His brother, Walter von Mumm, a devotee of shooting, who with his friends was responsible for about four thousand head of game every year at Ville-aux-Bois, went to Germany in February, 1914, and on his return informed his keepers that he should preserve no game that year, as he did not intend to shoot next season. On July 25th, 1914, he left in one of his motor-cars, with his French chauffeur, for Frankfort, telling his servants he should be back in three weeks' time, between August 15th and 25th. Once over the frontier the chauffeur was astonished to see numbers of soldiers on the march, and was calmly informed by his master that it was "la guerre." On reaching Frankfort he was dismissed, and told to get back to France as best he could, which he did after a long and painful journey viâ Belgium.
In the district known as La Woevre, a great plain in the east, extending between the Meuse and the Moselle, all the large farms for years past gradually slipped into the hands of the Germans, who generally bought them much above their value, and then, as often as not, let them lie fallow. All the labourers were Germans, mostly not speaking French, whilst many others appeared to be much above their station—evidently spies who would be most useful to an invading army as knowing all the strategic points, pathways, bogs, and so on.
VIII—STORY OF A SECRET TELEPHONE SYSTEM
Much the same thing happened around Verdun. Many of these frontier towns had secret telephones installed in the cellars. A French ambulance worker, taken prisoner, was conducted into one of these farms to await the convoy she was to join. By accident she was hustled into a room full of telephonic apparatus, and was able, before she was hurriedly taken away again, to read the names of some twenty French villages inscribed over them. She had encountered by chance the central exchange of the spy farms.
In this manner did the Huns lay their plans for the hoped-for occupation of France. When the time came for the declaration of the war the majority of the spies of Germany made good their escape. But some, in accordance with the orders of their superiors, remained behind to continue to assist in the conquest of the country.
When the German army was marching towards Paris signals were noticed at night on the heights of Meudon-Bellevue, and these were answered by others along the river. Similar ones were noticed near the Gare du Nord and the Gare de l'Est, and it is a fact that at no matter what hour a train of stores left the former station bombs were always dropped upon it. This continued, I have been told by a person in authority, until certain spies, who had obtained employment with the railway company in order to signal the departure of the trains, were discovered and shot.
I have often been asked if I think that much spying still goes on, even in this third year of the war, and my invariable reply is, "Read the newspapers." Hardly a day passes without a case of espionage being recorded in the Press. Here are two typical examples which have come to my own particular notice quite recently.
The first is that of a certain Marie Liebendall, wife of Gimeno Sanches, born at Düsseldorf and twenty-eight years of age. Accused of espionage, she was sentenced to death by the Council of War of the Fifteenth Region. She gave herself out to be a countess, but in reality is the daughter of the manager of the Mannesmann works at Munich. After residing in Germany and the United States, she came to France, under the cloak of her Spanish husband, and devoted herself to spying. She was arrested at Cerbère, at the very moment she was escaping into Spain. Imprisoned at Marseilles, she attempted to poison herself.
The second case is that of Frido J. C. von Meyerem, who was sentenced to death on September 6th last by the First Court-Martial in Paris and then tried again in November by the Third Court-Martial, the first sentence having been quashed owing to a technical fault in the procedure. Meyerem was accused of concealing his German nationality at Nice in March, 1916, and also of entering the entrenched camp of Paris in the same month. While at Nice he corresponded in invisible ink with an espionage agent, who sent him a cheque for about forty pounds. He was also charged with having furnished the enemy with information prejudicial to the operations of the army and compromising the security of the forts and other military establishments. Meyerem was again adjudged guilty and sentenced to death.
Thousands of these men and women, ready to risk their lives for the love of money and the German Fatherland, undoubtedly continue their dangerous work all over France to-day. The majority of them are women, either the German wives of French subjects or alleged "neutrals." They are thus free to go about under the protection of their borrowed or neutral flag, without let or hindrance. Some who are unmarried play, I am convinced, a more hazardous game by remaining in hiding until night, when they come forth like nocturnal birds of prey. This is by no means so difficult in a large city like Paris as one would think, as witness the case of an Austrian, Michel Augmeister, aged thirty-eight, a native of Martensdorf, who remained hidden away by his French wife in his apartment at 24, Rue Brey, for no less than twenty-six months. It was not until October 25th last that, as his health was suffering seriously from seclusion, his spouse considered it the wisest plan to give him up to the police.