Spies and Secret Service - The Story of Espionage, Its Main Systems and Chief Exponents

By Hamil Grant

“Spies and Secret Service” is a 1915 work by Hamil Grant that explores the world of spying and espionage, examining its history and inner workings with a particular focus on nineteenth century Europe. Offering a fascinating insight into the secretive organisations of various countries, this volume is not to be missed by those with a keen interest in the exciting field of espionage and its most notable historical figures. Contents include: “The Ethos of the Spy”, “The Spy Through the Ages”, “Le Caron”, “Schulmeister”, “Nathan Hale”, “Mack and the Molly Maguires”, “Major André”, “British Secret Service”, “French Secret Service”, “German Secret Service”, “German Secret Service—Continued”, etc. Read & Co. History is proudly republishing this classic work now in a brand new edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on espionage in the First World War.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Read & Co. History
• Release date: Jun 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781528792134

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SPIES AND

SECRET SERVICE

THE STORY OF

ESPIONAGE, ITS MAIN SYSTEMS

AND CHIEF EXPONENTS

By

HAMIL GRANT

First published in 1915

Copyright © 2020 Read & Co. History

This edition is published by Read & Co. History,

an imprint of Read & Co.

This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any

way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available

from the British Library.

Read & Co. is part of Read Books Ltd.

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Contents

WORLD WAR ONE ESPIONAGE

I THE ETHOS OF THE SPY

II THE SPY THROUGH THE AGES

III LE CARON

IV SCHULMEISTER

V NATHAN HALE

VI MACK AND THE MOLLY MAGUIRES

VII MAJOR ANDRÉ

VIII BRITISH SECRET SERVICE

IX FRENCH SECRET SERVICE

X GERMAN SECRET SERVICE

XI GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—Continued

XII GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—Continued

XIII GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—Continued

XIV GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—Continued

XV GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—Concluded

XVI DIPLOMATIC, SOCIAL, CHURCH SPIES

XVII AMERICAN SECRET SERVICE

XVIII NAPOLEON, HIS MISTRESS AND—A SPY

XIX CONCLUSION—BIBLIOGRAPHY

Illustrations

Fouché

Henri Le Caron

The Duchess of Portsmouth

Frederick the Great

The Chevalier d'Eon

WORLD WAR ONE

ESPIONAGE

The subject of espionage during World War One is a fascinating area, with as many twists and turns as the reader could expect. Contrary to popular beliefs and media depictions however, the reality of early espionage was on a surprisingly small scale. The relationship between Britain and Germany is possibly the best example of the confusion, paranoia and suspicion which gripped the general public. Spies were located in all the major protagonists’ countries (and colonies), especially in America, Russia, France, India and the Middle East. But ‘Spy Fever’ as it was commonly known, held Britain in particular, to such an extent that naturalised German citizens were interned in camps. A 1918 petition demanding the internment of all naturalised ex-Germans attracted over a million signatures. The ‘hidden hand of the enemy in our midst’ became an obsession for the populace, press and government alike. During the entirety of the war however, British counter-espionage only succeeded in locating thirty spies.

At the turn of the twentieth century, Britain and Germany viewed each other as friends, discussing a formal alliance as late as 1901. Fear and suspicion gradually came to dominate the public sphere and international relations though, with the growing military threat of Wilhelmine Germany creating a climate where popular novels about espionage thrived. Writers such as Erskine Childers, with The Riddle of the Sands (1903) and William Le Queux’s The Invasion of 1910 (1906) Spies of the Kaiser (1909) depicted sophisticated German intelligence networks, laying the foundations for an invasion of Britain. As Le Queux concluded, ‘What will happen? When will Germany strike? Who knows?’

Espionage and invasion novels such as these tapped into a massive wave of paranoia in the British public. Sixty such novels were published between 1871-1914, with two thirds of these identifying Germany as the threat. Of the thirty one published after 1900, only five wrote of invasions from other countries, and after 1904 this was solely Germany. Boys Own (a story paper aimed at teenage boys) in 1906 assured its million readers that most German tourists in Britain were spies, and this concept of an army of civilian spies entered the popular psyche. These concerns were not entirely fiction; a German spy was convicted in Exeter in 1911 and the British were doing exactly the same in Germany. In 1910 two British officers were convicted of espionage whilst walking around German naval installations – their luggage full of notes and photographs.

In a climate such as this, when World War One broke out, accusations were rife. Lord Northcliffe’s Daily Mail ran a campaign against German clerks working in Britain, printing many worried letters from its readers. The clerks were all identified as acting as spies on behalf of German industry, and this theme was re-repeated throughout the war. The government themselves became one of the most important centres of anti-German propaganda, with bodies such as the Parliamentary Recruiting Committee (1914) and the National War Aims Committee (1917) propagating Germanophobia. On the front (and at home) hundreds of homing pigeons were killed, to stop their use carrying messages to the enemy, and thousands of accounts of suspicious ‘night-signalling’ were received, by which German spies were thought to be guiding Zeppelins or submarines to their targets. The metropolitan police received 9,000 reports of suspected espionage in the first three months of the war, but only in about 90 cases ‘was the suspicion of espionage sufficiently strong to warrant detention.’

During the course of the entire war, counter-espionage brought thirty-one German agents to trial, of whom 12 were executed. These figures were closer to the truth, and there was only a very small number of spies (largely employed by the German navy) active overseas. Britain’s own attempts to establish a spy network in Germany met with similarly little success. Despite the small-scale reality, on 13th May 1915, the Asquith government decided to intern all ‘enemy aliens’ (mostly German citizens) residing in Britain for the duration of the war. Under Gustav Steinhauer (a German naval intelligence officer), the men actively employed in espionage were often untrained and inept amateurs. This is nowhere more sadly reflected than in the story of Carl Hans Lody, the first wartime spy to be executed in Britain.

Lody (alias Charles A. Inglis) was positioned in Edinburgh, where he successfully aided the sinking of the HMS Pathfinder; the first ship ever sunk by a torpedo fired from a submarine. After this success, Lody started writing his letters in German however, leading authorities to become understandably apprehensive. He was caught after being shadowed in Ireland, and executed on November 6th in the Tower of London. This was the first person, since the Jacobite rebel Lord Lovat (beheaded in 1747) to be executed in the Tower. A more successful spy was the infamous Wilhelm Franz Canaris, a German admiral, and later chief of the Abwehr from 1935-1944. Aged twenty-six, Canaris served aboard the SMS Dresden as an intelligence officer, and due to his excellent deception tactics, helped it evade the British fleet during the Battle of the Falkland Islands (the only one to do so). Canaris also survived a subsequent British assassination attempt in Spain, and carried on his espionage and naval career across Europe.

The case of Marti Hari is perhaps one of the most interesting examples of World War One espionage; an exotic Dutch performer and dancer who moved to Paris in 1903. Hari travelled all over Europe during the war, arousing suspicion with her border crossing activities. When travelling by steamer from Spain, she was captured at the port of Falmouth and interrogated at length by Sir Basil Thomson (assistant commissioner at New Scotland Yard). Here, Hari admitted to working for French intelligence. In January 1917 however, the German military attaché in Madrid transmitted radio messages to Berlin, describing the helpful activities of a German spy, code-named H-21. The French were thereby able to identify H-21 as Marta Hari (using the code-breaking of the British ‘Room 40’ team), and executed her by firing squad in October 1917. Frederick ‘Fritz’ Joubert Duquesne is equally intriguing, known as the ‘man who killed Kitchener’, he claimed to have sabotaged and sunk HMS Hampshire, on which Lord Kitchener was en route to Russia in 1916. Forensics of the ship do not support this claim though, and it has been a matter of controversy ever since.

British espionage and counter-espionage, though clearly lacking was more sophisticated than its German counterpart. MI5 was only established a few years before the war broke out, but was stepped up considerably in 1916 under Sir Vernon Kell. The organisation expanded rapidly from 19 members of staff in August 1914 to 844 in November 1918. They established an effective system of cable and postal censorship that intercepted correspondence sent by a number of German spies. Further aided by the Russian capture of the German Navy’s codebook from the wreck of the Magdeburg in October 1914, cryptographers successfully decoded wireless signals for the rest of the war. Even on the Western Front, where War Office intelligence operations did not always run smoothly, there were great successes, most notably the use of homing pigeons (by the allies!) to carry messages to and from operatives working behind enemy lines. Vincent Kraft was an extremely efficacious German double agent who was extensively involved in revealing the Hindu-German conspiracy (where between 1914-7, a pan-Indian rebellion against the British Raj was encouraged). Likewise, Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming (later director of MI6) helped the arrest of twenty-two suspected German spies on the outbreak of war. Unhappier stories are those such as Gabrielle Petit, a Belgian woman hired by the British to spy on the enemy. She helped many people cross the Dutch border, but was caught and subsequently executed in February 1916.

The domain of World War One espionage is an intriguing topic; an emerging profession, often operated by amateurs, men and women unversed in the intricacies of international spying. Although on a relatively small scale, compared with the Second World War, and massively increased during the Cold War again – intelligence officers greatly impacted the course of the conflict. This is perhaps best demonstrated by the less glamorous field of code-breaking, enabling the allies (and central powers too), to predict and counter-attack enemies movements. Brave individuals such as Gabrielle Petit have since become national heroes, yet the truth, moral rights and wrongs were frequently blurred in this murky field. It is hoped that the current reader is encouraged to find out more, and enjoys this book.

This book is part of the World War One Centenary series; creating, collating and reprinting new and old works of poetry, fiction, autobiography and analysis. The series forms a commemorative tribute to mark the passing of one of the world's bloodiest wars, offering new perspectives on this tragic yet fascinating period of human history.

Fouché

I

THE ETHOS OF THE SPY

The worldly philosophy of the current age bears the name of Pragmatism, the principles of which, so far as they are susceptible of being weighed, constitute a more or less modified view of the doctrine that the end justifies the means, a teaching which has become familiar to us through the pages of Nietzsche and Stendhal, and which is based mainly on the idea that might is the proper measure of right. Taking it, then, that pragmatical notions of this sort have become almost an implicit condition of individual progress, it would seem to serve little purpose seriously to go into the question of the wrongfulness or the rightfulness of spying as a factor in the struggle for complete self-expression—itself the real aim of all ordered and prearranged lives. It is sufficient for us to reflect that the successful spy flourishes to-day, as he has flourished since the beginnings of recorded time, and as in all probability he will continue to flourish till the day of doom. Indeed, it is not an unreasonable presumption that in the very earliest ages of the world, espionage must have been an entirely necessary condition of the struggle for existence among the infra-men who then peopled the caves of the earth and who succeeded in successfully surviving only by virtue of predatory acts and excursions in which the spoils and the plunder went to the strongest, who had also made themselves the best-informed as to sources of supply. Bible history, too, has told us about the Spy. The story of Joshua, the leader of Israel's hosts and the excellent organisation of informers which he controlled, remain like other tales of common human interest in the Scriptures among those that linger always in the minds of the least Biblical of students. Babylon, we are told, was overrun with informers of all kinds, Memphis and Thebes in their turn became what Alexandria proved to be in the time of Tiberius, and what the great capitals of our own day have become—namely, recruiting centres for criminal adventurers of all types, nationalities and classes, and consequently happy hunting-grounds for all in rapid quest of the agents of intrigue, iniquity and maleficence. Those, too, who have read the classical writers will remember that great leaders like Alexander, Mithridates, Scipio, Hannibal, Pompey and Cæsar, laid the foundations of successful campaigns and political achievement upon information previously supplied them by commissioned spies.

According to the Roman idea, spying was accounted a fair stratagem in both war and politics and was, in theory at least, distinguishable from treachery. Between the two acts there is, of course, a real difference, although in works dealing with international law the terms are often confused, some writers treating them as interchangeable, whilst others but loosely differentiate between the act of spying and that of betrayal, the presumption always remaining that the man who is capable of being a successful and voluntary spy also possesses talents which are common to the elemental traitor. The penalty of death, says Bluntschli, should be such as to terrify all spies, and it is the custom accordingly to execute them ignominiously by hanging. Technically the spy has been defined as one who clandestinely goes in quest of information, whilst a traitor is one who spies within his own community and to its undoing. Although most authorities agree in considering espionage as lawful among the ruses of warfare, all, with one exception, concur in determining that death remains the only logical desert of the man who has possessed himself of secrets upon which the common safety depends. Certain international jurists have objected to the employment, in any cause, of spies, as being immoral, or as condoning acts which are of themselves immoral, and the French writer Morin looks upon espionage with particular horror on the ground that it is usually malice aforethought and is never voluntary, a peculiar enough view. It is especially blameable, he holds, because a premium is placed upon essentially dishonest dealing, although he admits, with some inconsistency, that it may sometimes become lawful—when it is unsoiled by perfidy, as he puts it. Only the last emergency can at all justify it, says Morin, who is singular in declaring that a spy should not be put to death unless caught in the act. Napoleon himself displayed an unexpected leniency wherever possible towards captured spies, and this on the ground, as he said, that the spy is, by his nature, a base character. In the opinion of the great soldier the best spy is the half-breed who is a natural cosmopolitan and is consequently unaffected by ideas of patriotism. His greatest spy, Schulmeister, was a man of decidedly mongrel antecedents and began life as a smuggler. Pedlars he also declared to be invaluable in espionage, and for the reason that they are naturally disposed to vagabondage, itself a trait of degeneracy. It is well known that he would only employ in such work men whose past had been soiled by some act of a disgraceful or criminal kind, and like the great Frederick, it was his custom to propose to actually convicted criminals their enlargement as the reward of a successful piece of spying.

Modern spies of the professional type, more especially those employed by Germany, fully meet the specifications of Napoleon's idea of the race. The accomplished spy of to-day is invariably a man of at least quasi-criminal proclivities, a being entirely lacking in a moral sense, a degenerate briefly; and indeed experts in the secret history of the German special-information departments all agree in declaring that a white man, to use an Americanism, is worse than useless to the experts at the chief bureau of the Berlin Secret Service. As a consequence, their corps d'élite is mostly made up of men who, if they have not known the inside of prisons, have at least earned an unequivocal right to such knowledge. One of the profoundest technicians in the business of organising spy campaigns, the late Karl Stieber, has stated that the most valuable spy is your born aristocrat with a bad record and a worse reputation. Proof of the soundness of this view would seem to have been fully advanced by the noble interveners in the Dreyfus case, and, in any event, it is known that among the names of the organising staff of Berlin's school for spies, a large number are those who bear the names of famous families, while the remainder, if not all gentlemen by birth, are at least gentlemen by act of parliament, as the saying is. Courage, aplomb, the possession of what Americans so aptly term a good front, easy manners and a genial temperament—of any or all of these qualifications, a man of good birth is only in rare cases devoid. Heredity alone has given him many of the psychic requirements that go to make up the most valuable of actors in a desperate situation, including, perhaps, that philosophy of absolute insouciance which makes of him the most sinister and cold-blooded of all criminal agents.

It would be unfair, however, to accuse the Germans of monopolising all those vicious characteristics which go to form the complete spy. Indeed, it would probably be nearer the mark to declare that it is only because of the elaborate excellence of the German organisation that the Teuton has signalised himself so prominently these later times in espionage. For, in truth, the Teutonic mind is fundamentally lacking, it is well known, in those qualities of craft and imagination which produce the best kind of secret service agent. Perseverance and the philosophy which knows how to wait on circumstances, these conventional enough qualities he undoubtedly possesses in a marked degree above his fellows. Nevertheless, they are not the most important requirements of the master-spy, whose base diplomacy and its results must depend to a great extent upon the exercise of constructive imagination and the forcing of circumstances to suit his particular strategy. The German has excelled his congeners at the business in the opinion of modern men solely for the reason that among the Germans the trade of the spy is not accounted more dishonourable than any other. In all probability, however, the Italian, the Greek, the Kelt, given a highly systematised school and an equal ethical standpoint, would prove abler executants in any mission which called for the employment of deep-set guile, the power of divining motives and the ability to calculate the effect of moves. The essential arts of the diplomatist—has not an ambassador been described as an official spy?—underlie, in respect of the mental operations required, the work of your successful secret service agent, and although men like Bismarck, whose mentality was not of a positively Teutonic cast, may be cited in disproof of the statement, it is certain that the German mind is less adapted and less adaptable to the fine processes of the arts of political negotiation than that of either the Kelt or the Italian.

Women, it is interesting to learn, from high authorities on the arts of espionage, are rarely effective or satisfactory agents in secret service. Not, it must be understood, that woman is incapable of the requisite baseness that is, in the successful spy, an indispensable quality. Far from it. Goethe, who was a competent judge of the sex, has placed on record his view that woman, when intent on turpitude, is capable of sounding lower depths than the vilest of the male species. German experts are, however, unanimous in eliminating to a minimum point the services of women as spies, and that too on the ground that they are rarely to be relied upon if once romantic sentiment becomes engaged in their operations—an ever-present possibility. Any woman but a German woman was a common cry of Karl Stieber who may be trusted to have well understood the character of his fair compatriot, for whom love and romance—the purer the better—constitute the only things worth living for in this drab enough world. Indeed, the famous Salic Law is said to have owed its first enacting mainly to the fact that German women were as a rule found to be unreliable, shall we say? where their intimate feelings were apt to become involved, and those who have resided in Germany will not require to be told that a handsome face and a brave air, added to a romantic bent, go very much further with women in the land of beer, love and song than with their sisters in perhaps any other country in the world. The work of the efficient spy involves, it is clear, a peculiar but none the less specific proportioning of analytical and synthetical qualities of brain-work, and while the feminine mind, which works mainly on its intuitions, may be described as wholly of a synthetic calibre, it has, except in the rarest cases, of analytical faculties—the ability for properly appraising and forecasting causes and effects—the very poorest provision.

The elaborate calculations of your Schulmeisters and Stiebers may be said, in nearly all cases, to have worked out with the smoothness of algebraic equations, and it is extremely rare that women display either the self-restraint or the reasoning power which carry to successful solution dragging intrigues with anything like the patient routine and regularity which a series of really unromantic situations calls for. Obviously, the work of the spy, no matter how dramatic it may appear in its co-ordinated whole, must, in respect of its various separate acts and phases, be bared of all dramatic or arresting incident. Were the opposite the case, woman, a natural actor, would find herself in the most congenial of elements. Anything more sordid, however, or more commonplace than the general phase-work of the spy, it would be difficult to imagine, and it is precisely for this reason that woman as a rule fails as a secret service agent. In matters of love or revenge, where