Though the foregoing has been known to the British Cabinet for over six years, and through it, no doubt, to the various Chancelleries of Europe, not a word was allowed to leak out to the world until December 2nd, 1914—after we had been at war four months. The determination of the War Lord of Germany—whose preparations against Great Britain had been so slyly and so cunningly made—was at last revealed by the publication of the French Yellow Book, which disclosed that in a dispatch dated November 22nd, 1913, M. Jules Cambon, the French Ambassador in Berlin, reported a conversation between the Emperor and the King of the Belgians in the presence of General von Moltke, the chief of the General Staff. King Albert had till then believed, as most people in Great Britain had believed, that the Emperor was a friend of peace.
But at this interview King Albert, according to an excellent summary of the dispatches published in the Star, found the Emperor completely changed. He revealed himself as the[Pg 37] champion of the war party which he had hitherto held in check. King Albert learned that the Emperor had "come to think that war with France was inevitable, and that things must come to that sooner or later." General von Moltke spoke to King Albert "exactly as his Sovereign." He, too, declared that "war was necessary and inevitable." He said to King Albert: "This time we must settle the business once and for all, and your Majesty can have no idea of the irresistible enthusiasm which on that day will sweep over the whole German people."
King Albert vainly protested that it was a travesty of the intentions of the French Government to interpret them in this fashion. He found the Emperor "over-wrought and irritable."
M. Cambon suggested that the change in the Emperor's attitude was due to jealousy of the popularity of the Crown Prince, "who flatters the passions of the Pan-Germans." He also suggested that the motive of the conversation was to induce King Albert to oppose no resistance in the event of war. The French Ambassador warned his Government that the Emperor was familiarising himself with an order of ideas once repugnant to him. In other words, as long ago as 1913 the Kaiser was no longer working for the peace of Europe, but was already in the hands of the Prussian gang of militarists, who were working for war.
[Pg 38]
The French Yellow Book proves up to the hilt the guilt of Germany, in shattering the last hopes of peace at the end of July, 1914. Russia had proposed a formula for a direct agreement with Austria, but on July 30th Herr von Jagow, without consulting Austria, declared that this proposal was not acceptable. When Germany discovered that Austria was wavering and becoming more conciliatory, she threw off the mask, and suddenly hurled her ultimatum at Russia. M. Cambon reminded Herr von Jagow of his declaration that Germany would not mobilise if Russia only mobilised on the Galician frontier. What was the German Minister's reply? It was a subterfuge. He said: "It was not a definite undertaking." The German Government, in its White Paper, suppressed its despatches during the crucial period to Vienna. It did not publish them because, we now know, it did not dare to reveal the truth.
Germany, as I have shown, had for a long time planned the attack on France through Belgium. So long ago, indeed, as May 6th, 1913, von Moltke said: "We must begin war without waiting, in order to brutally crush all resistance." The evidence of the Yellow Book proves that the Emperor and his entourage had irrevocably resolved to frustrate all efforts of the Allies to preserve the peace of Europe. It confirms the Kaiser's secret intentions revealed in the previous chapter, and it establishes—fully and finally—[Pg 39]the guilt of the Kaiser and of the German Government.
Those British newspapers which were most active and resolute in keeping the country unprepared for the war that has come upon us, and which, if they had had their way, would have left us to-day almost naked to our enemies, are now suddenly rubbing their eyes, and discovering that Germany had premeditated war for quite a long time. And this is up-to-date journalism! The public, alas! reposed confidence in such journals. Happily, they do not now. What the country will never forget, if it consents to forgive, is the perversity with which they so long refused to look facts in the face.
It is surely a damning coincidence that when the Kaiser and von Moltke were telling King Albert that war was inevitable, was the very time chosen by the National Liberal Federation to demand the reduction of our Navy Estimates, and to threaten the Government with a dangerous division in the party unless the demand were complied with!
Reduction in armaments, forsooth!
The Government knew the facts, and did indeed resist the demand; but for weeks there was a crisis in the Cabinet, and even in January, 1914, as the Globe pointed out, a Minister took the occasion to declare that a unique opportunity had arrived for revising the scale of our expenditure on Armaments!
While Mr. McKenna was, as late as last[Pg 40] November, endeavouring in an outrageous manner to gag the Globe, and to prevent that newspaper from telling the public the truth of the spy-peril, Lord Haldane—the scales from whose eyes regarding his friend the Kaiser appear now to have fallen—made a speech on November 25th, 1914, in the House of Lords in which he, at last, admitted the existence of spies. The following are extracts from this speech:—
"With the extraordinary intelligence system which Germany organised in this country long before the war, no doubt they had certain advantages which they ought not to have even of this kind.... If he were to harbour a suspicion it would be that the most formidable people were not aliens, but probably people of British nationality who had been suborned.... He wishes he were sure that when really valuable and dangerous pieces of information were given they were not given by people of our own nationality, but some of the information which had been given, could only have been given by people who had access to it because they were British. His belief was that we had had very little of this kind of thing, but that we had some, and that it was formidable he could not doubt. In seeking these sources of communication with the enemy it was desirable to go about the search in a scientific way, and to cast suspicion where it was most likely to be founded."
Such a contribution to the spy question was really very characteristic. It, however, came ill from one whose legal confrère was, at that moment, being referred to in the House of Commons as having a German[Pg 41] chauffeur who had been naturalised after the war broke out, and had gone for a holiday into Switzerland! Switzerland is a country not in the Antarctic Ocean, but right on the border of the land of the Huns in Europe, and the Lord Chief Justice, according to Mr. Asquith at the Guildhall, is in close association with Cabinet Ministers in these days of crises.
Perhaps, as a correspondent pointed out, it never struck our Lord Chancellor that the Lord Chief Justice's "now-British" chauffeur might—though I hope not—have gone through Switzerland into Germany, and might, if so disposed, quite innocently have related there information to which he had access, not only because he was British, but because he was in the service of a highly-placed person. Or, perhaps, he did realise it, and his reference to information given by persons of British nationality was a veiled protest against the action of some of his colleagues—against that other who also has a "now-British" chauffeur, or to a third, whose German governess, married to a German officer, left her position early in November, but has left her German maid behind her. Perhaps he did not know these things, or he would also have known that other people may have access to information, not because they are British, but because they are in the employ of British Cabinet Ministers.
Hitherto, the security of our beloved Empire had been disregarded by party[Pg 42] politicians, and their attendant sycophants, in their frantic efforts to "get-on" socially, and to pile up dividends. What did "The City" care in the past for the nation's peril, so long as money was being made?
In the many chats I had with the late Lord Roberts we deplored the apathy with which Great Britain regarded what was a serious and most perilous situation.
But, after all, were the British public really to blame? They are discerning and intelligent, and above all, patriotic. Had they been told the hideous truth, they would have risen in their masses, and men would have willingly come forward to serve and defend their country from the dastardly intentions of our hypocritical "friends" across the North Sea, and their crafty Emperor of the volte-face.
It is not the fault of the British public themselves. The blame rests as an indelible blot upon certain members of the British Government, who now stand in the pillory exposed, naked and ashamed. The apologetic speeches of certain members of the Cabinet, and the subdued and altered tone of certain influential organs of the Press, are, to the thinker, all-sufficient proof.
In the insidious form of fiction—not daring to write fact after my bitter experiences and the seal of silence set upon my lips—I endeavoured, in my novel "Spies of the Kaiser" and other books, time after time, to warn the public of the true state of affairs which[Pg 43] was being so carefully and so foolishly hidden. I knew the truth, but, in face of public opinion, I dared not write it in other fashion.
Naturally, if the Government jeered at me, the public would do likewise. Yet I confess that very often I was filled with the deepest regret, and on the Continent I discussed with foreign statesmen, and with the Kings of Italy, Servia, Roumania and Montenegro in private audiences I was granted by them, what I dared not discuss in London.
Our national existence was certainly at stake. Lord Roberts knew it. He—with members of the Cabinet—had read the Kaiser's fateful words which I have here printed in the foregoing pages, and it was this knowledge which prompted him to so strenuously urge the peril of our unpreparedness until the outbreak of war.
The hypocrisy of the Kaiser is sufficiently revealed by the fact that two months after his declaration at the Secret Council at Potsdam he made a public speech at Strasburg on August 30th in which he assured the world that the peace of Europe was not in danger.
In the same month, however, that the German Emperor disclosed his secret intentions towards Great Britain, some important military man?uvres took place in Essex and were watched most closely by the German authorities. The spy-peril had then commenced. It would seem that the Kaiser took the keenest interest in the matter.[Pg 44] Despite the fact that there was an officially accredited German military attaché, a number of German agents were also present, and among the number was Count Eulenburg, a Secretary of the German Embassy in London. A military correspondent of the Daily Mail wrote that the Count's taking of notes and making of sketches had excited a good deal of adverse criticism among the British officers who were familiar with the fact. The reports of all these secret agents were apparently to be laid before the Kaiser, who was well aware of the significance of the operations in Essex to both the German Army and Navy.
The only organ of the Press which recognised the spy-peril in its earliest stages was the Daily Mail, which never ceased to point out the imminent and serious danger, and to warn the public that Germany meant us harm. Because of this open policy, it was from time to time denounced by the deluded public—deluded because of official lies—for what was termed its "scaremongerings." But recent events have surely shown the world that that journal spoke the open truth, while all others, and more especially a certain dear old delightful London daily paper, so glibly told us that "there will be no war with Germany," while even three days before the outbreak of war this same journal actually made a plea for "German Culture."
Culture indeed! Have not the modern Huns now revealed themselves? What must[Pg 45] readers of that paper now think? It has truly been said that the influence of the half-naked barbarians who swept over the Thuringian forests soon after the birth of Christianity has never been totally eradicated. There is, au fond, an inherent brutality in the German character which the saving grace of the art of music has never destroyed, the brutality which caused the destruction of Louvain, of Rheims, of Ypres, of Termonde, of Malines, the wreck of cathedrals and churches, and the wholesale savage butchery of innocent men, women, and even tiny children.
And this is the gallant and "cultured" nation which has been so admired and eulogised by certain well-known papers: the nation which has so cleverly spread its spies through every phase of our national life, and made such elaborate plans for her conquest that, in her arrogance, she has now risen to defy civilisation.
Here is one of many equally ridiculous extracts from that same journal which pleaded for "German culture." It was published after a Zeppelin had flown 610 miles, on January 1st, 1909:
" ... as far as national danger goes, the thing is not yet within sight. 'Dirigibles' may, in the future, be useful for scouting and collecting intelligence when war has once begun, ... but talk about invasion by airship, or bombardment from the sky, need not, for a long time, be considered by ourselves or any other nation."
[Pg 46]
Again, a few days later, this same pro-German journal wrote:—
"It is maintained by some of our contemporaries that Germany is struggling to regain her position of predominance in Europe, such as she held more than thirty years ago. That is not our reading of the situation."
I will not quote more. There are dozens of such expressions of opinions in the files of that unreliable organ of "public opinion."
Where should we have been to-day, I ask, had we suffered ourselves to be led by the nose by this "patriotic" organ of the Press, which, with its sinister commercialism on the declaration of war, urged upon us to keep out of the fighting, and to capture the trade of our friends the Belgians, French, and Russians?
This self-proclaimed organ of "humanitarianism" actually urged us to stand aside and make capital out of the agonies of those countries at war. I will quote the following from the article in its actual words on August the 4th—the day upon which war was declared:—
"If we remained neutral we should be, from the commercial point of view, in precisely the same position as the United States. We should be able to trade with all the belligerents (so far as the war allows of trade with them); we should be able to capture the bulk of their trade in neutral markets; we should keep our expenditure down; we should keep out of debt; we should have healthy finances."
And this same organ of humanitarianism[Pg 47] has assured us, for years, that no spies of Germany existed in England, and that war was utterly out of the question. And the British public have paid their half-pennies for such bamboozle! One sighs to think of it!
Times without number—even to-day as I write—this journal has sought to ridicule those who attempt to tell the nation the truth concerning the underground peril existing in every part of our islands. Its motive for so doing may be left to the inquisitive.
Probably few men have travelled so constantly up and down Europe as I have done, in search of material for my books. In the course of my wanderings, and perhaps a somewhat erratic life on the Continent, I have—ever since I recognised the spy-peril—made it my practice to seek out the spies of Germany, and I know a good many of them.
An incident which may interest the reader occurred on October 29th, 1914:
I was on the platform of Waterloo Station buying a paper, and chatting with the bookstall clerk, when I noticed a group of men, mostly in shabby overcoats and presenting a woebegone appearance, surrounded by a cordon of police in silver-trimmed helmets—county constabulary from the North. An excited crowd had surrounded them, and as I glanced across my attention was attracted by a man slightly better dressed than the others, though his well-cut grey overcoat was somewhat shabby. As his dark, narrow-set[Pg 48] eyes met mine, he lifted his grey plush hat to me, and smiled across in recognition.
For a moment I halted, puzzled. I had not realised that the group of men were prisoners. The fellow's face was familiar, and the next instant I recognised him. We had met a dozen times in various places in Europe—the last time at Salvini's, in Milan, early in the previous year. He was a well-known agent of the German General Staff, though I had never met him before on British soil.
I crossed over to him, arousing the distinct suspicion of the constables and the curiosity of the crowd of onlookers.
"You recollect me, Mr. Le Queux—eh?" he asked in good English, with a laugh.
"Of course," I said, for I could not help a grain of sympathy with him, for, usually a resident of the best hotels, he was now herded with the scum of his compatriots. "Well, what's the matter?"
"Matter!" he echoed. "You see! They've got me at last!"
"Speak French," I said in that language. "The police won't understand"; for the constable near him looked at me very suspiciously, and I had no desire to be arrested on Waterloo platform.
"Bien!" said my friend, whom I will call by his assumed name, von Sybertz, "I am arrested. It is the fortune of war! I am simply detained as an alien, and we are[Pg 49] going to Frimley, I hear. Do not say anything; do not make it worse for me. That is all I ask, M'sieur Le Queux. You know me—too well—eh?" and he grinned.
"I shall say nothing," was my reply. "But, in return, tell me what you know. Tell me quickly," I urged, for I saw that the constables were preparing to move the prisoners towards the train. "What is the position?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Bad. My friends are frantic," he replied. "All their plans have gone wrong. It is, I fear, our downfall. The Kaiser is mad. I have no money. I came to England in the middle of August. I have been to Portsmouth, to Rosyth, Hull, and Liverpool; now I am deserted. I was arrested yesterday near Manchester, though I had registered as German and thought myself safe. I was, as I have always been when in England, a teacher of languages. It covers so much," and he smiled. "Is not this meeting strange, eh? We have chatted together—and laughed together, too—in Nice, Florence, Rome—in many places. And now, monsieur, you have the laugh of me—eh? We must be beaten. Germany begins to know the truth."
"No, not the laugh," I protested. "It is, as you say, the fortune of war that you have been taken."
"Pass on, please," commanded the big constable gruffly at my elbow.
[Pg 50]
"And you?—you will say nothing? Promise me, M'sieur Le Queux," von Sybertz urged again in French.
"I have promised," was my reply. "You are arrested—for me, that is sufficient. I wish you no ill-will, though you are my enemy," I added.
"Ah, yes, you are English!" exclaimed the spy. "I knew—I have known always that the English are gentlemen. Au revoir—and a thousand thanks for your promise."
And my friend the spy—a man who, on account of his refined and gentlemanly bearing, and the money which had, for years, been at his command, was a particularly dangerous secret-agent of the Kaiser—lifted his shabby grey hat politely, and then passed dolefully on, with the big constable at his elbow, to the train which stood waiting to convey him to that barbed-wire enclosure high upon Frith Hill.
I watched him pass out of my sight, while the crowd, on their part, watched me in wonder. I knew I had aroused the suspicions of the police by speaking in a foreign tongue. That meeting had been a strangely dramatic one. In those moments there came up before me visions of past meetings. Five years before, I had first known him living in a pretty white villa, with palms in front, on Mont Boron, outside Nice, and taking his lunch daily at the Reserve, at Beaulieu, one of the most expensive luncheon-places in[Pg 51] Europe. I had met him in the Russie in Rome, in Doney's in Florence, and in the Pera Palace in Constantinople. He was a gay, merry companion, and half a dozen times I had been to variety theatres with him and to garish night-cafés afterwards. Yet I knew him to be a German international spy, and so intimate had we become that he had scarcely taken the trouble to conceal the fact from me.
In those few brief moments there had been enacted before me, at that busy London terminus, the dénouement of a great life-drama, and, as the spy disappeared, there arose before me recollections of the gay places of Europe where we had before met—the Rooms at Monte Carlo, the Casino at Trouville, and other places where he had been such a well-known figure, always exquisitely dressed, always the acme of correctness, and always a great favourite with the fair sex. What would the latter think could they see him now?
In silence and in sorrow I have watched the proceedings of many a German spy in this country—watched while the public have been lulled to slumber by those who rule. Ah! it has all been a fearful comedy, which has, alas! now ended in tragedy—the tragedy of our dead sons, brothers and husbands who lie in unnumbered graves in France and in Belgium.
My thoughts revert to individual cases[Pg 52] which I have investigated during recent years.
At Rosyth, I lived in an obscure hotel in Queensferry under the name of William Kelly, enduring three weeks of wearisome idleness, boating up and down the Firth of Forth, and watching, with interest, the movements of two Germans. They had arrived in Edinburgh from a tourist-ship which had touched at Leith. The first suspicion of them had been conveyed to me by my friend Mr. D. Thomson, proprietor of the Dundee Courier, and I sped north to investigate. In passing I may say that this journal was one of the first—with the Daily Mail—to point out the danger of German spies. My journey was not without result, for I waited, I watched, and I returned to the Intelligence Department with certain important details which proved to be the beginning of a long campaign. Those two Germans, unsuspicious-looking professors with gold-rimmed spectacles, were making elaborate maps. But these maps were not ordnance maps, but maps of our weaknesses. Our secret agents followed them to Plymouth, to Milford Haven, to Cromarty, and afterwards on a tour through Ireland.
Surely it is betraying no confidence to say that one of our secret agents—a man whose remarkable career I hope to some day record in the guise of fiction—acted as their guide on that curious tour!
[Pg 53]
I know I have written times without number of spies in the form of fiction. Many people have asked me, "Is it true?" To such I will say that the dramas I have written, short and long, have been penned solely with one single purpose—in order to call public attention to our peril.
Many of the stories I have written have been based upon actual fact. Half a life spent in travelling up and down Europe has shown me most conclusively how cleverly Germany has, with the aid of her spies, made elaborate preparations to invade us.
So intimate have I been with Germany's secret agents that, during this last Christmas, I had the displeasure of sending Compliments of the Season to two of them!
I have dined at the Ritz in Paris on more than one occasion with the yellow-toothed old Baroness X——, an Austrian, high-born, smart, and covered with jewellery. With her she has usually one and sometimes two pretty "nieces," who speak French, and pose as French. Perhaps they are, but one may be forgiven if one is suspicious. The Baroness X—— always has on hand a goodly supply of these "nieces." I have met them at Doney's in Florence, at Ciro's at Monte Carlo, at Maxim's in Paris, at Shepheard's at Cairo. I have chatted with these young ladies at the Hotel Hungaria in Budapest, at the Royal at Dinard, at the Grand in Rome, and in the aviary at the Métropole at Brighton.[Pg 54] But these merry little "nieces" are always different! Baroness X—— and myself are in entire agreement. She knows what I know, and she sent me a Christmas card this season and dated from The Hague! She is certainly the ugliest old lady I have ever met, a figure well known in every European capital. Her speech is like the filing of brass. As a linguist, however, she is really wonderful. I believe she speaks every European language perfectly, and Arabic too, for she once told me, while we were together on a steamer going down the Mediterranean, that she was born in Smyrna, of Austrian parents.
As a spy of Germany she is unique, and I give her her due. She is amazingly clever. To my certain knowledge, she and her nieces, two years ago, while living in Nice beneath the same roof as myself, obtained through a young artillery officer a remarkable set of plans of the defences of the Franco-Italian frontier near the Col di Tenda. Again, I know how she and her attendant couple of "nieces" were in Ireland "on a tour" during the troubles of last year. And, further, I also know how many a military secret of our own War Office has been "collected" by one or other of those pretty cigarette-smoking flapper "nieces," with whom I, too, have smoked cigarettes and chatted in French or Italian.
How often have I seen one or other of[Pg 55] these sirens—daughters of a foreign countess as their dupes have believed them to be—driving about London in private cars or in taxis, or supping at restaurants.
On a day in last November I found one of these interesting young ladies, dark-haired and chic—Parisienne, of course—enjoying a tête-à-tête luncheon at the Hut at Wisley, on the Ripley road, her cavalier being a man in khaki. I wondered what information she was trying to obtain. Yet what could I do? How could I act, and interrupt such a perfectly innocent déjeuner à deux?
Yes, to the onlooker who knows, the man?uvres are all very intensely interesting, and would be most amusing, if they were not all so grimly and terribly tragic.
And who is to blame for all this? Would it be suffered in Germany?
The law of libel, and a dozen other different Acts, are suspended over the head of the unfortunate man who dares to risk ridicule and speak the truth. Therefore, with my own personal experience of the utter incapability of the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police to deal with spies, or even to reply to correspondence I have addressed to his hopeless department, and to the still greater discourtesy and amazing chaos existing in his ruling department, the Home Office, I ask myself whether it is of any use whatever to trouble, or even exert oneself further in the matter? It is for my readers,[Pg 56] the public themselves, to demand the truth. The public are assuredly not blind to the fact that air raids have been made upon us directed by spies.
I can only address these serious words to my circle of readers throughout the Kingdom, and to make my bow, assuring them that while they were being gulled and bamboozled by those whom they have so foolishly trusted, I have, at personal loss to myself—which need not be counted—done my level best to counteract the evil which Germany has spread in our midst.
And my only request is that, by my works, constant and earnest as they have been, I may be judged.