decided to change his plans and spend the night at Monte Carlo.
"Yes, sir; it was high time they got rid of the Boches," said the waiter. "Monaco had become a veritable spies' nest. At any rate, they got hold of one—Kurz, the Austrian sub-director of the Casino. He was undoubtedly working for Francis Joseph, otherwise how can one explain the incriminating plans and documents which, on dit, were seized at his house? They got him early in the month, just after the Prince's notices to the Austro-Boches were posted up, and he's now at the island of Ste. Marguerite, where some others would be, too, if they weren't being protected."
As he reached the end of this last phrase the waiter lowered his voice to a confidential whisper, and after a quick glance in the direction of the caissière's desk, in order to assure himself that he was not observed, continued:
"The man with whom Kurz was naturally hand in glove we've still in our midst, though I don't suppose he'll have the face to stop here another twenty-four hours. Vicht, the Director-General of the Casino, is a German, and since the declaration of war he's done all he could to get the authorities to maintain his too-recent naturalization. He tries to make out he's a Monagasque. Mais cela ne marche pas. The wonder is that he's still here, for it's well known what he and Kurz have been up to for years past. Everybody acquainted with the position of affairs here knows that these two men had at their disposition a small army of detectives, whom they employed to shadow the habitués of the Casino, including certain well-known journalists, in order to ascertain the origin of information against Germany and the Germans which had been published in the press. Vicht and Kurz had become all-powerful here, and would have turned the principality into a German possession if they'd had the chance. They made a start last winter, it is said, by assisting in the publication of a German weekly newspaper run by an unsuspecting journalist. Ah, Vicht's a wily customer—a man to be watched, I think."