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Moreover, there is sufficient evidence to show that the system is so extensive, and that its ramifications are so far-reaching, that no one book could contain all details of the various kinds of work entailed on the German spy system. It is possible only, in a book dealing with the system, to indicate the main lines on which spies in connection with military and naval matters work, and to give some concrete examples of their failures and successes. Naturally, there is far more material available as regards failures, for the work of the successful spy is of such a nature that it rarely comes to light; it is more often unheard of until, as in the case of the gun-platforms constructed in time of peace about Maubeuge, the work itself is put to use.

STIEBER.

Those who label Stieber as "von" in speaking of him are about on a level with any who would choose to confer on Crippen, of unlamented memory, the title of baronet, for the two pretensions are about equal, so far as right to them is concerned. Karl Stieber was born at Mersebourg, a town of Saxony in Prussia, in the year 1818. His parents were people of the middle class, good and inconspicuous Prussians who destined their son for the profession of the law, in which he qualified as a barrister, but in which he achieved no distinction. It was not until 1847, when he was nearly thirty years of age, that Stieber first came to notice. In that year he obtained employment in the factory of Schoeffel Brothers in Silesia, where the Socialistic movement that has gained so great a hold on modern Germany was even then beginning.

This was the inauguration of the system which Stieber perfected. Hitherto, military espionage had been in the hands of the military themselves, and, with their customary reverence for precedent, the military were inclined to resent this appointment of an outsider to the control of what had been especially their department. Further, the regular police viewed Stieber with disfavour--it was not to their liking that an informer such as he should be set over them, and able to work independently of their control. It speaks much for Stieber's genius for organisation that he combated both these influences successfully, and established himself--with the aid of royal patronage and protection, of course--at the head of a special organisation which was quite independent of either military or police control.

Up to 1853 the system grew--in his Memoirs Stieber tells, with a conceit quite in keeping with his other qualities, how he worked on the confidence of his sovereign with minute reports concerning the doings of court personages. He seems, in fact, to have taken pleasure in the recital of his meannesses, which his perverted moral sense caused him to see as exploits worthy of pride. It was as if, having nothing of moment on which to exercise his cunning, he kept himself in practice on anything or anybody that might be at hand. Thus until, in 1854, he was charged with the work of extending into neighbouring countries the system he had already perfected in Prussia. The cost of the business was charged against "service of the interior," and, in addition to the sum expended on internal espionage, a sum of 12,250 pounds was set aside for the campaign which prepared the way for the wars in which Prussia rose to the standing of a first-class European Power.

From his years of exile he had learned the lesson of dealing as lightly as possible with the people of his own country, and henceforth he associated himself with the development of systems of espionage in other countries, notably in France, where he made all preparations for the war of 1870, and made them so thoroughly that it is common knowledge now how the German invaders knew the country in which they were fighting better than did Napoleon's own troops. He worked quite independently of the diplomatic corps, established his own agencies in France, and set up his "fixed posts," in a manner which has survived to some extent up to the present day both as regards France and other countries. At this time the work which he was in process of organising was a thing so new that it received little attention from the French authorities of that day, and the system may be said to have reached its zenith of perfection with the war of 1870, when in every French town and village of the north-east was a "fixed post," or, in plain English, a spy in the pay of the German secret service. So complete was the information furnished that the personal histories of individuals, their failings and eccentricities, were catalogued, and scandal was tabulated in the archives of Berlin for use in case it should be required, while fortifications and districts were mapped out with a thoroughness such as the military surveyors of France could not excel. When the war came the Prussian troops marched through the country and knew its resources and difficulties even better than the inhabitants themselves. How this was accomplished will be shown later in detail.

Meanwhile Stieber, as privy councillor and confidant of Bismarck, gradually overcame the antipathy of the military caste--an antipathy which his useful work in Bohemia had gone far to allay. According to the account given in his own Memoirs, he discovered that an attempt was to be made on the life of the Czar Alexander when the latter attended a grand review in company with Napoleon at Longchamps. It was Bismarck who conceived the idea of not only letting the attempt take place, but of frustrating it and having the would-be assassin arrested, since, as Bismarck planned, French justice would not impose the capital sentence for the merely attempted crime. The result justified the forecast, for the assassin was not executed--and Alexander remembered, when 1870 came, that France had let off lightly the man who would have murdered him. In consequence, Prussia had nothing to fear and Napoleon had nothing to hope from Russia when the war began. Stieber could have stopped the attempt at assassination, had he chosen; but, by allowing things to fall in the fashion that they did, Bismarck made certain that there would be no Franco-Russian alliance. It was characteristic of Prussian diplomacy and Prussian methods, and it was a trick after Stieber's own heart, as his Memoirs show.

With this brief and necessarily incomplete sketch of his career up to 1870 the personal history of Stieber as a man may be said to end, as far as the present German spy system is concerned, for from that point onward the system became of more account than the man. So far, his work was all personal in character; he conducted his own campaign in Bohemia, and he organised the French espionage by personal work, but after 1870 he became so great a power that the system went on and expanded with him as its head--it was no longer a matter of a man and his work, but a department and its control. Its efficiency is largely due to him, even now, and there is no doubt that he brought into working the most perfect methods of espionage ever known.

His Memoirs must not be taken too literally; it is necessary to read between the lines, for Stieber was a man of inordinate vanity--though this never interfered with the efficiency of his work--and, if he is to be believed, there was nobody in all Prussia of so much importance as himself. He had no moral sense--it was a quality missed out from his composition altogether, and the Memoirs show him as a criminal by instinct, able to gratify criminal impulses by protected acts. For in no other way can be explained his obvious pleasure in the commission of what, under any other circumstances, would rank as crimes, fraudulent and despicable to the last degree. The "syndicalism" of the present day is a realisation of a dream that Stieber dreamed--not for the purpose of benefiting the working classes, though, but with a view to rendering an enemy powerless against Germany in case of war; the division of the German secret service into two branches, known respectively as the department of political action and the department of espionage proper, was intended by Stieber to set up a section, under the former title, which should take advantage of the working classes in France--and in England as well--by causing them to act innocently against the best interests of their country in the belief that they were following out their own ideals and winning freedom for democracy. Espionage proper is concerned with more purely military enterprise, and was the earlier creation of this arch-spy.

Stieber died in 1892, full of honours, and much regretted by those whom he had served. He had done more than any other man to sow dissension between France and Russia; he had contributed largely to the humiliation of France, and had made possible the subjugation of Austria in a seven weeks' war; he had served his country well, having given it the most effective system of espionage that the world has ever known. If the principle that "the end justifies any means" be accepted, he had done well for Prussia before 1870 and for Germany after--but his place is among the criminals and perverts of the world, not among its great men.

TRAINING.

The selection of the higher class of spy, in these days, is very largely a matter of chance. Almost in every case the man selected must be bi-lingual, while, if he has three languages at his command, so much the better for him--and for his employers. In purely military espionage, that which concerns plans of fortifications, estimates of strength and movements, topographical surveying, ascertaining the character of officers, and the possibility of influencing them either by bribery or blackmail, and general secret-service work likely to be of service to the Great German General Staff, capable and clever men must be selected. The "German waiter" of melodramatic fancy has little part in this class of work; for one thing, a waiter has to perform stated work at stated times, and he is liable to suspicion being cast on him if he is a man of irregular habits or is in any way unable to account naturally for his spare time. The clerk in an office is subject to the same disabilities, and as a whole it may be said that the clerk and waiter class, if they are engaged in espionage at all, are the small fry of minor supernumeraries, agents acting on behalf of the spies who pay them, instead of spies in the direct employ of the German Government. They are not given such work as would involve their possessing enough knowledge to make them dangerous in themselves, and are not the class whose work need cause uneasiness. The real spy needs all his time and all his freedom of movement, and he is placed in such a position that he has these to the full.

His training is a hard schooling of months. To be efficient for his work, he must be a qualified surveyor, able to make plans of areas of ground from observation and often without instruments; he must, at the same time, be a capable photographer, for obvious reasons. He must be able to judge distances under all conditions of weather and light--as an instance of this may be mentioned the fully authenticated case of the spy who was set to study the Forth Bridge, and who was expected to supply his Government with full details of the bridge, of how men could be placed with a view to its instant destruction at a given signal, of the geological nature of the land into which the foundations of the bridge were built, and of the quantities of explosive required to reduce the structure. The man selected to obtain this information had to accomplish his task without arousing suspicion; he had to judge his distances solely by pacing, observing angles, and subsequent triangulation, and in this respect his work was perfectly accurate, for he judged the distances to a matter of yards and heights to the foot. Though these coincided with information at the disposal of any member of the public, apparently the Great German General Staff placed no faith in published information, or at least wanted it confirmed.

Further, the military spy must know units of the British Army at sight, and must have at hand if not actually in his mind the code-word by which each unit is tabulated at Berlin. He must know the code-words, also, for various patterns of gun, must be conversant with classes of explosive and patterns of shell, and must be able, if luck and his own ingenuity should favour him, to carry in his mind sufficient of the nature and plan of a fortification to be able to draw a map of the work to scale, as nearly as possible, from memory.

In all purely technical details of his work the military spy is trained in matters military before he sets out on the smallest piece of work, and he passes examinations just as a member of the military service would, except that his examinations are stiffer than those of the officer, and he is required to know all where the officer is only asked to acquire a part. For, in technical matters, the military spy must never be at a loss; he must be able to place guns and men, works and engineering details, with accuracy, since misinformation is worse than none.

In the actual method employed in obtaining information much is left to the judgment of the spy. It is a platitude that no two battles are ever identical in character, and thus the plans of military commanders must vary with the line of country, the strength of the forces engaged, and many other points: in the same way the spies who pave the way for Germany's soldiers are never confronted by the same conditions twice, and they must adapt their methods to fit the circumstances of each case. In this, the more delicate and difficult part of their work, no amount of training can avail them, but all depends on their natural ability to make use of men and circumstances, a quality which is more to be classed as work than as training, since it is either part of the composition of a man, or is definitely lacking and not to be imparted by any training.

Naval spying is practically analogous with military work in character, except that all the training must be devoted to familiarity with the details of naval work and construction--in the matter of coast fortifications, the work of naval and military spies overlaps to a certain extent. But, in addition to coast defence works and dockyards, which call for the activities of both naval and military spies, there are the details of every class of battleship to be learned. Topography is the first point, common to both branches, and trigonometry is an accessory to this, practically. But naval construction and drawing are peculiar to the naval spy, who is handed on to the care of an expert officer of the German Naval Intelligence Department, as a rule, and so familiarised with the details of various classes of torpedoes, mines, submarines, and guns, that he is able to recognise any one of these things at a glance, and tell the particular class and power which it represents.

Further, the naval spy is made acquainted with the build and outline of every class of naval vessel in the world. He is first schooled in the details of the various battleships, cruisers, and smaller craft belonging to the Great Powers, and, later, is taught to recognise these vessels by silhouettes, from which he gains sufficient knowledge to recognise any ship either by day or night--assuming that the night is of such a character that the ship is at all visible. He studies uniforms and insignia of rank, signals and codes, and at the end of his training is a fully qualified naval officer so far as the theory of naval matters goes. In the yards of Wilhelmshaven and Kiel is opportunity of putting his knowledge to the test, and he has to satisfy his examiners on all the points on which he has been coached.

With regard to diplomatic espionage, the coaching bestowed on the two branches already mentioned is not undertaken, for the diplomatic spy--in the narrower sense of the phrase, since all spies must be extremely diplomatic--is chosen, as a rule, from among the ranks of naval and military spies. In order to undertake diplomatic missions, and supplement the work of the German embassies in the various European centres, a spy must be a very good man indeed, as far as his work is concerned. He must be as was Stieber, absolutely ruthless and without scruple; he must be a good linguist, a man of good presence and address, and a tactful man as well. The corps of diplomatic spies is a small one, for this work is the best paid of all, the most delicate and intimate of all, and it is not a class of work of which there could ever be enough for a large staff, even in the state of European politics that existed at the outbreak of this last German war, since the diplomats of Germany are themselves sufficient, as a rule, for all needs of this kind. The diplomatic spy is called in for services which a diplomat is unable to undertake, and also as a check on the work of diplomats--he is, as it were, a member of a system which assures the efficiency of the diplomatic system.

His training lies in the commissions entrusted to him in military and naval capacities: by super-excellence in the performance of his duties in these departments, he shows himself sufficiently able and efficient to warrant his being trusted with less obvious and more confidential tasks. He works, as do all the members of the German spy system, independently of all other workers for the good of the State. For in every case the spy works alone, lest in compassing his own downfall he should bring about that of others as well. This was a principle inaugurated by Stieber, who believed in trusting no man more than was absolutely unavoidable.

It must not be thought, from these few details of the training given to the official spies of the German system, that every member of the espionage corps is thus trained. Training such as is detailed here is only for the chief spies, the picked men who accomplish great things; few men could come out satisfactorily from the examinations set to these military and naval spies--few men, that is, of the class from which spies are recruited. The spies at "fixed posts," for instance, get very little training, since their duties do not involve nearly as much technical work as do those of the travelling members of the fraternity. Since much of the total of about 780,000 pounds per annum known to be distributed among the members of the German secret service goes to the occupants of these fixed posts, it is obvious that the highly trained spy is in the minority. The highly trained spy, however, forms the nucleus and head of the system--he is a superior officer to the fixed post man or German tutor in a foreign family.

The military and naval branches of the service are controlled by the Great German General Staff, while the diplomatic branch is controlled direct by the German Foreign Office, and, although recruited from among the military and naval branches, is independent of General Staff control.

These divisions of the system must be taken as only approximate, for they interlink and work in and out each other to such an extent that no definite line can be drawn between them as regards actual work. They are all extensions of the plans that Stieber planned, and in all that pertains to the work of German espionage his hand is evident, his work persists, more than twenty years after his death.

Here a word on the influence of Prussian militarism may well be spoken, for the influence of that cast-iron administration is evident even in the organisation of the secret service of Germany. It is now twenty-two years since Stieber passed out from the system, but so unimaginative is the militarist rule of German statecraft that Stieber's ways have not been improved on. They have been altered in minor details, but the plan has been retained, and, though it may be urged that since Stieber's system was the most perfect known there was no need to change it, yet the passing of years has revealed many of the details of that system, and it would have been better for Germany if the espionage system had been more flexible, more experimental. Though the very inner workings of Stieber's system are secrets from ordinary people to this day, they are no secrets from other Governments; the German methods have been copied and improved on by more than one Government, and in some things Germany, which had the only perfect system of espionage in 1870, is actually behind the rest of the world now. For craft has been met with craft, and while the protective measures of other nations have advanced, Germany has stood still.

With regard to matters military, Beyerling emphasises this fully in his book, "Jena or Sedan?" but, of course, no emphasis has been possible in the case of the spy system. Yet evidence is afforded in the trial of Karl Gustav Ernst at Bow Street, to which further reference will be made later, and in many other cases which prove that German spies are known and their methods known to the Governments of other countries, where ample protective measures have been taken. The character of the spy himself is such that changes in the system which controls him are necessary--constant changes--but the mould in which the German mind is shaped is such that this fact has never been sufficiently appreciated, even by the Great German General Staff. The German spy system is still a dangerous organisation, but there are others equally well planned and equally efficient. Had there been another Stieber to take control, Germany might still have had the only perfect system of espionage; but such genius as he displayed only comes once to a people in a century, and a second Stieber has yet to be found in Germany to make its secret service as efficient as in the days when Stieber maintained control.

MILITARY SPIES.

The German system of military espionage can best be studied by an analysis of the working of the system in France from the year 1870 onwards. So far as the outside world is concerned, the military invasion of France by Germany began at the end of July 1870, but in reality the invasion began in the latter half of 1867, when Stieber, chief of the German secret police, began the placing of his fixed posts throughout the country. No less than 30,000 spies were placed in the departments of Northern and Eastern France, and the feats of this army made possible the work accomplished by Von Moltke.

In his Memoirs Stieber relates how Bismarck, when informed that Jules Favre wished to negotiate for the surrender of Paris in 1871, sent for Stieber and instructed him that Favre was to be kept under observation while negotiations were in progress. Bismarck and Favre met at Versailles, where, on Favre's arrival, he was escorted to a carriage driven by one of Stieber's men, and was driven to an establishment on the Boulevard du Roi. This, though Favre was ignorant of the fact, was the headquarters of the German active service police. Favre was courteously received, and presented with a body-servant to whom the highest accomplishments were accredited. The body-servant was none other than Stieber himself.

Certain proposals made by the Minister of the Interior during this period in which Stieber was at the head of the secret police are worth quoting with regard to the establishment of spies throughout France, subsequent to the war of 1870, in order that strict watch might be kept on the conquered country. The proposals were as follows:

"All the fixed agents must hold not merely salaried positions , for they might at any time be dismissed from their posts, and in that case would no longer have any plausible reason for remaining at their points of observation. Such positions, too, possess considerable disadvantage for our agents, in that they restrict their actions and hamper their freedom of going and coming, and bring them too much under notice.

"For these reasons, it must be laid down as a condition of the employment of a spy that he shall be obliged to keep some kind of an establishment, which he may select so long as it is, at least externally, thoroughly in keeping with the commercial or other requirements of the country in which he is engaged. Whatever establishment it be, whether an office for the settlement of disputed claims, or a property register, or a business of a purely commercial land, such as groceries, cafes, restaurants, hotels, etc, it must be soundly established and possess a substantial good-will.

"It must be borne in mind that it is necessary for our agents to inspire confidence in circles where they have their centre of action, and to inspire that confidence by outward indications of a commonplace bourgeois existence; by tactful charity and by making themselves useful in societies, associations, communities, and so forth; and by acquiring strong social positions, so that they may be well received and regarded in all quarters.

"While we must limit the expenditure which our agents are permitted to incur, it is necessary that we should give them absolute assurance that any deficit of the undertaking which they carry on would be made good by the service under the head of general expenses."

Since the annual expenditure of Germany for work of this kind is admitted to amount to 780,000 pounds a year, it may be gathered that the espionage service is a complete one. The sum stated is admittedly spent; how much more is spent it is impossible to conjecture. The spies placed at fixed posts are given salaries varying between two and four pounds a week according to the importance of the post and the duties which the spy is expected to perform. To this is added any out-of-pocket expenses to which the spy may be put in the maintenance of his business or position. These spies at fixed posts are under the control of headquarters at Brussels, Lausanne, and Geneva, whence their salaries are paid monthly under the form of business remittances. There is also a system of inspectorship by means of which each fixed post is visited at regular intervals, either by women or by professed commercial travellers, who collect the written reports in order to avoid possible inspection of these reports by the French postal authorities. Further, this system admits of instructions being given verbally by the travelling inspector to the spy at each fixed post. At the outbreak of the present war the number of fixed spies known to exist in France was over 15,000.

The recruiting of this army of spies was begun by Stieber in 1870, when he requested that there should be sent, to the fourteen departments of France in which occupation was essential to the success of a German attack, about 4,000 farmers, agricultural labourers, and others who should be permanently employed in the several districts, together with an even larger number of women servants to be placed among the various classes of the French population. These, however, were to receive pay from ordinary French commercial sources, and were to be under the control of the higher grade of spies established in businesses or otherwise independently employed at the fixed posts. The latter were specially chosen from among people of Teutonic origin, not only in Germany, but also in Switzerland and Belgium, whence they were sent to take up their posts after receiving the necessary preliminary training to fit them for their work. The occupant of a fixed post at the present time, whether in France or any other country, is nearly always a German, and has at his beck and call a host of other emigrants from Germany, who are legitimately employed in various capacities, have had no government training, and expect no fixed salary for their work. They are the small fry of the business, and do not come into contact with any higher officials than the fixed agent, who enables them to supplement their legitimate salaries by retailing bits of slander and gossip. The absence of one or more of them would make no difference to the system; as a matter of patriotism, they simply retail what they hear to a fellow-countryman, and, in this sense, every German in a foreign country may be reckoned as a spy, though for official purposes only a certain number of secret-service agents exist.

The recognised agent is placed at some point at which he is able to maintain espionage over a garrison, a military post, or something connected with the defensive or offensive organisation of the country concerned. His business at the outset is to be thoroughly agreeable and make himself well liked in the circle in which he moves. Assuming that he is located in a small garrison town, he sets up a business of some kind which will give him admittance to military circles, and, no matter how bad times may be, his business goes on. In the meantime he contributes unostentatiously to charities, attends all entertainments, and does his best to make himself and his business known in the community of which he is a member. Sooner or later, he makes friends out of one or two of his acquaintances; so far as can be seen he leads a benevolent, open, harmless sort of existence, and is a thoroughly good fellow, and eventually he gains close contact with some member of the garrison, either officer or non-commissioned officer. In the latter case, the spy will take care that the non-commissioned officer is in some position of trust where he is able to obtain useful information.

So far as his friends are concerned, the spy proves to be not entirely ignorant of matters military. He manifests a mild interest in drill, formation of troops, fortifications, guns, etc, but he is not in any way keen over these matters. Like any other inhabitant of the country in which he resides, he is willing to discuss the "shop" matters of his associates, and will even indulge in mild arguments, making mistakes and submitting to correction from those more experienced. Gradually he gets more and more into the confidence of his friends, who, while they reveal nothing of importance, let fall a word here and a word there in his hearing, knowing him to be thoroughly trustworthy; out of these various words a fairly detailed report can be compiled. In the meantime, the small fry of the business are constantly bringing gossip. If a new gun is to be mounted, the spy hears about it; if the strength of the garrison is to be altered, the spy is cognisant of the fact; sooner or later, he gets to know domestic details with regard to the officers of the garrison. A certain lieutenant drinks too much, or a captain is very fond of a hand at cards; in the former case the spy is quite willing to drink level with the lieutenant, and in the latter he is willing to lose money to the captain, such money being put down to special expenses, and accounted for in his monthly statement.

It will be seen that in such simple ways these the fixed agent is able to obtain an immense amount of personal and other information by perfectly simple methods. It may be urged that the greater part of this information could be obtained in legitimate ways and with no expense to the German Government; but the system which Stieber inaugurated is above all things thorough, and there is a system at Berlin of tabulating and card-indexing all information received from fixed posts; of analysing, checking, and comparing, until absolute certainty is reached with regard to the accuracy of detail. For instance, a certain newspaper may announce that the armament of certain fortifications has been increased by a new four-inch gun. A fixed agent will add to this information the position of gun, weight of shell, rate of fire per minute, name of officer in control, and the fact that it is mounted on a disappearing platform--details which are noted and checked with a view to their possible usefulness in the future. The extent of this usefulness may be estimated when the fall of Namur or Maubeuge is recalled. The officers in control of the attacking German batteries knew exactly how many guns they had to silence, the position, bore, and rate of fire of these guns, and the points at which their own batteries could best be placed, with a view to fire effect and invisibility. In the case of Maubeuge they knew more: they knew where to find the necessary concrete platforms on which to place their own heavy artillery, in order to silence the French guns--and this must be attributed to the development of the system of fixed posts.

Not only does the Great German General Staff know details of fortifications and technical matters, but it is also kept posted up in the character and abilities of officers who come under the observation of the fixed agent. Reports sent in to headquarters are concerned with personal peculiarities and scandals to an extent undreamed of by the persons concerned. If any officer is open to bribery, the fact is ascertained; if any officer's wife is open to blackmail, the blackmail is instituted, and the price of silence in every case is information with regard to matters of which the husband is cognisant. Further, the topographical information supplied includes details of the nature and state of roads, telegraphs, bridges, depths of rivers and streams, positions of fords, nature and condition of every building and farm, supplies of forage and food, horses available, and every detail which is likely to be of service. The ordnance-maps supplied to German officers are marvels of map-making; every insignificant cottage, stile, clump of trees, and peculiarity of the landscape is indicated, and, by the use of maps of this kind, the march on Paris in 1870 was carried through without a hitch.

In like manner, all preparations for the Prussian advance through Belgium, and the projected victorious march on Paris, were made and completed years ago, with the assistance of the fixed agents. The German entry into Brussels, when 700,000 men marched through a strange city without the slightest confusion, has been described as a triumph of organisation. This it undoubtedly was; but the credit did not lie with the military commander, for the agents who had been busy through many months preparing the way of the army were responsible for that army's successful advance. Officers had only to follow detailed instructions presented to them by headquarters.

With equal care the entry to Paris was planned: quarters were assigned to each regiment of the invading army; each officer knew exactly the part that would be his in the spectacle, and every step of the entry to the French capital had been arranged in detail by German fixed agents, who had resided for many years in Northern France, and in Paris itself, as peaceful citizens. Reports of German occupation of French towns and even photographs from the theatre of war draw attention to various houses on which has been chalked--"Spare this house." In many cases, doubtless, this is intended as a return for unexpectedly hospitable reception, but in many other cases it indicates that the house in question was the residence of a fixed agent, to whom German officers came on their entry to the place in order to learn all that was possible with regard to resources of the town or village, and all that could be told of the movements of the enemy.

It has been urged, and with apparent reason, that the value of espionage ceases as soon as armies take the field, since the work of the spy can only concern preparations for hostilities, and, when war has begun, actual strength decides the issue. This, however, is not the case when German military espionage is in question; in many cases the fixed agents have been so long established at their posts that they rank in the eyes of normal inhabitants as a part of the life of the place, and, by maintaining their positions, they are able to ascertain for the benefit of their own commanders particulars of the dispositions of hostile forces. Elaborate systems of signalling are in use; carrier pigeons are used, but only to a limited extent; the ways of the Red Indians, who made the most perfect spies ever known, are copied in indicating events by the movement of stones, chipping of bark on trees, breaking branches, and other ways little likely to be detected, while the more civilised method of lamp-signalling is also practised. Altogether, the German military spy forms a very efficient and formidable part of the German military force, both before and after the opening of hostilities. His value decreases to a certain extent when action has been entered on, and, in a definite battle like those along the line of the Meuse and the line of the Aisne, he is practically useless, but in case of an advance on the part of the German forces he is invaluable, by reason of the information he can give with regard to the nature of the country and the dispositions of the retreating army.

NAVAL ESPIONAGE.

The routine of naval espionage is very similar in character to that followed by military spies. The naval spy, however, must be a rather more intelligent and highly trained man than his military confrere, and cases that have come to light prove that his position is one of more responsibility, and that he is entrusted with more funds for the carrying out of his work. It is an interesting fact that, for many years past, officers and men of the German naval service have been employed along the East coast of England in compiling extremely detailed plans of places and fortifications. The accuracy of these plans is ascertained by persistent redrawing done by new members of the naval espionage staff, and all changes in building, roadmaking, bridge-construction, and as far as possible the interior work of fortifications, are duly recorded on the Berlin maps. Not that this information is of definite working value at the present time, but the principle of secret-service headquarters is that no item is too trivial for record, and information is acquired without regard to its direct uses, but in view of the fact that it may possibly be of some use at a future date. The adoption of such a principle involves an immense amount of work in checking and sorting the masses of information obtained, but beyond doubt the principle itself has gone far to assure such successes as German arms have obtained, either on land or at sea.

In addition to the work of fixed naval posts, stationed at dockyards and harbours, the work of spies at sea must not be overlooked, either in time of peace or in war. In the former case an innocent-looking trawler or private yacht is useful for taking soundings, ascertaining channels, and even locating naval mines used for purposes of harbour defence and fired by land contact. In time of war the services which may be performed by such vessels are even more valuable; the reports of the sinking of three British cruisers by German submarine attack are fairly unanimous with regard to the presence of a trawler in the vicinity of the spot at which the engagement took place. All that can be definitely learned with regard to this trawler is that she was not a British boat, and it is reasonable to assume that her business consisted in signalling to the submarines particulars which they may have been unable to obtain themselves, or in shielding them from sight during their approach towards the cruisers. Although there are no substantial proofs of this assumption, it is hardly likely that the vessel was a trawler engaged in usual and legitimate business.

The system of counter-espionage thus evidenced on the part of a foreign Government has its counterpart in the British service. Since Britain is the most powerful enemy Germany has to fear in a naval sense, it follows that German naval espionage is principally directed against Britain, and that the establishment of naval spies is greater in this country than in any other. It is safe to say, however, that the majority of the fixed posts of the German naval service in Britain are known to the police, and that, as soon as information which, in the opinion of the British naval authorities, is of value, is in danger of being communicated to Germany, action is taken to prevent the transmission of the spies' reports to headquarters. A case in point is that of Doctor Max Schulz, who, charged with espionage at Devon Assizes, was sentenced to a year and nine months' imprisonment for acts attempted rather than acts committed.

The charges against Schulz, as outlined by the Attorney-General in opening the case, were four in number. The first charge was that, in the summer of 1911: "He, at the borough of Plymouth, having possession or control over knowledge which had been obtained by means of an act which constituted an offence against the Official Secrets Act, communicated or attempted to communicate the same to a person to whom the same ought not in the interest of the State to be communicated at the time." The second charge amplified the first in that Schulz was accused of having intended to communicate his illegally gained knowledge to the Government of a foreign State. The third and fourth counts against him were that he had "endeavoured to procure Samuel Hugh Duff and Edward Charles Tarrant respectively to communicate to him information relating to the naval affairs of His Majesty which ought not in the interests of the State to be communicated to any person."

Sir Rufus Isaacs stated, in his outline of the case for the prosecution, that Schulz had offered Duff a salary of 500 pounds a year, with a possibility of this sum being doubled, for confidential information. Schulz alleged that the confidential information in question would be published in a German newspaper, but, at the time of Schulz's arrest, there had been found in his possession a letter which proved the purpose for which the information was required. One passage of the letter which was read in court is enlightening as regards the detailed information required of German naval spies. The passage is as follows:

"How do matters stand with the commander and lieutenant respectively? Can nothing at all be expected from them? Reserve officers are no use. They do not procure any valuable secrets because they do not have access to them. Confidential books and reports are what is wanted, and what you must procure at all costs if our relations are to continue."

Sir Rufus Isaacs stated, and the evidence proved, that a man named Tobler, who did not visit England, kept Schulz supplied with money. A number of telegrams were produced, written in code, of which the prosecution had found the key. The deciphered telegrams read: "In greatest danger. Wire immediately 50 pounds."

"In greater trouble and danger. All prepared for departure. Wire immediately 50 pounds and date of meeting." Instructions from Tobler to Schulz included a list of questions which Schulz was to put to Mr Duff, and the list included the following:

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