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+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75931 ***
+
+
+
+
+
+MY ADVENTURES AS A GERMAN SECRET AGENT
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Bridgeman H. Taylor passport upon which von der Goltz
+returned to Germany and later went to England. In the upper right hand
+corner is the visé of the American Embassy at Berlin.]
+
+
+
+
+                              My Adventures
+                                   AS A
+                           German Secret Agent
+
+                                    BY
+                        CAPT. HORST VON DER GOLTZ
+            FORMERLY MAJOR IN THE MEXICAN CONSTITUTIONAL ARMY.
+             SOMETIME CONFIDENTIAL AIDE TO CAPTAIN VON PAPEN,
+                RECALLED MILITARY ATTACHÉ TO THE IMPERIAL
+                      GERMAN EMBASSY AT WASHINGTON,
+                           GERMAN SECRET AGENT.
+
+                              _ILLUSTRATED_
+
+                                 NEW YORK
+                       ROBERT M. McBRIDE & COMPANY
+                                   1917
+
+                             Copyright, 1917
+                                    by
+                       ROBERT M. MCBRIDE & COMPANY
+
+                             Published, 1917
+
+
+
+
+“One must at times separate a gentleman and a diplomat from his official
+acts performed under orders from his home government, otherwise great
+confusion and injustice will occur. Some governments have a little way of
+telling those who represent them abroad ... to get such and such a thing
+done, and done it must be. Nor would those high Government officials at
+home care often to hear painful details of the successful execution of
+many such orders which are given.”
+
+                 from _“The Strangling of Persia,” by W. Morgan Shuster_.
+
+
+
+
+                                  TO THE
+                    UNITED STATES OF GERMANY—WHENEVER
+                          THEY MAY COME TO BE—I
+                     DEDICATE THIS BOOK AND MY HOPES.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    CHAPTER                                                           PAGE
+
+       Foreword                                                          1
+
+     I—I find an old letter, containing a strange bit of scandal—and
+         its contents draw me into the service of the Kaiser             5
+
+    II—I Impersonate a Russian Prince and steal a treaty. What the
+         treaty contained and how Germany made use of the knowledge     22
+
+   III—Of what comes of leaving important papers exposed. I look
+         and talk indiscreetly—and a man dies                           45
+
+    IV—I am sent to Geneva and learn of a plot. How there are more
+         ways of getting rid of a King than by blowing him up with
+         dynamite                                                       61
+
+     V—Germany displays an interest in Mexico, and aids the United
+         States for her own purposes. The Japanese-Mexican treaty
+         and its share in the downfall of Diaz                          88
+
+    VI—My letter again. I go to America and become a United States
+         soldier. Sent to Mexico and sentenced to death there. I
+         join Villa’s army and gain an undeserved reputation           111
+
+   VII—War. I re-enter the German service and am appointed aide to
+         Captain von Papen. The German conception of neutrality and
+         how to make use of it. The plot against the Welland Canal     151
+
+  VIII—I go to Germany on a false passport. Italy in the early
+         days of the war. I meet the Kaiser and talk to him about
+         Mexico and the United States                                  173
+
+    IX—In England—and how I reached there. I am arrested and
+         imprisoned for fifteen months. What von Papen’s baggage
+         contained. I make a sworn statement                           190
+
+     X—The German intrigue against the United States. Von Papen,
+         Boy-Ed and von Rintelen, and the work they did. How the
+         German-Americans were used and how they were betrayed         212
+
+    XI—More about the German intrigue against the United States.
+         German aims in Latin America. Japan and Germany in Mexico.
+         What happened in Cuba?                                        236
+
+   XII—The last stand of German intrigue. Germany’s spy system in
+         America. What is coming?                                      264
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+  The false passport upon which Capt. von der Goltz went to
+    England                                                   FRONTISPIECE
+
+                                                               FACING PAGE
+
+  Photograph of Capt. von der Goltz taken outside the Cuartel at
+    Juarez                                                              28
+
+  Raul Madero and his staff                                             42
+
+  A group of recruits in Villa’s Army                                   42
+
+  Von der Goltz’s commission as Major in the Mexican
+    Constitutional Army                                                 64
+
+  Colonel Trinidad Rodriguez, Capt. von der Goltz’s first
+    commander, and General Villa                                        88
+
+  General Raul Madero                                                   88
+
+  A telegram from General Villa to Capt. von der Goltz                 112
+
+  A group of Constitutional soldiers                                   124
+
+  The six months’ leave of absence from the Mexican Army, granted
+    to Capt. von der Goltz at the outbreak of the European War         140
+
+  A letter of recommendation given to Capt. von der Goltz by Raul
+    Madero                                                             140
+
+  A letter from Dr. Kraske, German vice-consul at New York to
+    “Baron” von der Goltz                                              152
+
+  Captain von Papen’s letter to the German consuls at Baltimore
+    and St. Paul, asking for their assistance in Capt. von der
+    Goltz’s enterprise                                                 166
+
+  How Capt. von der Goltz secured explosives for his Welland
+    Canal Expedition. Two communications from Capt. Tauscher           178
+
+  Bills from the du Pont de Nemours Powder Co. for “merchandise”
+    furnished Capt. von der Goltz                                      180
+
+  The check which almost cost Capt. von der Goltz his life             196
+
+  Safe Deposit receipts for papers which von der Goltz left in
+    Rotterdam                                                          210
+
+  The British order for the deportation of Capt. von der Goltz         240
+
+  Photograph of the cover of the British white paper containing
+    Capt. von der Goltz’s confession                                   256
+
+
+
+
+FOREWORD.
+
+
+I have not attempted to write an autobiography. This book is merely
+a summary—a sort of galloping summary—of the last ten years of my
+existence. As such, I venture to write it because my life has been bound
+up in enterprises in which the world is interested. It has been my
+fortune to be a witness and sometimes an actor in that drama of secret
+diplomacy which has been going on for so long and which in such a large
+way has been responsible for this war.
+
+There are many scenes from that drama that have no place in this
+book—many events with which I am familiar that I have not touched upon.
+My aim has been to describe only those things with which I was personally
+concerned and which I know to be true. For a full history of the last
+ten years my readers must go elsewhere; but it is my hope that these
+adventures of mine will bring them to a better understanding of the
+forces that have for so long been undermining the peace of the world.
+
+Inevitably there will be some who read this book, who will doubt the
+truth of many of the statements in it. I cannot, unfortunately, prove all
+that I tell here. Wherever possible I have offered corroborative evidence
+of the truth of my statements; at other times I have tried to indicate
+their credibility by citing well recognized facts which have a direct
+bearing upon my contentions. But for the rest, I can only hope that this
+book will be accepted as a true record of facts which by their very
+nature are insusceptible of proof.
+
+So far as my connection with the German Government is concerned, I
+may refer the curious to the British Parliamentary White Papers,
+Miscellaneous Nos. 6 and 13, which contain respectively my confession
+and a record of the papers found in the possession of Captain von Papen,
+former military attaché to the German Embassy at Washington, and seized
+by the British authorities on January 2 and 3, 1916. There are also, in
+addition to the documents reproduced in this book, various court records
+of the trial of Captain Hans Tauscher and others in the spring of the
+same year. Of German activities in the United States, the newspapers bear
+eloquent testimony. I have been concerned rather with the motives of
+the German Government than with a statement of what has been done. These
+motives, I believe, you will not doubt.
+
+But there is one point which I must ask my readers not to overlook. I
+have told that I became a secret agent through the discovery of a certain
+letter which contained very serious reflections upon one of the most
+important personages in the world. I have told, also, how the possession
+of that letter had an important bearing upon the course of my life—how
+it led me to America, and how in the struggle for its possession, I very
+nearly lost my life. This, I know, will be severely questioned by many.
+Before rejecting this part of my story, I ask merely that you consider
+the fate that overtook Koglmeier, the saddler of El Paso, whose only
+crime was that he had been partially in my confidence. I ask you to
+recall that another German, Lesser, who had been associated with me at
+the same time, mysteriously disappeared in 1915, shortly before von Papen
+left for Europe. No one has been able to prove why these men were treated
+as they were. And if I did not have in my possession _something_ which
+the German Government regarded as highly important, why the surprising
+actions of that Government, actions none the less astonishing because
+they are well known and authenticated? Consider these things before you
+doubt.
+
+Finally, let me say that I have taken the liberty of changing or omitting
+the names of various people who are mentioned in these adventures,
+merely because I have had no wish to compromise them by disclosing their
+identity.
+
+[Illustration: H. von der Goltz]
+
+New York, July 8, 1917.
+
+
+
+
+_ERRATA_
+
+
+_Page 5. Chapter I. First line_: March 28th, 1917 should read March 29th,
+1916.
+
+_Page 41_: Kut el Amerara should read Kut el Amara.
+
+_Page 140. Last two paragraphs_: December 23rd should read December 20th.
+
+_Page 171. Second paragraph_: October 8th should read October 3rd, 1914.
+
+=Transcriber’s Note:= The errata have been corrected.
+
+
+
+
+My Adventures as a German Secret Agent
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+    _I find an old letter, containing a strange bit of scandal—and
+    its contents draw me into the service of the Kaiser._
+
+
+On March 29th, 1916, the steamer _Finland_ was warped into its Hudson
+River dock and I hurried down the gang plank. I was not alone. Agents
+of the United States Department of Justice had met me at Quarantine;
+and a man from Scotland Yard was there also—a man who had attended me
+sedulously since, barely two weeks before, I had been released under
+rather unusual circumstances from Lewes prison in England; the last of
+four English prisons in which I had spent fifteen months in solitary
+confinement waiting for the day of my execution.
+
+My friend from Scotland Yard left me very shortly; soon after, I was
+testifying for the United States Government against Capt. Hans Tauscher,
+husband of Mme. Johanna Gadski, the diva. Tauscher, American agent of
+the Krupps and of the German Government, was charged with complicity in
+a plot to blow up the Welland Canal in Canada during the first month of
+the Great War. During the course of the trial it was shown that von Papen
+and others (including myself) had entered into a conspiracy to violate
+the neutrality of the United States. I had led the expedition against the
+Welland Canal and I was telling everything I knew about it. Doubtless you
+remember the newspapers of the day.
+
+You will remember how, at that time, the magnitude of the German plot
+against the neutrality of the United States became finally apparent. You
+will remember how, in connection with my exposure came the exposure of
+von Igel, of Rintelen, of the German Consul-General at San Francisco,
+Bopp, and many others. With all of these men I was familiar. In the
+activities of some of them I was implicated. It was I, as I have said,
+who planned the details of the Welland Canal plot. I shall tell the true
+story of these activities later on.
+
+But first let me tell the story of how I became to be concerned in these
+plots—and to do that I must go back over many years; I must tell how I
+first became a member of the Kaiser’s Secret Diplomatic Force (to give
+it a name) and incidentally I shall describe for the first time the real
+workings of that force.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I have been in and out of the Kaiser’s web for ten years. I have served
+him faithfully in many capacities and in many places—all over Europe,
+in Mexico, even in the United States. I served the German Government as
+long as I believed it to be representing the interests of my countrymen.
+But from the moment that I became convinced that the men who made up
+the Government—the Hohenzollerns, the Junkers and the bureaucrats—were
+anxious merely to preserve their own power, even at the expense of
+Germany itself, my attitude toward them changed. That is why I write this
+book—and why I shall tell what I know of the aims and ambitions of these
+men—enemies of Germany as well as of the rest of the world.
+
+I was not a spy; nor was I a secret service agent. I was, rather, a
+secret diplomatic agent. Let me add that there is a nice distinction
+between the three. A secret diplomatic agent is a man who directs
+spies, who studies their reports, who pieces together various bits of
+information, and who, when he has the fabric complete, personally makes
+his report to the highest authority or carries that particular plan to
+its desired conclusion. His work and his status are of various sorts.
+Unlike the spy, he is a user, not a getter, of information. He is a free
+lance, responsible only to the Foreign Office; a plotter; an unofficial
+intermediary in many negotiations; and frequently he differs from an
+accredited diplomatic representative, only in that his activities and
+his office are essentially secret. Obviously men of this type must be
+highly trained and reliable; and their constant association with men of
+authority makes it necessary that they, themselves, be men of breeding
+and education. But above all, they must possess the courage that shrinks
+at no danger, and a devotion, a patriotism that knows no scruples.
+
+This, then, was the calling into which I found myself plunged, while
+still a boy, by one of the strangest chances that ever befell me, whose
+life has been full of strange happenings.
+
+As I recall my adolescence I realize that I was a normal boy, vigorous,
+wilful, fond of sport, of horses, dogs and guns, and I know that but for
+the chance I speak of, I should have grown up to the traditions of our
+family—Cadet school—the University—later a lieutenancy in the German
+Army—and to-day, perhaps, death “somewhere in France.”
+
+And yet, in that boyhood that I am recalling, I can remember that there
+were other interests which were far greater than the games that I loved,
+as did all lads of my age. Mental adventure, the matching of wits against
+wits for stakes of reputation and fortune, always exercised an uncanny
+fascination over my mind. That delight in intrigue was shown by the books
+I read as a boy. In the library of my father’s house there were many
+novels, books of poems, of biography, travel, philosophy and history; but
+I passed them by unread. His few volumes of court gossip and so-called
+“secret history” I seized with avidity. I used to bear off the memoirs of
+Maréchal Richelieu, the Cardinal’s nephew, and read them in my room when
+the rest of the household was asleep.
+
+I recall, too, that there was another tendency already developed in me. I
+see it in my dealings with other boys of that day. It was the impulse to
+make other people my instruments, not by direct command or appeal, but by
+leading them to do, apparently for themselves, what I needed of them.
+
+Such was I, when my aunt who had cared for me since the death of my
+parents some years before, fell ill and later died. I was disconsolate
+for a time and wandered about through the halls and chambers of the
+house, seeking amusement. And it was thus that one day I came upon an
+old chest in the room that had been hers. I remembered that chest. There
+were letters in it—letters that had been written to her by friends made
+in the old days when she was at court. Often she had read me passages
+from them—bits of gossip about this or that personage whom she had once
+known—occasionally, even, mention of the Kaiser.
+
+Doubtless, too, I thought, there were passages which she had not seen fit
+to read to me: some more intimate bits of gossip about those brilliant
+men and women in Berlin whom I then knew only as names. With the eager
+curiosity of a boy I sought the key, and in a moment had unlocked the
+chest.
+
+There they lay, those neat, faded bundles, slightly yellow, addressed
+in a variety of hands. Idly I selected a packet and glanced over the
+envelopes it contained, lingering, in anticipation of the revelations
+that might be in them. I must have read a dozen letters before my eye
+fell upon the envelope that so completely changed my life.
+
+It lay in a corner of the chest, as if hidden from too curious eyes—a
+yellow square of paper, distinguished from its fellows by the quality of
+the stationery alone, and by its appearance of greater age. But I knew,
+before I had read fifty words of it, that I was holding in my hands a
+document that was more explosive than dynamite!
+
+For this letter, written to my aunt years before, by one of the most
+exalted personages in all of Germany, contained statements which, had
+they been made by any one else, would have been treason to utter, and
+_which cast the most serious doubts upon the legitimacy of the Kaiser,
+Wilhelm II_.
+
+I realize fully that what I have written will seem grossly improbable to
+most of my readers. I know that few persons will believe me. And since
+I cannot prove what I have said, since the letter is no longer in my
+possession, I can ask you only to consider the facts and to weigh for
+yourself the probabilities of my statement.
+
+Those of you whose memories go back to the last twenty years of the
+nineteenth century, will readily recall the notorious ill-feeling that
+existed between Wilhelm II and his mother, Victoria, the Dowager Empress
+Friederich. Stories have too often been told of this enmity, culminating
+in the virtual banishment from Berlin of the Queen Mother, for me to
+need do more than mention them. But what is not so generally known is
+the small esteem in which Victoria was held by the entire German people.
+During the twenty years of her married life as the wife of the then
+Crown Prince Friederich, she was treated by Berlin society with the
+most thinly-veiled hostility. Even Bismarck made no attempt to conceal
+his dislike for her, and accused her—to quote his own words—of having
+“poisoned the fountain of Hohenzollern blood at its source.”
+
+Victoria, for her part, although she seems to have had no animosity
+toward the German people, certainly possessed little love for her eldest
+son, and did her best to delay his ascension to the Imperial throne as
+long as she could. When in 1888 Wilhelm I was dying, she tried her utmost
+to secure the succession to her husband, who was then lying dangerously
+ill at San Remo. “Cancer,” the physicians pronounced the trouble, and
+even the great German specialist, Bergman, agreed with their diagnosis.
+There is a law that prevents any one with an incurable disease, such
+as cancer, from ascending the Prussian throne; but Victoria knew too
+well the attitude of her son, Wilhelm, toward herself, not to wish to do
+everything in her power to prevent him from becoming Emperor so long as
+she could. In her extremity she appealed to her mother, Queen Victoria of
+England, who sent Mackenzie, the great English surgeon, to San Remo to
+report on Friederich’s condition. Mackenzie opposed Bergman and said the
+disease was _not_ cancer; and the physicians inserted a silver tube in
+Friederich’s throat, and in due course he became Emperor Friederich III.
+
+But in spite of Mackenzie and the silver tube, Friederich III died after
+a reign of ninety-eight days—and he died of cancer.
+
+Now what was the reason for this hostility between mother and son
+and between Empress and subjects? There have been many answers
+given—Victoria’s love for England, her colossal lack of tact, her
+impatient unconventionality. Berlin whispered of a dinner in Holland
+years before, when Victoria had entertained some English people she
+met there—people she had never seen before—and had finished her
+repast by smoking a cigar. That in the days when the sight of a
+woman smoking horrified the German soul! And Berlin hinted at worse
+unconventionalities than this.
+
+As for the animosity of the Kaiser, that was attributed to the fact that
+he held her responsible for his withered left arm.
+
+Plausible reasons, all of these, and possibly true. But consider, if
+you will, the rumors that followed Victoria all her life—the story of
+an early attachment to the Count Seckendorf, her husband’s associate
+during the Seven Weeks’ War of 1866—the reports, sometimes denied but
+generally believed, of her marriage to the Count not long before her
+death. Consider, too, the dissimilarity between the Kaiser and the other
+men of his race—big, slow-minded, amiable men—so unlike Wilhelm II, with
+his aggressive, alert personality, his quick mind and his Piedmontese
+face. And can you not imagine the attitude of a woman who had been guilty
+of infidelity and yet retained her sense of national honor—the hesitancy
+she might feel at seeing the child of this infidelity upon the throne,
+and so perpetrating a gigantic fraud upon a people and a husband whom she
+respected if she did not love? And have not women been known to hate,
+rather than love, the offspring of a guilty union?
+
+True or not, these suppositions—what does it matter? You can see, can
+you not, why I believed that my letter told the truth, and why I knew
+that here was a plaything which would astound the world, if made public?
+
+But what to do with this letter to which I attached so much importance?
+Something impelled me not to speak of it to my family. But who else was
+there?
+
+In my perplexity I did an utterly foolish thing. I put my whole
+confidence in a man’s word. There was, serving at a nearby fortress, a
+General Major von Dassel, who was in the habit of coming to our house
+quite regularly. To him I went, and under pledge of silence I told him my
+story. Of course, he broke the pledge and left immediately for Berlin.
+All doubts, if I had any, as to the importance of the document vanished
+with him. And if I had any misgivings concerning my own importance they
+quickly vanished, too. Back from Berlin, with General Major von Dassel
+came an agent of the _Reichs Kanzler_. He did not come to our house;
+instead von Dassel sent for me to go to his headquarters in the fortress.
+I met there a solemn frock-coated personage who, so he said, had come
+down from Berlin especially to see me. Imagine my elation! I was in
+my element; what I had hoped for had at last happened. The pages of
+Richelieu and of my secret histories were coming true. Another man and I
+were to lock our wits in a fight to the finish—that pleasure I promised
+myself. He was a worthy opponent, an official, a professional intriguer.
+As I looked into his serious, bearded face, I built romances about him.
+
+The agent of the Chancellor wanted my document and my pledge to keep
+silent about its contents. Through sheer love of combat, I refused him
+on both points. He tried persuasion and reason. I was adamant. He tried
+cajolery.
+
+“It is plain,” he said, in a voice that was caressingly agreeable, “that
+you are an extremely clever young man. I have never before met your
+like—that is, at your age. A great career will be possible to such a
+young man if only he shows himself eager to serve his government, eager
+to meet the wishes of his Chancellor.”
+
+Of course, I was delighted with this flattery, which I felt was entirely
+deserved. I began to believe that I was a person of importance. I became
+stubborn—which always has been one of my best and worst traits. I saw
+that the gentleman in the frock-coat was becoming angry; his serious eyes
+flashed. Apparently much against his will, he tried threats; he suavely
+pointed out that if I persisted in my resolve not to turn over the
+document, destruction yawned at my feet. The threats touched off the fuse
+of my romanticism. I felt I was leading the life of intrigue of which I
+had read.
+
+“If you will wait here,” I told him, “I shall go home and get the
+document for you.”
+
+The Chancellor’s representative stroked his beard, deliberated a moment
+and seemed uncertain.
+
+“Oh, the Junge will come back all right,” put in the General Major von
+Dassel. But the Junge did not come back. My family had always been
+excessively liberal with money, and I had enough in my own little “war
+chest” to buy a railroad ticket, and a considerable amount besides. So
+I promptly ran off to Paris; and to this day I don’t know how long the
+gentleman in the frock-coat waited for me in von Dassel’s office.
+
+The terrors and thrills and delight of that panic stricken flight
+still make me smile. No peril I have since been through was half as
+exciting.... Berlin!... Köln!... Brussels! It was a race against
+apprehension. I was happily frightened, much as a colt is, when it shies
+at its own shadow. Although I was in long trousers and looked years
+older than I was, I had not sense enough to see the affair in its true
+light—a foolish escapade which was quite certain to have disagreeable
+consequences. And so I fled from Berlin to Paris.
+
+From Paris I fled, too. There, any circumstance struck my fevered
+imagination as being suspicious. After a day in the French capital,
+I scurried south to Nice and from Nice to Monte Carlo. Precocious
+youngster, indeed, for there I had my first experience with that favored
+figure of the novelist, the woman secret agent. No novelist, I venture to
+say, would ever have picked her out of the Riviera crowd as being what
+she was. She wore no air of mystery; and though attractive enough in a
+quiet way, she was very far from the siren type in looks or manners. The
+friendliness that she, a woman of the mid-thirties, showed a lonely boy
+was perfectly natural. I should never have guessed her to be an agent
+of the Wilhelmstrasse had she not chosen to let me know it. Of course,
+the moment she spoke to me of “my document,” I knew she had made my
+acquaintance with a purpose. If the dear old frock-coated agent of the
+Chancellor had been asleep, the telegraph wires from Berlin to Paris and
+Nice and Monte Carlo had been quite awake.
+
+The proof that I was actually watched and waited for thrilled me anew.
+It also alarmed me when my friend explained how deeply my government was
+affronted. Soon the alarm outgrew the thrill and in the end I quite broke
+down. Then the woman in her, touched with pity, apparently displaced the
+adventuress. We took counsel together and she showed me a way out.
+
+“Your document,” she said, “has a Russian as well as a German importance.
+Why not try Petersburg since Berlin is hostile? For the sake of what you
+bring, Russia might give shelter and protection.”
+
+Remember, I was very young and she was all kindness. Yes, she discovered
+for me the avenue of escape and she set my foot upon it in the most
+motherly way. And I unknowingly took my first humble lesson in the great
+art of intrigue. For as I learned years afterwards, that woman was not a
+German agent but a Russian!
+
+But at that time I was all innocent gratitude for her kindness. I was
+thankful enough to proceed to Petersburg by way of Italy, Constantinople
+and Odessa. Of course, she must have designated a man unknown to me to
+travel with me, and make sure that I reached the Russian capital. To my
+hotel in Petersburg, just as the woman had predicted, came an officer of
+the political police, who courteously asked me not to leave the building
+for twenty-four hours. The next day the man from the _Okrana_ came again.
+This time he had a droshky waiting, with one of those bull-necked, blue
+corduroy-robed, muscular Russian jehus on the box. We were driven down
+the Nevsky-Prospect to a palace. Here I soon found myself in the presence
+of a man I did not then know as Count Witte. He greeted me kindly, merely
+remarking that he had heard I was in some difficulties, and offering me
+aid and advice. My letter was not referred to and the interview ended.
+
+So began the process of drawing me out. A fortnight later the matter of
+my information was broached openly and the suggestion was made that if I
+delivered it to the Russian Government, high officials would be friendly
+and a career assured me in Russia, as I grew up. But by that time Germany
+had changed her attitude. Her agents also reached me in St. Petersburg.
+From them I received new assurance of the importance of the document. If
+I would release it—so the German agent who came to my hotel told me—and
+keep my tongue still, Berlin would pardon my indiscretion and assure
+me a career at home. Russia or Germany? My decision was quickly made.
+That very night I was smuggled out of Petersburg and whisked across the
+frontier at Alexandrovna, into Germany; and the letter passed out of my
+hands—for the time being.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+    _I Impersonate a Russian Prince and steal a treaty. What the
+    treaty contained and how Germany made use of the knowledge._
+
+
+Gross Lichterfelde! As I write, it all comes back to me clearly, in spite
+of the full years that have passed—this, my first home in Berlin. A huge
+pile of buildings set in a suburb of the city, grim and military in
+appearance; and in fact, as I soon discovered.
+
+I was to become a cadet, it seems; and where in Germany could one receive
+better training than in this same Gross Lichterfelde?
+
+At home I had had some small experience with the exactions of the
+_gymnasium_; but now I found that this was but so much child’s play
+in comparison to the life at Gross Lichterfelde. We were drilled
+and dragooned from morning till night: mathematics, history, the
+languages—they were not taught us, they were literally pounded into us.
+And the military training! I am not unfamiliar with the curricula of
+Sandhurst, of St. Cyr, even of West Point, but I honestly believe that
+the training we had to undergo was fully as arduous and as technical as
+at any of those schools. And we were only boys.
+
+Military strategy and tactics; sanitation; engineering; chemistry; in
+fact, any and every study that could conceivably be of use to these
+future officers of the German Army; to all of these must we apply
+ourselves with the utmost diligence. And woe to the student who shirked!
+
+Then there was the endless drilling, that left us with sore muscles and
+minds so worn with the monotony of it that we turned even to our studies
+with relief. And the supervision! Our very play was regulated.
+
+Can you wonder that we hated it and likened the cadet school to a prison?
+And can you imagine how galling it was to me, who had come to Berlin
+seeking romance and found drudgery?
+
+But we learned. Oh, yes. The war has shown how well we learned.
+
+There was one relief from the constant study which was highly prized by
+all the cadets at Gross Lichterfelde. It was the custom to select from
+our school a number of youths to act as pages at the Imperial court;
+and lucky were the ones who were detailed to this service. It meant a
+vacation, at the very least, to say nothing of a change from the Spartan
+fare of the cadet school.
+
+I must have been a student for a full three months before my turn came;
+long enough, at any rate, for me to receive the news of my selection
+with the utmost delight. But I had not been on service at the Imperial
+Palace for more than a few days when a state dinner was given in honor
+of a guest at court. He was a young prince of a certain grand-ducal
+house, which by blood was half Russian and half German. I recall the
+appearance of myself and the other pages, as we were dressed for the
+function. Ordinarily we wore a simple undress cadet uniform, but that
+evening a striking costume was provided: nothing less than a replica
+of the garb of a mediaeval herald—tabard and all—for Wilhelm II has a
+flair for the feudal. From my belt hung a capacious pouch, which, pages
+of longer standing than I assured me, was the most important part of my
+equipment; since by custom the ladies were expected to keep these pouches
+comfortably filled with sweetmeats. Candy for a cadet! No wonder every
+boy welcomed his turn at page duty, and went back reluctantly to the
+asceticism of Gross Lichterfelde.
+
+That was my first sight of an Imperial dinner. The great banquet
+hall that overlooks the square on the Ufer, was ablaze with lights.
+The guests—the men in their uniforms even more than the women—made a
+brilliant spectacle to the eyes of a youngster from the provinces; but
+most brilliant of all was Wilhelm II, resplendent in the full dress
+uniform of a field marshal. I can recall him as he sat there, lordly,
+arrogant, yet friendly, but never seeming to forget the monarch in the
+host. It seemed to me that he loved to disconcert a guest with his
+remarks; it delighted him to set the table laughing at some one’s else
+expense.
+
+By chance, during the banquet, it fell to me to render service to the
+young prince. Once, as I moved behind his chair, a German Princess
+exclaimed, “Oh, doesn’t the page resemble his Highness?”
+
+The Kaiser looked at me sharply.
+
+“Yes,” he agreed, “they might well be twins.” Then, impulsively lifting
+up his glass, he flourished it toward the Russo-German prince and drank
+to him.
+
+That was all there was to the incident—then. I returned to Gross
+Lichterfelde the next morning, and proceeded to think no more of the
+matter. Nor did it come to my mind when a few weeks later, I was
+suddenly summoned to Berlin, and driven, with one of my instructors, to
+a private house in a street I did not know. (It was the Wilhelmstrasse,
+and the residence stood next to Number 75, the Foreign Office. It was
+the house Berlin speaks of as Samuel Meyer’s _Bude_—in other words, the
+private offices of the Chancellor and His Imperial Majesty.)
+
+We entered a room, bare save for a desk or two and a portrait of Wilhelm
+I, where my escort surrendered me to an official, who silently surveyed
+me, comparing his observations with a paper he held, which apparently
+contained my personal measurements. Later a photograph was taken of me,
+and then I was bidden to wait. I waited for several hours, it seemed to
+me, before a second official appeared—a large, round-faced man, soldierly
+despite his stoutness—who greeted my escort politely and, taking a
+photograph from his pocket, proceeded to scrutinize me carefully. After a
+moment he turned to my escort.
+
+“Has he any identifying marks on his body?” he asked.
+
+My escort assured him that there were none.
+
+“Good!” he exclaimed; and a moment later we were driving back toward
+Gross Lichterfelde—I quite at sea about the whole affair, but not daring
+to ask questions about it. Idle curiosity was not encouraged among cadets.
+
+I was not to remain in ignorance for long, however. A few days later I
+was ordered to pack my clothing, and with it was transferred to a quiet
+hotel on the Dorotheen Strasse. The hotel was not far from the War
+Academy, and there I was placed under the charge of an exasperatingly
+puttering tutor, who strove to perfect me on but three points. He
+insisted that my French be impeccable; he made me study the private and
+detailed history of a certain Russian house; and he was most particular
+about the way I walked and ate, about my knowledge of Russian ceremonies
+and customs—in a word, about my deportment in general.
+
+The weeks passed. At last, by dint of much hard work, I became
+sufficiently expert in my studies to satisfy my tutor. I was taken back
+to the house on the Wilhelmstrasse, where the round-faced man again
+inspected me. He talked with me at length in French, made me walk before
+him and asked me innumerable questions about the family history of
+the house I had been studying. Finally he drew a photograph from his
+pocket—the same, I fancy, which had figured in our previous interview.
+
+“Do you recognize this face?” he inquired, offering me the picture.
+
+I started. It might have been my own likeness. But no! That uniform
+was never mine. Then in a moment I realized the truth and with the
+realization the whole mystery of the last few weeks began to be clear to
+me. The photograph was a portrait of the young Prince Z——; my double,
+whom I had served at the banquet.
+
+“It is a very remarkable likeness,” said the round-faced man. “And it
+will be of good service to the Fatherland.”
+
+He eyed me for a moment impressively before continuing.
+
+“You are to go to Russia,” he told me. “Prince Z—— has been invited to
+visit his family in St. Petersburg, and he has accepted the invitation.
+But unfortunately Prince Z—— has discovered that he cannot go. You will,
+therefore become the Prince—for the time being. You will visit your
+family, note everything that is said to you and report to your tutor,
+Herr ——, who will accompany you and give you further instructions.
+
+“This is an important mission,” he added solemnly, “but I have no doubt
+that you will comport yourself satisfactorily. You have been taught
+everything that is necessary; and you have already shown yourself a young
+man of spirit and some discretion. We rely upon both of these qualities.”
+He bowed in dismissal of us, but as we turned to go he spoke again.
+
+[Illustration: This photograph, taken outside the Cuartel at Juarez,
+Mexico, shows von der Goltz (at the right), then a Major in the Mexican
+Army, and Lieut. Leiva, a Mexican officer later reported killed in
+battle.]
+
+“Remember,” he was saying. “From this day you are no longer a cadet. You
+are a prince. Act accordingly.”
+
+That was all. We were out of the door and halfway to our hotel before I
+realized to the full the great adventure I had embarked upon. Embarked?
+Shanghaied would be the better term. I had had no choice in the matter,
+whatsoever. I had not even uttered a word during the interview.
+
+At any rate, that night I left for Petrograd—still St. Petersburg at that
+time—accompanied by my tutor and two newly engaged valets, who did not
+know the real Prince. Of what was ahead I had no idea, but as my tutor
+had no doubts of the success of our mission, I wasted little time in
+speculating upon the future.
+
+What the real prince’s motive was in agreeing to the masquerade, and
+where he spent his time while I was in Russia, I have never been able to
+discover. From what followed, I surmise that he was strongly pro-German
+in his sympathies but distrusted his ability to carry through the task in
+hand.
+
+In St. Petersburg I discovered that my “relatives”—whom I had known to
+be very exalted personages—were inclined to be more than hospitable to
+this young kinsman whom they had not seen in a long time. I found myself
+petted and spoiled to a delightful degree; indeed I had a truly princely
+time. The only drawback was that, as the constant admonitions of my
+tutor reminded me, I could spend my princely wealth only in such ways as
+my—shall I say, predecessor?—would have done. He, alas, was apparently a
+graver youth than I.
+
+So two weeks passed, while I was beginning to wish that the masquerade
+would continue indefinitely, when one day my tutor sent for me.
+
+“So,” he said, “We have had play enough, not so? Now we shall have work.”
+
+In a few words he explained the situation to me. Russia, it seemed, was
+about to enter into an agreement with England, regarding what appeared
+to be practically a partitioning of Persia. Already a certain Baron B——
+(let me call him) was preparing to leave St. Petersburg with instructions
+to find out under what circumstances the British Government would enter
+into pourparlers on the subject. Berlin, whose interests in the Near East
+would be menaced by such an agreement, needed information—and delay. I
+was to secure both. It was the old trick of using a little instrument to
+clog the mechanism of a great machine.
+
+Let me explain here a feature of the drawing up of international treaties
+and agreements which, I think, is not generally understood. Most of us
+who read in the newspapers that such and such a treaty is being arranged
+between the representatives of two countries, believe that the terms
+are even then being decided upon. As a matter of fact these terms have
+long since been determined by other representatives of the two countries
+concerned, and the present meeting is merely for the formal and public
+ratification of a treaty that has already been secretly made. The usual
+stages in the making of a treaty are three: First, an unofficial inquiry
+by one government into the willingness or unwillingness of the other
+government to enter into a discussion of the question at issue. This is
+usually done by a man who has no official standing as a diplomat at the
+moment, but whose affiliations with officials in the second country have
+given him an influence there which will stand his government in good
+stead. After a willingness has been expressed by both sides to enter into
+discussions, official pourparlers are held in which the terms of the
+agreement are discussed and decided upon. Finally the treaty is formally
+ratified by the Foreign Ministers or special envoys of the countries
+involved. This secrecy in the first two stages is necessitated by the
+fear of meddling on the part of other governments, and also by a desire
+on the part of any country making overtures to avoid a possible rebuff
+from the other; and it explains why negotiations which are publicly
+entered into never fail.
+
+But to return to my adventures. My Government had learned of the
+impending pourparlers between Britain and Russia; it knew that Baron
+B——’s instructions would contain the conditions which Russia considered
+desirable. What was necessary was to secure these instructions.
+
+Now, my tutor had, long before this, seen to it that I should be on
+friendly terms with various members of the baron’s household; and he had
+been especially insistent that I pay a good deal of attention to the
+young daughter of the house, whom I shall call Nevshka. I had wondered
+at the time why he should do this; but I obeyed his instructions with
+alacrity. Nevshka was charming.
+
+Now I saw the purpose of this carefully fostered friendship.
+
+“The baron will spend this evening at the club,” I was informed. “He
+will return, according to his habit, promptly at twelve. You will visit
+his house this evening, paying a call upon Nevshka. You will contrive
+to set back the clock so that his home coming will be in the nature
+of a surprise to her. The hour will be so late that she, knowing her
+father’s strictness, will contrive to get you out of the house without
+his seeing you. That is your opportunity! You must slip from the salon
+into the rear hall—but do not leave the house. And if, young man, with
+such an opportunity, you cannot discover where these papers are hidden
+_and secure them_, you are unworthy of the trust that your government has
+placed in you.”
+
+I nodded my comprehension. In other words I was to take advantage of
+Nevshka’s friendship in order to steal from her father—I was to perform
+an act from which no gentleman could help shrinking. And I was going to
+do it with no more qualms of conscience than, in time of war, I should
+have felt about stealing from an enemy general the plan of an attack.
+
+For countries are always at war—diplomatically. There is always a
+conflict between the foreign ambitions of governments; always an attempt
+on the part of each country to gain its own ends by fair means or foul.
+Every man engaged in diplomatic work knows this to be true. And he
+will serve his government without scruple, for well he knows that some
+seemingly dishonorable act of his may be the means of averting that
+actual warfare which is only the forlorn hope that governments resort to
+when diplomatic means of mastery have failed.
+
+So I undertook my mission with no hesitation, rather with a thrill
+of eagerness. I pretended to be violently interested in Nevshka (no
+difficult task, that) and time sped by so merrily that even had I not
+turned back the hands of the clock, I doubt if the lateness of the hour
+would have seriously concerned either of us. Oh, yes, my tutor—who, as
+you of course have guessed by now, was no mere tutor—had analyzed the
+situation correctly.
+
+As the baron was heard at the door, I drew out my watch.
+
+“Nevshka, your clock is slow. It is already midnight.”
+
+Nevshka started.
+
+“Come!” she exclaimed. “Father must not see you. He would be furious at
+your being here at this hour.” In a panic she glanced about the salon.
+“Go out that way.” And she pointed to a door at the rear, one that opened
+on a dimly lit hallway.
+
+I went. I heard the baron express his surprise that Nevshka was still
+awake. I heard her lie—beautifully, I assure you. And I remained hidden
+while the baron worked in his library for a while; hardly daring to
+breathe until I heard him go up the stairs to his bedroom.
+
+He was a careless man, the baron. Or perhaps he had been reading Poe,
+and believed that the most obvious place of concealment was the safest.
+At any rate, there in a drawer of his desk, protected only by the most
+defenseless of locks, were the papers—a neat statement of the terms upon
+which Russia would discuss this Persian matter with England.
+
+I returned home with my prize, to find my tutor awaiting me. He said
+no word of commendation when I gave him the papers, but I knew by his
+expression that he was well pleased with my work. And I went to bed,
+delighted with myself, and dreaming of the great things that were to come.
+
+The next day we left Petersburg. A German resident of the city had
+telephoned my relatives, warning them that a few cases of cholera had
+appeared. Would it not, he suggested (Oh, it was mere kind thoughtfulness
+on his part) be best to let the young prince return to Germany until the
+danger was over? His parents would be worried. Indeed, it would be best,
+my “relatives” agreed. So with regret they bade leave of me; and in the
+most natural manner in the world I returned to Berlin.
+
+Wilhelmstrasse 76 again! The round-faced man again, but this time less
+military, less unbending, in his manner. I had done well, he told me.
+My exploit had attracted the favorable attention of a very exalted
+personage. If I could hold my tongue—who knows what might be in store for
+me?
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That was the end of the matter, so far as I was concerned. But in the
+history of European politics it was only the beginning of the chapter.
+
+It might be well, at this point, to recall the political situation
+in Europe, as it affected England, Russia and Germany at this time.
+Even two years before—in 1905—it had become evident to all students of
+international affairs that the next great conflict, whenever it should
+come, would be between England and Germany; and England realizing this,
+had already begun to seek alliances which would stand between her and
+German ambitions of world dominance. The Entente with France had been
+the first step in the formation of protective friendships; and although
+this friendship had suffered a strain during the Russo-Japanese War,
+because of the opposing sympathies of the two countries, the end of the
+war healed all differences. The defeat of Russia removed all immediate
+danger of a Slavic menace against India. To England, then, the weakened
+condition of Russia offered an excellent opportunity for an alliance that
+would draw still more closely the “iron ring around Germany.” Immediately
+she took the first steps leading toward this alliance.
+
+Now, Russia stood badly in need of two things. War-torn and threatened by
+revolution, the government could rehabilitate itself only by a liberal
+amount of money. But where to get it? France, her ally, and normally
+her banker, was slow, in this instance to lend—and it was only through
+England’s intervention that the Czar secured from a group of Paris and
+London bankers the money with which to finance his government and defeat
+the revolution.
+
+But more than money, Russia needed an ice-free seaport to take the
+place of Port Arthur, which she had lost; and for this there were only
+two possible choices: Constantinople or a port on the Persian Gulf. In
+either of these aims she was opposed by Britain, the traditional enemy
+of a Russian Constantinople, on the one hand, and the possessor of a
+considerable “sphere of interest” in the Persian Gulf on the other.
+
+So matters stood, when in August, 1907, _but a few weeks after my
+masquerade_, Sir Arthur Nicholson, acting for England, and Alexander
+Iswolsky, acting for Russia, signed the famous Anglo-Russian Agreement,
+providing for the distribution of Persia into three strips, the northern
+and southern of which would be respectively Russian and British zones of
+influence; providing also, in a secret clause, that _Russia would give
+England military aid in the event of a war between Germany and England_!
+
+Meantime what was Germany doing?
+
+She had, you may be sure, no intention of allowing England to best her
+in the game of intrigue. Her interests in the Near East were commercial
+rather than military; but she could not see them threatened by an
+Anglo-Russian occupation of Persia, such as the Agreement portended.
+Then, too, she was bound to consider the possible effect on Turkey, in
+whom she was taking an ever-increasing (and none too altruistic) interest.
+
+The details of what followed I can only surmise. I know that in the time
+between my trip to Russia and the signing of that Agreement, on August
+31, the Kaiser held two conferences: one on August 3, with the Czar at
+Swinemunde; the other on August 14, with Edward VII, at the Castle of
+Wilhelmshohe. And when, on September 24th, the terms were published, they
+were bitterly attacked by a portion of the English press, not so much
+because of the danger to Persia, as because of the fact that Russia got
+the best of the bargain![1]
+
+Had the Kaiser succeeded in having these terms changed? Who knows?
+Certainly one can trace the hand of German diplomacy in the events of
+the next seven years, most of which are a matter of common knowledge.
+The steady aggressions of Russia in Persia during the troubled years of
+1910-1912; the almost open flouting of the terms of the treaty, which
+expressly guaranteed Persian integrity; the constant growth of German
+influence, culminating in the Persian extension of the German-owned
+Bagdad Railway; the founding of a German school and a hospital in
+Teheran, jointly supported by Germany and Persia; and finally, the
+celebrated Potsdam Agreement of 1910, between Russia and Germany, in
+which Germany agreed to recognize Russia’s claim to Northern Persia as
+its sphere of influence, which provided for a further rapprochement
+between the two countries in the matter of railroad construction and
+commercial development generally, and which has been generally supposed
+to contain a guarantee that neither country would join “any combination
+of Powers that has any aggressive tendency against the other.”
+
+And England did not protest, in spite of the fact that the Potsdam
+Agreement absolutely negatived her own treaty with Russia and made it,
+in the language of one writer, “a farce and a deception!” Why? Was it
+because she believed that when war came, as it inevitably must, Russia
+would forget this new alliance in allegiance to the old?
+
+England was mistaken, if she believed so. Russia—Imperial Russia—was
+never so much the friend of Germany as when, neglecting the war on her
+own Western front, she sent her armies into the Caucasus, persuaded the
+British to undertake the Dardanelles expedition, and, following her own
+plans of Asiatic expansion, betrayed England!
+
+As I write this the Kut el Amara muddle is creating a great stir in the
+allied countries. Lord Hardinge, Viceroy of India, and the government
+of India have been severely blamed for sending General Townsend into
+Mesopotamia with insufficient material, medical supplies and troops. At
+the time that the move was made the explanation given for it was that it
+was done in order to protect the oil pipes supplying the British navy
+in those waters from being destroyed by the enemy. There was no doubt
+in my mind at that time, in spite of the fact that I was in prison and
+communication with the outside was very meagre, that this was not the
+real reason. Subsequent developments have shown—and the abandonment of
+the inquiry instituted by the British Government about this affair only
+further supports my contention—that Russia intended to use England’s
+helpless position to secure for herself an access to the Persian Gulf.
+Grand Duke Nicholas himself abandoned the campaign on the Eastern front
+to go to the Caucasus. The Gallipoli enterprise which turned out to be
+such a monumental failure was undertaken upon his instigation. Do you
+think for one second that if Imperial Russia had thought England was able
+to capture Constantinople, a city which she herself has been wanting for
+centuries, she would have invited England to do so? The fact is that
+the Gallipoli enterprise tied up all of England’s available reserves so
+that the English could practically do nothing to forestall the Russian
+movements to the Persian Gulf. The Government of India, realizing the
+danger, sent General Townsend upon the famous Bagdad campaign rather as a
+demonstration, than as a military enterprise. I will quote from my diary
+which I kept while in prison.
+
+“Just read in _The Times_: ‘British moving north into Mesopotamia to
+protect oil pipes and capture Bagdad.’ I don’t need to read _Punch_ any
+more, _The Times_ being just as funny. My dear friends, you didn’t move
+up there for that reason. You went up there so as to be able to tell
+your Russian friends that there was no need to come further south as you
+were there already.”
+
+[Illustration: Raul Madero and Staff. Captain von der Goltz is standing
+the second from the left.]
+
+[Illustration: A group of recruits who came from the United States to
+enter Villa’s Army. Captain von der Goltz is at the extreme left.]
+
+As part of the Russian Army had already advanced as far as Kermansha,
+General Townsend disregarded all military rules and tactics in his
+desperate attempt to keep the Russians from going further South, paying
+very little attention to securing his line of communication, and he was
+subsequently cut off from his base and forced to surrender to the Turks.
+
+In the early part of the war Russia did not try to gain anything at
+the expense of Germany but consistently applied herself to the task of
+enriching herself at the expense of England. Imperial Russia as an ally
+has constantly been fighting England and done the Allied cause more
+damage than the German army.
+
+But Imperial Russia wrote her own death sentence by her treachery. There
+was a revolution in Russia ...
+
+But I anticipate.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That is the story of my little expedition into Russia—and of what it
+brought about.
+
+As for me, I was sent back to Gross Lichterfelde, where I abruptly ceased
+to be a young prince, and became once more a humble cadet. But only to
+outside eyes. Dazzled by the success of my first mission, I regarded
+myself as a superman among the cadets. Life loomed romantically before
+me. I told myself that I was to consort with princes and beautiful
+noblewomen and to spend money lavishly. The future seemed to promise a
+career that was the merriest, maddest, for which a man could hope.
+
+I laugh sometimes now when I think of the dreams I had in those days. I
+was soon to learn that the life which fate had thrust upon me was set
+with traps and pitfalls which might not easily be escaped. I was to learn
+many lessons and to know much suffering; and I was to discover that the
+finding of my “document” was only the beginning of a chain of events that
+were to control my whole life—and that its influence over my career had
+not ended.
+
+But at that time I was all hopes and rosy dreams—of my future, of myself,
+occasionally of Nevshka.
+
+Nevshka. Is she still as charming as ever?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+    _Of what comes of leaving important papers exposed. I look and
+    talk indiscreetly—and a man dies._
+
+
+In spite of my dreams and extreme self-satisfaction, I found the
+atmosphere of Gross Lichterfelde as drab and monotonous as ever it had
+been before my masquerade. Discipline sits lightly upon one who is
+accustomed to it solely, but to me, fresh from a glorious fortnight of
+intrigue and festivity, it was doubly galling. Yet there was one avenue
+of escape open to me, that was denied my fellows, for I was required to
+pay a weekly visit to my tutor in the Wilhelmstrasse, there to continue
+my studies in the art of diplomatic intrigue.
+
+It is a significant comment upon the life at Gross Lichterfelde that I
+could regard these visits as a kind of relaxation. Surely no drill-master
+was ever so exacting as this tutor of mine. And yet, despite his dryness
+and the complete lack of cordiality in his manner, there was somewhere
+the gleam of romance about him. To me he seemed, in a strangely
+inappropriate way, an incarnation of one of those old masters of intrigue
+who had been my heroes in former days at home; and my imagination
+distorted him into a gigantic, shadowy being, mysterious, inflexible and
+potentially sinister.
+
+We studied history together that autumn; not the dull record of facts
+that was forced upon us at Gross Lichterfelde, but rather a history
+of glorious national achievement, of ambitions attained and enemies
+scattered—a history that had the tone of prophecy. And I would sit there
+in the soft autumn sunlight viewing the Fatherland with new eyes; as a
+knight in shining armor, beset by foes, but ever triumphing over them by
+virtue of his righteousness and strength of arm.
+
+Then I would return to Gross Lichterfelde and its discipline.
+
+Yet even at Gross Lichterfelde, we contrived to amuse ourselves, chiefly
+by violating regulations. That is generally the result of walling any
+person inside a set of rules; his attention becomes centered on getting
+outside. Your own cadets at West Point, so I have been told, have their
+traditional list of deviltries, maintained with admirable persistence
+in the face of severe penalties. At Gross Lichterfelde one proved his
+manliness by breaking bounds at least once a week, to drink beer, and
+flirt with maids none the less divine because they were hopelessly
+plebian.
+
+In the prevailing lawlessness, I bore my share, and in the course of my
+escapades, I formed an offensive and defensive alliance with a cadet of
+my own age against that common enemy of all our kind, the Commandant of
+the school, Willi von Heiden, I will call my chum, because that was not
+his name. We became close friends. And through our friendship there came
+an event which I shall remember to my last day. It gave me a glimpse into
+the terrible pit of secret diplomacy.
+
+Often at the present, I find myself living it over in my mind. If I
+have learned to take a lighter view of life than most men, my attitude
+dates from that time when a careless word of mine, spoken in innocence,
+condemned a man to death. I will try to tell very briefly how it came
+about.
+
+The Christmas after my excursion to St. Petersburg I was invited by Willi
+von Heiden to visit him at his home. His father was a squireling of East
+Prussia, one of the _Junkers_. He had an estate in that rolling farm land
+between Goldap and Tilsit, which was the scene of countless adventures
+of Willi’s boyhood.
+
+Just before we left Gross Lichterfelde—yes, even there they allow you a
+few days vacation at Christmas—Willi received a letter and came to me
+with a joyous face.
+
+“Good news,” he cried, “we are sure to have a lively holiday. Brother
+Franz is getting a few days’ leave, too.”
+
+I had heard much of Willi’s older brother, Franz. He was a young man
+in the middle twenties, an officer of a famous fighting regiment of
+foot, one of the Prussian Guards. Willi had dilated upon him in his
+conversation with me. Franz was his younger brother’s hero. From all
+accounts Franz von Heiden was possessed of a mind of that rare sort which
+combines unremitting industry with cleverness. His future as a soldier
+seemed brilliant and assured.
+
+“Where is Franz?” was Willi’s first question when we reached his home.
+
+I shall be long forgetting my first impressions of the man. I had been
+looking for a dry, spectacled student, or a stiff young autocrat of the
+thoroughly Prussian type, which I, like many other Germans, thoroughly
+disliked and inwardly laughed at. Instead, I found another chum. Franz
+was an engaging young man of slight build but very vigorous and athletic.
+I found him frank, friendly, unassuming, apparently wholly carefree and
+full of quiet drollery. From his first greeting any prejudice that I
+might have formed from hearing my chum, Willi, chant his excellencies,
+was quite wiped away. And as the days passed I found myself drawn to seek
+Franz’s company constantly. I have no doubt it flattered my vanity—always
+awake since my exploit in St. Petersburg—to find this older man treating
+me as a mental equal. It seemed to me that he differentiated between me
+and Willi, who was quite young in manner as well as years. At times the
+impulse was very strong for me to confide in Franz, to let him know that
+I was not a mere cadet, that I had been in Russia for my government.
+Luckily for myself I suppressed that impulse. Luckily for me, but very
+unluckily for Lieutenant Franz von Heiden—as it turned out.
+
+One sunny December morning we were all three going out rabbit shooting.
+While Willi counted out shells in the gun room, I went to summon Franz
+from the bedroom he was using as his study. It was characteristic of him
+that without any assumption of importance, he gave a few hours to work
+early every morning, even while on leave. I found him intent upon some
+large sheets of paper, but he pushed them aside.
+
+“Time to start now?” he asked. “Good! Wait a minute, while I dress.” He
+stepped into the adjoining dressing-room.
+
+And then, as if Fate had taken a hand in the moment’s activities, I did
+a thing which I have never ceased to regret. Fate! Why not? What is
+the likelihood that by mere vague chance I, of all the cadets of Gross
+Lichterfelde, should have become Willi von Heiden’s chum and shared
+his holidays? That by mere chance I should have been an inmate of his
+home when Franz was there, three days out of the whole year? That by
+mere chance, I, with my precocious knowledge and thirst for yet more
+knowledge, should have entered his study when he was occupied with a
+particular task? Why did I not send the servant to call him? And why,
+instead of doing any one of the dozen other things I might have done
+while I was waiting for Franz to change his clothes, should I have
+stepped across and looked at the big sheets of paper on his table?
+
+I did just that. I did it quite frankly and without a thought of prying.
+I saw that the sheets were small scale maps. They were the maps of a
+fort and the names upon them were written both in French and in German.
+The thrill of a great discovery shot all through me. It flashed upon
+me that I had heard Willi say that during the previous summer Franz
+had spent a long furlough in the Argonne section of France. He had
+been fishing and botanizing—so Willi had said. Indeed, only the night
+before Franz himself had told us stories of the sport there; and all
+his family had accepted the stories at their face value. So had I until
+that moment when I stood beside his desk and saw the plans of a French
+field fortress. Then I knew the truth. Lieutenant Franz von Heiden was
+doing important work—so confidential that even his family must be kept in
+ignorance about it—for the intelligence department of the German General
+Staff. Like me, he was entitled to the gloriously shameful name of spy!
+
+If I had obeyed my natural impulse to rush into Franz’s room and exchange
+fraternal greetings with this new colleague of the secret service, so
+romantically discovered, he might have saved himself. Instead, something
+made me play the innocent and be the innocent, too, as far as intent was
+concerned.
+
+When Franz returned, dressed for the shoot, I was standing looking out
+of his window, and I said nothing about my discovery.
+
+We had our rabbit shoot that day. We crowded all the fun and energy
+possible into it. It was our last day together and by sundown I felt as
+close to Franz von Heiden as though he were my own brother. A few days
+later Willi and I went back to Gross Lichterfelde.
+
+Shortly after I returned from my Christmas leave, my tutor sent for me.
+He even recognized the amenities of the occasion enough to unbend a
+little and greeted me with a trace of mechanical friendliness.
+
+“I trust you had a pleasant holiday,” he said, “you told me, did you not,
+that you were to spend it at the Baron von Heiden’s?”
+
+That touch of friendliness was the occasion of my tragic error. I
+remember that I plunged into a boisterous description of my vacation, of
+the pleasant days in the country, of the shooting, of Franz. As my tutor
+listened, with a tolerant air, I told him what a splendid fellow Franz
+was, how cleverly he talked and how diligently he worked. And then, with
+a rash innocence for which I have never forgiven myself, I told him of
+what I had seen on that day of the rabbit shooting—of the maps on the
+table. Franz was one of us!
+
+But my tutor was not interested. Abruptly he interrupted my burst of
+gossip; and soon after that he plunged me into a quiz in spoken French.
+My progress in that seemed his only preoccupation.
+
+A month later Willi von Heiden staggered into my room. “Franz is dead,”
+he said.
+
+The brilliant young lieutenant, Franz von Heiden, had come to a sudden
+and shocking end. He was shot dead in a duel. His opponent was a brother
+officer, a Captain von Frentzen. The “Court of honor” of the regiment had
+approved of the duel and it was reported that the affair was carried out
+in accordance with the German code.
+
+Later I learned the story. Captain von Frentzen was suddenly attached to
+the same regiment as Franz. His transfer was a cause of great surprise
+to the officers and of deep displeasure to them, for the captain had a
+notorious reputation as a duelist. Naturally the officers, Franz among
+them, had ignored him, trying to force him out of the regiment. Upon the
+night of a regimental dance, the situation came to a head.
+
+In response to the gesture of a lady’s fan Franz crossed the ball room
+hurriedly. He was caught in a sudden swirl of dancers and accidentally
+stepped on Captain von Frentzen’s foot. In the presence of the
+whole company von Frentzen dealt Franz a stinging slap in the face.
+“Apparently,” he sneered, “you compel me to teach you manners.” Franz
+looked at him, amazed and furious. There was nothing that he had done
+which warranted von Frentzen’s action. It was an outrage—a deadly insult.
+There was but one thing to do. A duel was arranged.
+
+To understand more of this incident you must understand the unyielding
+code of honor of the German officer. Franz von Heiden’s original offense
+had been so very slight that even had he refused to apologize to Frentzen
+the consequences might not have been serious. But Frentzen’s blow given
+in public was quite a different matter. It was a mortal affront. I heard
+that Franz’s captain had been in a rage about it.
+
+“My best lieutenant,” he had said to the colonel. “An extremely
+valuable man. To be made to fight a duel with that worthless butcher,
+von Frentzen. Shameful! God knows that laws are sometimes utterly
+unreasonable by many of our ideas, as officers are equally senseless. I
+have racked my brain to find a way out of this difficulty, but it seems
+impossible. Can’t you do something to interfere?”
+
+The colonel looked at him steadily. “Your honest opinion. Is von Heiden’s
+honor affected by Frentzen’s action?”
+
+There was nothing Franz’s captain could do but reply, “Yes.”
+
+The duel was held on the pistol practice grounds of the garrison, a
+smooth, grassy place, surrounded by high bushes; at the lower end there
+was a shed built of strong boards, in which tools and targets were
+stored. At daybreak Franz von Heiden and his second dismounted at the
+shed and fastened their horses by the bridle. They stood side by side,
+looking down the road, along which a carriage was coming. Captain von
+Frentzen, his second, and the regimental surgeon got out. Sharp polite
+greetings were exchanged. On the faces of the seconds there was a
+singular expression of uneasiness, but Frentzen looked as though he were
+there for some guilty purpose. The prescribed attempts at reconciliation
+failed. The surgeon measured off the distance. He was a long-legged man
+and made the fifteen paces as lengthy as possible.
+
+Just at this moment the sun came up fully. Pistols were loaded and given
+to Franz and Frentzen. Fifteen paces apart, the two men faced each
+other. One of the seconds drew out his watch, glanced at it and said,
+“I shall count; ready, one! then three seconds; two!—and again three
+seconds; then, stop! Between one and stop the gentlemen may fire.” He
+glanced round once more. The four officers stood motionless in the level
+light of the dawn. He began to count. Presently Franz von Heiden was
+stretched out upon the ground, his blue eyes staring up into the new day.
+He lay still....
+
+When I heard that story I ceased to be a boy. My outlook on the future
+had been that of an irresponsible gamester, undergoing initiation into
+the gayest and most exciting sports. All at once my eyes were hideously
+opened and I looked down into the pit that the German secret service
+had prepared for Franz von Heiden, and knew I _was the cause of it_. It
+was terrible! By leaving that map where I could see it Franz von Heiden
+had been guilty of an unforgivable breach of trust. By his carelessness
+he had let someone know that the Intelligence Department of the General
+Staff had procured the plans of a French fortress in the Argonne.
+Wherefore, according to the iron law of that soulless war machine, Franz
+von Heiden must die.
+
+And this is the sinister way it works. Trace it. I innocently betray him
+to my tutor, an official of the Secret Diplomatic Service. A few days
+later one of the deadliest pistol shots in the German army is transferred
+to Franz’s regiment. A duel is forced upon him and he is shot down in
+cold blood.
+
+Not long after the news of the duel, my tutor sent for me. “Is it not
+a curious coincidence,” he began, his cold gray eyes boring into mine,
+“that the last time you were here we spoke of Lieutenant Franz von
+Heiden? The next time you come to see me he is dead. I understand that
+certain rumors are in circulation about the way he died. Some of them may
+have already come to your attention. I caution you to pay no attention
+whatever to such silly statements. Remember that a Court of Honor of
+an honorable regiment of the Prussian Guards has vouched for the fact
+that Lieutenant von Heiden’s quarrel with Captain von Frentzen and the
+unfortunate duel that followed was conducted in accordance with the
+officers’ code of the Imperial Army.”
+
+I hung my head, sick at heart; but he was relentless.
+
+“Remember also,” he said in a pitiless voice, “that men of intelligence
+never indulge in fruitless gossip, even among themselves. I hope you
+understand that—by now.” He paused a moment, as if he remembered
+something.
+
+“For some time,” he went on, in the most casual way, “I have been aware
+that it will be necessary for me to talk to you seriously. Now is as good
+a time as any. You know that your training for your future career has
+been put largely in my hands. I am responsible for your progress. The men
+who have made me responsible require reports about your development. They
+have not been wholly satisfied with what I was able to tell them. Your
+intentions are good. You show a certain amount of natural cleverness and
+adaptability, but you have also disappointed them by being impulsive and
+indiscreet.
+
+“Now,” he said, “I ask you to pay the closest attention to everything I
+shall say. Your attitude must be changed if you are to go on, and some
+day be of service to your government. You must learn to treat your work
+as a deadly serious business—not as a romantic adventure. We were just
+speaking of von Heiden. I seem to remember vaguely that the last time you
+were here you had some sort of a cock-and-bull story to tell me of—what
+was it?—of seeing some secret maps of French fortifications on the
+unfortunate young man’s table. I could hardly refrain from smiling at the
+time. Such poppycock! You do not imagine for a moment, do you, that if
+he had proved himself discreet enough to be intrusted with such highly
+confidential things, he would have been so imprudent as to betray that
+fact to a mere casual friend of his little brother? I hope you see how
+absurd such imaginings are.”
+
+I groaned mentally as he continued.
+
+“Remember now,” my tutor said icily, “every man in our profession is a
+man who not only knows very much, but may know too much, unless he can be
+trusted to keep what he knows to himself. There are three ways in which
+he can fail to do that—by carelessness, by accident, and by deliberate
+talking. Never talk—never be careless—never have accidents happen to
+you. Then you will be safe, and in no other way can you be so safe. Keep
+that in your mind. You will find it much more profitable and useful than
+remembering what anybody has to say about Franz von Heiden. It was a
+commonplace quarrel with Captain von Frentzen which killed him. A court
+of honor has said so.”
+
+That night at Gross Lichterfelde, after lights were out, Willi von Heiden
+came creeping to my bed. I was the only intimate friend he had there
+and he felt the need of talking with some one about the big brother who
+had been his hero. Need I go into details of how his artless confidence
+made me feel? But human beings are exceedingly selfish and self-centered
+creatures. I had a heart-felt sorrow for my chum and his family in their
+tragic bereavement. And, blaming myself as I did for it, I was abased
+completely. Yet there was another feeling in me at least as deeply rooted
+as those two emotions. It was dread.
+
+Dread was to follow me for many years. I had learned the dangers of the
+dark secret world in which I lived. Its rules of conduct and its ruthless
+code had been revealed to me, not merely by precept but by example.
+And with that realization all the thrill of romance and adventure
+disappeared. For I knew that I, too, might at any time be counted among
+the men who “knew too much.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+    _I am sent to Geneva and learn of a plot. How there are more
+    ways of getting rid of a King than by blowing him up with
+    dynamite._
+
+
+If at any time in this story of my life, I have given the impression
+that accident did not play a very important part in the work of myself
+and other secret agents, I have done so unintentionally. “If” has been
+a big word in the history of the world; and even in my small share of
+the events of the last ten years, chance has oftentimes been a more
+able ally than some of the best laid of my plans. If, for instance,
+I had not happened to be in Geneva in the winter of 1909-10; or if a
+certain official of the Russian secret police—the _Okrana_—had not met
+a well-deserved death at the hands of a committee of “Reds”; or if the
+German Foreign Office had not been playing a pretty little game of
+diplomacy in the Southwestern corner of Europe—why, the world to-day
+would be poorer by a King, and possibly richer by another combatant in
+the Great War.
+
+And if another King had not kept a diary he might have kept his throne.
+And if both he and a certain young diplomat, whose name I think it best
+to forget, had not had a common weakness for pretty faces, Germany would
+have lost an opportunity to gain some information that was more or less
+useful to her, an actress whose name you all know would never have become
+internationally famous, and this book would have lost an amusing little
+comedy of coincidences.
+
+All of which sounds like romance and is—merely the truth.
+
+I had spent two uneventful years at Gross Lichterfelde at the time the
+comedy began; two years of study in which I had acquired some knowledge
+and a great weariness of routine, of hard work unpunctuated by any
+element of adventure. Of late it had almost seemed as if, after all, it
+was planned that I should become merely one of the vast army of officers
+that Gross Lichterfelde and similar schools were yearly turning out. For
+such a fate, as you can imagine, I had little liking.
+
+Consequently I was far from displeased when one day I received a
+characteristically brief note from my old tutor, asking me to call upon
+him. Still more was I elated when, the next day, he informed me that I
+had enough of books for the time being, and that he thought a little
+practical experience would be good for me. A vacation, I might call it,
+if I wished—with a trifle of detective work thrown in.
+
+H’m. I was not so delighted with that prospect, and when the details of
+the “vacation” were explained to me, I was strongly tempted to say no to
+the entire proposition. But one does not say no to my old tutor. And so,
+in the course of a week, I found myself spending my evenings in the _Café
+de l’Europe_ in Geneva, bound on a still hunt for Russian revolutionists.
+
+Russia, at this time, had not quite recovered from the fright she
+received in 1905 and 1906, when, as you will remember, popular discontent
+with the government had assumed very serious proportions. “Bloody
+Sunday,” and the riots and strikes that followed it, were far in the
+past now, it is true, but they were still well remembered. And although
+most of the known revolutionary leaders had been disposed of in one way
+or another, there were still a few of them, as well as a large number
+of their followers, wandering in odd corners of Europe. These it was
+thought best to get rid of; and Russian agents promptly began ferreting
+them out. And Germany—always less unfriendly to the Romanoffs than has
+appeared on the surface—lent a helping hand.
+
+So it happened that on a particular night in December of 1909, I sat in
+the _Café de l’Europe_, bitterly detesting the work I had in hand, yet
+inconsistently wishing that something would turn up. I had no idea at the
+moment of what I should do next. Chance rumor had led me to Geneva, and I
+was largely depending upon chance for further developments.
+
+They came. I had been sitting for an hour I suppose, sipping vermouth and
+lazily regarding my neighbors, when the sound of a voice came to my ears.
+It was the voice of a man speaking French, with the soft accent of the
+Spaniard; the tone loud and unsteady and full of the boisterous emphasis
+of a man in his cups. But it was the words he spoke that commanded my
+attention.
+
+“Our two comrades,” he was saying, “will soon arrive from the center in
+Buenos Ayres.”
+
+“Yes,” another voice assented—a harsher voice, this, to whose owner
+French was obviously also a foreign tongue. “In the spring, we hope.”
+
+[Illustration: The Brevet promoting Senior Captain von der Goltz to the
+rank of Major of Cavalry in the Mexican Constitutionalist Army. It will
+be noted that the commission bears the signature of Raul Madero and
+General Villa.]
+
+The Spaniard laughed.
+
+“An excellent business! So simple. _Boom!_ And our dear Alfonso....”
+
+Some element of caution must have come over him, for his voice sank so
+that I could no longer hear his words. But I had heard enough to make me
+assume a good deal.
+
+Some one was to be assassinated! And that some one? It was a guess, of
+course, but the name and the accent of the speaker were more than enough
+to lead me to believe that the proposed victim must be King Alfonso of
+Spain.
+
+I sat there, undecided for the moment. It was really no affair of
+mine. I was on another mission, and, after all, my theory was merely
+a supposition. On the other hand, the situation presented interesting
+possibilities—and as I happened to know, Alfonso’s seemingly pro-German
+leanings and made him an object of friendly interest at that time to my
+government.
+
+I decided to look into the matter.
+
+It had been difficult to keep from stealing a glance at my talkative
+neighbors but I restrained myself. I must not turn around and yet it was
+vitally necessary that I see their faces. All I could do was to hope that
+they would leave before I finished my vermouth; for I had no mind to
+risk my clear-headedness with more than the glass I had already had.
+
+They did leave shortly afterward. As they passed my table I took care to
+study their faces, and my intention to keep them in sight was immensely
+strengthened. The Spaniard I did not know, but his companion I recognized
+as a Russian—_and one of the very men I was after_.
+
+I had been in Geneva long enough to know where I could get information
+when I needed it. It was only a day or two, therefore, before I had in
+my hands sufficient facts to justify me in reporting the matter to my
+government.
+
+Alfonso was in England at the time and presumably safe; for I had
+gathered that no attempt would be made upon his life until he returned to
+Spain. So I wrote to Berlin reporting what I had learned.
+
+A telegram reached me next day. I was ordered to Brussels to communicate
+my information to the Spanish Minister there.
+
+Mark that: I was ordered to Brussels, although there was a Spanish
+Minister in Switzerland. But my government knew that there were many
+factions in Spain, and it had strong reasons to believe that the Spanish
+Minister to Belgium was absolutely loyal to Alfonso. And in a situation
+such as this, one takes as few chances as possible.
+
+I followed my instructions. The Spanish Minister thanked me. He was more
+than interested; and he begged me, since I had no other direct orders,
+to do him the personal favor of staying a few days longer in the Belgian
+capital. I did so, of course, and a day or so later received from my
+government instructions to hold myself at the Spaniard’s disposal for the
+time being.
+
+That night, at the minister’s request, I met him and we discussed the
+matter fully. He wished me, he said, to undertake a more thorough
+investigation of the plot. I was already involved in it, and would be
+working less in the dark than another. Besides, he hinted, he could not
+very well employ an agent of his own government. Who knew how far the
+conspiracy extended?
+
+I was not displeased to abandon my chase of the Russian revolutionaries,
+toward whom I felt some sympathy. So, as a preliminary step, I went up
+to Paris, where through the good offices of one Carlos de Silva—a young
+Brazilian free-thinker, who was there ostensibly as a student—I succeeded
+in gaining admission into one of the fighting organizations of radicals
+there. They were not so communicative as I could have wished, but by
+judicious pumping I soon learned that there was an organized conspiracy
+against the life of Alfonso, and that the details of the plot were in the
+hands of a committee in Geneva.
+
+Geneva, then, was my objective point. But what to do if I went there? I
+knew very well that conspirators do not confide their plans to strangers.
+And I dared not be too inquisitive. Obviously the only course to follow
+was to employ an agent.
+
+Now, _Cherchez la femme_ is as excellent a principle to work on when you
+are choosing an accomplice, as it is when you are seeking the solution of
+a crime. I therefore proceeded to seek a lady—and found her in the person
+of a pretty little black-eyed “revolutionist,” who called herself Mira
+Descartes, and with whom I had already had some dealings.
+
+It is here that accident crosses the trail again. For if a certain
+official of the _Okrana_ had not been murdered in Moscow three years
+before, his daughter would never have conceived an intense hatred of all
+revolutionary movements and I should have been without her invaluable
+assistance in the adventure I am describing.
+
+Mira Descartes! She was the kind of woman of whom people like to say that
+she would have made a great actress. Actress? I do not know. But she was
+an artist at dissembling. And she had beauty that turned the heads of
+more than the “Reds” upon whom she spied; and a genius for hatred: a cold
+hatred that cleared the brain and enabled her to give even her body to
+men she despised in order the better to betray them.
+
+I was fortunate in securing her aid, I told myself; and I did not
+hesitate to use her services. (For in my profession, as must have been
+apparent to you, scrupulousness must be reserved for use “in one’s
+private capacity as a gentleman.”)
+
+So Mlle. Descartes went to Geneva, and armed with my previously acquired
+information and her own charms, she contrived to get into the good graces
+of the committee there, and surprised me a week later by writing to Paris
+that she had already contracted a liaison with the Spaniard whom I had
+overheard speaking that night in the _Café de l’Europe_.
+
+Soon I had full information about the entire plot. It was planned, I
+learned, to blow up King Alfonso with a bomb upon the day of his return
+to Madrid. The work was in the hands of two South Americans who were then
+in Geneva.
+
+But far more important than this was the information which Mlle.
+Descartes had obtained that a high official of Spain—a member of the
+Cabinet—was cognizant of the plot and had kept silent about it.
+
+Why, I asked myself, should this official—a man who surely had no
+sympathy with the aims of the revolutionists—lend his aid to them in
+this plot? The reason was not hard to discover. Alfonso’s position at
+the time was far from secure. His government was unpopular at home; and
+the pro-Teutonic leanings of many government officials had lost him the
+moral and political support of the English government and press—a fact of
+considerable importance.
+
+So it seemed possible that Alfonso’s reign might not be of long duration.
+And the new government? It might be radical or conservative; pro-English
+or pro-German. A man with a career did well to keep on friendly terms
+with all factions. Thus, I fancied, the Cabinet Minister must have
+reasoned. At any rate he said nothing of the plot.
+
+But I went to Brussels and reported all I had learned—and did not forget
+to mention the Cabinet Minister’s rumored share in the plot.
+
+There my connection with the affair ceased. But not long after a little
+tragi-comedy occurred which was a direct result of my activities. Let me
+recall it to you.
+
+On the evening of May 24, 1910, those of the people of Madrid who were
+in the neighborhood of that monument which had been raised in memory of
+the victims of the attempted assassination of Alfonso, four years before,
+were horrified by a tragedy which they witnessed.
+
+There was a sudden commotion in the streets, an explosion, and the
+confused sound of a crowd in excitement.
+
+What had happened? Rumor ran wild through the crowd. The King was
+expected home that day—he had been assassinated. There had been an
+attempted revolution. Nobody knew.
+
+But the next day everybody knew. A bomb had burst opposite the monument—a
+bomb that had been intended for the King. One man had been killed; the
+man who carried the bomb. But the King had not arrived in Madrid that day
+after all.
+
+The police set to work upon the case and presently identified the dead
+man as Jose Tasozelli, who recently arrived in Spain from Buenos Ayres.
+It was not certain whether he had any accomplices.
+
+And while the police worked, the King, following a secret arrangement
+which had been made by the Spanish Minister at Belgium, and of which not
+even the Cabinet had been informed—arrived safely and quietly in Madrid;
+a day late, but alive.
+
+What became of the Cabinet Minister? There are no autocracies now, and
+not even a King may prosecute without proof. So the Minister escaped for
+the time being. But it is interesting to remember that this same Minister
+was assassinated, not a great while after.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Now there are more ways of getting rid of a king than by blowing him
+up with dynamite. Foreign Offices are none too squeamish in their
+methods, but they do balk at assassination, even if the proposed
+victim is a particularly objectionable opponent of their plans. There
+is another method which, if it be correctly followed, is every bit as
+efficacious.... Again I must refer you to that excellent French proverb:
+_Cherchez la femme_.
+
+It would be difficult to estimate properly the part that women have
+played in the game of foreign politics. As spies they are invaluable: for
+amourous men are always garrulous. But as Enslavers of Kings they are of
+even greater service to men who are interested in effecting a change of
+dynasty. Even the most loyal of subjects dislikes seeing his King made
+ridiculous; and in countries where the line is not too strictly drawn
+between the public exchequer and the private resources of the monarch, a
+discontented faction may see some connection between excessive taxes and
+the jewels that a demi-mondaine wears. Revolutions have occurred for less
+than that—as every Foreign Office knows.
+
+I am not insinuating that all royal scandals are to be laid at the door
+of international politics. I merely suggest that, given a king who is to
+be made ridiculous in the eyes of his subjects, it is a simple matter for
+an interested government to see that he is introduced to a lady who will
+produce the desired effect. But no diplomat will admit this, of course.
+Not, that is, until after he has “retired.”
+
+This brings me to the second act of my comedy.
+
+If I were drawing a map of Europe—a diplomatic map, that is,—as it was in
+the years of 1908 to 1910, I should use only two colors, Germany should
+be, let us say, black; England red. But the black of Germany should
+extend over the surfaces of Austria, Italy and Turkey; while France and
+Russia should be crimson. The rest of the continent would be of various
+tints, ranging from a discordant combination of red and black, through a
+pinkish gray, to an innocuous and neutral white.
+
+In the race to secure protective alliances against the inevitable
+conflict, both Germany and England were diligently attempting to color
+these indeterminate territories with their own particular hue. Not least
+important among the courted nations were Spain and Portugal. Both were
+traditionally English in sympathy; both had shown unmistaken signs,
+at least so far as the ruling classes were concerned, of transferring
+their friendship to Germany. It was inevitable, therefore, that these
+two countries should be the scene of a diplomatic conflict which, if not
+apparent to the outsider, was fought with the utmost bitterness by both
+sides.
+
+Somehow, by good fortune rather than any other agency—Spain had managed
+to avoid a positive alliance with either nation. Alfonso was inclined to
+be pro-German at that time; but an adroit juggling of the factions in his
+kingdom had prevented him from using his influence to the advantage of
+Germany.
+
+Portugal was in a different situation. Poorer in resources than her
+neighbor, and hampered by the necessity of keeping up a colonial empire
+which in size was second only to England’s, she had greater need of
+the protection of one of the Powers. Traditionally—and rightly from a
+standpoint of self-interest—that Power should have been England. There
+were but three obstacles to the continuance of the friendship that had
+existed since the Peninsular War—King Manuel, the Queen Mother and the
+Church.
+
+Germany seemed all-powerful in the Peninsula in 1908. Alfonso’s
+friendship was secured, and the boy king of Portugal was completely under
+the thumb of a pro-German mother and a Church which, as between Germany
+and England, disliked Germany the less. England realized the situation
+and in approved diplomatic fashion set about regaining her ascendancy.
+
+But diplomacy failed. At the end of two years Berlin was more strongly
+intrenched in Portugal than ever; and England knew that only heroic
+measures could save her from a serious diplomatic defeat.
+
+Then Manuel did a foolish thing. He kept a diary.
+
+It was a commonplace diary, as you will remember if you read the parts
+of it which were published some time after the revolution which
+dethroned its author. The outpourings of a very undistinguished young
+man—conceited, self-indulgent, petulant—it gained distinction only as the
+revelation of an unkingly person’s thoughts on himself in particular and
+women in multitudes. But there were portions of it—many of them never
+published—which expressed unmistakably Manuel’s anti-English feeling and
+his affection for Germany.
+
+_Somehow England came into possession of the diary._
+
+Perhaps it was the diary’s revelation of Manuel’s extreme susceptibility
+to feminine charms, which suggested the next step. That I cannot tell.
+In any event, not long after the diary became a matter of diplomatic
+moment, Manuel paid a visit to England, ostensibly in search of a bride.
+His search was unsuccessful; but in London he met and promptly became
+infatuated with Mlle. Hedwig Navratil—better known as Gaby Deslys.
+
+They chose well who selected the lovely Bohemian as the instrument of
+Manuel’s downfall. Young, charming, she had all the qualities which would
+appeal to Manuel’s nature. Added to that, it had been rumored that not
+long before King Alfonso had shown some interest in her—and Manuel was
+easily influenced by the example of his elders.
+
+You remember the rest of the story. Manuel’s frequent visits to Paris,
+where Mlle. Gaby was playing; the jewels—bought, it was said, with money
+from the public treasury—which he showered upon her; these were the
+subjects of countless rumors at the time. Then came reports that the lady
+was domiciled in one of the royal palaces. Finally, in September of 1910,
+the scandalized and tax-ridden populace of Portugal, learned that Mlle.
+Deslys had been “billed” at the Apollo Theatre in Vienna as the “Mistress
+of the King of Portugal.”
+
+On October 5th, this same scandalized and tax-ridden populace joined
+forces with the revolutionary party—and Manuel fled to England, where
+he attended numerous musical comedies and hoped against hope that the
+English Government would live up to that provision of the treaty of 1908
+which pledged England to aid the Portuguese throne in the event of a
+revolution.
+
+But England—remembering the diary—wisely forgot its pledge. And a
+Republican government in Portugal looked with suspicion upon the
+diplomatic advances of a nation which had been too friendly towards the
+exiled king—and became pro-English, as you know.
+
+There ends my comedy. The lady in the case achieved a sudden
+international fame and eventually came to America, where, I believe,
+she attracted more interest than commendation. But at best, so far as
+we are concerned, she is of importance merely as an illustration of how
+diplomacy—or chance, if you prefer—combines politics and the woman for
+its own purposes.
+
+But there is an amusing epilogue to the affair, which was not without its
+importance to the Wilhelmstrasse, and in which I had a small part. To
+tell it, I must pass over several months of work of one sort or another,
+until I come to the following winter—that of 1911.
+
+I was on a real vacation this time and had selected Nice as an excellent
+place in which to spend a few idle but enlivening weeks. The choice was
+not a highly original one, but as it turned out, chance seemed to have
+had a hand in it after all. Almost the first person I met there was a man
+with whom I had been acquainted for several years, and who was destined
+to have his share in the events which followed.
+
+People who have visited Europe many times can hardly have avoided
+seeing upon one occasion or another, a famous riding troupe who called
+themselves the “Bishops.” They were five in number—Old Bishop, his
+daughter and her husband, a man named Merrill, and two others—and their
+act, which was variously known as “An Afternoon on the Bois de Boulogne,”
+“An Afternoon in the Thiergarten,” etc. (depending upon the city in which
+they played), was a feature of many of the famous circuses of seven or
+eight years ago. At this time they were helping to pay their expenses
+through the winter, by playing in a small circus which was one of the
+current attractions of Nice.
+
+I had bought horses from old Bishop in the past and knew him for a
+man of unusual shrewdness, who besides being the father of a charming
+and beautiful daughter, was in himself excellent company; and I was
+consequently pleased to run across him and his family at a time when all
+my friends seemed to be in some other quarter of the earth. We talked of
+horses together and it was suggested that I might care to inspect an Arab
+mare, a recent acquisition, of which the old man was immensely proud.
+
+That evening I heard of the arrival in Nice of a young British diplomat,
+an undersecretary of one of the embassies, whom, I remembered I had
+once met at a hotel in Vienna. I called upon him the following day—but I
+did so, not so much to renew our old acquaintance, as because that very
+morning I had received a rambling letter from my chief, commenting upon
+the imminent arrival of the Englishman and suggesting that I might find
+him a pleasant companion during my stay on the Riviera.
+
+More work, in other words. My chief did not waste time in encouraging
+purposeless friendships. As I read the letter, it was a hint that the
+Englishman had something which Berlin wanted and I was to get it.
+
+It was not difficult to recall myself to the Undersecretary. We became
+friendly, and proceeded to “do” Nice together; and in the course of
+our excursions we became occasional visitors at the villa of Maharajah
+Holkar, who, with his secretary (and his seraglio) lived—and still lives,
+for all I know—at 56 Promenade des Anglais.
+
+The Maharajah was at that time an engaging and eccentric old gentleman,
+who had been an uncompromising opponent of the English during his youth
+in India, and was now practically an exile, spending most of his time in
+planning futile conspiracies against the British Government, which he
+hated, and making friends with Englishmen toward whom he had no animosity
+whatever. He was especially well disposed toward my diplomatic friend,
+and the two spent many a riotous evening together over the chess board,
+at which the Maharajah was invariably successful.
+
+Meanwhile I made various plans and cultivated the acquaintance of the
+Rajah’s secretary. He was a Bengali, who might well have stepped out of
+Kipling, so far as his manner went. In character the resemblance was
+not so close. I happened to know that he was paid a comfortable amount
+yearly by the British Government, to keep them informed of the Rajah’s
+movements; and I also happened to know that the German Government paid
+him a more comfortable amount for the privilege of deciding just what the
+British Government should learn. (I have often wondered whether he shared
+the proceeds with the Maharajah, and whether even he knew for whom he was
+really working.) The secretary, I decided, might be of use to me.
+
+As it happened, it was the secretary who unwittingly suggested the method
+by which I finally gained my object. It was he who commented upon the
+diplomat’s intense interest in the Maharajah’s seraglio, giving me a
+clue to the character of the Englishman, which was of distinct service.
+And it was he who suggested one evening that the three of us—for the
+Maharajah was ill at the time—should attend a performance of the circus
+in which my friends, the Bishops, were playing.
+
+You foresee the end, no doubt. The diplomat, with his too susceptible
+nature, was infatuated by Mlle. Bishop’s beauty and skill. He wished
+to meet her, and I, who obligingly confessed that I had had some
+transactions with her father, undertook to secure the lady’s permission
+to present him to her.
+
+I did secure it, of course, although not without considerable opposition
+on the part of all three of the family; for circus people are very
+straight-laced. However, by severely straining my purse and my
+imagination, I convinced them that they would be doing both a friendly
+and a profitable act, by participating in the little drama that I
+had planned. Eventually they consented to aid me in discomfiting the
+diplomat, whom I represented as having in his possession some legal
+papers that really belonged to me, although I could not prove my claim to
+them.
+
+You will pardon me if I pass over the events of the next few days, and
+plunge directly into a scene which occurred one night, about a week
+later, the very night in fact on which the Bishops were to close their
+engagement with the little circus in which they were playing. It was in
+the sitting-room of the diplomat’s suite at the hotel that the scene took
+place; dinner _a deux_ was in progress—and the diplomat’s guest was Mlle.
+Bishop, who had indiscreetly accepted the Englishman’s invitation.
+
+Came a knock at the door. Mademoiselle grew pale.
+
+“My husband,” she exclaimed.
+
+Mademoiselle was right. It was her husband who entered—very cold, very
+businesslike, and carrying a riding crop in his hand. He glanced at the
+man and woman in the room.
+
+“I suspected something of the sort,” he said, in a quiet voice. “You are
+indiscreet, Madame. You do not conceal your infidelities with care.” He
+took a step toward her, put paused at an exclamation from the Englishman.
+
+“Do not fear, Monsieur—” elaborate irony was in his voice as he addressed
+the diplomat—“I shall not harm you. It is with this—lady—only, that I am
+concerned. She has, it appears, an inadequate conception of her wifely
+duty. I must, therefore, give her a lesson.” As he spoke he tapped his
+boot suggestively with his riding whip.
+
+“My only regret,” he continued politely, “is that I must detain you as
+a witness of a painful scene, and possibly cause a disturbance in your
+room.”
+
+Again he turned toward his wife, who had sat watching him, with a
+terrified face. Now as he approached her she burst into tears, and ran to
+where the Englishman stood.
+
+“He is going to beat me,” she sobbed. “Help me, for Heaven’s sake. Stop
+him. Give him—give him anything.”
+
+But the Englishman did not need to be coached.
+
+“Look here!” he cried suddenly, interposing himself between the husband
+and wife. “I’ll give you fifty pounds to get out of here quietly. Good
+God, man, you can’t do a thing like this, you know. It’s horrible. And
+you have no cause. I give you my word you have no cause.”
+
+He was a pitiable mixture of shame and apprehension as he spoke. But
+Merrill looked at him calmly. He was quite unmoved and still polite when
+he replied:
+
+“The word of a gentleman, I suppose. No, Monsieur, it is useless to
+try to bribe me. It is a great mistake, in fact. Almost—” he paused for
+a moment, as if he found it difficult to continue—“almost it makes me
+angry.”
+
+He was silent for a space, but when he spoke again it was as if in
+response to an idea that had come to him.
+
+“Yes,” he continued. “It does make me angry. Nevertheless, Monsieur, I
+shall accept your suggestion. Madame and I will leave quietly, and in
+return you shall give us—O, not money—but something that you value very
+much.”
+
+He turned to his wife.
+
+“Madame. You will go to Monsieur’s trunk, which is open in the corner,
+and remove every article so that I can see it.”
+
+The Englishman started. For a moment it seemed as if he would attack
+Merrill, who was the smaller man, but fear of the noise held him back.
+Meantime, the woman was riffling the trunk, holding up each object for
+her husband’s inspection. The latter stood at the door, his eyes upon
+both of the others.
+
+“We are not interested in Monsieur’s clothing,” he said calmly. “What
+else is there in the trunk? Nothing? The desk then. Only some papers?
+That is a pity. Let me have them, however—all of them. And you may give
+me the portfolio that lies on the bureau.”
+
+As he took the packet, the rider turned to the diplomat, who stood as if
+paralyzed, in the corner of the room.
+
+“I do not know what is in these papers, Monsieur, but I judge from
+your agitation that they are valuable. I shall take them from you as a
+warning—a warning to let married women alone in the future. Also I warn
+you not to try to bribe a man whom you have injured. You have made me
+very angry to-night by doing so.
+
+“Above all,” he added, “I warn you not to complain to the police about
+this matter. This is not a pretty story to tell about a man in your
+position—and I prepared to tell it. Good night, Monsieur.”
+
+He did not wait to hear the Englishman’s reply.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+That night, while the two younger members of the Bishop family sped away
+on the train—to what place I do not know—and old Bishop expressed great
+mystification over their disappearance, I made a little bonfire in my
+grate of papers which had once been the property of the diplomat, and
+which I knew would be of no interest to my government. There were a few
+papers which I did not burn—a memorandum or two, and a bulky typewritten
+copy of Manuel’s diary, which I found amusing reading before I took it to
+Berlin.
+
+I called upon my English friend the next day but I did not see him. He
+had been taken ill, and had been obliged to leave Nice immediately. No,
+it was impossible to say what the ailment was.
+
+Ah, well, I thought, as I returned to my room, he would get over it. It
+was an embarrassing loss, but not a fatal one; and doubtless he could
+explain it satisfactorily at home.
+
+I was sorry for him, I confess. But more than once that day I laughed as
+I thought of the scene of last night, as Mlle. Bishop had described it to
+me. An old game—but it had worked so easily.
+
+But then, wasn’t it Solomon who complained about the lack of original
+material on this globe?
+
+The Diary? I took it to Berlin, as I have said, where it was a matter
+of considerable interest. Subsequently it was published, after discreet
+editing.
+
+But at that time I was engaged upon a matter of considerably more
+importance.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+    _Germany displays an interest in Mexico, and aids the United
+    States for her own purposes. The Japanese-Mexican treaty and
+    its share in the downfall of Diaz._
+
+
+It was in Paris that my next adventure occurred. I had gone there
+following one of those agreeably indefinite conversations with my tutor
+which always preceded some especial undertaking. “Why not take a rest
+for a few weeks?” he would say. “You have not seen Paris in some time.
+You would enjoy visiting the city again—don’t you think so?” And I would
+obligingly agree with him—and in due course would receive whatever
+instructions were necessary.
+
+It may seem that such methods are needlessly cumbersome and a little too
+romantic to be real; but in fact there is an excellent reason for them.
+Work such as mine is governed too greatly by emergencies to admit of
+definite planning beforehand. A contingency is foreseen—faintly, and
+as a possibility only—and it is thought advisable to have a man on the
+scene. But until that contingency develops into an assured fact, it would
+be the sheerest waste of energy to give an agent definite instructions
+which might have to be changed at any moment.
+
+[Illustration: General Villa and Colonel Trinidad Rodriguez, von der
+Goltz’s commanding officer.]
+
+[Illustration: General Raul Madero, the brother of the murdered President
+of Mexico.]
+
+So I had become accustomed to receive my instructions in hints and stingy
+morsels, understanding perfectly that it was part of my task to discover
+for myself the exact details of the situation which confronted my
+government. If I were not sufficiently astute to perceive for myself many
+things which my superiors would never tell me—well, I was in the wrong
+profession, and the sooner I discovered it the better.
+
+I went to Paris in just that way and put up at the Grand Hotel. So far as
+I knew I was on genuine leave of absence from all duties and I proceeded
+to amuse myself. Though under no obligations to report to anyone, I did
+occasionally drop around to the Quai d’Orsay—where most of the embassies
+and consulates are—to chat with men I knew. One day it was suggested
+to me at the Germany Embassy that I lunch alone the next day at a
+certain table in the Café Americaine. “I would suggest,” said one of the
+secretaries, “that you wear the black derby you have on. It is quite
+becoming,”—this with an expressionless face. “I would suggest also that
+you hang it on the wall behind your table, not checking it. Take note of
+the precise hook upon which you hang it. It may be that there will be a
+man at the next table who also will be wearing a black derby hat, which
+he will hang on the hook next to yours. When you go out be careful to
+take down his hat instead of your own.”
+
+I asked no questions. I knew better. Old and well known as it is, the
+“hat trick” is perennially useful. Its very simplicity makes it difficult
+of detection. It is still the best means of publicly exchanging documents
+between persons who must not be seen to have any connection with each
+other.
+
+I went to the Café Americaine, that cosmopolitan place on the Boulevard
+des Italiens near the opera. My man had not yet come, I noticed, and I
+took my time about ordering luncheon, drank a “bock” and watched the
+crowd. Near by was a party of Roumanians, offensively boisterous, I
+thought. An American was lunching with a dancer then prominent at the
+Folies. Two Englishmen—obviously officers on leave—chatted at another
+table, and in a corner, a group of French merchants heatedly discussed
+some business deal. The usual scene ... almost commonplace in its variety.
+
+Slowly I finished luncheon, and when I turned to get my hat, I saw, as
+I expected, that there was another black derby beside it. I took the
+stranger’s derby, and when I reached my room in the Grand Hotel I lifted
+up the sweatband. There on thin paper were instructions that took my
+breath away. For the time being I was to be in charge of the “Independent
+Service” of the German Government in Paris—that is, the Strong Arm Squad.
+
+This so-called “Independent Service” is an interesting organization of
+cut-throats and thieves whose connection with diplomatic undertakings
+is of a distinctly left-handed sort, and is, incidentally, totally
+unsuspected by the members of the organization themselves. Composed of
+the riff-raff of Europe—of men and women who will do anything for a
+consideration and ask no questions—it is frequently useful when subtler
+methods have failed and when by violence only can some particular thing
+be accomplished. As an organization the “Independent Service” does not
+actually exist: the name is merely a generic one applied for convenience
+to the large number of people in all great cities who are available
+for such work, and who, if they fail and are arrested or killed, can be
+spared without risk or sorrow.
+
+Naturally in illegal operations the trail must not lead to the embassy;
+and for that reason all transactions with members of the “Service”
+are carried on through a person who has no known connection with the
+Government. To his accomplices the Government agent is merely a man who
+has come to them with a profitable suggestion. They do not question his
+motives if his cash be good.
+
+My connection with this delightful organization necessitated a change of
+personality. I went round to the Quai d’Orsay and paid a few farewell
+calls to my friends there. I was going home, I said; and that afternoon
+the Grand Hotel lost one guest and _Le Lapin Agile_ on the hill of
+Montmartre gained a new one. Acting under instructions I had become a
+social outcast myself.
+
+The place where I had been told to stay had been a tavern for centuries.
+Once it was called the _Cabaret of the Assassins_, then the _Cabaret of
+the Traitor_, then _My Country Place_ and now, after fifty years, it was
+_The Sprightly Rabbit_. André Gill had painted the sign of the tavern, a
+rabbit which hung in the street above the entrance. After I had taken my
+room—being careful to haggle long about the price, and finally securing a
+reduction of fifty centimes—for one does well to appear poor at _Le Lapin
+Agile_—I came down into the cabaret. It was crowded and the air was thick
+and warm with tobacco smoke. Disreputable couples were sitting around
+little wooden tables, drinking wretched wine from unlabeled bottles;
+an occasional shout arose for “tomatoes,” a specialty of Frederic, the
+proprietor, which was, in reality, a vile brew of absinthe and raspberry
+syrup. There was much shouting and once or twice one of the company burst
+into song.
+
+“Tomatoes,” I told the waiter who came for my order. As he went I slipped
+a franc into his hand. “I want to see _The Salmon_. Is he in?”
+
+He nodded.
+
+A moment later a man stood before me. I saw a short, rather thick-set
+fellow, awkward but wiry, whose face bore somewhere the mark of a
+forgotten Irish ancestor. He was red-haired. I did not need his words to
+tell me who he was.
+
+“I am _The Salmon_,” he said. “What do you want?”
+
+I studied him carefully before replying, appraising him as if he were a
+horse I contemplated buying. It was not tactful or altogether safe, as
+_The Salmon’s_ expression plainly showed; but I wished to be sure of my
+man. After a moment:
+
+“Sit down, my friend,” I told him. “I have a business proposition to
+make. M. Morel sent me to you.”
+
+He smiled at the name. The fictitious M. Morel had put him in the way of
+several excellent “business propositions.”
+
+“It is a pleasure,” responded _The Salmon_. “What does Monsieur wish?”
+
+I told him....
+
+In order to make you understand the business I was on, it is necessary
+that I pause here, abandoning _The Salmon_ for the moment, and recall to
+your memory a few facts about the political situation as it existed in
+this month of February, 1911. Europe at the time was alull—to outward
+seeming. As everybody knows now the forces that later brought about the
+War were then merrily at work, as indeed they had been for many years.
+But outwardly, save for the ever impending certainty of trouble in the
+Balkans, the world of Europe was at peace.
+
+But in America a storm was brewing. Mexico, which for so many years had
+been held at peace under the iron dictatorship of Diaz, was beginning
+to develop symptoms of organized discontent. Madero had taken to the
+field, and although no one at the time believed in the ultimate success
+of the rebellion, it was evident that many changes might take place in
+the country, which would seriously affect the interests of thousands
+of European investors in Mexican enterprises. Consequently Europe was
+interested.
+
+I do not purpose here to go into the events of those last days of Diaz’s
+rule. That story has already been told, many times and from various
+angles. I am merely interested in the European aspects of the matter, and
+particularly in the attitude of Germany.
+
+Europe was interested, as I have said. Diaz was growing old and could
+certainly not last much longer. Then change must come. Was the Golden
+Age of the foreign investor, which had so long continued in Mexico, to
+continue still longer? Or would it end with the death of the Dictator?
+
+To these questions, which were having their due share of attention in
+the chancellories as well as in the commercial houses of Europe, came
+another, less apparent but more troublesome and more insistent than any
+of these. Japan, it was rumored, although very faintly, was seeking
+to add to its considerable interest in Mexico, by securing a strip of
+territory on the western coast of that country—an attempt which, if
+successful, would almost certainly bring about intervention by the United
+States.
+
+My government was especially interested in this movement on the part
+of Japan. It knew considerably more about the plan than any save the
+principals, for, as I happened to learn later on, it had carefully
+encouraged the whole idea—for its own purposes. And it knew that at that
+very time, the financial minister of Mexico, Jose Yves Limantour, was
+conducting preliminary negotiations in Paris with representatives of
+Japan, regarding the terms of a possible treaty. It knew that even then a
+protocol of this treaty was being drawn up.
+
+There was only one thing that my government wanted—a copy of the
+protocol. It was that which I had been instructed to get!
+
+The personality of Limantour is one of the most interesting of our day.
+Brilliant, incorruptible, unquestionably the most able Mexican of his
+generation, he had for seventeen years been closely associated with the
+dictator, and for a considerable portion of that period had been second
+only to Diaz in actual power. His presence in Paris at this time was
+significant. He had left Mexico on the 11th of July, 1910, ostensibly
+because of the poor health of his wife, although it had been reported
+that a serious break had taken place between himself and Diaz. He had
+spent a certain amount of time in Switzerland, and had later come to
+Paris to arrange a loan of more that $100,000,000 with a group of
+English, French and German bankers. But that task had been completed
+in the early part of December, and in view of the unsettled conditions
+in Mexico, there was no good reason for his continuing in Paris, save
+one—the negotiations with Japan.
+
+It was this man against whom I was to fight—this man who had proven
+himself more than a match for some of the best brains of both continents.
+The prospect was not reassuring. I knew that already several attempts
+had been made by our agents to secure the protocol, with the result that
+Limantour was sure to be more on his guard than he ordinarily would have
+been. Yet I _must_ succeed—and it was plain that I could do so only by
+violence.
+
+Violence it should be, then; and with the assistance of my friend _The
+Salmon_—to whom, you may be sure, I did not confide my real object—I
+prepared a plan of campaign, which we duly presented to a group of
+_The Salmon’s_ friends, who had been selected to assist us. To these
+men—Apaches, every one of them—I was presented as a decayed gentleman
+who for reasons of his own had found it necessary to join the forces of
+_The Salmon_. I was a good fellow, _The Salmon_ assured them, and by way
+of proving my friendship I had shared with him my knowledge of a good
+“prospect” whom I had discovered.
+
+“The man,” I said, “always carries lots of money and jewelry.” Of course
+I did not tell them his name was Limantour. I said he always played cards
+late at the club. “To stick him up,” I said, “will be the simplest thing
+in the world, but we must be careful not to hurt him badly—not enough to
+set the police hot on our trail.” The Apaches fell in with the proposal
+enthusiastically. We would attempt it the following night.
+
+Now the instructions which came to me under the sweatband of the
+black derby in the Café Americaine informed me that every night quite
+late Limantour received at the club a copy of the report of the day’s
+conference with the Japanese envoy. It was prepared and delivered
+to Limantour by his secretary and it was his habit to study it, upon
+returning home, and plan out his line of attack for the negotiations of
+the following day. I concluded that Limantour therefore would have it
+(the report) on his person when he left the club.
+
+Accordingly I had my Apaches waiting in the shadows. There were five
+of us. Limantour started to walk home, as I knew he was frequently in
+the habit of doing. We followed and in the first quiet street that he
+ventured down, he was blackjacked. In his pockets we found a little money
+and some papers, one glance of which assured me were of no value.
+
+My carefully planned _coup_ had failed. You can imagine how I felt about
+such a fiasco and how very quickly I had to think. Here was my first big
+chance and I had thoroughly and hopelessly bungled it. Limantour was
+already stirring. The blow he had received had purposely been made light.
+If he recovered to find himself robbed merely of an insignificant sum of
+money and some papers his suspicions would be aroused. I could not hope
+for another chance at him. I knew that Limantour was too clever not to
+sense something other than ordinary robbery in such an attack upon him.
+Furthermore my Apaches had to be bluffed and deceived as thoroughly as
+he was. I had promised them a victim who carried loads of money and at
+the few coins they had obtained there was much growling. Luckily I had a
+flash of sense. I resolved to turn the mishap to my advantage.
+
+“We hit the wrong night, that’s all,” I muttered. “You take the coins and
+get away. I am going to try to fool him.” Like rats they scurried away.
+When Limantour came to he found a very solicitous young man concerned
+with his welfare.
+
+“I saw them from down the street,” I told him, “they evidently knocked
+you out, but they cleared out when I came. Did they get anything from
+you? Here seem to be some letters.” And from the sidewalk I picked up and
+restored to him the papers I had taken from his pockets, not two minutes
+before.
+
+Limantour accepted them and I knew that my audacity had triumphed.
+
+“They are not of very much importance,” said Limantour, “and I had only a
+few francs on me.”
+
+Then suddenly, as if he just realized that he was alive and unharmed,
+Jose Limantour began to thank me for my assistance. I thought of those
+who had told me he was a cold, hard distant man. Limantour flung
+his arms around my neck. I was his savior! I was a very brave young
+gentleman. If I had not come up so boldly and promptly to his aid, he
+might have been very badly beaten, perhaps even killed. For all he knew
+he owed me his life. He must thank me. He must know his preserver. Here
+was his card. Might he have mine? I had been wise enough to keep some of
+my old cards when I changed the rest of my personality from the Grand
+Hotel to Montmartre. I gave him one of them.
+
+“A German,” he exclaimed, “and a worthy representative of that worthy
+race.” Limantour was enchanted. “And you live at the Grand Hotel?”
+
+That was better still. I was only a sojourner in Paris and one might
+venture to offer me hospitality—no? Next day he would send around a
+formal invitation to come and dine at his house and meet his family. They
+would be delighted to meet this brave and intrepid hero and would also
+wish to thank me.
+
+In a nearby café we had a drink and parted for the night. Next morning of
+course I had to appear again at the Grand Hotel. On foot I walked away
+from _Le Lapin Agile_, jumping into a taxi when I was out of sight. The
+taxi took me to the _Gare du Nord_; there I doubled in my tracks and
+presently, as if just having left a train, I took another taxi and was
+driven with my luggage to the hotel. I dropped around that afternoon to
+the Quai d’Orsay and called upon some of my acquaintances, remarking that
+I had come back for a little holiday. That night I had the pleasure of
+dining with Limantour.
+
+Thereafter I had to lead a double life. By day, I was an habitue of
+prominent hotels, restaurants, and clubs. I associated with young
+diplomats and occasionally took a pretty girl to tea. By night I lived
+in _Le Lapin Agile_ and consorted with thugs and their ilk. It cost me
+sleep, but I did not begrudge that in view of the stakes. All this time I
+was cultivating the acquaintance of Limantour and those around him.
+
+Shortly afterward I succeeded in taking one of the members of his
+household on a rather wild party and when his head was full of champagne
+he babbled that Limantour and his family were planning to sail for Cuba
+and Mexico on the following Saturday. I was also informed that on Friday,
+the day before the sailing, there would be a farewell reception at one
+of the embassies. Knowing Limantour’s habits of work as I did by this
+time, I was able to lay my plans with as much certainty as prevails in
+my profession. After weighing all the possibilities I decided to defer
+my attempt on him until this last Friday night. I reasoned that he would
+probably receive a draft of the agreement from his secretary at the club
+late than night. He would take it home with him and go over it with
+microscopic care. The next forenoon—Saturday—he would meet the Japanese
+envoy just long enough to finish the matter and then he would hurry to
+the steamer. Of course Limantour might have acted in a different way.
+That was the chance one has to take.
+
+Friday night came. In his luxurious limousine, Limantour and his family
+went to the farewell reception of the embassy. Comparatively early, he
+said his farewell—leaving Madame to go home later—and in his car he
+proceeded to the club. I saw him pass through the vestibule after leaving
+his chauffeur with instructions to wait. My guess as to Limantour’s
+movements had been right, so the plans I had made worked smoothly.
+
+I, too, had an automobile waiting near his club. Two of my men sauntered
+over to Limantour’s car. Under pretence of sociability they invited his
+chauffeur to have a drink. They led him into a little café on a side
+street near by, the proprietor of which was in with the gang. Limantour’s
+chauffeur had one drink and went to sleep. My men stripped him of his
+livery, which one of them donned. Presently Limantour had a new chauffeur
+sitting at the wheel of his limousine.
+
+An hour later Limantour was seen hurrying out of the club. As a man will,
+he scarcely noticed his chauffeur but cast a brief “home” to the man at
+the wheel. His limousine started, following a route through deserted
+residential streets, in one of which I had the trap ready. Half blocking
+the road was a large automobile, apparently broken down. It was the
+automobile in which I had been waiting outside the club. In it were four
+of my Apaches. Limantour’s car was called upon to stop.
+
+“Can you lend me a wrench?” one of my men shouted to Limantour’s false
+chauffeur.
+
+His limousine stopped. That free masonry which existed in the early
+days between motorists lent itself nicely to the situation. It was
+most natural for the chauffeur of Limantour’s car to get out and help
+my stalled motor. Indeed, Limantour himself opened the door of the
+limousine and half protruding his body, called out with the kindest
+intentions.
+
+To throw a chloroform-soaked towel over his head was the work of an
+instant. In half a minute he was having dreams—which I trust were
+pleasant. It was still necessary to keep my own men in the dark, to
+give these thugs no inkling that this was a diplomatic job. This time
+I was prepared; for I had learned of Limantour’s habits in regard to
+carrying money on his person. In my right hand overcoat pocket there were
+gold coins and bank notes. With the leader of the gang, I went through
+Limantour’s clothes. In the darkness of that street, it was a simple
+matter to seem to extract from them a double fist-full of gold pieces and
+currency, which I turned over to _The Salmon_.
+
+“Perhaps he has more bank notes,” I muttered, and I reached for the
+inner pocket of his coat. There my fingers closed upon a stiff document
+that made them tingle. “I’ll just grab everything and we can go over it
+afterwards.” Out of Limantour’s possession into mine came pocket-book,
+letters, card-case and that heavy familiar feeling paper.
+
+Dumping the unconscious Limantour into his limousine we cranked up our
+car and were off, leaving behind us at the worst, plain evidence of a
+crime common enough in Paris. It was to be corroborated next morning by
+the discovery of a drunken chauffeur, for we took pains to go back and
+get him once more into his uniform and full of absinthe. But it did not
+come to even that much scandal. Limantour, for obvious reasons, did not
+report the incident to the police. The next morning it was given out
+that Limantour had gone into the country and would not sail for a week.
+He had had a sudden recrudescence of an old throat trouble and must rest
+and undergo treatment before undertaking the voyage to Mexico—so the
+specialist said. This report appeared in Paris newspapers of the day. Of
+the protocol nothing was said at that time or later—by Señor Limantour.
+
+I turned it over to the proper authorities in Berlin, and very soon
+departed from Montmartre, leaving behind me a well-contented group of
+Apaches, who assured me warmly that I was born for their profession. I
+did not argue the question with them.
+
+There the matter might have ended; but Germany had another card to play.
+On February 27, 1911, Limantour left Paris for New York, to confer
+with members of the Madero family, in order if possible to effect a
+reconciliation and to end the Madero revolt. He landed in New York on
+March 7th. On that very day, by an odd coincidence, as one commentator[2]
+calls it, the United States mobilized 20,000 troops on the Mexican border!
+
+It was no coincidence. The Wilhelmstrasse had read the proposed terms of
+the treaty with great interest. It had noted the secret clauses which
+gave Japan the lease of a coaling station, together with manoeuver
+privileges in Magdalena Bay, or at some other port on the Mexican coast
+which the Japanese Government might prefer. It had noted, too, that
+agreement which, although not expressly stipulating that Japan and Mexico
+should form an offensive and defensive alliance, implied that Japan would
+see to it that Mexico was protected against aggression.
+
+And then Germany—acting always for her own interests—forwarded the treaty
+to Mexico, where it was placed in the hands of the American Ambassador,
+Henry Lane Wilson.
+
+Mr. Wilson immediately left for Washington with a photograph of portions
+of the treaty. A Cabinet meeting was held. That night orders were sent
+out for the mobilization of American troops, the assembling of United
+States marines in Guantanamo and the patrolling of the west coast of
+Mexico by warships of the United States.
+
+Within a week Mr. Wilson held a conference in New York with Señor
+Limantour. Limantour left hurriedly for Mexico City, arriving there March
+20th. Conferences were held. Japan denied the existence of the treaty
+and Washington recalled its war vessels and demobilized its troops.
+But barely seven weeks after Limantour arrived in Mexico, Madero, the
+bankrupt, with his handful of troops “captured” Ciudad Juarez. And
+shortly after, Diaz, discredited and powerless, resigned from the office
+he had held for a generation.
+
+That is the story of the fall of Diaz so far as Germany was concerned
+in it. There were other elements involved, of course—but this is not a
+history of Mexico.
+
+Germany had done the United States a service. It is interesting to
+consider the motives for her action.
+
+Those motives may be explained in two words: South America.
+
+Germany, let it be understood, wants South America and has wanted it for
+many years. Not as a possession—the Wilhelmstrasse is not insane—but as
+a customer and an ally. Like many other nations, Germany has seen in the
+countries of Latin America an invaluable market for her own goods and an
+unequaled producer of raw supplies for her own manufacturers. She has
+sought to control that market to the best of her abilities. But she has
+also done what no other European nation has dared to do—she has attempted
+to form alliances with the South American countries which, in the event
+of war between the United States and Germany, would create a diversion in
+Germany’s favor, and effectively tie the hands of the United States so
+far as any offensive action was concerned.
+
+There was just one stumbling block to this plan: the Monroe Doctrine.
+It was patent to German diplomats that such an alliance could never
+be secured unless the South American countries were roused to such a
+degree of hostility against the United States that they would welcome an
+opportunity to affront the government which had proclaimed that doctrine.
+And Germany, casting about for a means of making trouble, had encouraged
+the Japanese-Mexican alliance, hoping for intervention in Mexico and the
+subsequent arousal of fear and ill-feeling toward the United States on
+the part of the South American countries.
+
+_And Germany had been so anxious for the United States to intervene in
+Mexico that she had not only encouraged a treaty which would be inimical
+to your interests, but had made certain that knowledge of this treaty
+should come into your government’s hands by placing it there herself!_
+
+The United States did not intervene and Germany for the moment failed.
+But Germany did not give up hope. The intrigue against the United States
+through Mexico had only begun.
+
+It has not ended yet.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+    _My letter again. I go to America and become a United States
+    soldier. Sent to Mexico and sentenced to death there. I join
+    Villa’s army and gain an undeserved reputation._
+
+
+I must leave Europe behind me now and go on to the period embraced in
+the last five years. A private soldier in your United States Army—the
+victim of an attempt at assassination in stormy Mexico—major in the
+Mexican army; once again German secret agent and aide of Franz von Papen,
+the German Military Attaché in Washington; prisoner under suspicion of
+espionage, in a British prison, and finally your Government’s central
+witness in the summer of 1916, in a case that was the sensation of its
+hour—these are the roles I have been called on to play in that brief
+space of time.
+
+In the month of April, 1912, I abruptly quitted the service of my
+government. The reasons which impelled me were very serious. You
+remember that my active life began with the discovery of a document of
+such personal and political significance that government agents followed
+me all over Europe until I drove a bargain with them for it. In the
+winter of 1912, by a chain of circumstances I must keep to myself, that
+self-same document came again into my possession. I knew enough then, and
+was ambitious enough, to determine that this time I would utilize to the
+full the power which possession of it gave me. But it could not be used
+in Germany. Therefore I disappeared.
+
+There was an immediate search for me, which was most active in Russia. I
+was not in Russia nor in Europe. After running over in mind all the most
+unlikely places I could put myself I had found one that seemed ideal.
+
+While they were scouring Russia for me I was making my way across
+the Atlantic Ocean in the capacity of steward in the steerage of the
+steamship _Kroonland_ of the Red Star Line.
+
+[Illustration: The telegram von der Goltz received from Villa, inviting
+him to go to Mexico with Dr. Rachbaum, Villa’s physician, and join the
+Constitutionalist army.]
+
+The _Kroonland_ docked in New York City in May, 1912. I left her
+as abruptly as I had left a prouder service. Three days later a
+sorry-looking vagabond, I had applied for enlistment in the United States
+Army and had been accepted. I was sent to the recruiting camp at Fort
+Slocum, and under the severe eye of a sergeant began to learn my drill.
+
+It was toward the middle of May that I—or rather, “Frank
+Wachendorf”—enlisted. After a stretch of recruit training at Fort Slocum,
+I was assigned to the Nineteenth Infantry, then at Fort Leavenworth,
+Kansas.
+
+I learned my drill—shades of Gross Lichterfelde!—with extreme ease. That
+is the only single thing that I was officially asked to do.
+
+But early in my short and pleasant career as a United States soldier
+something happened which gave me special occupation. My small library
+was discovered. Among the volumes were Mahan’s “Sea Power” and Gibbon’s
+“Decline and Fall”—not just the books one would look for among the
+possessions of a country lout hardly able to stammer twenty words in
+English. But the mishap turned in my favor. My captain sent for me.
+
+“Wachendorf,” he said, “you probably have your own reasons for being
+where you are. That is none of my business. But you don’t have to stay
+there. If you want to go in for a commission you are welcome to my books
+and to any aid I can give you.”
+
+Thereafter life in the Nineteenth was decidedly agreeable. I set myself
+sincerely and whole-heartedly at the task of winning a commission in your
+army. I believe I might eventually have won it, too. But fate revealed
+other plans for me when I had been an American soldier some nine months.
+
+That winter of 1913, you remember, had been a stormy period in Mexico.
+Huerta had made his coup d’etat. Francisco Madero had been deposed and
+murdered. President Taft had again mobilized part of the United States
+forces on the border, leaving his successor, President Wilson, to deal
+with a Southern neighbor in the throes of revolution.
+
+The Nineteenth Infantry was ordered to Galveston, Texas. And in Galveston
+the agents of Berlin suddenly put their fingers on me again. It happened
+in the public library. I was reading a book there one day when a man I
+knew well came and sat down beside me. We will call him La Vallee—born
+and bred a Frenchman, but one of Germany’s most trusted agents.
+
+“_Wie gehts, von der Goltz?_” was his greeting.
+
+I told him he had mistaken me for some one else. He laughed.
+
+“What’s the use of bluffing,” he asked, “when each of us knows the other?
+Just read these instructions I’m carrying.” He laid a paper before me.
+
+La Vallee’s instructions were brief and outwardly not threatening. Find
+von der Goltz, they bade him. Try to make him realize how great a wrong
+he was guilty of when he deserted his country. But let him understand,
+too, that his government appreciates his services and believes he acted
+impulsively. If he will prove his loyalty by returning to his duty his
+mistake will be blotted out.
+
+I read carefully and asked La Vallee how I was expected to prove my
+loyalty at that particular time.
+
+“You know what it is like in Mexico now,” he said. “Our government has
+heavy interests there. Your services are needed in helping to look out
+for them.”
+
+“But,” I objected, “I am a soldier in the United States Army. You are
+asking me to be a deserter.”
+
+“Germany,” said La Vallee, “has the first claim on every German. If
+your duty happens to make you seem a deserter, that is all right. Frank
+Wachendorf must manage to bear the disgrace. Speaking of that,” he added,
+carelessly enough, but eyeing me severely, “were you not indiscreet
+there? Suppose some enemy should find out that you made false statements
+when you enlisted? I believe there is a penalty.”
+
+La Vallee knew that he had me in his power. I had to yield, and was told
+to report to the German Consul at Juarez, across the Rio Grande from
+El Paso. So in March, 1913, Frank Robert Wachendorf, private, became a
+deserter from the United States Army and a reward of $50 was offered for
+his arrest.
+
+Before I crossed the border I had one very important piece of business
+to attend to, and I stopped in El Paso long enough to finish it.
+Mexico, under the conditions that prevailed, was an ideal trap for me.
+As the lesser of two evils I had decided to risk my body there. But I
+had no mind to risk also what was to Berlin of far more value than my
+body—namely, that document which, a year before, had led to my abrupt
+departure from Germany and her service.
+
+In El Paso, where I was utterly unacquainted, I had to find some friend
+in whose stanchness I could put the ultimate trust. Being a Roman
+Catholic, I made friends with a priest and led him into gossip about
+different members of his flock. He spoke of a harnessmaker and saddler,
+one E. Koglmeier, an unmarried man of about fifty, who kept a shop in
+South Santa Fe Street. He was, the priest said, the most simple-minded,
+simple-hearted and utterly faithful man he knew.
+
+I lost no time in making Koglmeier’s acquaintance, on the priest’s
+introduction, and we soon were on friendly terms. When I crossed the
+international bridge I left behind in his safe a sealed package of
+papers. He knew only that he was to speak to no one about them and was to
+deliver them only to me in person or to a man who bore my written order
+for them.
+
+I reported to the German Consul in Juarez. He asked me to carry on to
+Chihuahua certain reports and letters addressed to Kueck, the German
+Consul there. From Chihuahua Kueck sent me on to Parral with other
+documents. And a German official in Parral gave me another parcel of
+papers to carry back to Kueck.
+
+I had no sooner reached Chihuahua on the return trip than I was put
+under arrest by an officer of the Federal (Huertista) forces, then in
+control of the city. I asked on whose authority. On that, he said, of
+Gen. Salvador Mercado. I was a spy engaged in disseminating anti-Federal
+propaganda. I had to laugh at the sheer absurdity of that, and asked what
+proofs he had to sustain such charges.
+
+“The papers you are carrying,” he said then, “will be proof enough, I
+think.”
+
+Chihuahua was under martial law. I had not the slightest inkling as to
+what might be in those papers I had so obligingly transported. I had put
+my foot into it, as your saying goes, up to my neck, the place where a
+noose fits.
+
+They marched me up to the cuartel and into the presence of Gen. Mercado.
+That was June 23, 1913, at 9 o’clock in the evening.
+
+Gen. Salvador Mercado, then the supreme authority in Chihuahua, with
+practical powers of life and death over its people, proved to be a squat,
+thick, bull-necked man with a face of an Indian and the bearing of a
+bully.
+
+His first words stirred my temper to the bottom, luckily for me. If I had
+confronted the man with any other emotion than raging anger I should not
+be alive now.
+
+“Your Consul will do no good,” he told me sneeringly. “He says you are
+not a German. You are a Gringo. You are a bandit and a robber. You have
+turned spy against us, too, I am going to make short work of you. But
+first you are going to tell me all you know.”
+
+As the completeness of the frame-up flashed upon me I went wild. There
+was a chair beside me. I converted one leg into a club and started for
+Mercado. The five other men in the room got the best holds upon me that
+they could. By the time they had mastered me Mercado had backed away into
+the furthest corner of the room.
+
+The remainder of our interview was stormy and fruitless. It resulted in
+my being taken to Chihuahua penitentiary, the strongest prison in Mexico,
+and thrown into a cell. It was two months and a half before I came out
+again.
+
+There is small use going in detail into the major and minor degradations
+of life in a Mexican prison. I pass over _cimex lectularius_ and the
+warfare which ended with my release. There are more edifying things to
+tell. For instance, how I came into possession of half a blanket and a
+pair of friends.
+
+I was confined—incommunicado, a sentry with fixed bayonet standing before
+my door—in an upper tier in the officers’ wing. Confinement in the
+officers’ wing carried one special privilege in which I, the desperado,
+did not share. During the day the cell doors were left open and the
+prisoners had the run of the corridor and galleries. My sentry’s bayonet
+barred them from me, but could not keep them from talking of the new
+prisoner who claimed to be a German and was suffering because he was
+suspected of attachment to the Constitutionalist cause.
+
+On my third or fourth night there I was attracted to my cell door by a
+sibilant “_Oiga! Aleman!_” and something soft was thrust between the bars.
+
+“German,” whispered a voice in Spanish out of the blackness, “it is cold
+to-night. We have brought you up a blanket.”
+
+So began my friendship with Pablo Almendaris and Rafael Castro, two young
+Constitutionalist officers. Almendaris, in particular, later became a
+chum of mine. He was a long, lank, solemn individual, the very image of
+Don Quixote of La Mancha. I remember him with love because he was the man
+who gave to me in prison, out of kindness of heart, a full half of his
+single blanket.
+
+This is how it happened. He and Rafael Castro, who were cellmates, had
+contrived a way to pick their lock and roam the cell block at night,
+stark naked, their brown skins blending perfectly with the dingy walls.
+They had already heard the story of my plight. That night Almendaris
+had cut his blanket in two, and the pair, with the bit of wool and a
+bottle of tequila they had bought that day when the prison market was
+open, sneaked up to the gallery and my cell. They gave the liquor to the
+sentry, who, being an Indian, promptly drank the whole of it down and
+became blissfully unconscious.
+
+The blanket was the first of many gifts, and many were the chats we had
+together, all with a practical purpose.
+
+“If you ever escape or are released,” Almendaris kept telling me, “go to
+Trinidad Rodriguez. He is my colonel. And if you ever get out of Mexico,
+go to El Paso and hunt up Labansat. He is there.”
+
+So they contrived to alleviate the minor evils of my predicament, and I
+shall never forget them. The major difficulty was beyond their reach. The
+trap had closed completely round me. The charge of spying and Mercado’s
+general truculence were only cloaks for a more subtle hostility from
+another quarter. The reason for my imprisonment was soon revealed openly.
+
+I had made various attempts to communicate with Kueck, the German Consul.
+Always I met the retort that Kueck himself said I was no German. At the
+same time, managing to smuggle an appeal for aid to the American Consul,
+I was informed that etiquette forbade his taking any steps in my behalf.
+Kueck himself, he said, had told him the German Consulate was doing
+all it could to protect me. It did not need a Bismarck to grasp the
+implications of those contradictory statements.
+
+After I had been in prison for about three weeks Kueck came to see me and
+made the whole matter thoroughly plain.
+
+“Von der Goltz,” he opened bluntly, “you are in a bad situation.”
+
+“Do you think so?” I asked him, significantly.
+
+“I have every reason to think so,” he said. “My hands are tied. I
+positively can take no steps in your behalf, unless”—he looked straight
+at me—“unless you restore certain documents you have no right to possess.”
+
+They had me nicely. The surrender of my letter was the price I must pay
+for my life. Acting under instructions, he had made me a definite offer.
+I had to take it or leave it.
+
+I could not give the letter up. It was my guarantee of safety. As long as
+Kueck did not know where it was I was valuable to him only while alive.
+Furthermore, I had some hopes of being freed by outside aid. Through
+Almendaris I had learned that the Constitutionalists were attacking
+Chihuahua, with good hope of taking the city. I knew that if they
+succeeded, the German—whose suffering for their cause, I was told, was
+known throughout their forces—would be well taken care of. So I reached
+my decision.
+
+“Herr Consul,” I said, “I will not give up the papers you refer to. I am
+not a child. Those papers are in a safe place. So are instructions as
+to their disposal in case of emergency. Let anything happen to me, and
+within a fortnight every newspaper in the United States will be printing
+the most sensational story within memory.”
+
+On July 23, 1913, I was tried by court-martial and sentenced to death.
+That led to a bitter personal quarrel between Gen. Manuel Chao, the
+Constitutionalist commander attacking the city, and Mercado, who defended
+it.
+
+Chao sent in a flag of truce, absolving me from any connection with his
+cause and threatening that if I were killed Mercado personally would have
+to pay the score when the Constitutionalists took Chihuahua. The Indian
+bully retorted that if the Constitutionalists ever captured the city they
+would not find their pet alive there.
+
+Three times in the weeks that followed, the Constitutionalist forces
+seemed on the point of capturing Chihuahua. Have you ever walked out
+with your own firing squad and spent an endless half hour on a chilly
+morning in the company of an officer with drawn sword, five soldiers with
+loaded rifles and a sergeant with the revolver destined to give you your
+_coup de grace_? Three times that happened to me, at Mercado’s orders. My
+profession has seldom permitted me to indulge in personal hatreds, but as
+I was marched back from that third bad half hour my mind was filled with
+one thought: If ever I got Mercado where he had me then I would let him
+know what it felt like.
+
+Then matters came to a crisis. Reinforcements were brought up from Mexico
+City and the Constitutionalist besiegers suffered a crushing defeat. I
+could put no more hope in them.
+
+Kueck came again to see me.
+
+“Give me an order on Koglmeier for those papers,” he demanded. “There’s
+no use saying Koglmeier hasn’t got them, for I know he has.”
+
+I could see he was not bluffing, and knew the game was up. I signed the
+release for the papers. There had been no personal animosity between
+Kueck and myself. I had seen too much of life to be angry with a man
+simply because he was obeying his orders.
+
+[Illustration: Constitutionalist soldiers surrounding the first cannon
+captured by Villa after he was released from prison in Mexico City.]
+
+About September 12, 1913, Kueck came to escort me out of prison, and in
+his own carriage drove me to the railway station, bound north, out of
+Mexico. I had a sheaf of letters, signed by Kueck, which recommended
+me, as Baron von der Goltz, to the good offices of German Consular
+representatives throughout the United States and requested them to supply
+me with funds.
+
+The last man who spoke to me in Chihuahua was Col. Carlos Orozco,
+commander of the Sixth Battalion of Infantry, and Gen. Mercado’s
+right-hand man, though his bitter enemy. His farewell was a threat. “You
+are lucky to get out of Mexico,” he told me. “If you ever come back and I
+see you I will have you shot at once.” My next meeting with Col. Carlos
+Orozco occurred on Mexican soil.
+
+Escorted by Consul Kueck out of Mexico I went up to El Paso, determined
+to return to Mexico as soon as possible. But before I did anything else,
+I felt a very great desire to square accounts with Gen. Salvador Mercado.
+
+So I stopped off at El Paso to look for Labansat, the Constitutionalist
+about whom my friend Pablo Almendaris told me while I was in prison, I
+lost no time in getting into touch with him and other members of the
+Constitutionalist junta.
+
+Another acquaintance made at that time proved very useful to me later.
+Dr. L. A. Raschbaum, Francisco Villa’s personal physician, was a fellow
+guest at the Ollendorf Hotel.
+
+We were an earnest but impecunious bunch. Juan T. Burns, now Mexican
+Consul General in New York, may still remember a morning when he and I
+found ourselves with one nickel between us and the necessity of getting
+breakfast for two at an El Paso lunch counter. That lone “jitney” bought
+a cup of coffee and two rolls. Each of us took a roll and we drank the
+cup of coffee mutually.
+
+I also renewed my intimacy with Koglmeier, the saddler in South Santa Fe
+Street. He told me a man he did not know had come with my written order
+for the papers I had left in his safe and he had turned them over.
+
+Despairing at last of obtaining results at El Paso, I availed myself of
+my consular recommendations and went out to Los Angeles, Cal. There I
+received help from Geraldine Farrar, whom I had known in Germany, and in
+November, 1913, directly after the battle of Tierra Blancha, Chihuahua, I
+received a telegram saying: “Dr. Raschbaum’s proposition accepted; come
+at once,” and signed “Francisco Villa.” My way lay open before me and I
+was free to start.
+
+I reached El Paso on November 27th and went on to Chihuahua, which had
+fallen into the hands of the Constitutionalists. Once there, I looked
+up my friend of the half blanket, Pablo Almendaris, and by him was
+introduced to Col. Trinidad Rodriguez, commanding a cavalry brigade, who
+promptly attached me to his staff, with the rank of captain.
+
+The Federalists had retreated across the desert northward and settled
+themselves in Ojinaga, the so-called Gibraltar of the Rio Grande, a
+tremendously strong natural position.
+
+Toward the middle of December we received orders to proceed to the
+attack of Ojinaga. Our brigade and the troops of Gens. Panfilo Natira
+and Toribio Ortega were included in the expedition, some 7,000 men. The
+railway carried us seventy miles. The rest of the journey had to be
+made on horseback. During four days of marching in the desert I made
+acquaintance with Mexican mounted infantry, the most effective arm for
+such conditions and country the world has seen.
+
+Arriving before the outer defenses of Ojinaga, we began our siege of the
+city. Soon after I got my first sight of Pancho Villa.
+
+Of a sudden one evening, Trinidad Rodriguez told me that “Pancho” had
+just arrived and we must ride over for a conference with him.
+
+We found Villa lying on a saddle blanket in an irrigation ditch in the
+company of Raul Madero, brother of the murdered President, a handful of
+officers who had come up with them, and our own commanders, Natira and
+Ortega.
+
+Madero, to my mind one of the ablest Mexicans alive, was clad in the
+dingiest of old gray sweaters. Villa, unkempt, unshaven and unshorn, was
+begrimed and weary from his ride across the desert. But he seemed full of
+bottled-up energy, and when Gen. Rodriguez and I came up he was giving
+Gen. Ortega a talking to because so little had been accomplished in
+regard to taking Ojinaga.
+
+While we talked I rolled me a cigarette, and all at once he broke
+off abruptly. “Give me some of that, too,” he demanded. I handed him
+“the makings” and he attempted a cigarette. He was so clumsy with it
+that I had to roll it for him. Then for the first and last time in my
+acquaintance with him I saw Pancho Villa smoke. Contrary to the stories
+that have gone out about him, he is a most abstemious man with regard to
+alcohol and tobacco.
+
+On Christmas night, 1913, happened the adventure which made me, quite by
+accident, and without intention, a hero. Also, I underwent the greatest
+fright of my life.
+
+My commander, Rodriguez, had received orders to make an attack that night
+straight-forward toward Ojinaga. After it was completely dark we formed
+and advanced, finding ourselves very soon among the willows lining the
+bank of the Rio Conchas, which we had to cross.
+
+It was my first taste of genuine warfare, and I cannot begin to tell you
+how it affected me, how ghastly it was among the willows in the vague
+darkness through which the column was threading its way with the utmost
+possible quietness. The beat of hoofs was muffled in the soggy ground,
+and the only sound to break the utter stillness of the night was the
+occasional clank of a spur or thin neigh of a horse.
+
+Then all at once, to the front and in the distance, came a boom—the
+single growling of a field-gun. Ping! Ping! Ping! broke out a volley of
+rifle shots, and then with its r-r-r-r-r! a Hotchkiss machine gun got
+to work. A staccato bam! bam! bam! as a Colt’s machine gun joined the
+chorus. Somewhere troops were going into serious action. That was no
+skirmishing.
+
+We finally crossed the river and dismounted. Part of the brigade had gone
+astray. Rodriguez cursed impatiently and incessantly under his breath
+until it joined us. He was a born cavalry leader, mad for action. Any
+sort of waiting lacerated his nerves.
+
+In line, with rifles trailing, we moved across the unknown terrain of
+low, rolling hills. On our front there had been no firing. Then all at
+once, directly before us and not far ahead, sounded a startled “_Qui
+vive?_” and an instant’s silence while the surprised outpost of the enemy
+waited for an answer. “_Alerta! Alerta!_” sounded his shrill alarm.
+
+Hell broke open around us then. Rifles, machine guns and cannon opened
+fire all at once. Bullets whined above our heads and bursting shrapnel
+fell around us. We had just come to an irrigation ditch, six feet wide,
+with a high wire fence on the further bank of it.
+
+“Stay here till they’re all across and look for skulkers,” Trinidad
+Rodriguez gave himself time to order me, then leaped across the ditch and
+began to run toward the fence. “Come on here, boys!” he shouted.
+
+The men were quickly across. I followed, or tried to, and just as my
+front foot touched the further bank the clay crumbled. Down I went into
+the ditch.
+
+When I recovered myself in that four feet of mud and water and poked my
+head up over the bank the fence had been demolished. Beyond it countless
+rifles spat tongues of fire toward me. But not a living soul was near.
+The night had swallowed up every last one of our men.
+
+Fright had not come yet. I was bewildered. I still had my rifle and began
+to use it. After a few discharges there came a violent wrench and the
+barrel parted company with the rest of the weapon. It had been shot to
+pieces in my hands. I threw the stock away and got out my revolver—a Colt
+.44 single-action, of the frontier model.
+
+Boom! There was a roar like a field-gun’s and a flash that lit up the
+night all round me. The wet weapon was outdoing itself in pyrotechnics,
+and I was unnecessarily attracting attention to myself. So, half
+swimming, half wading, I moved down the ditch in the direction of the
+high hill which, looming vaguely, seemed half familiar to me.
+
+I was lost, you understand. I had come at night into unknown terrain.
+I welcomed that hill, which seemed to give me back my bearings. I
+reached the base of it, got out of my ditch and began to climb, with some
+caution, luckily for me. For just as I stole over the crest a roar and a
+flash obliterated the night. Two enemy field-pieces had been discharged
+together, almost into my face.
+
+Deeming it more than likely that the flash had shown the gunners one
+startled Teutonic face, I rolled down that hill and was once more in my
+ditch. But panic had full possession of me. I climbed out on the far side
+and ran among the scattered trees there until I realized that no racer
+can hope to outrun a bullet. Then I stopped.
+
+Phut! Phut! Bullets were hissing into the soft irrigated ground all round
+me, for by accident I had gotten into a very dangerous zone of dropping
+cross-fire, while overhead shrapnel was searching out blindly for our
+horses.
+
+By good luck I knew the trumpet calls. Whenever the signal to fire
+sounded I took what cover I could, going on again in what I decided was
+the direction of the Rio Conchas as soon as the bugles called “cease
+firing.”
+
+After a while I found a small gray horse standing dejectedly by a tree.
+I mounted him and eventually got among the willows on the river bank.
+There the horse collapsed under me without a warning quiver or groan, and
+when I had wriggled myself loose and groped him over I discovered the
+poor brute must have been shot as full of holes as a flute before I ever
+found him.
+
+But I had small sympathy to spend on fallen horses just then. Cleaning my
+gory hands as best I could on breeches and tunic, I stumbled on through
+the bushes. After a long time I came, by accident, to the place where the
+brigade had dismounted to go into action. The mounts were mostly gone,
+but a few still stood there, with perhaps a score of men and one officer,
+Lieut. Col. Patricio, who was vastly surprised at my sudden appearance
+from the direction of the front.
+
+Our brigade had been withdrawn within twenty minutes of the beginning
+of the action—as soon as it was quite certain the surprise had failed.
+Patricio was waiting there because his brother had been killed and he
+wanted, if possible, to take back his body.
+
+“But,” cried the colonel, suddenly warming into emotion, “you—where have
+you been? You, valiant German, refused to come back with the others! All
+night, all by yourself, you have been fighting single-handed. Let me
+embrace you!”
+
+He flung his arms about me, to receive a fresh surprise. “You are all
+sticky with something,” he cried. “What is it?”
+
+“Blood,” I told him simply and truthfully. My reputation was made.
+
+Bravado stirs a Mexican as nothing else can. Counterfeit bravado is just
+as effective as any so long as the substitution is not suspected. Young
+Capt. von der Goltz, in his first real engagement, had got stupidly lost
+and very badly frightened. But of Capt. von der Goltz Col. Patricio and
+his troopers sang the praises for days thereafter to every officer and
+every peon soldier they met. He had fought on alone for hours after every
+comrade left him. He had bathed himself in the blood of his enemies, up
+to his hips and up to his shoulders. You could see it on his clothes.
+
+By the time Ojinaga fell “_El Diable Aleman_”—the German Devil—had become
+a tradition of the Constitutionalist Army.
+
+Ojinaga fell at New Year’s, 1914, the Federalists retreating across the
+Rio Grande into the United States. We pursued them. And on the bank of
+the river I had a little adventure.
+
+You remember that when I left Chihuahua, a released prisoner, the last
+person who spoke to me was Col. Carlos Orozco, commanding the Sixth
+Infantry Battalion, and his farewell was a threat.
+
+That Sixth Battalion had been engaged in the defense of Ojinaga and
+had retreated with its fellow organizations. When I came up to the Rio
+Grande a small body of fugitives was in midstream. My handful of troopers
+rode in, surrounded them and brought them back to Mexico. Their heroic
+commander, who had offered no show of resistance, proved to be Orozco,
+with the colors of his outfit wrapped round his body, under his blouse!
+
+The provocation was too much for me. “Don Carlos,” I asked him, “is it
+possible you have forgotten me? When we parted last time you promised
+to shoot me if ever we met again. I am naturally all on fire to learn
+whether you are thinking of keeping your promise now?”
+
+Prominent prisoners were getting short shrift in those days, and Orozco
+preserved a sullen silence. But I let him ford the river to safety. He
+eventually got back to Mexico City and Huerta, by way of San Antonio,
+Galveston and Vera Cruz. The story of his exploit at Ojinaga, the sole
+Federal officer to come out of it alive, unwounded, and bringing his
+colors with him, furnished columns of copy to _El Imparcial_ and the
+other papers. Friends and admirers of his who heard the lion roar at that
+time may find some interest in this less romantic record of his adventure.
+
+I had another account to settle with my old acquaintance, Consul Kueck
+of Chihuahua. During the last battle before Ojinaga an officer struck up
+a rifle which he saw a peon aiming at my back. The ball whistled over my
+head. The soldier later saw fit to confess the reason for his act. He
+said that a big, fat German—Kueck’s secretary, he thought—had come to him
+just before we left Chihuahua on our expedition and had given him 500
+pesos to attempt my life.
+
+Returning to Chihuahua very soon after New Year’s, I made it my business
+to call on Consul Kueck. He had cleared out across the border to El Paso,
+just before we got in.
+
+Failing the principal, I took the liberty of arresting Kueck’s secretary
+inside the sacred precincts of the Foreign Club. After my adjutant and he
+and I had three or four hours’ private talk and he understood how likely
+he was to occupy the cell in Chihuahua penitentiary which had once been
+mine, he helped me obtain copies of certain documents in the consular
+archives, particularly the letter Kueck had written the American Consul
+affirming himself to be fully responsible for my safety, at the very time
+when he was setting Mercado on and telling me that he could and would do
+nothing for me. Once I got hold of that, I felt fairly certain that Kueck
+would be moderate in his dealings with me thereafter.
+
+Only Gen. Salvador Mercado stood wholly on the debit side of my account
+book. I had heard that he had been captured on United States soil, along
+with numerous other fugitive Federal officers, and had been put for
+safekeeping into the detention camp at El Paso.
+
+It chanced that Villa and Raul Madero went up to the border for a few
+days of the winter race-meet at Juarez, just across the river from El
+Paso. Don Raul was kind enough to invite me too, and I went along in
+fettle, with a new uniform. Our army was in funds and I had all the money
+I wanted.
+
+From Juarez it was merely a matter of crossing the international bridge
+to be in El Paso. I went over. I wanted to see Koglmeier, the saddler in
+South Santa Fe Street, and I wanted to visit the detention camp.
+
+I chose to see the camp first, and had the forethought to fill one of
+the pockets of my overcoat with Mexican gold pieces, very welcome to my
+whilom enemies. Poor fellows, they were, most of them, in the tattered
+clothing they had worn when captured. Their faces were wan and meagre and
+they were glad enough to accept, along with my greeting, the bits of gold
+I contrived to slip into their hands.
+
+In the center of the camp we came upon a tent more imposing than its
+mates, though by no means palatial.
+
+“This,” said my cicerone, “is the quarters of Gen. Mercado, the ranking
+officer here. Do you wish to pay him your respects?”
+
+As I have said, Salvador Mercado is squat and thick in build, with a bull
+neck. Some day, I fear, he is going to die of apoplexy, if he does not
+fall, more gloriously, in action. He shows certain apoplectic symptoms.
+For instance, as we stepped inside his tent and he saw who one of his
+visitors was, his neck swelled till it threatened to burst his collar.
+
+“My General,” I assured him warmly, “it is indeed a pleasure and an honor
+to see you again. I trust the climate up here agrees with you?” I did not
+offer him a gold piece when he said good-bye.
+
+[Illustration: Photograph of a clipping from the El Paso Herald of
+December 22, 1913. No motive has ever been discovered for the crime,
+other than the theory advanced by Captain von der Goltz.]
+
+From the detention camp I went to Koglmeier’s shop in South Santa Fe
+Street. Both front and rear doors were standing open, and through the
+back of one I could see Koglmeier’s horse, a beast I had often ridden,
+switching its tail in the yard, which was its stable. I went into the
+store. “Koglmeier!” I called. “Oh, Koglmeier!”
+
+From the side of the shop stepped out a man on whom I had never set eyes
+before.
+
+“Koglmeier ain’t here.”
+
+“But he must be here,” I insisted. “I can see his horse out there in the
+yard.”
+
+“Yes,” said the man, “the horse is here, but Koglmeier ain’t. Nor he
+won’t be. It just happens that Koglmeier’s dead.”
+
+“When did he die?”
+
+“The 20th of last December,” said the man. “But he didn’t die. He got
+murdered.”
+
+On the night of that 20th of December, Koglmeier, the quietest, most
+inoffensive man in El Paso, had been murdered in his shop. It looked,
+said my informant, “like his head had been beat in with a hatchet,
+or something.” Robbery apparently had not been the motive, for his
+possessions were untouched. If he had made an outcry it had not attracted
+attention, perhaps because a carousel was going full blast in the vacant
+lot beside his place of business. The authorities were utterly at sea,
+and still are. The United States Department of Justice agents told me
+they could find no motive for the murder. I knew the motive. Koglmeier
+had kept “my documents” for me; therefore Imperial Germany had willed he
+die.
+
+[Illustration: This “six months’ leave of absence” granted by Gen.
+Raul Madero of the Mexican Constitutionalist army to von der Goltz, is
+declared by von der Goltz to have saved him from the death of a spy, when
+the British captured him in London. With this document von der Goltz was
+enabled to convince the London War Office that instead of being a German
+spy he was a bona-fide Mexican army officer on leave of absence. At the
+right is the letter of recommendation given von der Goltz by Madero at
+the same time.]
+
+Koglmeier was the only German in El Paso who was a friend of mine, and
+knew of the existence of those documents which I had been forced to give
+up through the agency of Mercado’s firing squads.
+
+His end subdued the festive spirit in me and I was not sorry when we
+started back for the interior of Mexico.
+
+Torreon was taken by Villa on April 2, 1914, and we settled down there
+for a brief period of rest and recuperation. Rest! Torreon stands out in
+my memory as the scene of the most hectic activity I have indulged in.
+Raul Madero and I have since laughed over the ludicrousness of it. But at
+the time it was deadly serious. My reputation was at stake. I managed to
+save it barely by the skin of its teeth.
+
+Chief Trinidad Rodriguez got twenty machine guns down from the United
+States and turned them over to me. “Train your gun crews and get the
+platoons ready for field service,” he ordered. “You can have three weeks.
+Then I shall need them.”
+
+Without a word I saluted and turned on my heel. I could not very well
+tell my general that I had never in my life touched even the tip of one
+finger to a machine gun.
+
+The guns arrived next day, as promised. They had been sent to us bare,
+just the barrels and tripods. There were no holsters, no pack saddles
+for either guns or ammunition, not one of the accessories which equip
+a machine gun company for action. I had to start from the ground, in
+literal truth. And I had not a soul to advise me how to begin.
+
+We loaded the guns onto our wagons, took them over to camp and laid them
+side by side in a long row down the center of an empty ware-house in
+Torreon.
+
+That satisfied me for one afternoon. I went over to Gen. Rodriguez’s
+quarters.
+
+“I’ve got the guns,” I reported.
+
+“Good!” he cried. “I shall want the platoons ready for action in three
+weeks. Not a day later.”
+
+It was up to me to have them ready. So I got busy at once.
+
+My first move was an abduction. There happened to be in Torreon jail
+at that time a first class bank robber named Jefferson, who was being
+held for the arrival of extradition papers from Texas. The day after my
+guns arrived Jefferson escaped, and though the authorities made diligent
+search they failed to find him. He knew more about machine guns than I
+did. His profession had made him an excellent mechanic. Furthermore,
+he had Yankee ingenuity and American “git up and git.” We soon had all
+twenty guns set up in working order.
+
+Then came the problem of the gun crews. Our Indians, slow, thick-headed,
+stubborn and stolid, were no fit material for such highly specialized
+work. Machine gun manipulation requires special qualifications in every
+man concerned. Three men compose the crew. One squats behind the shield
+and pulls the trigger. The second, prone, slides the clips of cartridges
+into the breach. The third passes up the supply of ammunition. At any
+moment the gun may heat and jam. Also, at any moment any one of the trio
+may fall, yet his work must be carried on. I have seen a gunner sit on
+the dying body of a comrade and coolly aim and fire, the action being so
+hot there was not time to drag the wounded man aside. You cannot take an
+Indian wild from the hills and in twenty-one days fit him to do such work
+as that by any course of training.
+
+My only resort was to get my gun crews ready made.
+
+A brigade not far away from ours possessed machine gun platoons which
+were the pride of its heart. I looked at them, and broke first the Tenth
+and then the Eight Commandment.
+
+To a wise old sergeant I gave a hundred pesos.
+
+“Juan,” I told him, “get the men of those machine gun crews drunk in this
+quarter of Torreon. And encourage them to be noisy.”
+
+Juan obeyed instructions. Once the beer and mezcal took hold, the men I
+wanted became boisterous enough to justify our provost guard in running
+them all in. The rest was simple. The breach of discipline was condoned
+by Gen. Rodriguez only on condition that the culprits were turned over to
+him for further discipline.
+
+So I got my gun crews. I was beginning to have hopes. The best saddler in
+the city was making holsters. When I first approached him with an order
+he had promptly thrown up his hands. “There is not a scrap of leather
+left in Torreon,” he said.
+
+I instantly thought of chair backs. In Spanish countries furniture
+upholstered in old carved Cordovan leather is an heirloom. In time of
+war ruthlessness is a useful quality. I soon presented my saddler with
+sufficient leather for my purpose and could turn my attention to pack
+saddles. Not even the sawbuck frames were procurable in Torreon, but wood
+was plenty. And there was a jail filled with idle prisoners. Ten days
+after the first sight of my guns I was able to report to Gen. Rodriguez
+that the platoons were coming along.
+
+“But I have no mules for them yet,” I hinted.
+
+He sent a hundred next day, beauties, fat, strong, in the pink of
+condition. But they had come straight down from the mesa. They could be
+trusted to kick saddles, guns, tripods, holsters and ammunition cases
+into nothing at the least provocation.
+
+Torreon was celebrating its new Constitutionalism with daily bull
+fights. Each afternoon, while the fight was on, the plaza before the
+entrance to the ring was crowded with public rigs in waiting, all drawn
+by sorry-looking mules, half fed and too worn out to have a single kick
+left in them.
+
+With a squad of troopers I descended on the plaza one day. No cabbie
+anywhere is markedly shy or retiring, and these were hill-bred muleteros.
+But we got the mules in the end.
+
+“You are getting the best of the bargain,” I assured them. “I am only
+swapping with you. In the corral I have a hundred fine, strong, new mules
+worth three times as much as these played-out beasts you are getting rid
+of. You can have the nice new ones to-morrow.”
+
+If Gen. Trinidad ever guessed how thoroughly improvised his favorite
+outfit was—the second in command a bank robber on enforced vacation, the
+gunners kidnapped, the equipment made by forced labor from commandeered
+material, and the mules snatched rudely from between the shafts of
+cabs—he made no comment.
+
+He did not live long to enjoy the fruits of my labors. In mid-June,
+during the ten-day attack which resulted in the fall of Zacatecas, he was
+mortally wounded.
+
+I shall always remember that day, not only for the death of my chief, but
+for a personal bit of adventure.
+
+I was temporarily away from my guns with some riflemen in a trench. The
+enemy fire was very hot and the men became exceedingly restive. Something
+had to be done to steady them, for there was no cover of any sort on the
+bullet-swept, shrapnel-searched plain behind us. Retreat was impossible.
+There were plenty of horrors in the situation—the blazing sun, the sense
+of isolation, the cries and curses of the men who were being struck. And
+there was the cactus.
+
+Unless you have been under fire of high-power rifles in a region where
+the common broad-leaved cactus grows you cannot guess its nerve-shaking
+possibilities. A jacketed bullet can pierce a score of leaves without
+much diminution of its velocity, and as it goes through the thick, juicy
+flesh, it lets out a sound like the spitting of some gigantic cat. Ten
+Mauser bullets piercing cactus can make you believe a whole battalion is
+concentrating its fire on your one small but precious person.
+
+The men were getting demoralized. If they broke I was done for. If I
+stayed in the trench alone the Federals would eventually get me and stand
+me up to the nearest wall. If I retreated with them, nothing was gained.
+No man can hope to outrun a bullet.
+
+I stood up, exposing my body from mid-thigh upward to that withering
+fire, and took out my cigarette case. The nearest men watched side-wise,
+waiting to see me fall.
+
+By some fortune I was not hit, and after a moment looked down at the man
+beside me.
+
+“Hello, Pablo!” I said, “why aren’t you smoking, too?” I offered my case
+to him, but took good care to stretch out my arm quite level. To get at
+the contents he had to rise to his feet.
+
+Habit won. He did not even hesitate, and I held my cigarette, Mexican
+fashion, for him to take a light. Once committed in that fashion, he was
+too proud to show the white feather, and he and I smoked our cigarettes
+out while the bullets flew. It was the longest cigarette, I think, I ever
+smoked, but it turned the trick. We held on to that trench till darkness
+put an end to the fire.
+
+After the capture of Zacatecas I went to the staff of Gen. Raul Madero,
+with the rank of Major. The invitation had been extended several times
+before. Now that Trinidad was dead, there was nothing to hold me back,
+and I very gladly joined the official family of the brother of the
+murdered President. Since my first association with him, before Ojinaga,
+he had impressed me as the ablest man I had seen south of the Rio Grande.
+
+The closer and constant contact entailed by my becoming a member of his
+staff confirmed that feeling. Raul Madero has clarity of intelligence,
+an encyclopaedic grasp of Mexican affairs, social, religious, political
+and financial, and a winning personality that masks abundant energy and
+determination.
+
+I was associated with him for only six weeks. On June 28th, 1914, you
+remember, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated.
+All through July the Austrian Government was formulating its demands
+on Serbia, which culminated in the ultimatum of July 23. Long before
+that I had formed my opinion as to which way the wind was to blow. And
+I had a sufficiently conceited notion of my usefulness as a trained and
+experienced agent to believe that when the general European disturbance
+should break out my days as a soldier of fortune in Mexico would be ended.
+
+Toward the end of July a stranger brought me credentials proving him a
+messenger from Consul Kueck in El Paso.
+
+“The Consul,” he told me, “wishes to ask you one question, and the answer
+is a yes or a no. This is the question: In case your Government wished
+your services again, could she expect to receive them?”
+
+“In case of war—yes,” I answered.
+
+It was not very long before I received a telegram from Kueck. “Come,” was
+all it said.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+    _War. I re-enter the German service and am appointed aide to
+    Captain von Papen. The German conception of neutrality and how
+    to make use of it. The plot against the Welland Canal._
+
+
+The meaning of Kueck’s telegram was plain. War had come at last, the war
+that we had expected and prepared for during so many years. My country
+was at war and I must leave whatever I was doing and return to its
+service.
+
+I went to Raul Madero with the telegram.
+
+“It has come,” I said. “War. I shall have to go.”
+
+We had spoken together too often, during the past few weeks, of my duty
+in the event of hostilities, for any long discussion to be necessary now.
+I asked for and received all that I believed to be necessary—a leave of
+absence for six months with the privilege of extension. The next day,
+August 3, 1914, I said good-bye to my troops and to my commander and
+hastened north to El Paso.
+
+At the Hotel el Paso del Norte, I met my former enemies, Kueck and his
+stout secretary. We had dinner together and he gave me letters containing
+instructions to proceed to New York and to place myself at the disposal
+of Captain Franz von Papen, the German military attaché at Washington.
+
+“When will Captain von Papen be in New York?” I asked.
+
+“I have just received a communication from Papen,” replied Kueck, adding
+with a gratified smile, “I am keeping him informed of conditions along
+the border. He will be in New York two weeks from to-day.”
+
+There was no necessity for haste then, and I remained in El Paso for five
+days longer, keeping my eyes and ears open and learning, among other
+things, more “facts” about Mexico than I could have acquired in Mexico
+itself in a life time. “There are lies, damned lies and El Pasograms,”
+some one has said. I collected enough of the last-named to cheer me on my
+way to Washington and to make me marvel that Rome had ever been called
+the father of lies. No wonder newspaper correspondents like to report
+Mexican news from El Paso.
+
+[Illustration: Dr. Kraske’s letter addressed to “Baron von der Goltz,”
+arranging for an appointment with Captain von Papen. Translated it reads:
+
+                                          New York, August 21, 1914.
+
+    DEAR HERR VON DER GOLTZ:
+
+    I am very sorry not to have found you in after another
+    engagement. I was unable to come round and try to catch you.
+
+    I had arranged a meeting for yesterday morning between you and
+    a gentleman who is interested in you.
+
+    If you call on me to-morrow morning at whatever time is
+    convenient to you, I shall probably be able to arrange another
+    interview.
+
+                              I am, etc.,
+
+                                                         DR. KRASKE.]
+
+Washington was technically on vacation at the time, but there was an
+unwonted air of excitement about the city—far greater than formerly
+existed when Congress was in full session. At the German Embassy I found
+only a few clerks; but letters from Newport, to which the Ambassador and
+his staff had gone for the summer, informed me that Captain von Papen
+would meet me in New York in a fortnight. And then I learned for the
+first time that it was impossible for me to reach Germany, but that I was
+to be assigned to work in the United States.
+
+I knew what that meant, of course, and I was not wholly unprepared for
+it. Secret agents could be very useful in a neutral country, and I knew
+from my acquaintance with German methods in Europe, that plans would
+already have been made for conserving German interests in the United
+States. What those plans were I did not know; but my only immediate
+concern was to remove any possible suspicion from myself by doing
+something that on the surface would seem to be absolutely idiotic.
+
+I became violently and noisily pro-German. On the train I entered into
+arguments (as a matter of fact I could not have escaped them if I tried)
+in which I stoutly defended the invasion of Belgium and prophesied an
+early victory for Germany. And when I arrived in New York I registered
+at the Holland House, where my actions would be more conspicuous than
+at one of the larger hotels, and proceeded to make myself as noticeable
+as possible by spending a great deal more money than I could afford—and
+talking. In a day or two the reporters were on my trail and I became
+their obliging prey. What I told them I do not now remember in its
+entirety, but newspaper clippings of the day assure me that I made many
+wild and bombastic statements, promising that Paris would be captured
+in a very few weeks—in a word uttering the most flagrant nonsense. The
+reporters decided that I was a fool and deftly conveyed that impression
+to their readers. And in a very brief time I had the satisfaction of
+learning that I was everywhere regarded as a person of considerably more
+loquacity than intelligence.
+
+That was the very reputation I had attempted to get. I wanted to be
+known—and widely—as a braggart, a spendthrift, a rattlebrain, for the
+very excellent reason that in no other way could I so easily divert
+suspicion from myself later on. I was a German, and consequently under
+the surveillance of enemy secret agents, with whom—oh, believe me!—the
+United States was filled. It was impossible for me to escape some
+notice. Since that was the case, the safest course for me to pursue was
+to comport myself in such a way that all interested persons would report
+(as I afterwards learned they did report) that I was not worth watching,
+since no sane government would ever employ me.
+
+While I was engaged in achieving this enviable reputation, I had managed
+to keep in touch with the Imperial German Consulate in New York, and
+on August 21 I had received from the Vice-Consul, Dr. Kraske, a note
+informing me that “the gentleman who is interested in you”—Captain von
+Papen—“will meet you next morning at the Consulate.” That letter was to
+figure two years later in the trial of Captain Hans Tauscher. I reproduce
+it here. You might note that it is addressed to “Baron von der Goltz,”
+although my card did not bear that title, and I had registered at the
+Holland House under my Mexican military title of Major.
+
+Upon the following morning I went to that old building at Number Eleven
+Broadway. There in a little room in the offices of the Imperial German
+Consulate began a series of meetings that were designed to bear fruit of
+the greatest consequences to the United States—that would, had they been
+successful, have made American neutrality a lie and would have perhaps
+drawn the United States into a serious conflict with England, if not into
+actual war.
+
+I remember von Papen’s enthusiasm as he outlined the general program
+to me. “It was merely a question of tying their hands”—that was the
+burden of his statements, time and again. We could hope for nothing from
+American neutrality; it was a fraud, a deception. Washington could not
+see the German viewpoint at all. Everything was done to favor England.
+Why, the entire country was supporting the allies—the government,
+the press, the people—all of them! Nowhere was there a good word for
+Germany. And that in spite of the excellent propaganda that Germany was
+conducting. I remember that the failure of German propaganda was an
+especially sore spot with him.
+
+“How about the German-Americans?” I asked him upon one occasion.
+
+He made a sound that was between a grunt and a cough.
+
+“I am attending to them,” was his reply. I did not understand what he
+meant until much later.
+
+We talked much of American participation in the war in those days. Papen
+was convinced that it would come sooner or later; and certainly upon the
+side of the Entente—unless the German-Americans could be brought into
+line. They were being attended to, he would repeat, but meantime it was
+necessary for us to decide upon some immediate action. Of course there
+was Mexico to be considered. It was too bad that Huerta had fallen. What
+did I think of Villa? Could he be persuaded to cause a diversion if the
+United States abandoned its neutrality?
+
+I told him that I thought it very unlikely. “He is not very friendly
+toward Germans,” I said, “and he appreciates the importance of keeping
+on good terms with the United States. No, I don’t think you can reach
+him—now. Later on, he may take a different attitude—when we have had a
+few more victories.”
+
+Von Papen nodded. I was probably right, he thought. We must show these
+ignorant people how powerful the Germans were. It would have a great
+moral effect. But that was for the future. Meantime what did I think of
+this letter as a suggestion for possible immediate action?
+
+“This letter” was from a man named Schumacher, who lived in Oregon, at
+Eden Bower Farm. He had written to the Embassy, suggesting that we
+secretly fit out motor boats armed with machine guns, and using Buffalo,
+Detroit, Cleveland and Chicago as bases, make raids upon Canadian cities
+and towns on the Great Lakes.
+
+There were some good features to the plan—its value as a means of
+terrorizing Canadians, for instance—but it was doubtful whether at that
+time we could carry it out successfully. Then, too, we could not be sure
+whether it was not merely a trap for us. Papen had been making inquiries
+about Schumacher and was not entirely satisfied as to his good faith.
+
+There were a number of other schemes which we considered at this time.
+One was to equip reservists of the German Army, then in the United
+States, and co-operating with German warships then in the Pacific Ocean
+to invade Canada from the State of Washington. This plan was abandoned
+because of the impossibility of securing enough artillery for our
+purposes.
+
+Another plan that we considered more carefully, involved an expedition
+against Jamaica. This was a much more feasible scheme than any that had
+been proposed thus far, and we spent many days over it. Jamaica was none
+too well defended, and it seemed fairly probable that with an army of
+ragamuffins which I could easily recruit in Mexico and Central America,
+we could make a success of it. Arms were easy to secure; in fact, we had
+a very well equipped arsenal in New York; and filibustering had become
+so common since the outbreak of the Mexican revolution, that it would be
+easy to obtain what additional material we needed without disclosing our
+purpose. On the whole the idea looked promising, and matters had gone
+so far that von Papen secured my appointment as captain, so that in the
+event of my being captured on British soil with arms in my hand, I should
+be treated as a prisoner of war.
+
+Then just when we were making final preparations for my departure from
+New York, von Papen came to me in great excitement and said he had come
+upon a plan that would serve our purposes to perfection. Canada was,
+after all, our principal objective; we could strike a telling blow
+against it, and at the same time create consternation throughout America
+by blowing up the canals which connected the Great Lakes!
+
+“It is comparatively simple,” said von Papen. “If we blow up the locks of
+these canals, the main railway lines of Canada and the principal grain
+elevators will be crippled. Immediately we shall destroy one of England’s
+chief sources of food supply as well as hamper the transportation of war
+materials. Canada will be thrown into a panic and public opinion will
+_demand_ that her troops be held for home defense. But best of all, it
+will make the Canadians believe that the thousands of German reservists
+and the millions of German-Americans in the United States are planning
+active military operations against the Dominion.”
+
+I looked at him in surprise. Where had he got such a plan? Papen
+enlightened me with his next words.
+
+Two men—not Germans but violently anti-English—had come to him with the
+suggestion, he said. It was in a very indefinite form as yet, but the
+idea was certainly worth careful consideration. He wished me to discuss
+the matter with the two men at my hotel.
+
+It did seem a good plan. As I discussed it the next evening with the two
+men, whom von Papen had sent to me, it seemed entirely practicable and
+immensely important. Together we went over the maps and diagrams they had
+brought with them, which showed the vulnerable points of the different
+canals and railways. After a number of conferences with them and with von
+Papen, the plot took definite shape as a plan to blow up the Welland
+Canal.
+
+“It can be done,” I told von Papen one day, and together we discussed the
+details. Finally von Papen looked up from the notes we had been examining.
+
+“I think it will do admirably,” he said. “Will you undertake it?”
+
+I nodded.
+
+“Good,” said von Papen. “I shall leave the details to you—but keep me
+informed of your needs and I shall see that they are taken care of.”
+
+So began the plot which was literally to carry the war into America. My
+first need was for men, and for help in getting these I appealed to von
+Papen, who obligingly furnished me with a letter of introduction—made out
+in the name of Bridgman H. Taylor—to Mr. Luederitz, the German Consul at
+Baltimore. There were several German ships interned at that port, and we
+felt that we should have no difficulty in recruiting our force from them.
+
+Before I went to Baltimore, however, I did engage one man, Charles
+Tucker, alias Tuchhaendler, who had already had some dealings with the
+two men who originally proposed the scheme.
+
+Tucker accompanied me to Baltimore, and together we paid a visit to
+Consul Luederitz. The consul glanced at the letter I presented to him.
+
+“Captain von Papen requests me to give you all the assistance you may ask
+for, Major von der Goltz,” he said, intimating by the use of my name that
+he had previously been informed of the enterprise. “I shall be happy to
+do anything in my power. What is it you wish?”
+
+Men, I told him, were my chief need at the moment. He said that there
+should be no difficulty about securing them. There was a German ship in
+the harbor at the time, and we could doubtless make use of part of the
+crew and an officer, if we desired. He offered me his visiting card, on
+the back of which he wrote a note of recommendation to the captain of the
+ship. But while we were talking this man entered the office and we made
+our preliminary arrangements there.
+
+The following day, a Sunday, Tucker and I visited the ship and after
+dinner selected our men, who were informed of their prospective duties. I
+also listened to the news that was being received on board by wireless;
+for the captain was still allowed to receive messages, although the
+harbor authorities had forbidden him to use his apparatus for sending
+purposes.
+
+I needed nothing more in Baltimore, so far as my present plans were
+concerned, but at Consul Luederitz’s suggestion, I decided to furnish
+myself with a passport, made out in my _nom de guerre_ of Bridgman
+Taylor. Luederitz was of the opinion that it might be useful at some
+future time as a means of proving that I was an American citizen, and
+accordingly we had one of the clerks make out an application, which was
+duly forwarded to Washington; and on August 31st the State Department
+furnished the non-existent Mr. Bridgman H. Taylor with a very comforting,
+although as it turned out, a decidedly dangerous document. One other
+thing I needed at the moment—a pistol, for my own was out of order. This
+Mr. Luederitz provided me with, from the effects of an Austrian who had
+committed suicide in Baltimore, not long before, and whose property, in
+the absence of an Austrian Consulate in the city, had been turned over to
+the German Consul.
+
+The days immediately following my return to New York were filled with
+preparations for our coup. I engaged three additional men to act as my
+lieutenants, acquainted them with the main objects of our plan and
+agreed to pay them daily while in New York, and to add a bonus when our
+enterprise should succeed. These men had all been well recommended to me,
+and I knew I could trust them thoroughly. One, Fritzen, who was later
+captured in Los Angeles, had been a purser on a Russian ship. A second,
+Busse, was a commercial agent who had lived for many years in England;
+the third bore the Italian name of Covani.
+
+Meantime I saw von Papen frequently, and had on one occasion received
+from him a check for two hundred dollars, which I needed for the sailors
+who were coming from Baltimore. That check, which is reproduced in this
+book, was to prove a singularly disastrous piece of paper, for in order
+to avoid connecting my name with that of von Papen, it was made out to
+Bridgman Taylor. I cashed it through a friend, Frederick Stallforth,
+whose brother, Alberto Stallforth, had been the German Consul at Parral
+when I was there. He, incidentally, was later implicated in the Rintelen
+trial and was detained for a time on Ellis Island, from which he was
+subsequently released.
+
+Mr. Stallforth lifted his eyebrows when he saw the name on the check. I
+smiled.
+
+“I am Bridgman Taylor,” I told him. He laughed, but said nothing, merely
+getting the check cashed for me at the German Club on Central Park South,
+of which he was a member.
+
+In a few days everything was ready. My men had arrived from Baltimore,
+my plans were definitely made—I needed but one thing: the explosives.
+These, von Papen told me, I could obtain through Captain Hans Tauscher,
+the American agent of the Krupps, which means, in effect, the German
+Government.
+
+It has been asserted many times in the last year that the charges
+against Capt. Tauscher were utterly unfounded. It is easy to understand
+the motives of this gentleman’s defenders. There are many people still
+in this country whose friendship with the amiable captain would wear a
+decidedly suspicious look were his complicity in the anti-American plots
+of the first two years of the war to be proved. I shall not quarrel
+with these people. But reproduced in this book are four documents, the
+originals of which are in the possession of the Department of Justice,
+which tell their own story to the curious and are a fair indication of
+the way I secured the explosives I needed for my expedition.
+
+These documents show:
+
+First, that on September 5, 1914, Captain Tauscher, American
+representative of the Krupps, ordered from the du Pont de Nemours Powder
+Company, 300 pounds of sixty per cent. dynamite to be delivered to
+bearer, “Mr. Bridgman Taylor,” and to be charged to Captain Tauscher.
+
+Second, that on September 11th, the du Pont Company sent Captain Tauscher
+a bill for the same amount of dynamite delivered to Bridgman Taylor,
+New York City, on September 5th; and on September 16th, they sent him a
+second bill for forty-five feet of fuse delivered to Bridgman Taylor on
+September 13th—the total of the two bills amounting to $31.13.
+
+Third, that on December 29, 1914, Tauscher sent a bill to Captain von
+Papen for a total amount of $503.24. _The third item, dated September
+11th, was for $31.13._
+
+Is it difficult to tell of whom I got my explosives or who eventually
+paid for them? I got the dynamite at any rate, by calling for it myself
+at one of the company’s barges in a motor boat, and taking it away in
+suitcases. At 146th Street and the Hudson River we left the boat, and,
+carrying the explosives with us, went to the German Club, where I applied
+to von Papen for automatic pistols, batteries, detonators, and wire for
+exploding the dynamite. Von Papen promised them in two or three days—and
+he kept his word.[3]
+
+[Illustration: Before going to Baltimore, “Mr. Bridgeman Taylor”—Captain
+von der Goltz—received this letter from Capt. von Papen. Translated it
+reads:
+
+                                             New York, 27. VIII. 14.
+
+    I request the Consuls in Baltimore and St. Paul to give the
+    bearer of this letter—Mr. Bridgeman Taylor—all the assistance
+    he may ask for.
+
+                            VON PAPEN,
+                            Captain in the General Staff of the Army
+                            and Military Attaché.]
+
+Bit by bit, all this material was removed from the German Club—in
+suitcases and via taxi-cab. They were exciting little rides we took
+those days, and my heart was often in my mouth when our chauffeur turned
+corners in approved New York fashion. But luckily there were no accidents
+and in a day or so all of our materials were stored away; part of them
+in my apartments—not in the Holland House, alas!—but in a cheap section
+of Harlem. For von der Goltz, the spendthrift, the braggart, was seen no
+longer in the gay places of New York. He had spent all his money, and
+now, no longer of interest to the newspapers—or to the secret agents of
+the allies—had taken a two dollar and a half room in Harlem where he
+could repent his follies—and be as inconspicuous as he pleased.
+
+So it came about that toward the middle of September we five—Fritzen,
+Busse, Tucker, Covani and myself—took train for Buffalo, armed with
+dynamite, automatic guns, detonators and other necessary implements,
+and proceeded absolutely unmolested, to go to Buffalo. There I engaged
+rooms at 198 Delaware Avenue and began to reconnoitre the ground. I made
+a trip or two over the Niagara River via aëroplane, with an aviator
+who unquestionably thought me mad and charged accordingly; and at the
+suggestion of von Papen, I secured money for my expenses from a Buffalo
+lawyer, John Ryan.
+
+It had been decided that von Papen should let us know when the
+Canadian troops were about to leave camp so that we might strike at
+the psychological moment. A telegram came from him, signed with the
+non-committal name of Steffens, telling me that Ryan had money and
+instructions. Ryan gave me the money, as I have stated, but insisted that
+he had no instructions whatever.
+
+Then, after a stay of several days in Niagara, during which we did
+nothing but exchange futile telegrams with Ryan and “Mr. Steffens”—we
+learned that the first contingent of Canadian troops had left the
+camp—and my men and I returned to New York, unsuccessful.
+
+Our failure was greater than appears on the surface, for my men and
+I were a blind. Our equipment, our loud talking, our aggressive
+pro-Germanism—even our secret preparations, which had not been secret
+enough—were intended primarily to distract attention from other and far
+more dangerous activities.
+
+We had been watched by United States Secret Service men from the very
+beginning of our enterprise. During our entire stay in Buffalo and
+Niagara, we had been under the surveillance of men who were merely
+waiting for us to make their suspicions a certainty by some positive
+attempt against the peace of the United States. We _knew_ it and wanted
+it to be so.
+
+And while they were waiting for sufficient cause to arrest us, other men,
+totally unsuspected, were making their way down through Canada, intent
+upon destroying _all_ of the bridges and canal locks in the lake region!
+
+You can see what the effect would have been had our plan succeeded—Canada
+crippled and terrorized—England robbed of the troops which Canada was
+even then preparing to send her, but which would have been forced to
+remain at home to defend the border. But far more desirable in German
+eyes, the United States would have been convicted in the sight of the
+world of criminal negligence. For my band of men—the obvious perpetrators
+of one crime had been acting suspiciously for weeks. And yet, in spite
+of that, we were at liberty. _The United States had made no effort to
+apprehend us._
+
+Good fortune saved the United States from serious international
+complications at that time. While we were waiting for word from von Papen
+the Canadian troops had left Valcartier Camp, and were then on their way
+to England. Part of our object had been removed, and for the rest—well,
+the plan would keep, we thought.
+
+It was a disappointed von Papen whom I met on my return to New York—a
+rather crest-fallen person, far different from the urbane soldier that
+Washington knew in those days. We commiserated with each other upon our
+failure, and talked of the better luck that we should have next time. I
+did not know that there was to be no next time for me.
+
+For it came about that Abteilung III B., the Intelligence Department of
+the General Staff wished some first-hand information about conditions in
+the United States and in Mexico; and I, who knew both countries (and who
+was the possessor of an American passport bearing an American name) was
+selected to go.
+
+On October 3rd, 1914, Bridgman Taylor waved farewell to New York from
+the deck of an Italian steamer, bound for Genoa. The curious might have
+been interested to know that in Mr. Taylor’s trunk were letters of
+recommendation to various German Consuls in Italy; strangely enough, they
+bore the name of Horst von der Goltz within them, and the signature of
+each was “von Papen.”
+
+I had said good-bye to von Papen the night before, at the German Club. He
+had asked me to turn over to him all the fire-arms I had, for use again
+when needed.
+
+We talked of the war that night, and of Germany, which I had not seen in
+two years. And we spoke of the United States, and of what I was to tell
+them “over there.”
+
+“Say that they need not worry about this country,” he told me. “The
+United States may still join us in the splendid fight we are making. But
+if they do not it is of small moment. _And always remember that if things
+look bad for us, something will happen over here._”
+
+I left him, speculating upon the “something” that would happen; for then
+I did not know of all the plans that were in my captain’s head. I was to
+learn more about them later on—and I was to know a bitter disgust at the
+things that men may do in the name of patriotism. But of those things I
+will speak in their proper place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+    _I go to Germany on a false passport. Italy in the early days
+    of the war. I meet the Kaiser and talk to him about Mexico and
+    the United States._
+
+
+It was peaceful sailing in those early days of the war, and our ship, the
+_Duca d’Aosta_, reached Genoa with no mishap. I had but one moment of
+trepidation on the voyage, for on the last day the ship was hailed by a
+British cruiser. Here, I thought, was where I should put my passport to
+the test, but as it happened, our ship was not searched. An officer came
+alongside inquiring, among other things, if there were any Germans on
+board, but he accepted the captain’s assurance that there were none—to my
+great relief.
+
+Genoa, like all the rest of the world, was in a state of great excitement
+in those days. Rumors as to the possible course of the Italian Government
+were flying about everywhere, and one could hear in an hour as many
+conflicting statements of the Government’s intentions as he might
+wish. The country was a battlefield of the propagandists at the moment.
+Nearly all of the German consuls, who had been forced to leave Africa at
+the declaration of war, had taken up their quarters in Italy, and were
+busily disseminating pro-German literature of all sorts. I was told,
+too, that the French Ambassador had already spent large sums of money
+buying Italian papers, in which to present the Allied cause to the as
+yet neutral people of Italy. And when I went into the office of the
+Imperial German Consul General, von Nerf, I was amused to see a huge
+pile of copies of—of all papers in the world!—the Berlin _Vorwaerts_,
+which had been imported for distribution throughout the country. Here
+was a pretty comedy! That newspaper, which during its entire existence
+had been the bitterest foe of German autocracy in the Empire, had become
+a propagandist sheet for its former enemy and was now being used as a
+lure for the hesitating sympathies of the Italian people! In German,
+French and Italian editions it was spread about the country, carrying the
+message of Teutonic righteousness to the uninformed.
+
+I found von Nerf to be a large man, with whiskers that recalled those
+of Tirpitz, although without that gentleman’s temperament or embonpoint.
+He assured me that Italy would never enter the war; there were too many
+factions in the country which would oppose such a step.
+
+“Why, consider,” he bade me, “we have the three most important parties
+on our side. The Catholics will never consent to a break with Germany;
+the business men are all our staunch partisans; and the Labor Party is
+too violently opposed to war ever to consider entering it. Besides,” he
+continued, “laboring men all over the world know that it is in Germany
+that the Labor Party has reached its greatest strength. Why, then, should
+they consider taking sides against us?”
+
+“But do you think that there is any chance of Italy entering the war on
+our side?” I asked him.
+
+Von Nerf shrugged his shoulders. “It is doubtful,” was his reply. “What
+could they do in their situation?”
+
+I had come to von Nerf with von Papen’s letter of introduction, to ask
+for assistance in reaching Germany. Accordingly he arranged for my
+passage, and soon I was on a train bound for Milan and Kufstein, where I
+was to change for the train to Munich. At that time the German consuls
+were paying the passage of thousands of Germans who wished to leave Italy
+for service in the army. The train on which I traveled was full of these
+volunteers, who later disembarked at Kufstein, on the Austro-German
+border, to report to the military authorities there.
+
+At Munich we passed some wounded who were being taken from the front—the
+first real glimpse of the war that I had had. There was little evidence
+of any war-feeling in the Bavarian capital; restaurants were crowded, and
+everyone was light-hearted and confident of victory. I saw few signs of
+any hatred there, or elsewhere during my stay in Germany. All that there
+was was directed against England; France was universally respected, and I
+heard only expressions of regret that she was in the war.
+
+On the train from Munich to Berlin I had the first good meal I had eaten
+in several weeks. It was good to sit down to something besides miles
+of spaghetti and indigestible anchovies. And the price was only two
+marks—for that was long before the days of the Food Controller and $45
+ham.
+
+Berlin was filled with Austrian officers, some of them belonging to
+motor batteries—the famous ’32’s—which had been built before the war in
+the Krupp factories, not for Germany—for that would have occasioned
+additional armaments on the part of France—but by Austria, who could
+increase her strength without suspicion. The city, always martial in
+appearance, had changed less than one would have expected. There, too,
+the restaurants were filled; in particular the Piccadilly, which had been
+rechristened the Fatherland, and was enjoying an exceptional popularity
+in consequence. One was wise to go early if he wished to secure a table
+there; and that fortunate person could see the dining-room filled with
+happy crowds, eating and drinking, and applauding vociferously when _Die
+Wacht am Rhein_ or some other patriotic air was played.
+
+I had returned to Germany for two purposes; to fight and to bring full
+details of conditions in Mexico and the United States to the War Office.
+One of my first official visits was paid to the Foreign Office, where I
+found every one busy with routine matters and very little concerned about
+the success or failure of the German propaganda in Italy—an attitude in
+marked contrast to that of the General Staff. There the first question
+asked me related to conditions in Italy. This indifference of the Foreign
+Office would seem, in the light of after events, to indicate a false
+security on the Ministry’s part; but in reality the facts are otherwise.
+Germany had never expected Italy to enter the war on the side of the
+Central Powers; she did hope that her former ally would remain neutral,
+and at that time was doing her utmost to keep her so, both by propaganda
+and by assuring her of a supply of coal and other commodities, for which
+Italy had formerly depended upon England, and which Germany now hoped
+to secure for her from America. But even at the time of my visit the
+indications of Italy’s future course were fairly clear—and the Foreign
+Office was accepting its failure with as good grace as could be mustered
+to the occasion.
+
+But if the Foreign Office was indifferent to the attitude of Italy, it
+was intensely interested in that of Turkey, which had not yet entered
+the war. It seemed to me as if Mannesmann and Company, a house whose
+interests in the Orient are probably more extensive than those of any
+other German company, seemed almost to have taken possession of the
+Colonial Office, so many of its employees were in evidence there: and
+I had an extended conference with Bergswerkdirektor Steinmann, who had
+formerly been in charge of the Asia Minor interests of this company.
+Mexico, of course, was the principal topic of our conversation, but many
+times he spoke of Turkey and of the small doubt that existed as to her
+future course of action.
+
+[Illustration: Captain Tauscher’s order upon the du Pont de Nemours
+Powder Company for explosives to be delivered to “Bridgeman Taylor” and
+a bill for “merchandise” charged to Captain von Papen. The third item on
+Tauscher’s bill corresponds with the amount of the two bills shown in the
+preceding illustrations. The four photographs indicate how von der Goltz
+secured ammunition for the Welland Canal Enterprise.]
+
+Next door to the Foreign Office, every corner of which was a-hum with
+busy clerks and officials, stood the house to which I had been taken
+from Gross Lichterfelde so many years before—“Samuel Mayer’s Bude.” It
+was very quiet and empty to outward appearance; and yet from within that
+silent, deserted house, I think it safe to say, the destiny of Europe was
+being directed. It was there that the Kaiser spent his days, when he was
+in Berlin. And it was there that the Imperial Chancellor had his office
+and determined more than any man except the Kaiser, the policies of the
+Empire.
+
+One entered the house, going directly into a large room that was occupied
+no longer by the round-faced man of my cadet days, but by Assessor
+Horstman, the head of the Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office.
+Upstairs was the private office of the Emperor, and, to the rear of that,
+the Nachrichten Bureau—a newspaper propaganda and intelligence office,
+directed by the Kaiser and under the charge of Legation-Secretary Weber.
+
+I visited the Turkish Legation, at the suggestion of Herr Steinmann, and
+discussed at length and very seriously with the Ambassador the attitude
+of Italy and its effect upon Turkey’s possible entry into the war. He
+assured me that the only thing necessary to make Turkey take part in the
+conflict was a guarantee that Germany was capable of handling the Italian
+situation, and that whatever Italy might do would not affect Turkish
+interests.
+
+But it was with the General Staff that my chief business was. At the
+outbreak of hostilities this—the “War Office” so-called—had become two
+organizations. One, devoted to the actual supervision of the forces in
+the field, had its headquarters in Charleville, France, far behind the
+battle front; the other branch remained in the dingy old building on the
+Koenig’s Platz, in which it had always been quartered. It is here that
+the army department of “Intelligence,” officially known as Abteilung III
+B., is located, and it was to this department that I had been assigned.
+
+[Illustration: Bills from the du Pont de Nemours Powder Company for
+explosives delivered to “Bridgeman Taylor” and charged to Captain
+Tauscher.]
+
+Von Papen had, of course, communicated to Berlin an account of our
+various activities and there was little that I could add to the
+information the department possessed about conditions in the United
+States. Mexico seemed rather the chief point of interest, and Major
+Köhnemann, to whom I spoke, asked innumerable questions about the
+attitude of Villa towards both the United States and Germany; what I
+thought of his chances of ultimate success, and whether I believed that
+he, if he succeeded, would be more friendly to Germany than Carranza
+was at the time. After an hour of such discussion, which more closely
+resembled a cross-examination, he suddenly rose.
+
+“Your information is of great interest, Captain von der Goltz,” he said.
+“I shall ask you to return here at five o’clock this evening. Wear your
+heaviest underclothing. You are going to see the Emperor.”
+
+I started. Prussian officers do not joke, as a rule, but for the life of
+me, I could not see any sane connection between his last two remarks. The
+major must have noticed my perplexity, for he smiled as he continued.
+
+“You are going to travel by Zeppelin,” he explained. “It will be very
+cold.”
+
+That night I drove by motor to a point on the outskirts of the city,
+where a Zeppelin was moored. It was one of those which had formerly
+been fitted up for passenger service, and was now used when quick
+transportation of a small number of men was necessary. There were several
+officers of the General Staff whose immediate presence at Coblenz, where
+the Emperor had stationed himself, was needed; and since speed was
+essential we were to travel this way.
+
+The miles that lay between Berlin and Coblenz seemed but so many rods to
+me, as I sat in the salon of the great airship, resting and talking to my
+fellow passengers. One would have thought that we had been traveling but
+a few moments when suddenly there loomed below us in the moonlight, the
+twin fortresses of Ehrenbreitstein and Coblenz, each built upon a high
+plateau. Between them, in the valley, the lights of the city shone dimly;
+in the center of the town was the Schloss, where the Emperor awaited us.
+
+But I did not see the Emperor that night. Instead, I was shown to a room
+in the castle—a room lighted by candle—and there my attendant bade me
+goodnight.
+
+At half-past three I was awakened by a knock at the door. “Please dress,”
+said a voice. “His Majesty wishes to see you at four o’clock.”
+
+It was still dark when at four o’clock I entered that room on the ground
+floor of the castle where the Emperor of Emperors worked and ate and
+slept. In the dim light I saw him, bent over a table on which was piled
+correspondence of all kinds. He did not seem to have heard me enter the
+room, and as he continued to work, signing paper after paper with great
+rapidity, I looked down and noticed that, in my haste to appear before
+him on time, I had dressed completely save for one thing. I was in my
+stocking feet.
+
+I coughed to announce my presence. He looked up then, and I saw that he
+wore a Litewka, that undress military jacket which is used by soldiers
+for stable duty, and which German officers wear sometimes in their homes.
+But the face that met mine, startled me almost out of my composure; for
+it was more like the countenance of Pancho Villa than that of Wilhelm
+Hohenzollern. That face, as a rule so majestic in its expression, was
+drawn and lined; his hair was disarranged and showed numerous bald
+patches which it ordinarily covered. And his moustaches—for so many years
+the target of friend and foe and which were always pointed so arrogantly
+upward—drooped down and gave him a dispirited look that I had never seen
+him wear before.
+
+In a word, it was an extremely nervous and not a stolid, Teutonic person
+who sat before me in that room. And it was not an assertive, but merely
+a very tired human being, who finally addressed me.
+
+“I am sorry to have been obliged to call you at this hour,” he said, “but
+I am very busy and it is important that I should see you.”
+
+And then instead of ordering me to report to him, instead of commanding
+me to tell him those things which I had been sent to tell him, this
+autocrat, this so-called man of iron, spoke to me as one man to another,
+almost as a friend speaks to a friend.
+
+I do not remember all that we spoke of in that half hour—the three years
+that have passed have brought me too much of experience for me to recall
+clearly more than the general tenor of our conversation. It is his manner
+that I remember most vividly, and the general impression of the scene.
+For as I stood before him then, it suddenly seemed to me that he spoke
+and looked as a man will who is confronted by a problem that for the
+moment has staggered him—not because of its immensity but because he sees
+now that he has always misunderstood it.
+
+Here, I thought, is a man, accustomed to facing all issues with grand
+words and a show of arrogance; and now at a time when oratory is of
+no avail, he finds himself still indomitable, perhaps, but a trifle
+lost, a trifle baffled, when he contemplates the work before him. For
+Wilhelm II had labored for years to prevent, or if that were impossible,
+to come victoriously through, the crisis which he knew must some day
+develop, and which he himself had at last precipitated. He had striven
+constantly to entrench Germany in a position that would command the
+world; and had sought to concentrate, so far as may be, the trouble
+spots of the world into one or two, to the end that Germany, when the
+time came, might extinguish them at a blow. But the time had come, and
+he knew that despite his efforts, there were not two but many issues
+that must be faced, and each one separately. He had striven with a sort
+of perverted altruism, to prepare the world for those things which he
+believed to be right and which, therefore, must prevail. And now after
+long years of preparation, of diplomatic intrigue with its record of
+nations bribed, threatened or cajoled into submission or alliance, he
+was faced with a condition which gave the lie to his expectations and
+he knew that “failure” must be written across the years. Russia, Japan,
+were for the moment lost; Italy was making ready to cast itself loose
+from that alliance which had been so insecurely founded upon distrust.
+And in America—who could tell? And yet, for all that I read weariness
+and bewilderment in his every tone, I could find in him no trace of
+hesitation or uncertainty. Instead, I knew that running through every
+fibre of the man there was an unquestioning assurance of victory—a
+victory that must come!
+
+While I stood there imagining these things, he spoke of our aims in
+Europe and in America and of the things that must be done to bring them
+to success. He bade me tell him the various details of our affairs
+in Mexico and the United States; and he, like Köhnemann, was chiefly
+interested in Mexico. It was in fact, almost suspicious, his interest was
+so great; and I could explain it only in one way—that he viewed Mexico as
+the ultimate battlefield of Japan and the United States in the next great
+struggle—the struggle for the mastery of the Pacific. For just as Belgium
+has been the battlefield of Europe, so must Mexico be the battleground of
+America in that war which the future seems to be preparing.
+
+I remember wondering, as he spoke of what might come to pass, at the
+tremendous familiarity he displayed with the points of view of the
+peoples and governments of both Americas. I had thought myself well
+acquainted with conditions in both continents; but here was a man
+separated by thousands of miles from the peoples of whom he talked, whose
+knowledge was, nevertheless, more correct, as I saw it, than that of
+anyone—Dernburg not excepted—whom I had met.
+
+It was then, I think, that he told me what Germany wished of me,
+outlining briefly those things which he thought I could do best.
+
+“You can serve us,” he said, “in Turkey or in America. In the one you
+will have an opportunity to fight as thousands of your countrymen are
+fighting. In the other, you will have chosen a task that is not so
+pleasant perhaps, and not less dangerous, but which will always be
+regarded honorably by your Emperor, because it is work that must be done.
+Which do you choose?”
+
+I hesitated a moment.
+
+“It shall be as your Majesty wishes,” I said finally.
+
+He looked at me closely before he spoke again. “It is America, then.”
+
+And then, as I bowed in acquiescence, he spoke once more—for the last
+time so far as my ears are concerned.
+
+“I must be ready by 7; my train leaves at 7.10. I may never see you
+again, but I shall always know that you have done your duty. Good-bye.”
+
+And so I left him—this man who is a menace to his people, not because
+he is vicious or from any criminal intent; not, I believe, because his
+personal ambitions are such that his country must bleed to satisfy them;
+but merely because his mind is the outcome of a system and an education
+so divorced from fact that he could not see the evil of his own position
+if it were explained to him.
+
+For in spite of his remarkable grasp of the facts of Empire, the deeper
+human realities have passed him by. For years he has had a private
+clipping bureau for his own information; but he does not know that he
+has never seen any but the clippings that the Junkers—those who stood
+to gain by the success of his present course—have wished him to see. He
+does not know that he has been shut out from many chapters of the world’s
+real history; or that this insidious censorship has kept from him those
+things, which, I am sure, had he known in the days when his intellect was
+susceptible to the influence of fact, would have made him a man instead
+of an Emperor.
+
+Here was a man who honestly believed that he was doing what was best
+for his people, but so hopelessly warped by his training and so closely
+surrounded by satellites that even had the truth borne wings, it could
+not have reached him.
+
+To me it seems that the menace of the Hohenzollerns lies in this: not
+that they are worse than other men, not that they mean ill to the world,
+but that time and experience have left them unaroused by what others know
+as progress. They stand in the pathway of the world to-day, believing
+themselves right and regarding themselves as victims of an oppressive
+rivalry. They do not know that their viewpoint is as tragically perverted
+as that of the fox who, feeling that he must live, steals the farmer’s
+hens. But, like the farmer, the world knows only that it is injured; and
+just as the farmer realizes that he must rid himself of the fox, so the
+world knows, to-day, and says that the Hohenzollerns must go!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+    _In England—and how I reached there. I am arrested and
+    imprisoned for fifteen months. What von Papen’s baggage
+    contained. I make a sworn statement._
+
+
+Back in Berlin, I sought out Major Köhnemann, and together we spent many
+days in planning my future course of action. It was a war council in
+effect, for the object toward which we aimed was nothing less than the
+crippling of the United States by a campaign of terrorism and conspiracy.
+It was not pleasant work that I was to do, but I knew, as every informed
+German did, that it was necessary. Therefore I accepted it.
+
+What would you have? Germany was in the war to conquer or be conquered.
+America, the source of supply for the Allies, stood in the way. Knowing
+these things, we set about the task of preventing America from aiding
+our enemies, by using whatever means we could. We did not feel either
+compunction or hostility. It was war—diplomatic rather than military,
+but war none the less.
+
+I do not intend to go into the details of our plans at the present
+moment. Those will have their place in a later chapter. Enough to say
+that after a brief visit to both the eastern and western fronts I
+left Germany for England—en route to America with a program that in
+ruthlessness or efficiency left nothing to be desired.
+
+But before going to England it was necessary that I take every possible
+precaution against exposure there. My passport might be sufficient
+identification, but I knew that since the arrest of Carl Lody and
+other German spies in England, the British authorities were examining
+passports with a great deal more care than they had formerly exercised.
+Accordingly, one morning, Mr. Bridgman Taylor presented himself at the
+American Embassy for financial aid with which to leave Germany. There was
+good reason for this. To ask a consulate or embassy to visé a passport
+when that is not necessary, may easily seem suspicious. But the applicant
+for aid, receives not only additional identification in the form of
+a record of his movements, but also secures an advantage in that his
+passport bears an indorsement of his appeal for assistance, in my case
+signed with the name of the Ambassador. At The Hague I again applied for
+help from the United States Relief Commission. I amused myself on this
+occasion by making two drafts; one for fifteen dollars on Mr. John F.
+Ryan of Buffalo, N. Y., and one for thirty dollars on “Mr. Papen” of New
+York City.
+
+I was fairly secure, then, I thought. If suspicion did fall upon me, it
+would be simple to prove that I had submitted my passport to a number of
+American officials, and had consequently satisfied them of my good faith
+as well as that the passport had not been issued to some one other than
+myself, as in the case of Lody.
+
+As a final step I took care to divide my personal papers into two groups:
+those which were perfectly harmless, such as my Mexican commission and
+leave of absence, and those which would tend to establish my identity as
+a German agent. These I deposited in two separate safe-deposit vaults in
+Rotterdam, taking care to remember in which each group was placed—and
+that done, with a feeling of personal security, and even a certain amount
+of zest for the adventure, I boarded a channel steamer for England.
+
+I was absolutely safe, I felt. In my confidence, I went about very
+freely, ignoring the fact that England was at the moment in the throes
+of a spy-scare, and even so well-recommended a German-American as Mr.
+Bridgman Taylor, was not likely to escape scrutiny.
+
+And yet, I believe that I should not have been caught at all, if I had
+not stopped one day in front of the Horse Guards and joined the crowd
+that was watching guard mount. Why I did it, it is impossible for me to
+say. There was no military advantage to be gained; that is certain. And
+I had seen guard mount often enough to find no element of novelty in it.
+Whim, I suppose, drew me there; and as luck would have it, it drew into
+a particularly congested portion of the crowd. And then chance played
+another card, by causing a small boy to step on my foot. I lost my temper
+and abused the lad roundly for his carelessness—so roundly in fact that a
+man standing in front of me turned around and looked into my face.
+
+I recognized him at once as an agent of the Russian Government, whom I
+had once been instrumental in exposing as a spy in Germany. I saw him
+look at me closely for a moment and I could tell by his expression,
+although he said no word, that he had recognized me also. Thrusting
+a penny into the boy’s hand, I made haste to get out of the crowd as
+quickly as I could.
+
+Here was a pleasant situation, I thought, as I made my way very quietly
+to my hotel. I could not doubt that the Russian would report me—but what
+then? His word against mine would not convict me of anything, but it
+might lead to an inconvenient period of detention. I sat down to consider
+the situation.
+
+After all, I decided, the situation was serious but not absolutely
+hopeless. Unquestionably I should be reported to the police;
+unquestionably a careful investigation would result in the discovery
+that there was no Bridgman H. Taylor at the address in El Paso which I
+had given to the Relief Commission at the Hague. For the rest, my accent
+would prove only that I was of German blood; not that I was a German
+subject.
+
+So far, so bad. But what then? I had, in the safe deposit vaults at
+Rotterdam, papers proving that I was a Mexican officer on leave. It would
+be a simple matter to send for these papers, to admit that I was Horst
+von der Goltz, and to state that I was in England _en route_ from a visit
+to my family in Germany and now bound for Mexico to resume my services.
+There remained but one matter to explain: why I was using an American
+passport bearing a name that was not mine.
+
+That should not be a difficult task. Huerta had been overthrown barely
+a week before my leave of absence was issued. Carranza’s government had
+not yet been recognized, and already my general, Villa, had quarreled
+with him, so that it was impossible for me to procure a passport from
+the Mexican Government. In my dilemma, I had taken advantage of the
+offer of an American exporter, who had been kind enough to lend me his
+passport, which he had secured and found he did not need at the time. As
+for my name, it was not a particularly good one under which to travel in
+England, so I had naturally been obliged to use the one on my passport.
+
+It was a good story and had somewhat the appearance of truth. The
+question was, would it be believed? Even if it were, it had its
+disadvantages; for I should certainly be arrested as an enemy alien, and
+after a delay fatal to all my plans, I should probably be deported. I
+decided to try a bolder scheme.
+
+In Parliamentary White Paper, Miscellaneous No. 13, (1916), you will find
+a statement which explains my next step. “Horst von der Goltz,” it says,
+“arrived in England from Holland on the fourth of November, 1914. He
+offered information upon projected air raids, the source whence the Emden
+derived her information as to British shipping, and how the Leipsic was
+obtaining her coal supply. _He offered to go back to Germany to obtain
+information and all he asked for in the first instance was his traveling
+expenses._”
+
+What is the meaning of these amazing statements? Simply this. I realized
+that even if the story I had concocted were believed it would mean
+a considerable delay and ultimate deportation. And as I had no mind
+to submit to either of these things if I could avoid them, I decided
+to forestall my Russian friend by taking the only possible step—one
+commendable for its audacity if for nothing else. Accordingly I walked
+straight to Downing Street and into the Foreign Office. I asked to see
+Mr. Campbell of the Secret Intelligence Department. This was walking into
+the jaws of the lion with a vengeance.
+
+I told Mr. Campbell that I wished to enter the British Secret Service;
+that I was in a position to secure much valuable information.
+
+“Upon what subject?” asked Mr. Campbell.
+
+[Illustration: The check which almost cost von der Goltz his life. It was
+this “Scrap of Paper” which was found among von Papen’s effects and which
+enabled the British authorities to prove von der Goltz’s connection with
+the German Government. In the British White Paper, Miscellaneous No. 6
+(1916) is to be found this comment:
+
+    Mr. Bridgeman Taylor: This person came over to England to offer
+    himself for work under His Majesty’s Government. His real name
+    is von der Goltz, and he is now in England.]
+
+Zeppelin raids, I told him. I choose that subject first, because it was
+the least harmful I could think of in case my “traitorous” offer ever
+reached the ears of Berlin. No one knew better than I how impossible it
+was to obtain information about Zeppelins. I reasoned that the officers
+in command of Abteilung III B in the General Staff would know that I
+was bluffing when I offered to get information upon that subject for
+the English. They would know that I was not in a position to have or to
+obtain any such knowledge, for in Germany no topic is so closely guarded
+as that. Also, I reasoned that it was a topic in which the English were
+vastly interested. They were.
+
+Mr. Campbell was hesitating, so I added two other equally absurd
+subjects, the movements of the _Emden_ and the _Leipsic_, about which I
+knew—and the service chiefs knew that I knew—absolutely nothing.
+
+Mr. Campbell was plainly puzzled. My intentions seemed to be good. At any
+rate, I had come to him quite openly, and any ulterior motives I might
+have had were not apparent. Then, too, I had offered him the key of my
+safe deposit box, telling him what it contained. He considered a moment.
+
+“We shall have to investigate your story,” he said finally. “We shall
+send to Holland for the papers you say are contained in the vault there;
+and you will be questioned further. In the meantime I shall have to place
+you under arrest.”
+
+I had expected nothing better than this, and went to my jail with a
+feeling that was relief rather than anything else. My papers would
+establish my identity and then, if all went well, I should go back to
+Germany and make my way to America by another route.
+
+But all did not go well. Somehow, in spite of my commission and leave of
+absence—perhaps because my offer seemed too good to be true—the British
+authorities decided that it would be better to lose the information I
+had offered them and keep me in England. Whatever their suspicions, the
+only charge they could bring against me and prove was that I was an
+alien enemy who had failed to register. They had no proof whatever of
+any connection between me and the German Government. So on the 13th of
+November, 1914, they brought me into a London police court to answer
+the charge of failing to register. I was delighted to do so. It was far
+more comfortable than facing a court martial on trial for my life as
+a spy, as the English newspapers had seemed to expect. Accordingly on
+the 26th of November I was duly sentenced to six months at hard labor
+in Pentonville Prison, with a recommendation for deportation at the
+expiration of my sentence. I served five months at Pentonville—where
+Roger Casement was hanged—and then my good behavior let me out. Home
+Secretary MacKenna signed the order for my deportation. I was free. I was
+to slip from under the paw of the lion.
+
+And then something happened—to this day I don’t know what. Instead of
+being deported I was thrust into Brixton Prison, where Kuepferer hanged
+himself, strangely enough, just after his troubles seemed over. Kuepferer
+had driven a bargain with the English. He was to give them information
+in return for his life and freedom; and then, when he had everything
+arranged, he committed suicide. In Brixton I was not sentenced on any
+charge, I was simply held in solitary confinement, with occasional
+diversions in the form of a “third degree.” After my first insincere
+offer to give the English information I kept my mouth shut and made no
+overtures to them, although I confess that the temptation to tell all
+I knew was often very great. The English got nothing out of me and in
+September, 1915, I was shifted to another prison. They took me out of
+Brixton and placed me into Reading—the locale of Oscar Wilde’s ballad.
+Conditions were less disagreeable there. I was allowed to have newspapers
+and magazines, and to talk and exercise with my fellow prisoners.
+
+You may be sure that all this time the English made attempts to solve my
+personal identity as well as to learn the reason for my being in England.
+They could not shake my story. Time after time I told them: “I am Horst
+von der Goltz, an officer of the Mexican army on leave. I used the United
+States passport made out to Bridgman Taylor from necessity—to avoid the
+suspicion that would be attached to me because of my German descent.
+
+“Gentlemen, that is all I can tell you.”
+
+Over and over again I repeated that meagre statement to the men who
+questioned me. I would not tell them the truth, and I knew that no lie
+would help me. And then came an event which changed my viewpoint and made
+me tell—if not the whole story—at least a considerable part of it.
+
+I had, as I have said, managed to secure newspapers in my new quarters.
+It is difficult to say how eagerly I read them after so many months of
+complete ignorance, or with what anxiety I studied such war news as came
+into my hands. It was America in which I was chiefly interested, for I
+knew that after my capture, some other man must have been sent to do the
+work which I had planned to do. I know now that it was von Rintelen who
+was selected—that infinitely resourceful intriguer who planted his spies
+throughout the United States, and for a time seemed well on the way to
+succeeding in the most gigantic conspiracy against a peaceful nation
+that had ever been undertaken. But at the time I could tell nothing of
+this, although I watched unceasingly for reports of strikes, explosions
+and German uprisings which would tell me that that work which I had been
+commanded to do and from which I was only too glad to be spared, was
+being prosecuted.
+
+So several months passed—months in which I had time for meditation and in
+which I began to see more clearly some things which had been hinted at in
+Berlin—and of which I shall tell more later on. And then one day I read a
+dispatch that caused me to sit very silently for a moment in my cell, and
+to wonder—and fear a little.
+
+Von Papen had been recalled.
+
+I read the story of how he and Captain Boy-Ed had over-reached and
+finally betrayed themselves; of the passport frauds that they had
+conducted; of the conspiracies and sedition that they had sought to stir
+up. I learned that they had been sent home under a safe-conduct which did
+not cover any documents they might carry. It was this last fact which
+caused me uneasiness. Had von Papen, always so confident of his success,
+attempted to smuggle through some report of his two years of plotting? It
+seemed improbable, and yet, knowing his tendency to take chances, I was
+troubled by the possibility. For such a report might contain a record of
+my connection with him—and I was not protected by a safe-conduct!
+
+My fears were well-founded, as you know. Von Papen carried with him no
+particular reports, but a number of personal papers which were seized
+when his ship stopped at Falmouth.
+
+In my prison I read of the seizure and was doubly alarmed; increasingly
+so when the newspapers began publishing reports that they implicated
+literally hundreds of Irish- and German-Americans whose services von
+Papen had used in his plots. Then as the days passed, and my name was
+not mentioned in the disclosures, I became relieved.
+
+“After all,” I thought, “he knows that I am here in prison and that I
+have kept silent. He will have been careful. These others—he has had some
+reason for his incautiousness with them. But, he will not betray me, just
+as he has betrayed none of his German associates.”
+
+Then, on the night of January 30th, 1916, the governor of Reading Prison
+informed me that I was to go to London the next day.
+
+“Where to?” I asked.
+
+“To Scotland Yard,” he said briefly.
+
+“What for?”
+
+“I do not know.”
+
+My heart sank, for I realized at once that something had occurred which
+was of vital import to me. I have faced firing squads in Mexico. I have
+stood against a wall, waiting for the signal that should bid the soldiers
+fire. And I have taken other dangerous chances, without, I believe,
+more fear than another man would have known. But never have I felt
+more reluctant than that night when I stood outside of Scotland Yard,
+waiting—for what?
+
+I was brought in to the office of the Assistant Commissioner and found
+myself in the presence of four men, who regarded me gravely and in
+silence. I had never seen them before, but later I learned their names:
+Capt. William Hall of the Admiralty Intelligence Department; Mr. Nathan,
+the Oriental expert of the Foreign Office; Captain Carter of the War
+Office, and Mr. Basil Thompson, Assistant Commissioner of the Police of
+London.
+
+There was something tomb-like about the atmosphere of the room, I
+thought, as I faced these men—and then I changed my opinion, for I
+saw lying open on the table around which they were seated—a box of
+cigarettes. I reached forward to take one, forgetting all politeness (for
+I had not smoked in six weeks) when my eye caught sight of a little pink
+slip of paper which one of them held in his hand—a slip which, I knew at
+once, was the cause of my presence there.
+
+It was Captain Hall who held the paper toward me. It read:
+
+                                                  WASHINGTON, D. C.
+                                                  September 1, 1914.
+
+    The Riggs National Bank,
+
+    Pay to the order of Mr. Bridgman Taylor two hundred dollars.
+
+                                                       F. VON PAPEN.
+
+When I had read it he turned over the check so that I could see the
+endorsement.
+
+They were all watching me. The room was very still. I could hear myself
+breathe. Mr. Nathan of the Foreign Office handed me a pen and paper.
+
+“Sign this name, please—Mr. Bridgman Taylor.”
+
+I knew it would be folly to attempt to disguise my handwriting. I wrote
+out my name. It corresponded exactly with the endorsement on the back of
+the check.
+
+“Do you know that check?” he asked.
+
+“Yes,” I admitted, racking my wits for a possible explanation of the
+affair.
+
+“Why was it issued?”
+
+I had an inspiration.
+
+“Von Papen gave it to me to go to Europe and join the army—but you see I
+didn’t——”
+
+“Ah! Von Papen gave it to you.”
+
+I was doing quick thinking. My first fright was over, but I realized
+that that little check might easily be my death warrant. I knew that von
+Papen had many reports and instructions bearing my name. I was afraid to
+admit to myself that after all these months of security, I had at last
+been discovered. Von Papen’s check proved that I had received money from
+a representative of the German Government. There might be other papers
+which would prove every thing needed to sentence me to execution. I was
+groping around for an idea—and then in a flash I realized the truth. It
+angered and embittered me.
+
+There passed across my memory the year and more of solitary confinement,
+during which I had held my tongue.
+
+I swung around on the Englishmen.
+
+“Are you the executioners of the German Government?” I asked. “Are you so
+fond of von Papen that you want to do him a favor? If you shoot me you
+will be obliging him.”
+
+The four grave faces looked at me. “We are going to prosecute you on this
+evidence,” was the only answer.
+
+“You English pride yourselves,” I said, “on not being taken in. Von
+Papen is a very clever man. Are you going to let him use you for his
+own purposes? Do you think he was foolish enough not to realize that
+those papers would be seized? Do you think”—this part of it was a random
+shot, and lucky—“do you think it is an accident that the only papers
+he carried, referring to a live, unsentenced man in England refer to
+me? Just think! Von Papen has been recalled. The United States can
+investigate his actions now without embarrassment. And he, knowing me
+to be one of the connecting links in the chain of his activities, and
+knowing that I am a prisoner liable to extradition, would ask nothing
+better than to be permanently rid of me. And in the papers he carried he
+very obligingly furnished you with incriminating evidence against me. You
+can choose for yourselves. Do him this favor if you want to. But I think
+I’m worth more to you alive than dead. Especially now that I see how very
+willing my own government is to have me dead.”
+
+The four men exchanged glances. I had made the appeal as a forlorn hope.
+Would they accept it and the promise it implied? I could not tell from
+their next words.
+
+“We shall discuss that further,” said Captain Carter. “You will return to
+Reading.”
+
+The next few days were full of anxiety for me. I could not tell how
+my appeal had been regarded, but I knew that it would be only by good
+fortune that I should escape at least a trial for espionage—for that is
+what my presence in England would mean. Finally I received a tentative
+assurance of immunity if I should tell what I knew of the workings of
+German secret agencies.
+
+In spite of any hesitancy I might formerly have felt at such a course,
+I decided to make a confession. Von Papen’s betrayal of me—for that he
+had intentionally betrayed me, I was, and am, convinced—was too wanton
+to arouse in me any feeling except a desire for my freedom, which for
+fifteen months I had been robbed of, merely through the silence which
+my own sense of honor imposed upon me. But I must be careful. I had no
+desire to injure anyone whom von Papen had not implicated. And I did not
+wish to betray any secret which I could safely withhold.
+
+I speculated upon what other documents von Papen might have carried.
+So far as I knew the only one involving me was the check; but of that
+I could not be sure, nor did it seem likely. It was more probable that
+there were other papers which would be used to test the sincerity of my
+story. My aim was to tell only such things as were already known, or were
+quite harmless. But how to do that? I needed some inkling as to what I
+might tell and on what I must be silent.
+
+That knowledge was difficult to obtain, but I finally secured it through
+a rather adroit questioning of one of the men who interrogated me at the
+time. He had shown me much courtesy and no little sympathy; and after
+some pains I managed to worm out of him a very indefinite but useful idea
+of what matters the von Papen documents covered.
+
+What I learned was sufficient to enable me to exclude from my story any
+facts implicating men who might be harmed by my disclosures. I told of
+the Welland Canal plot so far as my part in it was concerned, and I told
+of von Papen’s share in that and other activities. And I took care to
+incorporate in my confession the promise of immunity that had been made
+me tentatively.
+
+“I have made these statements,” I wrote, “on the distinct understanding
+that the statements I have made, or should make in the future, will not
+be used against me; that I am not to be prosecuted for participation
+in any enterprise directed against the United Kingdom or her Allies I
+engaged in at the direction of Captain von Papen or other representatives
+of the German Government; and that the promise made to me by Capt.
+William Hall, Chief of the Intelligence Department of the Admiralty,
+in the presence of Mr. Basil Thompson, former Governor of Tonga, and
+Assistant Commissioner of Police, and in the presence of Superintendent
+Quinn, political branch of Scotland Yard, that I am not to be extradited
+or sent to any country where I am liable to punishment for political
+offences, is made on behalf of His Majesty’s Government.”
+
+It was on February 2nd that I turned in my confession and swore to the
+truth of it. Affairs went better with me after that. I was sent to Lewes
+Prison, and there I was content for the remainder of my stay in England.
+And although I was still a prisoner I felt more free than I had felt
+in many years. I was out of it all—free of the necessity to be always
+watchful, always secret. And above all, I had cut myself loose from the
+intriguing that I had once enjoyed, but which in the last two years I had
+grown to hate more than I hated anything else on earth.
+
+[Illustration: In the safe-deposit vault, the receipt for which is
+reproduced herewith, Capt. von der Goltz deposited his Mexican Commission
+and other papers which would prove his connection with the Mexican
+Constitutionalist army. It will be noted that the receipt bears von der
+Goltz’s signature as “B. H. Taylor,” the name under which he returned to
+Europe.]
+
+And there my own adventures end—so far as this book is concerned. I shall
+not do more than touch upon my return to the United States on so far
+different an errand than I had once planned. My testimony in the Grand
+Jury proceedings against Captain Tauscher, von Igel and other of my
+onetime fellow conspirators, is a matter of too recent record to deserve
+more than passing mention. Tauscher, you will remember, was acquitted
+because it was impossible to prove that he was aware of the objects
+for which he had supplied explosives. Von Igel, Captain von Papen’s
+secretary, was protected by diplomatic immunity. And Fritzen and Covani,
+my former lieutenants, had not yet been captured.[4]
+
+But though my intriguing was ended, Germany’s was not. It may be
+interesting to consider these intrigues, in the light of what I had
+learned during those two years—and what I have discovered since.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+    _The German intrigue against the United States. Von Papen,
+    Boy-Ed and von Rintelen, and the work they did. How the
+    German-Americans were used and how they were betrayed._
+
+
+In the long record of German intrigue in the United States one fact
+stands out predominantly. If you consider the tremendous ramifications
+of the system that Germany has built, the extent of its organization and
+the efficiency with which so gigantic a secret work was carried on, you
+will realize that this system was not the work of a short period but
+of many years. As a matter of fact, Germany had laid the foundation of
+that structure of espionage and conspiracy many years before—even before
+the time when the United States first became a Colonial Power and thus
+involved herself in the tangle of world politics.
+
+I am making no rash assertions when I state that ten years ago the course
+which German agents should adopt toward the United States in the event
+of a great European war, had been determined with a reasonable amount
+of exactness by the General Staff, and that it was this plan that was
+adapted to the conditions of the moment, and set into operation at the
+outbreak of the present conflict. No element of hostility lay behind this
+planning. Germany had no grievance against you; and whatever potential
+causes of conflict existed between the two nations lay far in the future.
+
+That plan, so complete in detail, so menacing in its intent, was but
+part of a world plan that should assure to Germany when the time was
+ripe the submission of all her enemies and the peaceful assistance and
+acquiescence in her aims of whatever parts of the world should at that
+time remain at peace. Germany looked far ahead on that day when she first
+knew that war must come. She realized, if no other nation did, that
+however strong in themselves the combatants were, the neutrals who should
+command the world’s supplies, would really determine the victory.
+
+Knowing this, Germany—which does not play the game of diplomacy with
+gloves on—laid her plans accordingly.
+
+The United States offered a peculiarly fruitful field for her endeavors.
+By tradition and geography divorced from European rivalries, it was,
+nevertheless, from both an industrial and agricultural standpoint,
+obviously to become the most important of neutral nations. The United
+State alone could feed and equip a continent; and it needed no prophet to
+perceive that whichever country could appropriate to itself her resources
+would unquestionably win the war, if a speedy military victory were not
+forthcoming.
+
+It was Germany’s aim, therefore, to prepare the way by which she could
+secure these supplies, or, failing in that, to keep them from the enemy,
+England—if England it should be. In a military way such a plan had
+little chance of success. England’s command of the seas was too complete
+for Germany to consider that she could establish a successful blockade
+against her. It was then, I fancy, that Germany bethought herself of a
+greatly potential ally in the millions of citizens of German birth or
+parentage with whom the United States was filled.
+
+One may extract a trifle of cynical amusement from what followed. Those
+millions of German-Americans had never been regarded with affection in
+Berlin. The vast majority of them were descendants of men who had left
+their homes for political reasons; and of those who had been born in
+Germany many had emigrated to escape military service, and others had
+gone to seek a better opportunity than their native land provided. They
+had been called renegades who had given up their true allegiance for
+citizenship in a foreign country, and Bernstorff himself, according to
+the evidence of U. S. Senator Phelan, had said that he regarded them as
+traitors and cowards.
+
+But Germany voicing her own spleen in private and Germany with an axe to
+grind, were two different beings. And no one who observed the honeyed
+beginnings of the _Deutschtum_ movement in America would have believed
+that these men who in public were so assiduously and graciously flattered
+were in private characterized as utter traitors to the Fatherland—and
+worse.
+
+Certainly no one believed it when, in 1900, Prince Henry of Prussia paid
+his famous visit to America. No word of criticism of these “traitors” was
+spoken by him; and when at banquets glasses were raised and Milwaukee
+smiled across the table at Berlin, the sentimental onlooker might have
+known a gush of joy at this spectacle of amity and reconciliation. And
+the sentimental onlooker would never have suspected that Prince Henry
+had traveled three thousand miles for any other purpose than to attend
+the launching of the Kaiser’s yacht _Meteor_, which was then building in
+an American yard.
+
+But to the cynical observer, searching the records of the years
+immediately following Prince Henry’s visit, a few strange facts would
+have become apparent. He would have discovered that German societies,
+which had been neither very numerous nor popular before, had in a
+comparatively short time acquired a membership and a prominence that
+were little short of remarkable. He would have noted the increasing
+number of German teachers and professors who appeared on the faculties of
+American schools and colleges. He would have remarked upon the growth in
+popularity of the German newspapers, many of them edited by Germans who
+had never become naturalized. And yet, observing these things, he might
+have agreed with the vast majority of Americans, in regarding them as
+entirely harmless and of significance merely as a proof of how hard love
+of one’s native land dies.
+
+He would have been mistaken had he so regarded them. The German
+Government does not spend money for sentimental purposes; and in the
+last ten years that Government has expended literally millions of dollars
+for propaganda in the United States. It has consistently encouraged a
+sentiment for the Fatherland that should be so strong that it would hold
+first place in the heart of every German-American. It has circulated
+pamphlets advocating the exclusive use of the German language, not merely
+in the homes, but in shops and street cars and all other public places.
+It has lent financial support to German organizations in America, and in
+a thousand ways has aimed so to win the hearts of the German-Americans
+that when the time should come the United States, by sheer force of
+numbers, would be delivered, bound hand and foot, into the hands of the
+German Government.
+
+It was this object of undermining the true allegiance of the German
+citizens of the United States which transformed an innocent and natural
+tendency into a menace that was the more insidious because the very
+people involved were, for the most part, entirely ignorant of its
+true nature. Germany seized upon an attachment that was purely one of
+sentiment and race and sought to make it an instrument of political
+power; and she went about her work with so efficient a secrecy that she
+very nearly accomplished her purpose.
+
+By the time the Great War broke out the German propaganda in America had
+assumed notable proportions. German newspapers were plentiful and had
+acquired a tremendous influence over the minds of German-speaking folk.
+Many of the German societies had been consolidated into one national
+organization—the German-American National Alliance, with a membership of
+two millions, and a president, C. J. Hexamer of Chicago, whose devotion
+to the Fatherland has been so great that he has since been decorated
+with the Order of the Red Eagle. And the German people of the United
+States had, by a long campaign of flattery and cajolery, coupled with a
+systematic glorification of German genius and institutions, been won to
+attachment to the country of their origin that required only a touch to
+translate it into fanaticism.
+
+Germany had set the stage and rehearsed the chorus. There were needed
+only the principals to make the drama complete. These she provided in the
+persons of four men: Franz von Papen, Karl Boy-Ed, Heinrich Albert, and
+later, Franz von Rintelen.
+
+They were no ordinary men whom Germany had appointed to the leadership
+of this giant underground warfare against a peaceful country. Highly
+bred, possessing a wide and intensive knowledge of finance, of military
+strategy and of diplomatic finesse, they were admirably equipped to win
+the admiration and trust of the people of this country, at the very
+moment that they were attacking them. All of them were men skilled in the
+art of making friends; and so successfully did they employ this art that
+their popularity for a long time contrived to shield them from suspicion.
+Each of these men was assigned to the command of some particular branch
+of German secret service. And each brought to his task the resources of
+the scientist, the soldier and the statesman, coupled with the scruples
+of the bandit.
+
+It is impossible in this brief space to tell the full story of the
+activities of these gentlemen and of their many, highly trained
+assistants. Violence, as you know, played no small part in their plans.
+Sedition, strikes in munitions plants, attacks upon ships carrying
+supplies to the Allies, the crippling of transportation facilities,
+bomb outrages—these are a few of the main elements in the campaign to
+render the United States useless as a source of supply for Germany’s
+enemies. But ultimately of far more importance than this was a program
+of publicity that should not only present to the German-Americans the
+viewpoint of their fatherland (an entirely legitimate propaganda) but
+which was aimed to consolidate them into a political unit which should be
+used, by peaceful means if possible—such as petitions and the like—and if
+that method failed, by _absolute armed resistance_, to force the United
+States Government to declare an embargo upon shipments of munitions and
+foodstuffs to the Allies, and to compel it to assume a position, if
+not of active alliance with Germany (a hope that was never seriously
+entertained) at least one which should distinctly favor the German
+Government and cause serious dissension between America and England.
+
+There followed a two-fold campaign; on the one hand active terrorism
+against private industry insofar as it was of value to the Allies,
+reinforced by the most determined plots against Canada; on the other
+an insincere and lying propaganda that presented the United States
+Government as a pretender of a neutrality which it did not attempt to
+practise—as an institution controlled by men who were unworthy of the
+support of any but Anglophiles and hypocrites.
+
+Left to itself the sympathy of German-Americans would have been directed
+toward Germany; stimulated as it was by an unremitting campaign
+of publicity, this sympathy became a devotion almost rabid in its
+intensity. Race consciousness was aroused, and placed upon the defensive
+by the attitude of the larger portion of the American press, the
+German-Americans became defiant and aggressive in their apologies for the
+Fatherland. Even those whose German origin was so remote that they were
+ignorant of the very language of their fathers, subscribed to newspapers
+and periodicals whose sole reason for existence was that they presented
+the truth—as Germany saw it. If in that presentation the German press
+adopted a tone that was seditious—why, there were those in Berlin who
+would applaud the more heartily. And in New York Captain von Papen and
+his colleagues would read and nod their heads approvingly.
+
+At the end of the first two months of the war, and of my active service
+in America, the campaign of violence was well under way. Already plans
+had been made for several enterprises other than the Welland Canal plot,
+which I have discussed already. Attacks had been planned against several
+vulnerable points in the Canadian Pacific Railway, such as the St. Clair
+Tunnel, running under the Detroit River at Point Huron, Mich.; agents
+had been planted in the various munitions factories, and spies were
+everywhere seeking possible points of vantage at which a blow for Germany
+could be struck. A plan had even then been made to blow up the railroad
+bridge at Vanceboro.
+
+But already von Papen and his associates, including myself, knew that
+Germany could never succeed in crippling Allied commerce in the United
+States and in proceeding effectively against Canada until we could count
+upon the implicit co-operation of the German-Americans, even though that
+co-operation involved active disloyalty to the country of their adoption.
+
+There lay the difficulty. That the bulk of the German-Americans were
+loyal to their government, I knew at the time. Now, happily, that is a
+matter that is beyond doubt. Among them there were, of course, many whose
+zeal outran their scruples and others whose scruples were for sale. But
+for the most part, although they could be cajoled into a partnership
+that was not always prudent, they could not be led beyond this point
+into positive defiance of the United States, however mistaken they might
+believe its policies.
+
+The rest of the story I cannot tell at first hand, for I was not directly
+concerned in the events that followed. What I know I have pieced together
+from my recollection of conversations with von Papen, and from what many
+people in Berlin, who thought I was familiar with the affair, told me.
+Who fathered the idea, I do not know. Some one conceived a scheme so
+treacherous and contemptible that every other act of this war seems white
+beside it. _It was planned so to discredit the German-Americans that the
+hostility of their fellow-citizens would force them back into the arms
+of the German Government._ These millions of American citizens of German
+descent were to be given the appearance of disloyalty, in order that they
+might become objects of suspicion to their fellows, and through their
+resentment at this attitude the cleavage between Germans and non-Germans
+in this country would be increased and perhaps culminate in armed
+conflict.
+
+On the face of it this looks like the absurd and impossible dream of
+an insane person, rather than a diplomatic program. And yet, if it be
+examined more closely, the plan will be seen to have a psychological
+basis that, however far-fetched, is essentially sound. Given a people
+already bewildered by the almost universal condemnation of a country
+which they have sincerely revered; add to that serious difference in
+sympathies an attitude of distrust of all German-Americans by the
+other inhabitants of this country; and you have sown the seed of a
+race-antagonism that if properly nurtured may easily grow into a violent
+hatred. In a word, Germany had decided that if the German-Americans could
+not be coaxed back into the fold they might be beaten back. She set
+about her part of the task with an industry that would have commanded
+admiration had it been better employed.
+
+Glance back over the history of the past three years and consider how,
+almost over night, the “hyphen” situation developed. America, shaken by a
+war which had been declared to be impossible, become suddenly conscious
+of the presence within her borders of a portion of her population—a
+nation in numbers—largely unassimilated, retaining its own language,
+and possessing characteristics which suddenly became conspicuously
+distasteful. Inevitably, as I say, the cleavage in sympathies produced
+distrust. But it was not until stories of plots in which German-Americans
+were implicated became current that this distrust developed into an acute
+suspicion. Germanophobia was rampant in those days, and to hysterical
+persons it was unthinkable that any German could be exempt from the
+suspicion of treason.
+
+It was upon this foundation that the German agents erected their
+structure of lies and defamation. Not content with the efforts which
+the jingo press and jingo individuals were unconsciously making in
+their behalf, they deliberately set on foot rumors which were intended
+to increase the distrust of German-Americans. I happen to know that
+during the first two years of the war, many of the stories about German
+attempts upon Canada, about German-American complicity in various plots,
+_emanated from the offices of Captain von Papen and his associates_. I
+know also that many plots in which German-Americans were concerned had
+been deliberately encouraged by von Papen and afterward as deliberately
+betrayed! Time after time, enterprises with no chance of success were set
+on foot with the sole purpose of having them fail—for thus Germany could
+furnish to the world evidence that America was honey-combed with sedition
+and treachery—evidence which Americans themselves would be the first to
+accept.
+
+It was in reality a gigantic game of bluff. Germany wished to give
+to the world convincing proof that all peoples of German descent were
+solidly supporting her. It was for this reason that reports of impossible
+German activities were set afloat; that rumors of Germans massing in
+the Maine woods, of aëroplane flights over Canada, and of all sorts
+of enterprises which had no basis in fact, were disseminated. And
+since many anti-German papers had been indiscreet enough to attack the
+German-Americans as disloyal, the German agents used and fomented these
+attacks for their own purposes.
+
+Who could gain by such a campaign of slander and the feeling it would
+produce? Certainly not the Administration, which had great need of a
+united country behind it. Certainly not the American press, which was
+certain to lose circulation and advertising; nor American business, which
+would suffer from the loss of thousands of customers of German descent,
+who would turn to the German merchant for their needs. Only two classes
+could profit: the German press, which was liberally subsidized by the
+German Government, and the German Government itself.
+
+It was to the interests of the administration at Washington to keep the
+country united by keeping the Germans disunited. The reverse condition
+would tend to indicate that Americanism was a failure, since the country
+was divided at a critical time; it would seriously hamper the Government
+in its dealings with all the warring nations; and it would be of benefit
+only to the German societies and German press, and through them to the
+German Government. It _was_ of benefit. The German newspapers increased
+their circulations and advertising revenues, in many cases by more than
+one hundred per cent. German banks and insurance companies received money
+that had formerly gone to American institutions and which now went to
+swell the Imperial German War Loans. And the German clubs increased their
+memberships and became more and more instruments of power in the work of
+Germany.
+
+There is a typical German club in New York—the _Deutscher Verein_ on
+Central Park South. During the war it has been used as a sub-office of
+the German General Staff. It was here that von Papen used to store the
+dynamite that was needed in such enterprises as the Welland Canal plot.
+It was here that conspirators used to meet for conferences which no one,
+not even the other members of the club, could tell were not as innocent
+as they seemed.
+
+These German societies and other agencies were used not merely to promote
+sympathy for the German cause, but also to influence public opinion in
+matters of purely American interest. On January 21, 1916, Henry Weismann,
+president of the Brooklyn branch of the German-American National Alliance
+sent a report to headquarters in Chicago, regarding the activities of his
+organization in the recent elections. In the Twenty-third Congressional
+District of New York, Ellsworth J. Healy had been a candidate for
+Congress. Both he and another man, John J. Fitzgerald, candidate for
+Justice of the Supreme Court of New York, were regarded by German
+interests as “unneutral.” They were defeated, and Weismann in commenting
+upon the matter, wrote: “_The election returns prove that Deutschtum is
+armed and able, when the word is given, to seat its men._”
+
+Even in the campaign for preparedness Germany took a hand. Berlin was
+appealed to in some cases as to the attitude that American citizens of
+German descent should adopt toward this policy. Professor Appelmann of
+the University of Vermont wrote to Dr. Paul Rohrbach, one of the advisers
+of the Wilhelmstrasse, requesting his advice upon the subject. Dr.
+Rohrbach replied that American _Deutschtum_ should not be in favor of
+preparedness, because “_it is quite conceivable that in the event of an
+American-Japanese war, Germany might adopt an attitude of very benevolent
+neutrality toward Japan and so make it easier for Japan to defeat the
+United States_.” And not long ago the _Herold des Glaubens_ of St. Louis,
+made this statement: “When we found that the agitation for preparedness
+was in the interest of the munition makers and that its aim was a war
+with Germany, we certainly turned against it and we have agitated against
+it for the last three months.”
+
+But this anti-militaristic spirit was a rather sudden development on the
+part of the German societies. In 1911, when a new treaty of arbitration
+with Great Britain was under consideration, a group of roughs, _led and
+organized by a German_, violently broke up a meeting held under the
+auspices of the New York Peace Society to support that treaty. The man
+who broke that meeting up was Alphonse G. Koelble. It was this same
+Koelble who in 1915, when Germany’s attack upon America was most bitter,
+organized a meeting of “The Friends of Peace,” in order to protest
+against militarism! Strange, is it not, this inconsistency? _Or was it
+that Mr. Koelble was acting under orders?_
+
+Germany did these things not only for their political effect, but also
+because she knew that she could turn the evidence of her own meddling
+to account. It was for the same reason that Wolf von Igel, von Papen’s
+secretary and successor, retained in his office a list of American
+citizens of German descent who “could be relied on.” This list was found
+by agents of the Department of Justice when von Igel’s office was raided.
+And the German agents were glad it was discovered. _It gave to Americans
+an additional proof of the hold that Germany had obtained over a large
+group of German-Americans._
+
+It was as late as March, 1916, that the members of the Minnesota chapter
+of the German-American National Alliance received a circular, advising
+them of the attitude _toward Germany_ of the various candidates for
+delegate to the national conventions of the different parties, and
+indicating by a star the names of those men “about whom it has been
+ascertained that they are in agreement with the views and wishes of
+_Deutschland_ and that if elected they will act accordingly.” I do not
+believe that the men who sent that circular expected it to be widely
+obeyed. But unquestionably they knew it would be made public.
+
+I think that if the German conspirators in America had confined their
+activities to this field they might ultimately have succeeded. They had
+managed to seduce a sufficient number of German-Americans to cause the
+entire German-American population to be regarded with suspicion. They
+had contrived to discredit the pacifist and labor movements by making
+public their own connection with individuals in these bodies. They had
+aroused the public to such a pitch of distrust that in the Presidential
+campaign of 1916 the support of the “German vote” was regarded with
+distaste by both candidates. And they had helped to create so tremendous
+a dissension in America that friendships of long standing were broken up,
+German merchants in many communities lost all but their German customers,
+and German-Americans were belabored in print with such twaddle as the
+following:
+
+“The German-Americans predominate in the grog-shops, low dives, pawn
+shops and numerous artifices for money-making and corrupt practices in
+politics.”
+
+The foregoing statement, which I quote from a book, “German Conspiracies
+in the United States,” written by a gentleman named Skaggs, is not
+perhaps a fair sample of the attacks made upon German-Americans by the
+press in general, but it is indicative of the heights to which feeling
+ran in the case of a few uninformed or hysterical persons. The point is
+that to a large portion of the populace the German-Americans had become
+enemies and objects of abuse.
+
+They, in turn, beset on all sides by a campaign of slander insidiously
+fostered by men to whom they had given their trust, did exactly what had
+been expected. They fell right into the arms of that movement which for
+fourteen years had been subsidized for that very purpose. They ceased
+to read American newspapers. They read German newspapers, many of which
+almost openly preached disloyalty to the United States. They became
+clannish and joined German societies which frequently contained German
+agents. They began to boycott American business houses and dealt only
+with those of German affiliations.
+
+Germany had gained her point. She alone could gain by the disunity
+of the country. It was to her advantage that the profits which had
+formerly gone to American business houses should be deflected to German
+corporations. _And had she rested her efforts there, she might, as I say,
+have seen them produce results in the form of riots and armed dissension,
+which would have effectively prevented the United States from entering
+the war._
+
+But Germany over-reached herself. Emboldened by the apparent success
+of their schemes, her principal agents, von Papen, Boy-Ed and von
+Rintelen (who had begun his work in January, 1915) became careless, so
+far as secrecy was concerned, and so audacious in their plans that they
+betrayed themselves, perhaps intentionally, as a final demonstration of
+their power. The results you know. Insofar as the disclosures of their
+activities tended further to implicate the German-Americans, they did
+harm. But by those very disclosures the eyes of many German-Americans
+were opened to the true nature of the influence to which they had
+been subjected, and through that fact the worst element of the German
+propaganda in America received its death blow.
+
+To-day the United States is at war and no intelligent man now questions
+the loyalty of the majority of the citizens of German blood. That in
+the past their sympathies have been with Germany is unquestioned and,
+from their standpoint, entirely proper. That in many cases they view the
+participation of the United States in the war with regret is probable.
+But that they will stand up and if need be fight as staunchly as any
+other group in the country, no man may doubt.
+
+That is the story of the darkest chapter in the history of German
+intrigue. Other things have been done in this war at which a humane man
+may blush. Other crimes have been committed which not even the staunchest
+partisan can condone. But at least it may be said that those things were
+done to enemies or to neutral people whom fortune had put in the way of
+injury. The betrayal of the German-Americans was a wanton crime against
+men whom every association and every tie of kinship or tradition should
+have served to protect.
+
+Germany has not yet abandoned that attack. There are still spies in the
+United States, you may be sure—still intrigues are being fostered. And
+there are still men who, consciously or unconsciously, are striving to
+discredit the German-Americans by presenting them as unwilling to bear
+their share in the burden of the nation’s war. Only a week before these
+lines were written one man—George Sylvester Viereck—circulated a petition
+begging that Germans should not be sent to fight their countrymen, and
+an organization of German Protestant churches in America is repeating
+this plea. As a German whom fortune has placed outside the battle, and
+as one whose patriotism is extended toward blood rather than dynasty, I
+ask Mr. Viereck and these other gentlemen if they have not forgotten that
+many German-Americans have already shown their feelings by volunteering
+for service in this war—and if they have not also forgotten that the two
+great wars of American history were fought between men of the same blood.
+
+Ties of blood have never prevented men from fighting for a cause which
+they believed to be just. They will not in this war! And when Mr. Viereck
+and his kind protest against the participation in the war of men of any
+descent whatever, they imply that the American cause is _not_ just and
+that it is not worthy of the support of the men they claim to represent.
+
+Is this their intention?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+    _More about the German intrigue against the United States.
+    German aims in Latin America. Japan and Germany in Mexico. What
+    happened in Cuba?_
+
+
+“American intervention in Mexico would mean another Ireland, another
+Poland—another sore spot in the world. Well, why not?”
+
+Those were almost the last words spoken to me when I left Germany in
+1914, upon my ill-fated mission to England. I had in my pocket at the
+moment detailed memoranda of instructions which, if they could be carried
+out, would insure such disturbances in Mexico that the United States
+would be compelled to intervene. I had been given authority to spend
+almost unlimited sums of money for the purchase of arms, for the bribery
+of officials—for anything in fact that would cause trouble in Mexico.
+And the words I have quoted were not spoken by an uninformed person with
+a taste for cynical comment; they were uttered by Major Köhnemann,
+of Abteilung III B of the German General Staff. They form a lucid and
+concrete explanation of German activities in Mexico during the past eight
+years.
+
+Long before this war began German agents were at work in Mexico, stirring
+up trouble in the hope of causing the United States to intervene. I
+have already told how, in 1910 and 1911, Germany had encouraged Japan
+and Mexico in negotiating a treaty that was to give Japan an important
+foothold in Mexico. I have told how, after this treaty was well on the
+way to completion, Germany saw to it that knowledge of the projected
+terms was brought to the attention of the United States—thereby
+indirectly causing Diaz’s abdication. That instance is not an isolated
+case of Germany meddling in Mexican affairs. Rather is it symptomatic of
+the traditional policy of Wilhelmstrasse in regard to America.
+
+It may be well to examine this policy more closely than I have done. Long
+ago Germany saw in South America a fertile field for exploitation, not
+only in a commercial way, in which it presented excellent opportunities
+to German manufacturers, but also as a possible opportunity for expansion
+which had been denied her elsewhere. All of the German colonies were
+in torrid climates, in which life for the white man was attended with
+tremendous hardships and exploitation and colonization were consequently
+impeded. Only in the Far East and in South America could she find
+territories either unprotected through their own weakness, or so thinly
+settled that they offered at once a temptation and an opportunity to
+the nation with imperialistic ambitions. In the former quarter she was
+blocked by a concert of the Powers, many of them actuated by similar
+aims, but all working at such cross purposes that aggression by any one
+of them was impossible. I have already alluded to the result of such
+a situation in my discussion of the Anglo-Persian Agreement. In South
+America there was only one formidable obstacle to German expansion—the
+Monroe Doctrine.
+
+I am stating the case with far less than its true complexity. There
+were, it is true, many facts in the form of conflicting rivalries of
+the Powers as well as internal conditions in South America, that would
+have had a deterrent effect upon the German program. Nevertheless, it is
+certain that the prime factor in keeping Germany out of South America was
+the traditional policy of the United States; and, so far as the German
+Government’s attitude in the matter is concerned, it is the only phase of
+the problem worth considering.
+
+Germany had no intention of securing territory by a war of conquest. Her
+method was far simpler and much less assailable. She promptly instituted
+a peaceful invasion of various parts of the continent; first in the
+persons of merchants who captured trade but did not settle permanently in
+the country; second, by means of a vast army of immigrants, who, unlike
+those who a generation before had come to the United States, settled,
+_but retained their German citizenship_. With this unnaturalized element
+she hoped to form a nucleus in many of the important South American
+countries, which, wielding a tremendous commercial power and possessing a
+political influence that was considerable, although indirect, would aid
+her in determining the course of South American politics so that by a
+form of peaceful expansion she could eventually achieve her aims.
+
+Was this a dream? At any rate it received the support of many of the
+ablest statesmen of Germany, who duly set about the task of discrediting
+the Monroe Doctrine in the eyes of the very people it was designed to
+protect, so that the United States, if it ever came forcibly to defend
+the Doctrine, would find itself opposed not only by Germany but by South
+America as well.
+
+Now, the easiest way to cast suspicion upon a policy is to discredit the
+sponsor of it. In the case of the United States and South America this
+was not at all difficult; for the southern nations already possessed a
+well defined fear and a dislike of their northern neighbor that were not
+by any means confined to the more ignorant portions of the population.
+Fear of American aggression has been somewhat of a bugaboo in many
+quarters. Recognizing this, Germany, which has always adopted the policy
+of aggravating ready-made troubles for her own ends, steadily fomented
+that fear by means of a quiet but well-conducted propaganda, _and also by
+seeking to force the United States into taking action that would justify
+that fear_.
+
+As a means toward securing this latter end, Mexico presented itself as a
+heaven-sent opportunity. Even in the days when it was, to outward eyes,
+a well-ordered community, there had been men in the United States who
+had expressed themselves in favor of an expansion southward which would
+result in the ultimate absorption of Mexico; and although such talk had
+never attracted much attention in the quarter from which it emanated,
+there were those who saw to it that proposals of this sort received
+an effective publicity south of the Isthmus. Given, then, a Mexico in
+which discontent had become so acute that it was being regarded with
+alarm by American and foreign investors, the possibility of intervention
+became more immediate and the opportunity of the trouble-maker increased
+proportionately.
+
+[Illustration: The order for the deportation of von der Goltz which for
+some reason was not put into effect.]
+
+Germany’s first step in this direction, was, as you know, the
+encouragement of a Japanese-Mexican alliance, the failure of which was
+a vital part of her program. It was a risky undertaking, for if, by any
+chance, the alliance were successfully concluded, the United States might
+well hesitate to attack the combined forces of the two countries; and
+Mexico, fortified by Japan, would present a bulwark against the real or
+fancied danger of American expansion, that, for a time at least, would
+effectually allay the fears of South America. That risk Germany took,
+and insofar as she had planned to prevent the alliance scored a success.
+That she failed in her principal aim was due to the anti-imperialistic
+tendencies of the United States and the statesmanship of Señor
+Limantour, rather than to any other cause.
+
+Then came the Madero Administration with its mystical program of
+reform—and an opposition headed by almost all of the able men in the
+republic, both Mexican and foreign. Bitterly fought by the ring of
+Cientificoes, who saw the easy spoils of the past slipping from their
+hands; distrusted by many honest men, who sincerely believed that Mexico
+was better ruled by an able despot than by an upright visionary; hampered
+by the aloofness of foreign business and governments, waiting for a
+success which they alone could insure, before they should approve and
+support; and constantly beset with uneasiness by the incomprehensible
+attitude of the Taft Administration and of its Ambassador—the fate of the
+Madero Government was easily foreseen.
+
+Before Madero had been in power for three months this opposition had
+taken form as a campaign of obstruction in the Mexican Chamber of
+Deputies, supported by the press, controlled almost exclusively by
+the Cientificoes and by foreign capitalists; by the clergy, who had
+reason to suspect the Government of anti-clerical tendencies; and by
+isolated groups of opportunity seekers who saw in the Administration an
+obstacle to their own political and economic aims. The Madero family
+were represented as incompetent and self-seeking; and in a short time the
+populace, which a month before had hailed the new government as a savior
+of the country, had been persuaded that its program of economic reform
+had been merely a political pretense, and accordingly added its strength
+to the party of the Opposition.
+
+Here was tinder aplenty for a conflagration of sorts. Germany applied the
+torch at its most inflammable spot.
+
+That inflammable spot happened to be a man—Pazcual Orozco. Orozco had
+been one of Madero’s original supporters, and in the days of the Madero
+revolution had rendered valuable services to his chief. An ex-muleteer,
+uncouth and without education, he possessed considerable ability;
+but his vanity and reputation were far in excess of his attainments.
+Unquestionably he had expected that Madero’s success would mean a
+brilliant future for himself, although it is difficult to tell in just
+what direction his ambitions pointed. Madero had placed him in command
+of the most important division of the Federal army, but this presumably
+did not content him. At any rate, early in February, 1912, he made a
+demand upon the Government for two hundred and fifty thousand pesos,
+threatening that he would withdraw from the services of the Government
+unless this “honorarium”—honesty would call it a bribe—were paid to him.
+Madero refused his demand, but with mistaken leniency retained Orozco in
+office—and on February 27, Orozco repaid this trust by turning traitor at
+Chihuahua, and involving in his defection six thousand of Mexico’s best
+troops as well as a quantity of supplies.
+
+Now mark the trail of German intrigue. In Mexico City, warmly supporting
+the Madero Government, but of little real power in the country, was the
+German Minister, Admiral von Hintze. Under normal circumstances, his
+influence would have been of great value in helping to render secure
+the position of Madero; but with means of communication disrupted as
+they were to a large extent, his power was inconceivably less than
+that of the German consuls, all of whom were well liked and respected
+by the Mexicans with whom they were in close touch. Apart from their
+political office, these men represented German business interests in
+Mexico, particularly in the fields of hardware and banking. In the three
+northern cities of Parral, Chihuahua and Zacatecas, the German consuls
+were hardware merchants. In Torreon the consul was director of the
+German bank. As such it would seem that it was to their interests to work
+for the preservation of a stable government in Mexico. And yet the fact
+remains that when Orozco first began to show signs of discontent, these
+men encouraged him with a support that was both moral and financial; and
+when the general finally turned traitor, it was my old friend, Consul
+Kueck, who, as President of the Chamber of Commerce of Chihuahua, voted
+to support him and to recognize Orozco’s supremacy in that State!
+
+I leave it to the reader to decide whether it was the Minister or the
+consuls who really represented the German Government.
+
+It would be idle to attempt to trace more than in the briefest way
+Germany’s part in the events of the next few years. Always she followed
+a policy of obstruction and deceit. During the months immediately
+succeeding the Orozco outbreak, at the very moment that von Hintze was
+lending his every effort to the preservation of the Madero regime,
+sending to Berlin reports which over and over again reiterated his belief
+that Madero could, if given a free hand, restore order in the republic,
+the German consuls were openly fomenting disorder in the North.
+
+They were particularly well equipped to make trouble, by their position
+in the community and by the character and reputation of the rest of the
+German population. It may be said with safety that however careless
+Germany has been about the quality of the men whom she has allowed to
+emigrate to other countries, her representatives throughout all of
+Latin-America have been conspicuous for their commercial attainments and
+for their social adaptability. This, in a large way has been responsible
+for the German commercial success in Central and South America. As
+bankers they have been honest and obliging in the matter of credit. As
+merchants they have adapted themselves to the local conditions and to
+the habits of their customers with notable success. In consequence they
+have been well-liked as individuals and have been of immense value in
+increasing the prestige of the German Empire. In Mexico they were the
+only foreigners who were not disliked by either peon or aristocrat; and
+it is significant to note that during seven years of unrest in that
+country, Germans alone among peoples of European stock have remained
+practically unmolested by any party.
+
+Consider of what service this condition was in their campaign. Respected,
+influential, they were in an excellent position to stimulate whatever
+anti-American feeling existed in the Latin American countries. At the
+same time, they were equally well situated to encourage the unrest in
+Mexico that would be the surest guarantee of American intervention—and
+the coalition against the United States which intervention would be
+certain to provoke. They made the utmost use of their advantage, and they
+did it without arousing suspicion or rebuke.
+
+After the failure of the short-lived Orozco outbreak, events in
+Mexico seemed to promise a peaceful solution of all difficulties.
+Many of Madero’s opponents declared a truce, and the irreconcileables
+were forced to bide their time in apparent harmlessness. In November
+came the rebellion of Felix Diaz, fathered by a miscellaneous group
+of conspirators who hoped to find in the nephew sufficient of the
+characteristics of the great Porfirio to serve their purposes. This
+venture failed also. Again Madero showed a mistaken leniency in
+preserving the life of Diaz. He paid for it with his life. Out of this
+uprising came the _coup d’etat_ of General Huerta—made possible by a dual
+treachery—and the murder of the only man who at the time gave promise of
+eventually solving the Mexican problem.
+
+What share German agents had in that tragic affair I do not know. You may
+be sure that they took advantage of any opportunity that presented itself
+to encourage the conspirators in a project that gave such rich promise
+of aiding them in their purposes. I pass on to the next positive step in
+their campaign. That was a repetition of their old plan of inserting the
+Japanese question into the general muddle.
+
+The Japanese question in Mexico is a very real one. I know—and the
+United States Government presumably knows, also—that Japan is the only
+nation which has succeeded in gaining a permanent foothold in Mexico. I
+know that spies and secret agents in the guise of peddlars, engineers,
+fishermen, farmers, charcoal burners, merchants and even officers in
+the armies of every Mexican leader have been scattered throughout the
+country. The number of these latter I have heard estimated at about
+eight hundred; at any rate it is considerable. There are also about ten
+thousand Japanese who have no direct connection with Tokio but who are
+practically all men of military age, either unmarried or without wives in
+Mexico—most of them belonging to the army or navy reserve. And, like the
+Germans, the Japanese never lose their connection with the Government in
+their capacity as private individuals.
+
+Through the great government-owned steamship line, the Toyo Kisen
+Kaisha, the Japanese Government controls the land for a Japanese coaling
+station at Manzanilla. At Acapulco a Japanese company holds a land
+concession on a high hill three miles from the sea. It is difficult to
+see what legitimate use a fishing company could make of this location.
+It is, however, an ideal site for a wireless station. In Mexico City an
+intimate friend of the Japanese Chargé d’Affaires owns a fortress-like
+building in the very heart of the capital. Another Japanese holds, under
+a ninety-nine year lease, an L-shaped strip of land partly surrounding
+and completely commanding the water works of the capital of Oxichimilco.
+The land is undeveloped. Both of these Japanese are well supplied with
+money and have been living in Mexico City for several years. Neither one
+has any visible means of support. And in all of the years of revolution
+in Mexico no Japanese have been killed—except by Villa. He has caused
+many of them to be executed, but always those that were masquerading as
+Chinese. Naturally a government cannot protest under such circumstances.
+
+These facts may or may not be significant. They serve to lend color to
+the convictions of anti-Japanese agitators in the United States, and as
+such they have been of value to Germany. Accordingly it was suggested to
+Señor Huerta that an alliance with Japan would be an excellent protective
+measure for him to take.
+
+Huerta had two reasons for looking with favor upon this proposal. He was
+very decidedly in the bad graces of Washington, and he was constantly
+menaced by the presence in Mexico of Felix Diaz, to whom he had agreed
+to resign the Presidency. Diaz was too popular to be shot, too strong
+politically to be exiled and yet—he must be removed. Here, thought
+Huerta, was an opportunity of killing two birds with one stone. He
+therefore sent Diaz to Japan, ostensibly to thank the Japanese Government
+for its participation in the Mexican Centennial celebration, three years
+before, but in reality to begin negotiations for a treaty which should
+follow the lines of the one unsuccessfully promulgated in 1911.
+
+Señor Diaz started for Japan—but he never arrived there. Somehow the
+State Department at Washington got news of the proposed treaty—how, only
+the German agents know—and Señor Diaz’s course was diverted.
+
+Meanwhile, in spite of the strained relations between Huerta and
+Washington, Germany was aiding the Mexican president with money and
+supplies. In the north, Consuls Kueck of Chihuahua, Sommer of Durango,
+Muller of Hermosillo, and Weber of Juarez were exhibiting the same
+interest in the Huertista troops that they had formerly displayed toward
+Orozco. Kueck, as I happened to learn later, had financed Salvator
+Mercado, the general who had so obligingly tried to have me shot; and at
+the same time he was assiduously spreading reports of unrest in Mexico,
+and even attempted to bribe some Germans to leave the country, upon the
+plea that their lives were in danger.
+
+When I raided the German Consulate at Chihuahua, I found striking
+documentary proof of his activities in this direction. There were letters
+there proving that he had paid to various Germans sums ranging as high
+as fifty dollars a month, upon condition that they should remain outside
+of Mexico. These letters, in many cases, showed plainly that this was
+done in order to make it seem that the unrest was endangering the lives
+of foreign inhabitants; in spite of which several of the recipients
+complained that their absence from Mexico was causing them considerable
+financial loss, and showed an evident desire to brave whatever dangers
+there might be—if they could secure the permission of Consul Kueck.
+
+During the year and more that Huerta held power, Germany followed the
+same tactics. I need not remind you of the attempt to supply Huerta with
+munitions after the United States had declared an embargo upon them; or
+that it has been generally admitted that the real purpose of the seizure
+of Vera Cruz by United States marines was to prevent the German steamer
+_Ypiranga_ from delivering her cargo of arms to the Mexicans. That is but
+one instance of the way in which German policy worked—a policy which, as
+I have indicated, was opposed to the true interests of Mexico, and has
+been solely directed against the United States. Up to the very outbreak
+of the war it continued. After Villa’s breach with Carranza, emissaries
+of Consul Kueck approached the former with offers of assistance.
+Strangely enough he rejected them, principally because he hates the
+Germans for the assistance they gave his old enemy, Orozco. Villa had,
+moreover, a personal grudge against Kueck. When General Mercado was
+defeated at Ojinaga, papers were found in his effects that implicated
+the Consul in a conspiracy against the Constitutionalists, although at
+the time Kueck professed friendship for Villa and was secretly doing all
+he could to increase the friction that existed between the general and
+Mercado. Villa had sworn vengeance against the double-dealer; and Kueck,
+in alarm, fled into the United States.
+
+With the outbreak of the Great War the situation changed in one important
+particular. Heretofore, German activities had been part of a plan of
+attack upon the prestige of the United States. Now they became necessary
+as a measure of defense. Before two months had passed it became evident
+to the German Government that the United States _must_ be forced into a
+war with Mexico in order to prevent the shipment of munitions to Europe.
+
+So began the last stage of the German intrigue in Mexico—an intrigue
+which still continues. As a preliminary step, Germany had organized her
+own citizens in that country into a well-drilled military unit—a little
+matter which Captain von Papen had attended to during the spring of 1914.
+One can read much between the lines of the report sent to the Imperial
+Chancellor by Admiral von Hintze, commenting upon the work of Captain von
+Papen in this direction. The Admiral says in part: “He showed especial
+industry in organizing the Germany colony for purposes of self-defense,
+and out of this shy and factious material, unwilling to undertake any
+military activity, he obtained what there was to be got.”
+
+Von Hintze significantly recommends that the captain should be decorated
+with the fourth class of the Order of the Red Eagle.
+
+As I have stated elsewhere, I left Germany in October of 1914, with a
+detailed plan of campaign for the “American front,” as Dr. Albert once
+put it. My final instructions were simple and explicit.
+
+“There must be constant uprisings in Mexico,” I was told, in effect.
+“Villa, Carranza, must be reached. Zapata must continue his maraudings.
+It does not matter in the least how you produce these results. Merely
+produce them. All consuls have been instructed to furnish you with
+whatever sums you need—_and they will not ask you any questions_.”
+
+Rather complete, was it not? I left with every intention of carrying the
+instructions out—and in a little over a week was made _hors de combat_.
+It was then that von Rintelen, who had already planned to come over to
+the United States in order to inaugurate a vast blockade running system,
+undertook to add my undertaking to his own responsibilities.
+
+What von Rintelen did is well known, so I shall only summarize it here.
+His first act was an attempted restitution of General Huerta, which he
+knew was the most certain method of causing intervention. Into this
+enterprise both Boy-Ed and von Papen were impressed, and the three men
+set about the task of making arrangements with former Huertistas for
+a new uprising to be financed by German money. They sent agents to
+Barcelona to persuade the former dictator to enter into the scheme; and
+finally, when the general was on his way to America, they attempted to
+arrange it so that he should arrive safely in New York and ultimately in
+Mexico. It was a plan remarkably well conceived and well executed. It
+would have succeeded but for one thing. General Huerta was captured by
+the United States authorities at the very moment that he tried to cross
+from Texas into Mexico!
+
+But the indomitable von Rintelen was not discouraged. He had but one
+purpose—to make trouble—and he made it with a will. He sent money to
+Villa, and then, like the philanthropist in Chesterton’s play, supported
+the other side by aiding Carranza, financing Zapata and starting two
+other revolutions in Mexico. Meanwhile anti-American feeling continued
+to be stirred up. German papers in Mexico presented the Fatherland’s
+case as eloquently as they did elsewhere, and to a far more appreciative
+audience. Carranza was encouraged in his rather unfriendly attitude
+toward Washington. In a word, no step was neglected which would embarrass
+the Wilson Administration and make peace between the two countries more
+certain or more difficult to maintain.
+
+Need I complete the story? Is it necessary to tell how, after the recall
+of von Papen and Boy-Ed and the escape of von Rintelen, Mexico continued
+to be used as the catspaw of the German plotters? Every one knows the
+events of the last few months; of the concentration of German reservists
+in various parts of Mexico; of the bitter attacks made upon the United
+States by pro-German newspapers; and of the reports, greatly exaggerating
+German activities in Mexico, which have been circulated with the direct
+intention of provoking still more ill-feeling between the two countries
+by leading Americans to believe that Mexico is honey-combed with German
+conspiracies.
+
+[Illustration: Cover of the British White Paper, containing von der
+Goltz’s confession, and referring to him as “Bridgeman Taylor.”]
+
+These activities have not applied to Mexico alone. It is significant that
+twice in February of this year the Venezuelan Government has declined to
+approve of the request of President Wilson that other neutral nations
+join him in breaking diplomatic relations with Germany as a protest
+against submarine warfare, and that many Venezuelan papers have stated
+that this refusal is due to the representations of resident Germans, who
+are many and influential. These are, of course, legitimate activities,
+but they are in every case attended by a threat. Revolutions are easily
+begun in Latin America, and the obstinate government can always be
+brought to a reasonable viewpoint by the example of recent uprisings or
+revolutions, financed by Germany, in Costa Rica, Peru and Cuba. Within
+a very recent time, rumors were afloat in Venezuela that Germany was
+assisting General Cipriano Castro in the revolutionary movement that he
+had been organizing in Porto Rico. It was reported that there were on the
+Colombian frontier many disaffected persons who would gladly join Castro
+if he landed in Colombia and marched on Caracas, as he did successfully
+in 1890.
+
+For several years the Telefunken Co., a German corporation, has tried to
+obtain from the Venezuelan Government a concession to operate a wireless
+plant, which should be of greater power than any other in South America.
+When this proposal was last made, certain ministers were for accepting
+it, but the majority of the Government realized the uses to which the
+plant could be put and refused to grant the concession. An alternative
+proposal, made by the Government, to establish a station of less
+strength, was rejected by the company.
+
+Germany has steadily sought such wireless sites throughout this region.
+Several have been established in Mexico, and in 1914 it was through
+a wireless station in Colombia, that the German Admiral von Spee was
+enabled to keep informed of the movements of the squadron of Admiral Sir
+Christopher Cradock—information which resulted in the naval battle in
+Chilean waters with a loss of three British battleships. It was after
+this battle that Colombia ordered the closing of all wireless stations on
+its coasts.
+
+In Cuba, too, the hand of Germany has been evident, in spite of the
+disclaimers which have been made by both parties in the recent
+rebellion. That rebellion grew out of the contested election in November,
+in which both President Menocal and the Liberal candidate, Alfredo
+Zayas, claimed a victory. It is strange if this is the real cause of the
+uprising, that hostilities did not begin until February 9, when General
+Gomez, himself an ex-president, began a revolt in the eastern portion
+of the island. The date is important; it was barely a week before new
+elections were to be held in two disputed provinces and _only six days
+after the United States had severed diplomatic relations with the German
+Government, and but four days after President Menocal’s Government had
+declared its intention of following the action of the United States_.
+
+A little study of the personnel and developments of the rebellion form
+convincing evidence as to its true backing. The Liberal Party is strongly
+supported by the Spanish element of the population, who are almost
+unanimously pro-German in their sympathies. All over the island, both
+Germans and Spaniards have been arrested for complicity in the uprising.
+Nor have the clergy escaped. Literally, dozens of bishops have been
+jailed in Havana, upon the same charges.
+
+It is also a notorious fact that the Mexicans have supported the
+Liberals, and that the staffs of the Liberal newspapers are almost
+exclusively composed of Mexican journalists. These newspapers were
+suppressed at the beginning of the revolution.
+
+But far more significant are the developments in the actual fighting.
+
+Most of the action has taken place in the eastern provinces of Camaguey,
+Oriente and Santa Clara—in which the most fertile fields of sugar cane
+are situated. The damage to the cane fields has been estimated at
+5,000,000 tons and is, _from a military standpoint, unnecessary_.
+
+Col. Rigoberto Fernandez one of the revolutionary leaders, stated
+that the rebels were plentifully supplied with hand-grenades and
+artillery—although the reports prove that they had none. Was this an
+empty boast—or may there be a connection between Fernandez’s statement
+and the capture by the British of three German ships, which were found
+off the Azores, laden with mines and arms?
+
+I was in Havana in the latter part of March—upon a private errand,
+although the Cuban papers persisted in imputing sinister designs to me.
+Naturally, the Germans were not inclined to tell all their secrets, but
+my Mexican acquaintances, all of whom were well informed regarding Cuban
+affairs, gave me considerable information. Among other Mexicans I met
+General Joaquin Maas, the former general of the Federal forces under
+Huerta. The general has since made peace with Carranza and was at this
+time acting as the latter’s go-between in negotiations with Germany. When
+I last saw Maas, it was after the battle of El Paredo. He was about to
+blow out his brains, but one of his lieutenants elegantly informed him
+that he was a fool and dissuaded him from suicide. Maas received me with
+the courtesy due a former opponent and was not averse to telling me much
+about the situation. I also had ample occasion to speak with Spaniards,
+whose sympathies were decidedly pro-German. Little by little I was
+enabled to acquire a rather complete idea—not of the issues underlying
+the Cuban revolution—but who had brought matters to a head. The answer
+may be found in one word—Germany. German agents—notably one Dr. Hawe ben
+Hawas, who recently took a mysterious botanizing expedition throughout
+that part of Cuba, which later became the scene of revolutionary
+activities, and who has thrice been arrested as a German spy—saw in
+the political unrest of the country another opportunity to create a
+diversion in favor of Germany. Cuba at peace was a valuable economic ally
+of the United States. Cuba in rebellion was a source of annoyance to this
+country, since it meant intervention, the political value of which was
+unfavorable to the United States, and a serious loss in sugar, which is
+one of the most important ingredients in the manufacture of several high
+explosives.
+
+Hence the burning of millions of tons of sugar cane. Hence the rebel
+seizure of Santiago de Cuba. Hence the large number of negroes who joined
+the rebel army, and whose labor is indispensable in the production of
+sugar.
+
+The ironic part of it all is that Germany had nothing to gain by a change
+of government in Cuba. Any Cuban government must have a sympathetic
+attitude toward the United States. What Germany wanted was a disruption
+of the orderly life of the country—and she wanted it to continue for as
+long a time as possible.
+
+At the present writing the Cuban rebellion is ended. General Gomez and
+his army have been captured, President Menocal is firmly seated in power
+again, and the rebels hold only a few unimportant points. But much damage
+has been done in the lessening of the sugar supply—and the rebellion has
+also served its purpose as an illustration of Germany’s ability to make
+trouble.
+
+Germany has played a consistent game throughout. She has sought to use
+all the existing weaknesses of the world for her own purposes—all the
+rivalries, all the fears, all the antipathies, she has utilized as fuel
+for her own fire. And yet, although she has played the game with the
+utmost foresight, with a skill that is admirable in spite of its perverse
+uses, and with an unfailing assurance of success—she has come to the
+fourth year of the Great War with the fact of failure staring her in the
+face.
+
+But she has not given up. You may be sure that she has not given up.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+    _The last stand of German intrigue. Germany’s spy system in
+    America. What is coming?_
+
+
+As I write these last few pages three clippings from recent newspapers
+lie before me on my desk. One of them tells of the new era of good
+feeling that exists between the governments of Mexico and the United
+States, and speaks of the alliance of Latin-American republics against
+German autocracy.
+
+Another tells how the first contingent of American troops have landed in
+France, after a successful battle with a submarine fleet. And a third
+speaks of the victorious advance of the troops of Democratic Russia,
+after the world had begun to believe that Russia had forgotten the war in
+her new freedom.
+
+I read them over again and I think that each one of these clippings, if
+true, writes “failure” once again upon the book of German diplomacy.
+
+I remember a day not so very many months ago, when a man with whom I had
+some business in—for me—less quiet days, came to see me.
+
+“B. E. is in town,” he said quietly. “He says he must see you. Can you
+meet him at the —— Restaurant to-night?”
+
+Boy-Ed! I was not surprised that he should be in this country, for I knew
+the man’s audacity. But what could he want of me? Well, it would do no
+harm to meet him, I thought, and, anyway, my curiosity was aroused.
+
+I nodded.
+
+“I’ll be there,” I said. “At what hour?”
+
+“Six-thirty,” my friend replied. “It’s only for a minute. He is leaving
+to-night.”
+
+That evening for the first time in two years I saw the man who had done
+his share in the undermining of America. I did not ask him what his
+presence in this country meant, and needless to say, he did not inform me.
+
+Our business was of a different character. I had just arranged to write
+a series of newspaper articles exposing the operations of the Kaiser’s
+secret service and Boy-Ed tried to induce me to suppress them.
+
+“I cannot do it,” I told him.
+
+But the captain showed a remarkable knowledge of my private affairs.
+
+“Under your contract,” he said, “the articles cannot be published until
+you have endorsed them. As you have not yet affixed your signature to
+them, you can suppress them by merely withholding your endorsement.”
+
+This I declined to do and our conversation ended.
+
+Shortly afterward, Boy-Ed returned to Germany on the U-53. He did not
+attempt to see me again, but three times within the following weeks,
+attempts were made upon my life. Later, pressure was brought to bear
+from sources close to the German Embassy, but they failed to secure the
+suppression of the articles.
+
+But my curiosity was aroused as to the meaning of Boy-Ed’s presence here
+and I set to work to discover the purpose of it. This was not difficult,
+for although I have ceased to be a secret agent, I am still in touch with
+many who formerly gave me information, and I know ways of discovering
+many things I wish to learn.
+
+Soon I had the full story of Boy-Ed’s latest activities in this country.
+
+He had, I learned, gone first to Mexico in an attempt to pave the way for
+that last essay at a Mexican-Japanese alliance, which the discovery of
+the famous Zimmermann note later made public. Whether he had succeeded
+or no, I did not discover at the time. But what was more important, I did
+learn that while he was in Mexico, Boy-Ed had selected and established
+several submarine bases for Germany! His plans had also carried him to
+San Francisco, to which he had gone disguised only by a mustache. There
+he had identified several men who were needed by the counsel of the
+defense of the German Consul Bopp, who had been arrested on a charge of
+conspiracy and for fomenting sedition within the United States.
+
+From the Pacific Coast Boy-Ed had gone to Kansas City and had bought off
+a witness who had intended to testify for the United States in the trial
+of certain German agents. Thence, after a private errand of his own, he
+had made his way to New York, _en route_ to Newport and Germany.
+
+It may be well here to comment upon one feature of the Zimmermann note
+which has generally escaped attention. It was through no blunder of
+the German Government that that document came into possession of the
+United States, as I happen to know. I have pointed out before that
+diplomatic negotiations are carried through in the following manner. The
+preliminary negotiations are conducted by men of unofficial standing
+and it is not until the attitude of the various governments involved is
+thoroughly understood by each of them that final negotiations are drawn
+up. Now, although no negotiations had taken place between Germany, Japan
+and Mexico, the form of the Zimmermann note would seem to indicate that
+there was a thorough understanding between these countries. They were
+drawn up in this form with a purpose. Germany wished the United States to
+conclude that Mexico and Japan were hostile to her; Germany hoped that
+this country would be outwardly silent about the Zimmermann note but
+would take some diplomatic action against Mexico and Japan which would
+inevitably draw these two countries into an anti-American alliance.
+
+Did President Wilson perceive this thoroughly Teutonic plot? I cannot
+say; but at any rate upon February 28, he astounded America by revealing
+once again Germany’s evil intentions toward the United States, and by
+so doing not only defeated the German Government’s particular plan but
+effectively cemented public opinion in this country, bringing it to
+a unanimous support of the government in the crisis which was slowly
+driving it toward war.
+
+That marked the last stand of German intrigue, as it was conducted before
+the war. Now there is a new danger—a danger whose concrete illustration
+lies before me in the account of that first engagement between United
+States warships and German submarines.
+
+The people of the United States, just entered into active participation
+in the war, are faced with a new peril—the betrayal of military and naval
+secrets to representatives of the German Government working in this
+country. Not only was it known to Germany that American troops had been
+sent to France, but the very course that the transports were to take had
+been communicated to Berlin. It is probable that other news of equal
+value has been or is being sent to Germany at the present time; and the
+United States is confronted with the possibility of submarine attacks
+upon its troop ships, as well as other dangers which, if not properly
+combated, may result in serious losses and greatly hamper it in its
+conduct of the war.
+
+What exactly is this spy peril which this country now faces and which
+constitutes a far greater, because less easily combated danger than
+actual warfare?
+
+How can it be got rid of?
+
+These are the questions which the American people and the American
+Government are asking themselves and must ask themselves if they are to
+bear an effective share in the war in which they are now engaged.
+
+Because of my former connection with the German Government and my work as
+a secret agent both in Europe and America, in the former of which I was
+brought into intimate contact with the workings of the secret service in
+other countries, I am prepared to give a reliable account of the general
+structure and workings of the German spy system in the United States as
+it is to-day.
+
+It is important to remember that the secret diplomatic service, as it was
+conducted in this country before the war, and with which I was connected,
+is entirely different both in its personnel and methods with the spy
+system which is in operation to-day. A little further on I shall point
+out why this is so and why it must be so.
+
+Before the entry of the United States into the war, the principal
+activities of the German Government’s agents were confined to the
+fomenting of strikes in munitions plants and other war activities, the
+organizing of plots to blow up ships, canals, or bridges—anything
+which would hamper the transportation of supplies to the Allies—and the
+inciting of sedition by stirring up trouble between German-Americans and
+Americans of other descent. All of these acts were committed in order to
+prevent you from aiding in any way the enemies of Germany; and also, by
+creating disorder in this country in peace times to furnish you with an
+object lesson of what could be done in war times.
+
+These things were planned, overseen and executed by Germans and by other
+enemies of the Allies, under the leadership of men like von Papen, who
+were accredited agents of the German Government and who were protected by
+diplomatic immunity.
+
+Now that war has come an entirely new task is before the German
+Government and an entirely new set of people are needed to do it. Wartime
+spying is absolutely different from the work which was done before the
+war, and the two have no connection with each other—except as the work
+done before the war has prepared the way for the work which is being done
+now.
+
+And whereas the work done before the war was conducted by Germans, the
+present work, for very obvious reasons, cannot be done by any one who is
+a German or who is likely to be suspected of German affiliations.
+
+I venture to say that not one per cent. of the persons who are engaged in
+spying for the German Government at the present time are either of German
+birth or descent.
+
+I say this, not because I know how the German secret service is being
+conducted in this country, but because I know how it has been conducted
+in other countries.
+
+Let me explain. It is obvious that such activities as the inciting to
+strikes, and the conspiring which were done in the last three years
+could be safely conducted by Germans, because the two countries were at
+peace. The moment that war was declared, every German became an object
+of suspicion, and his usefulness in spying—that is, the obtaining of
+military, naval, political and diplomatic secrets—was ended immediately.
+For that reason Germany and every other government which has spies in
+the enemy country make a practice during war of employing practically no
+known citizens of its own country.
+
+At the present time more than ninety per cent. of the German spies in
+England are Englishmen. The rest are Russians, Dutchmen, Roumanians—what
+you will—anything but Germans.
+
+One of the former heads of the French secret service in this country was
+a man who called himself Guillaume. His real name is Wilhelm and he was
+born in Berlin!
+
+For that reason to arrest such men as Carl Heynen or Professor Hanneck is
+merely a precautionary measure. Whatever connection these men may have
+had with the German Government formerly, their work is now done, and
+their detention does not hinder the workings of the real spy system one
+iota.
+
+
+HOW THE SPY SYSTEM WORKS.
+
+It is difficult to distinguish between the work done in neutral countries
+by the secret diplomatic agent—the man who is engaged in fomenting
+disorders, such as I have described—and the spy, who is seeking military
+information which may be of future use. The two work together in that the
+secret agent reports to Berlin the names of inhabitants of the country
+concerned, who may be of use in securing information of military or naval
+value. It is well to remember, however, that the real spy always works
+alone. His connection with the government is known only to a very few
+officials, and is rarely or never suspected by the people who assist him
+in securing information. Here permit me to make a distinction between
+two classes of spies: the agents or directors of espionage, who know
+what they are doing; and the others, the small fry, who secure bits of
+information here and there and pass it on to their employers, the agents,
+often without realizing the real purpose of their actions.
+
+In the building of the spy system in America, Germans and
+German-Americans have been used. Business houses, such as banks and
+insurance companies, which have unusual opportunities of obtaining
+information about their clients—most of whom, in the case of German
+institutions in this country, are of German birth or descent—have been of
+service in bringing the directors of spy work into touch with people who
+will do the actual spying.
+
+The German secret service makes a point of having in its possession lists
+of people who are in a position to find out facts of greater or less
+importance about government officials. Housemaids, small tradesmen, and
+the like, can be of use in the compiling of data about men of importance,
+so that their personal habits, their financial status, their business
+and social relationships become a matter of record for future use. These
+facts are secured, usually by a little “jollying” rather than the payment
+of money, by the local agent—a person sometimes planted in garrison
+towns, state capitals, etc.—who is paid a comparatively small monthly sum
+for such work. This information is passed to a director of spies, who
+thereby discovers men who are in a position to supply him with valuable
+data and who determine whether or not they can be reached.
+
+Now, just how is this “reaching” done? Mainly, I think it safe to say,
+by blackmail and intimidation. If from this accumulated gossip about
+his intended victim—who may be an army or naval officer, a manufacturer
+of military supplies, or a government clerk—the spy learns of some
+indiscretion committed by the man or his wife, he uses it as a club in
+obtaining information that he desires. Or he may hear that a man is in
+financial straits. He will make a point of seeing that his victim is
+helped, and then will make use of the latter’s friendship to worm facts
+out of him. In this way, sometimes without the suspicion of the victim
+being aroused, little bits of information are secured, which may be of
+no importance in themselves, but are of immense value when considered in
+conjunction with facts acquired elsewhere.
+
+Ultimately the victim will balk or become suspicious. Then he is offered
+the alternative of continuing to supply information or of being exposed
+for his previous activities. Generally he accepts the lesser evil.
+
+In this manner the spy system is built up even in peace times. The
+tremendous sums of money that are spent in this manner amount to
+millions. The quantity of information secured is on the other hand,
+inconceivably small for the most part. But in the mass of useless and
+superfluous facts that are supplied to the spies and through them to the
+government, are to be found a few that are worth the cost of the system.
+By the time war breaks out, if it does, the German Government has in its
+possession innumerable facts about the equipment of the army and navy of
+its enemy—and more important still, it has in its power men, sometimes
+high in the confidence of the enemy government, who can be forced into
+giving additional information when needed.
+
+Now, the moment that war breaks out, what happens? The German Government
+has distributed throughout the country thousands of men and women
+who have legitimate business there; it has its hands on men who are
+not spies, but who will betray secrets for a price either in money or
+security; it is acquainted with the strength and weakness of fortresses,
+various units of the service, the exact armament of every ship in the
+navy, the resources of munition factories—in a word almost all of the
+essential details about that country’s fighting and economic strength. It
+also knows what portion of the populace are inclined to be disaffected.
+And it is thoroughly familiar with the strategical points of that
+country, so that in case of invasion it may strike hard and effectively.
+
+What is must learn now is:
+
+First, what are the present military and naval activities of the enemy.
+
+Second, what are they planning to do.
+
+Finally, the German Government must learn the how, why, when and where of
+each of these things.
+
+That, with the machinery at its command, is not so difficult as it would
+seem.
+
+Here is where the value of the minor bits of information comes in. A
+trainman tells, for instance, that he has seen a trainload of soldiers
+that day, upon such and such a line. A similar report comes in from
+elsewhere. Meantime another agent has reported that a certain packing
+house has shipped to the government so many tons of beef; while still
+another announces the delivery at a particular point of a totally
+different kind of supplies. Do you not see how all these facts, taken
+together, and coupled with an accurate knowledge of transportation
+conditions and of the geographical structure of the country would
+constitute an important indication of an enemy’s plans, even failing the
+possession of any absolute secrets? Do you not suppose that weeks before
+you were aware that any United States soldiers had sailed for France, the
+Germans might have known of all the preparations that were being made
+and could deduce accurately the number of troops that were sailing, and
+many facts of importance about their equipment. There is no need for the
+betrayal of secrets for this kind of information to become known. It is a
+mere matter of detective work.
+
+But mark one feature of it. These facts are communicated by different
+spies—not to a central clearing house of information in this country,
+as has been surmised, but to various points outside the country for
+transmission to the Great General Staff. They are duplicated endlessly
+by different agents. They are sent to many different people for
+transmission. _And even if half of the reports were lost, or half of the
+spies were discovered, there would still be a sufficient number left to
+carry on their work successfully._
+
+Germany does not depend upon one spy alone for even the smallest item.
+Always the work is duplicated. Always the same information is being
+secured by several men, not one of whom knows any of the others; and
+always that information is transmitted to Berlin through so many diverse
+channels that it is impossible for the most vigilant secret service in
+the world to prevent a goodly part of it from reaching its destination.
+
+How that information is transmitted I shall tell in a moment. First, I
+wish to explain how more important facts are secured—the secret plans of
+the government, such, for instance, as the course which had been decided
+upon for the squadron which carried the first American troops to France.
+
+It is obvious that such facts as these could not have been deduced from
+a mass of miscellaneous reports. That secret must have been learned in
+its entirety. Exactly how it was discovered I do not pretend to know
+nor shall I offer any theories. But here, in a situation of this sort,
+unquestionably, is where the real spy—the “master spy,” if you wish to
+call him so—steps in.
+
+Now, it is impossible, in spite of the utmost vigilance, to keep an
+important document from the knowledge of all but one or two people.
+No matter how secret, it is almost certain to pass through the hands
+of a number of officials and possibly several clerks. And with every
+additional person who knows of it, the risk of discovery or betrayal is
+correspondingly increased. If in code, it may be copied or memorized by a
+spy who is in a position to get hold of it, or by a person who is in the
+power of that spy! Once in Berlin, it can be deciphered. For the General
+Staff and the Admiralty have their experts in these matters who are very
+rarely defeated.
+
+You may be sure that Germany has made her utmost efforts to put her spies
+into high places in this country, just as she has tried to do elsewhere.
+You may be sure, also, that she has neglected no opportunity to gain
+control over any official or any naval or army officer—however important
+or unimportant—whom the agents could influence. That has always been her
+method; nor is it difficult to see why it frequently succeeds.
+
+Imagine the situation of a man who in time of peace had supplied, either
+innocently or otherwise, a foreign agent with information which possessed
+a considerable value. It is probable that he would revolt at a suggestion
+that he do it in time of war—but with his neck once in the German noose,
+with the alternative of additional compliance or exposure facing him,
+it is not hard to see how some men would become conscious traitors and
+others would be driven to suicide.
+
+By a system of blackmail and intimidation the Germans have attempted to
+force into their ranks many people from whom they extort information that
+would now be regarded as traitorous, although formerly it might have been
+given out in all innocence.
+
+Undoubtedly it was for purposes of intimidation that von Papen carried
+with him to England papers incriminating Germans and German-Americans
+who had been associated with him in one way or another. And why did von
+Rintelen return to this country and aid this government in exposing
+the German affiliations of people who had no German blood in them? The
+obvious answer is that those people had balked at aiding him in some
+scheme he had proposed. Therefore he made examples of them, with the
+double purpose of demonstrating to the United States the extent of German
+intrigue and of filling other implicated people with fear of the exposure
+that would come to them if they were not more compliant.
+
+Once in possession of secret information, the spy is faced with the
+necessity of transmitting it to Berlin. Here again, the spy who is a
+German would meet with considerable difficulty. He may mail letters if
+no mail censorship has been instituted; but these are liable to seizure
+and are not so useful in the transmission of war secrets as they were in
+informing his government before the war of more or less standard facts
+about the strength of fortifications and the like. He may use private
+messengers—as do all spies—but the delay in this method is a severe
+handicap.
+
+In sending news of the movements of troops, speed is the prime essential.
+Consequently he must communicate either by wireless or by cable. How does
+he do it?
+
+There are innumerable ways. There may be in the confidential employ
+of many business houses which do a large cable business with neutral
+countries men who are either agents or dupes of the German Government.
+These men may send cables which seem absolutely innocent business
+messages, but which if properly read impart facts of military value to
+the recipient in Holland, say, or in Spain or South America. It is not a
+difficult matter to use business codes, giving to the terms an entirely
+different meaning from the one assigned in the code-book. Personal
+messages are also used in this way, as is well known. As to the wireless,
+although all stations are under rigid supervision, what is to prevent the
+Germans from establishing a wireless station in the Kentucky Mountains,
+for instance, and for a time operating it successfully?
+
+But in spite of all cable censorship, the spy can smuggle information
+into Mexico, where it can be cabled or wirelessed on to Berlin, either
+directly or indirectly by way of one of the neutral countries. Even in
+spite of the most rigid censorship of mails and telegrams this sort of
+smuggling can be accomplished.
+
+When I was in the Constitutional Army in Mexico, I used to receive
+revolver ammunition from an old German who carried it over the border _in
+his wooden leg_. Could not this method be applied to dispatches?
+
+There are numerous authenticated cases of spies who have sent messages
+concealed in sausages or other articles of food. Moreover, the current
+of the Rio Grande at certain places runs in such a manner that a log or
+a bucket dropped in on the American side will drift to the Mexican shore
+and arrive at a point which can be determined with almost mathematical
+certainty.
+
+I mention those instances merely to show how little of real value the
+censorship of cables and mails can accomplish. The question arises: What
+can be done? I shall try to indicate the answer.
+
+
+HOW TO GET RID OF THE SPY SYSTEM.
+
+I say frankly that I think it absolutely impossible to eradicate spies
+from any country. Certainly it cannot be done in a week or a year, or
+even in many years. It is more than probable that the German spy systems
+in France and England are more complete to-day than they were at the
+beginning of the war. Three years ago the spies in those countries were
+made up of both experienced and inexperienced men. Now the bunglers have
+been weeded out, and only those who are expert in defying detection
+remain. But these are the only men who were ever of real use to Germany;
+and fortified as they are by three years of unsuspected work in these
+countries, they are enabled to secure information of infinitely more
+worth than they formerly were. What is the situation in America?
+
+I have shown you the structure of that system. Let me repeat again that
+Germany has installed in this country thousands of men, whose nationality
+and habits are such as to protect them from suspicion, who work silently
+and alone, because they know that their very lives depend upon their
+silence, and who are in communication with no central spy organization,
+for the very simple reason that no such organization exists. There is no
+clearing house for spy information in this country. There are no “master
+spies.”
+
+Do you think that the German Government would risk the success of a work
+so important as this, by organizing a system which the arrest of any one
+man or group of men would betray? The idea of centralization in this
+work is popular at present. In theory it is a good one. In practise it
+is impossible. By the very nature of the spy’s trade, he must run alone,
+and not only be unsuspected of any connection with Germany now, but be
+believed never to have had such a connection. If the secret service
+were a chain, the loss of one link would break it. With a system of
+independent units, endlessly overlapping, eternally duplicating each
+other’s work, they continue their practices even though half of their
+number are caught.
+
+Now with these men, protected as they are by the fact that not even their
+fellows know them, with their wits sharpened by three years of silent
+warfare against the agents of other governments and your own neutrality
+squad, the task of ferreting them out is an utterly impossible one. You
+cannot prevent spies from securing information.
+
+You cannot prevent the transmission of that information to Berlin,
+without instituting, not a censorship, but a complete suppression of all
+communications of any sort.
+
+But you can do much to counteract their methods by doing two things:
+
+I. Delaying all mails and cables, other than actual government messages.
+
+II. Instituting a system of counter espionage, which shall have for
+its object the detection _but not the arrest_ of enemy spies; and the
+dissemination of misleading information.
+
+The war work of the spy depends for success upon the speed with which he
+can communicate new facts to Berlin. If all his messages are delayed, his
+effectiveness is severely crippled.
+
+If in addition to that, all persons sending suspicious messages anywhere
+are carefully shadowed; if their associations are looked up, it may be
+possible to determine from whom they are getting information, and by
+seeing that incorrect reports are given them, render them of negligible
+value to their employers.
+
+Public arrests of suspected men are worthless. Such disclosures only
+serve to put the real spies on their guard. But if the spies are allowed
+to work in fancied security, it will be possible to find out just what
+they know and the government can change its plans at the last moment and
+so nullify their efforts.
+
+Eternal vigilance, here as elsewhere, is the price of security. Germany
+has regarded the work of her spies as of almost as much importance as
+the force in the field. She has spent millions of dollars in building up
+a system in this country, whose ramifications extend to all points of
+your national life. And since upon this system rests all of her hopes of
+rendering worthless your participation in the war, she will not lightly
+let it fail.
+
+I toss aside my clippings and sit looking out into the New York street
+which shows such little sign of war as yet. Defeat! That is the end
+of this silent warfare, this secret underground attack that has in it
+nothing of humanity or honor. I think of Germany, a country of quiet,
+peaceful folk as I once knew it, bearing no malice, going cheerfully
+about their work, seeking their destiny with a will that has nothing in
+it of conquest. And I think of Germany embattled, ruled by a group of
+iron men who see only their own ambitions as a goal—who have brought upon
+the country and the world this three-year tyranny of hate.
+
+What will be the end? Will the war go on, eating up the lives and honor
+of men with its monstrous appetite? Or will there be peace—a peace that
+will bring nothing of revenge or oppression; that will carry with it
+only a desire for justice to all the peoples of the earth—that will kill
+forever this desire for conquest which now and in the past has borne only
+sorrow and bloodshed as its fruit? Will the peace bring forgetfulness of
+the past, in so far as men _can_ forget?
+
+That would be worth fighting for.
+
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+FOOTNOTES
+
+
+[1] You will find an interesting account of the effect of this treaty
+upon Persia in William Morgan Shuster’s valuable book, “The Strangling of
+Persia.”
+
+[2] Mr. Edward I. Bell, in his “The Political Shame of Mexico.”
+
+[3] It is interesting to remember that Captain von Papen had in the
+earlier part of the year, while he was still in Mexico, conducted an
+investigation into the types of explosives used in Mexico for similar
+enterprises. This investigation had been undertaken at the request of
+the German Ministry of War. Letters regarding this matter were found in
+Captain von Papen’s effects by the British authorities, and are printed
+in the British White Papers, Miscellaneous No. 6 (1916).
+
+[4] Fritzen, who was captured in Hartwood, Cal., on March 9, 1917, was
+arraigned in New York City on March 16, and after pleading not guilty,
+later reversed his plea. He is at present serving a term of eighteen
+months in a Federal prison.
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75931 ***
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75931 ***</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_i"></a>[i]</span></p>
+
+<h1>MY ADVENTURES AS A<br>
+GERMAN SECRET AGENT</h1>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ii"></a>[ii]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iii"></a>[iii]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp52" id="illus01" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus01.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">The Bridgeman H. Taylor passport upon which
+  von der Goltz returned to Germany and later went to England. In the
+  upper right hand corner is the visé of the American Embassy at Berlin.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_iv"></a>[iv]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_v"></a>[v]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage larger">My Adventures<br>
+<span class="smaller">AS A</span><br>
+German Secret Agent</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><span class="smaller">BY</span><br>
+CAPT. HORST VON DER GOLTZ<br>
+<span class="smcap smaller">Formerly Major in the Mexican Constitutional Army.<br>
+Sometime Confidential Aide to Captain von Papen,<br>
+Recalled Military Attaché to the Imperial<br>
+German Embassy at Washington,<br>
+German Secret Agent.</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage"><i>ILLUSTRATED</i></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">NEW YORK<br>
+ROBERT M. McBRIDE &amp; COMPANY<br>
+1917</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vi"></a>[vi]</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">Copyright, 1917<br>
+by<br>
+<span class="smcap">Robert M. McBride &amp; Company</span></p>
+
+<p class="titlepage smaller">Published, 1917</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_vii"></a>[vii]</span></p>
+
+<p>“One must at times separate
+a gentleman and a diplomat
+from his official acts performed
+under orders from his home government,
+otherwise great confusion
+and injustice will occur. Some
+governments have a little way of
+telling those who represent them
+abroad ... to get such and such
+a thing done, and done it must be.
+Nor would those high Government
+officials at home care often to hear
+painful details of the successful
+execution of many such orders
+which are given.”</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">from<br>
+<i>“The Strangling of Persia,” by W. Morgan Shuster</i>.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_viii"></a>[viii]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_ix"></a>[ix]</span></p>
+
+<p class="center">TO THE<br>
+UNITED STATES OF GERMANY—WHENEVER<br>
+THEY MAY COME TO BE—I<br>
+DEDICATE THIS BOOK AND MY HOPES.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_x"></a>[x]</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xi"></a>[xi]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CONTENTS">CONTENTS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr smaller">CHAPTER</td>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg smaller">PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr"></td>
+    <td>Foreword</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#FOREWORD">1</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">I—</td>
+    <td>I find an old letter, containing a strange bit of scandal—and
+    its contents draw me into the service of the Kaiser</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_I">5</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">II—</td>
+    <td>I Impersonate a Russian Prince and steal a treaty. What the
+    treaty contained and how Germany made use of the knowledge</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_II">22</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">III—</td>
+    <td>Of what comes of leaving important papers exposed. I look
+    and talk indiscreetly—and a man dies</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_III">45</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IV—</td>
+    <td>I am sent to Geneva and learn of a plot. How there are more
+    ways of getting rid of a King than by blowing him up with dynamite</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">61</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">V—</td>
+    <td>Germany displays an interest in Mexico, and aids the United
+    States for her own purposes. The Japanese-Mexican treaty and its
+    share in the downfall of Diaz</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_V">88</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VI—</td>
+    <td>My letter again. I go to America and become a United States
+    soldier. Sent to Mexico and sentenced to death there. I join
+    Villa’s army and gain an undeserved reputation</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">111</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xii"></a>[xii]</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VII—</td>
+    <td>War. I re-enter the German service and am appointed aide
+    to Captain von Papen. The German conception of neutrality and
+    how to make use of it. The plot against the Welland Canal</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">151</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">VIII—</td>
+    <td>I go to Germany on a false passport. Italy in the early
+    days of the war. I meet the Kaiser and talk to him about Mexico
+    and the United States</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">173</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">IX—</td>
+    <td>In England—and how I reached there. I am arrested and
+    imprisoned for fifteen months. What von Papen’s baggage
+    contained. I make a sworn statement</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">190</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">X—</td>
+    <td>The German intrigue against the United States. Von Papen,
+    Boy-Ed and von Rintelen, and the work they did. How the
+    German-Americans were used and how they were betrayed</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_X">212</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">XI—</td>
+    <td>More about the German intrigue against the United States.
+    German aims in Latin America. Japan and Germany in Mexico. What
+    happened in Cuba?</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">236</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">XII—</td>
+    <td>The last stand of German intrigue. Germany’s spy system in
+    America. What is coming?</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">264</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiii"></a>[xiii]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="ILLUSTRATIONS">ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The false passport upon which Capt. von der Goltz went to England</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus01"><span class="smcap">Frontispiece</span></a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td></td>
+    <td class="tdpg smaller">FACING PAGE</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Photograph of Capt. von der Goltz taken outside the Cuartel
+    at Juarez</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus02">28</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Raul Madero and his staff</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus03">42</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A group of recruits in Villa’s Army</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus04">42</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Von der Goltz’s commission as Major in the Mexican Constitutional
+    Army</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus05">64</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Colonel Trinidad Rodriguez, Capt. von der Goltz’s first commander,
+    and General Villa</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus06">88</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>General Raul Madero</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus07">88</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A telegram from General Villa to Capt. von der Goltz</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus08">112</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A group of Constitutional soldiers</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus09">124</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The six months’ leave of absence from the Mexican Army,
+    granted to Capt. von der Goltz at the outbreak of the European
+    War</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus10">140</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A letter of recommendation given to Capt. von der Goltz by
+    Raul Madero</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus11">140</a><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_xiv"></a>[xiv]</span></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>A letter from Dr. Kraske, German vice-consul at New York to
+    “Baron” von der Goltz</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus12">152</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Captain von Papen’s letter to the German consuls at Baltimore
+    and St. Paul, asking for their assistance in Capt. von der Goltz’s
+    enterprise</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus13">166</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>How Capt. von der Goltz secured explosives for his Welland Canal
+    Expedition. Two communications from Capt. Tauscher</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus14">178</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Bills from the du Pont de Nemours Powder Co. for “merchandise”
+    furnished Capt. von der Goltz</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus15">180</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The check which almost cost Capt. von der Goltz his life</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus16">196</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Safe Deposit receipts for papers which von der Goltz left in
+    Rotterdam</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus17">210</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>The British order for the deportation of Capt. von der Goltz</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus18">240</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td>Photograph of the cover of the British white paper containing Capt.
+    von der Goltz’s confession</td>
+    <td class="tdpg"><a href="#illus19">256</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_1"></a>[1]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOREWORD">FOREWORD.</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>I have not attempted to write an autobiography.
+This book is merely a summary—a
+sort of galloping summary—of the last ten
+years of my existence. As such, I venture to
+write it because my life has been bound up in
+enterprises in which the world is interested. It
+has been my fortune to be a witness and sometimes
+an actor in that drama of secret diplomacy
+which has been going on for so long and which
+in such a large way has been responsible for this
+war.</p>
+
+<p>There are many scenes from that drama that
+have no place in this book—many events with
+which I am familiar that I have not touched
+upon. My aim has been to describe only those
+things with which I was personally concerned
+and which I know to be true. For a full history
+of the last ten years my readers must go elsewhere;
+but it is my hope that these adventures
+of mine will bring them to a better understanding
+of the forces that have for so long been
+undermining the peace of the world.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_2"></a>[2]</span></p>
+
+<p>Inevitably there will be some who read this
+book, who will doubt the truth of many of the
+statements in it. I cannot, unfortunately, prove
+all that I tell here. Wherever possible I have
+offered corroborative evidence of the truth of
+my statements; at other times I have tried to
+indicate their credibility by citing well recognized
+facts which have a direct bearing upon my contentions.
+But for the rest, I can only hope that
+this book will be accepted as a true record of
+facts which by their very nature are insusceptible
+of proof.</p>
+
+<p>So far as my connection with the German
+Government is concerned, I may refer the
+curious to the British Parliamentary White
+Papers, Miscellaneous Nos. 6 and 13, which contain
+respectively my confession and a record of
+the papers found in the possession of Captain
+von Papen, former military attaché to the German
+Embassy at Washington, and seized by the
+British authorities on January 2 and 3, 1916.
+There are also, in addition to the documents
+reproduced in this book, various court records
+of the trial of Captain Hans Tauscher and others
+in the spring of the same year. Of German
+activities in the United States, the newspapers
+bear eloquent testimony. I have been concerned<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_3"></a>[3]</span>
+rather with the motives of the German Government
+than with a statement of what has been
+done. These motives, I believe, you will not
+doubt.</p>
+
+<p>But there is one point which I must ask my
+readers not to overlook. I have told that I became
+a secret agent through the discovery of a
+certain letter which contained very serious reflections
+upon one of the most important personages
+in the world. I have told, also, how the
+possession of that letter had an important bearing
+upon the course of my life—how it led me
+to America, and how in the struggle for its possession,
+I very nearly lost my life. This, I know,
+will be severely questioned by many. Before
+rejecting this part of my story, I ask merely that
+you consider the fate that overtook Koglmeier,
+the saddler of El Paso, whose only crime was
+that he had been partially in my confidence. I
+ask you to recall that another German, Lesser,
+who had been associated with me at the same
+time, mysteriously disappeared in 1915, shortly
+before von Papen left for Europe. No one has
+been able to prove why these men were treated as
+they were. And if I did not have in my possession
+<i>something</i> which the German Government
+regarded as highly important, why the surprising<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_4"></a>[4]</span>
+actions of that Government, actions none the less
+astonishing because they are well known and
+authenticated? Consider these things before you
+doubt.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, let me say that I have taken the liberty
+of changing or omitting the names of various
+people who are mentioned in these adventures,
+merely because I have had no wish to compromise
+them by disclosing their identity.</p>
+
+<figure class="figright illowp100" style="max-width: 15.625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/signature.jpg" alt="H. von der Goltz (signature)">
+</figure>
+
+<p class="cb">New York, July 8, 1917.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="ERRATA"><i>ERRATA</i></h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<p class="center"><i><a href="#Page_5">Page 5</a>. Chapter I. First line</i>:<br>
+March 28th, 1917 should read March 29th, 1916.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><a href="#Page_41">Page 41</a></i>:<br>
+Kut el Amerara should read Kut el Amara.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><a href="#Page_140">Page 140</a>. Last two paragraphs</i>:<br>
+December 23rd should read December 20th.</p>
+
+<p class="center"><i><a href="#Page_171">Page 171</a>. Second paragraph</i>:<br>
+October 8th should read October 3rd, 1914.</p>
+
+<div class="transnote">
+
+<p class="center"><b>Transcriber’s Note:</b> The errata have been corrected.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_5"></a>[5]</span></p>
+
+<h1>My Adventures as a German<br>
+Secret Agent</h1>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p><i>I find an old letter, containing a strange
+bit of scandal—and its contents draw me into
+the service of the Kaiser.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>On March 29th, 1916, the steamer <i>Finland</i> was
+warped into its Hudson River dock and I
+hurried down the gang plank. I was not alone.
+Agents of the United States Department of
+Justice had met me at Quarantine; and a man
+from Scotland Yard was there also—a man who
+had attended me sedulously since, barely two
+weeks before, I had been released under rather
+unusual circumstances from Lewes prison in
+England; the last of four English prisons in
+which I had spent fifteen months in solitary confinement
+waiting for the day of my execution.</p>
+
+<p>My friend from Scotland Yard left me very
+shortly; soon after, I was testifying for the
+United States Government against Capt. Hans<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_6"></a>[6]</span>
+Tauscher, husband of Mme. Johanna Gadski, the
+diva. Tauscher, American agent of the Krupps
+and of the German Government, was charged
+with complicity in a plot to blow up the Welland
+Canal in Canada during the first month of the
+Great War. During the course of the trial it
+was shown that von Papen and others (including
+myself) had entered into a conspiracy to violate
+the neutrality of the United States. I had led
+the expedition against the Welland Canal and I
+was telling everything I knew about it. Doubtless
+you remember the newspapers of the day.</p>
+
+<p>You will remember how, at that time, the
+magnitude of the German plot against the neutrality
+of the United States became finally apparent.
+You will remember how, in connection
+with my exposure came the exposure of von Igel,
+of Rintelen, of the German Consul-General at
+San Francisco, Bopp, and many others. With all
+of these men I was familiar. In the activities of
+some of them I was implicated. It was I, as I
+have said, who planned the details of the Welland
+Canal plot. I shall tell the true story of these
+activities later on.</p>
+
+<p>But first let me tell the story of how I became
+to be concerned in these plots—and to do that
+I must go back over many years; I must tell how<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_7"></a>[7]</span>
+I first became a member of the Kaiser’s Secret
+Diplomatic Force (to give it a name) and incidentally
+I shall describe for the first time the
+real workings of that force.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">I have been in and out of the Kaiser’s web for
+ten years. I have served him faithfully in many
+capacities and in many places—all over Europe,
+in Mexico, even in the United States. I served
+the German Government as long as I believed it
+to be representing the interests of my countrymen.
+But from the moment that I became convinced
+that the men who made up the Government—the
+Hohenzollerns, the Junkers and the
+bureaucrats—were anxious merely to preserve
+their own power, even at the expense of Germany
+itself, my attitude toward them changed. That
+is why I write this book—and why I shall tell
+what I know of the aims and ambitions of these
+men—enemies of Germany as well as of the rest
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>I was not a spy; nor was I a secret service
+agent. I was, rather, a secret diplomatic agent.
+Let me add that there is a nice distinction between
+the three. A secret diplomatic agent is a
+man who directs spies, who studies their reports,
+who pieces together various bits of information,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_8"></a>[8]</span>
+and who, when he has the fabric complete, personally
+makes his report to the highest authority
+or carries that particular plan to its desired conclusion.
+His work and his status are of various
+sorts. Unlike the spy, he is a user, not a getter,
+of information. He is a free lance, responsible
+only to the Foreign Office; a plotter; an unofficial
+intermediary in many negotiations; and
+frequently he differs from an accredited diplomatic
+representative, only in that his activities
+and his office are essentially secret. Obviously
+men of this type must be highly trained and reliable;
+and their constant association with men
+of authority makes it necessary that they, themselves,
+be men of breeding and education. But
+above all, they must possess the courage that
+shrinks at no danger, and a devotion, a patriotism
+that knows no scruples.</p>
+
+<p>This, then, was the calling into which I found
+myself plunged, while still a boy, by one of the
+strangest chances that ever befell me, whose life
+has been full of strange happenings.</p>
+
+<p>As I recall my adolescence I realize that I was
+a normal boy, vigorous, wilful, fond of sport, of
+horses, dogs and guns, and I know that but for
+the chance I speak of, I should have grown up
+to the traditions of our family—Cadet school—the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_9"></a>[9]</span>
+University—later a lieutenancy in the German
+Army—and to-day, perhaps, death “somewhere
+in France.”</p>
+
+<p>And yet, in that boyhood that I am recalling,
+I can remember that there were other interests
+which were far greater than the games that I
+loved, as did all lads of my age. Mental adventure,
+the matching of wits against wits for
+stakes of reputation and fortune, always exercised
+an uncanny fascination over my mind.
+That delight in intrigue was shown by the books
+I read as a boy. In the library of my father’s
+house there were many novels, books of poems,
+of biography, travel, philosophy and history; but
+I passed them by unread. His few volumes of
+court gossip and so-called “secret history” I
+seized with avidity. I used to bear off the
+memoirs of Maréchal Richelieu, the Cardinal’s
+nephew, and read them in my room when the
+rest of the household was asleep.</p>
+
+<p>I recall, too, that there was another tendency
+already developed in me. I see it in my dealings
+with other boys of that day. It was the impulse
+to make other people my instruments, not by
+direct command or appeal, but by leading them
+to do, apparently for themselves, what I needed
+of them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_10"></a>[10]</span></p>
+
+<p>Such was I, when my aunt who had cared for
+me since the death of my parents some years
+before, fell ill and later died. I was disconsolate
+for a time and wandered about through the halls
+and chambers of the house, seeking amusement.
+And it was thus that one day I came upon an old
+chest in the room that had been hers. I remembered
+that chest. There were letters in it—letters
+that had been written to her by friends made in
+the old days when she was at court. Often she
+had read me passages from them—bits of gossip
+about this or that personage whom she had once
+known—occasionally, even, mention of the
+Kaiser.</p>
+
+<p>Doubtless, too, I thought, there were passages
+which she had not seen fit to read to me: some
+more intimate bits of gossip about those brilliant
+men and women in Berlin whom I then knew
+only as names. With the eager curiosity of a
+boy I sought the key, and in a moment had unlocked
+the chest.</p>
+
+<p>There they lay, those neat, faded bundles,
+slightly yellow, addressed in a variety of hands.
+Idly I selected a packet and glanced over the
+envelopes it contained, lingering, in anticipation
+of the revelations that might be in them. I must
+have read a dozen letters before my eye fell upon<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_11"></a>[11]</span>
+the envelope that so completely changed my life.</p>
+
+<p>It lay in a corner of the chest, as if hidden
+from too curious eyes—a yellow square of paper,
+distinguished from its fellows by the quality of
+the stationery alone, and by its appearance of
+greater age. But I knew, before I had read fifty
+words of it, that I was holding in my hands a
+document that was more explosive than dynamite!</p>
+
+<p>For this letter, written to my aunt years
+before, by one of the most exalted personages in
+all of Germany, contained statements which, had
+they been made by any one else, would have been
+treason to utter, and <i>which cast the most serious
+doubts upon the legitimacy of the Kaiser,
+Wilhelm II</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I realize fully that what I have written will
+seem grossly improbable to most of my readers.
+I know that few persons will believe me. And
+since I cannot prove what I have said, since the
+letter is no longer in my possession, I can ask
+you only to consider the facts and to weigh for
+yourself the probabilities of my statement.</p>
+
+<p>Those of you whose memories go back to the
+last twenty years of the nineteenth century, will
+readily recall the notorious ill-feeling that existed
+between Wilhelm II and his mother, Victoria,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_12"></a>[12]</span>
+the Dowager Empress Friederich. Stories
+have too often been told of this enmity, culminating
+in the virtual banishment from Berlin of
+the Queen Mother, for me to need do more than
+mention them. But what is not so generally
+known is the small esteem in which Victoria was
+held by the entire German people. During the
+twenty years of her married life as the wife of
+the then Crown Prince Friederich, she was
+treated by Berlin society with the most thinly-veiled
+hostility. Even Bismarck made no attempt
+to conceal his dislike for her, and accused
+her—to quote his own words—of having “poisoned
+the fountain of Hohenzollern blood at its
+source.”</p>
+
+<p>Victoria, for her part, although she seems to
+have had no animosity toward the German
+people, certainly possessed little love for her
+eldest son, and did her best to delay his ascension
+to the Imperial throne as long as she could.
+When in 1888 Wilhelm I was dying, she tried
+her utmost to secure the succession to her husband,
+who was then lying dangerously ill at San
+Remo. “Cancer,” the physicians pronounced the
+trouble, and even the great German specialist,
+Bergman, agreed with their diagnosis. There
+is a law that prevents any one with an incurable<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_13"></a>[13]</span>
+disease, such as cancer, from ascending the
+Prussian throne; but Victoria knew too well the
+attitude of her son, Wilhelm, toward herself, not
+to wish to do everything in her power to prevent
+him from becoming Emperor so long as she
+could. In her extremity she appealed to her
+mother, Queen Victoria of England, who sent
+Mackenzie, the great English surgeon, to San
+Remo to report on Friederich’s condition.
+Mackenzie opposed Bergman and said the disease
+was <i>not</i> cancer; and the physicians inserted
+a silver tube in Friederich’s throat, and in due
+course he became Emperor Friederich III.</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of Mackenzie and the silver tube,
+Friederich III died after a reign of ninety-eight
+days—and he died of cancer.</p>
+
+<p>Now what was the reason for this hostility between
+mother and son and between Empress and
+subjects? There have been many answers given—Victoria’s
+love for England, her colossal lack
+of tact, her impatient unconventionality. Berlin
+whispered of a dinner in Holland years before,
+when Victoria had entertained some English
+people she met there—people she had never seen
+before—and had finished her repast by smoking
+a cigar. That in the days when the sight of a
+woman smoking horrified the German soul! And<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a>[14]</span>
+Berlin hinted at worse unconventionalities than
+this.</p>
+
+<p>As for the animosity of the Kaiser, that was
+attributed to the fact that he held her responsible
+for his withered left arm.</p>
+
+<p>Plausible reasons, all of these, and possibly
+true. But consider, if you will, the rumors that
+followed Victoria all her life—the story of an
+early attachment to the Count Seckendorf, her
+husband’s associate during the Seven Weeks’
+War of 1866—the reports, sometimes denied but
+generally believed, of her marriage to the Count
+not long before her death. Consider, too, the
+dissimilarity between the Kaiser and the other
+men of his race—big, slow-minded, amiable men—so
+unlike Wilhelm II, with his aggressive,
+alert personality, his quick mind and his Piedmontese
+face. And can you not imagine the
+attitude of a woman who had been guilty of infidelity
+and yet retained her sense of national
+honor—the hesitancy she might feel at seeing the
+child of this infidelity upon the throne, and so
+perpetrating a gigantic fraud upon a people and
+a husband whom she respected if she did not
+love? And have not women been known to hate,
+rather than love, the offspring of a guilty union?</p>
+
+<p>True or not, these suppositions—what does it<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_15"></a>[15]</span>
+matter? You can see, can you not, why I believed
+that my letter told the truth, and why I
+knew that here was a plaything which would
+astound the world, if made public?</p>
+
+<p>But what to do with this letter to which I
+attached so much importance? Something impelled
+me not to speak of it to my family. But
+who else was there?</p>
+
+<p>In my perplexity I did an utterly foolish thing.
+I put my whole confidence in a man’s word.
+There was, serving at a nearby fortress, a
+General Major von Dassel, who was in the habit
+of coming to our house quite regularly. To him
+I went, and under pledge of silence I told him
+my story. Of course, he broke the pledge and
+left immediately for Berlin. All doubts, if I had
+any, as to the importance of the document
+vanished with him. And if I had any misgivings
+concerning my own importance they quickly
+vanished, too. Back from Berlin, with General
+Major von Dassel came an agent of the <i>Reichs
+Kanzler</i>. He did not come to our house; instead
+von Dassel sent for me to go to his headquarters
+in the fortress. I met there a solemn frock-coated
+personage who, so he said, had come down from
+Berlin especially to see me. Imagine my elation!
+I was in my element; what I had hoped for had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_16"></a>[16]</span>
+at last happened. The pages of Richelieu and
+of my secret histories were coming true. Another
+man and I were to lock our wits in a fight
+to the finish—that pleasure I promised myself.
+He was a worthy opponent, an official, a professional
+intriguer. As I looked into his serious,
+bearded face, I built romances about him.</p>
+
+<p>The agent of the Chancellor wanted my document
+and my pledge to keep silent about its contents.
+Through sheer love of combat, I refused
+him on both points. He tried persuasion and
+reason. I was adamant. He tried cajolery.</p>
+
+<p>“It is plain,” he said, in a voice that was caressingly
+agreeable, “that you are an extremely
+clever young man. I have never before met your
+like—that is, at your age. A great career will be
+possible to such a young man if only he shows
+himself eager to serve his government, eager to
+meet the wishes of his Chancellor.”</p>
+
+<p>Of course, I was delighted with this flattery,
+which I felt was entirely deserved. I began to
+believe that I was a person of importance. I
+became stubborn—which always has been one of
+my best and worst traits. I saw that the gentleman
+in the frock-coat was becoming angry; his
+serious eyes flashed. Apparently much against
+his will, he tried threats; he suavely pointed out<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_17"></a>[17]</span>
+that if I persisted in my resolve not to turn over
+the document, destruction yawned at my feet.
+The threats touched off the fuse of my romanticism.
+I felt I was leading the life of intrigue of
+which I had read.</p>
+
+<p>“If you will wait here,” I told him, “I shall go
+home and get the document for you.”</p>
+
+<p>The Chancellor’s representative stroked his
+beard, deliberated a moment and seemed uncertain.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, the Junge will come back all right,”
+put in the General Major von Dassel. But the
+Junge did not come back. My family had
+always been excessively liberal with money, and
+I had enough in my own little “war chest” to buy
+a railroad ticket, and a considerable amount besides.
+So I promptly ran off to Paris; and to
+this day I don’t know how long the gentleman
+in the frock-coat waited for me in von Dassel’s
+office.</p>
+
+<p>The terrors and thrills and delight of that
+panic stricken flight still make me smile. No
+peril I have since been through was half as exciting....
+Berlin!... Köln!... Brussels!
+It was a race against apprehension. I was
+happily frightened, much as a colt is, when it
+shies at its own shadow. Although I was in long<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_18"></a>[18]</span>
+trousers and looked years older than I was, I had
+not sense enough to see the affair in its true light—a
+foolish escapade which was quite certain to
+have disagreeable consequences. And so I fled
+from Berlin to Paris.</p>
+
+<p>From Paris I fled, too. There, any circumstance
+struck my fevered imagination as being
+suspicious. After a day in the French capital, I
+scurried south to Nice and from Nice to Monte
+Carlo. Precocious youngster, indeed, for there
+I had my first experience with that favored figure
+of the novelist, the woman secret agent. No
+novelist, I venture to say, would ever have picked
+her out of the Riviera crowd as being what she
+was. She wore no air of mystery; and though
+attractive enough in a quiet way, she was very
+far from the siren type in looks or manners. The
+friendliness that she, a woman of the mid-thirties,
+showed a lonely boy was perfectly natural. I
+should never have guessed her to be an agent of
+the Wilhelmstrasse had she not chosen to let me
+know it. Of course, the moment she spoke to
+me of “my document,” I knew she had made my
+acquaintance with a purpose. If the dear old
+frock-coated agent of the Chancellor had been
+asleep, the telegraph wires from Berlin to Paris
+and Nice and Monte Carlo had been quite awake.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_19"></a>[19]</span></p>
+
+<p>The proof that I was actually watched and
+waited for thrilled me anew. It also alarmed me
+when my friend explained how deeply my government
+was affronted. Soon the alarm outgrew
+the thrill and in the end I quite broke down. Then
+the woman in her, touched with pity, apparently
+displaced the adventuress. We took counsel
+together and she showed me a way out.</p>
+
+<p>“Your document,” she said, “has a Russian as
+well as a German importance. Why not try
+Petersburg since Berlin is hostile? For the sake
+of what you bring, Russia might give shelter and
+protection.”</p>
+
+<p>Remember, I was very young and she was all
+kindness. Yes, she discovered for me the avenue
+of escape and she set my foot upon it in the most
+motherly way. And I unknowingly took my first
+humble lesson in the great art of intrigue. For
+as I learned years afterwards, that woman was
+not a German agent but a Russian!</p>
+
+<p>But at that time I was all innocent gratitude
+for her kindness. I was thankful enough to proceed
+to Petersburg by way of Italy, Constantinople
+and Odessa. Of course, she must have
+designated a man unknown to me to travel with
+me, and make sure that I reached the Russian
+capital. To my hotel in Petersburg, just as the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_20"></a>[20]</span>
+woman had predicted, came an officer of the
+political police, who courteously asked me not
+to leave the building for twenty-four hours. The
+next day the man from the <i>Okrana</i> came again.
+This time he had a droshky waiting, with one of
+those bull-necked, blue corduroy-robed, muscular
+Russian jehus on the box. We were driven
+down the Nevsky-Prospect to a palace. Here I
+soon found myself in the presence of a man I did
+not then know as Count Witte. He greeted me
+kindly, merely remarking that he had heard I
+was in some difficulties, and offering me aid and
+advice. My letter was not referred to and the
+interview ended.</p>
+
+<p>So began the process of drawing me out. A
+fortnight later the matter of my information was
+broached openly and the suggestion was made
+that if I delivered it to the Russian Government,
+high officials would be friendly and a career assured
+me in Russia, as I grew up. But by that
+time Germany had changed her attitude. Her
+agents also reached me in St. Petersburg. From
+them I received new assurance of the importance
+of the document. If I would release it—so the
+German agent who came to my hotel told me—and
+keep my tongue still, Berlin would pardon
+my indiscretion and assure me a career at home.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_21"></a>[21]</span>
+Russia or Germany? My decision was quickly
+made. That very night I was smuggled out of
+Petersburg and whisked across the frontier at
+Alexandrovna, into Germany; and the letter
+passed out of my hands—for the time being.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_22"></a>[22]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II.</h2>
+
+<p><i>I Impersonate a Russian Prince and
+steal a treaty. What the treaty contained and
+how Germany made use of the knowledge.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Gross Lichterfelde! As I write,
+it all comes back to me clearly, in spite of
+the full years that have passed—this, my first
+home in Berlin. A huge pile of buildings set in
+a suburb of the city, grim and military in appearance;
+and in fact, as I soon discovered.</p>
+
+<p>I was to become a cadet, it seems; and where
+in Germany could one receive better training
+than in this same Gross Lichterfelde?</p>
+
+<p>At home I had had some small experience with
+the exactions of the <i>gymnasium</i>; but now I
+found that this was but so much child’s play in
+comparison to the life at Gross Lichterfelde.
+We were drilled and dragooned from morning
+till night: mathematics, history, the languages—they
+were not taught us, they were literally
+pounded into us. And the military training! I
+am not unfamiliar with the curricula of Sandhurst,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_23"></a>[23]</span>
+of St. Cyr, even of West Point, but I
+honestly believe that the training we had to
+undergo was fully as arduous and as technical as
+at any of those schools. And we were only boys.</p>
+
+<p>Military strategy and tactics; sanitation; engineering;
+chemistry; in fact, any and every
+study that could conceivably be of use to these
+future officers of the German Army; to all of
+these must we apply ourselves with the utmost
+diligence. And woe to the student who shirked!</p>
+
+<p>Then there was the endless drilling, that left us
+with sore muscles and minds so worn with the
+monotony of it that we turned even to our
+studies with relief. And the supervision! Our
+very play was regulated.</p>
+
+<p>Can you wonder that we hated it and likened
+the cadet school to a prison? And can you
+imagine how galling it was to me, who had come
+to Berlin seeking romance and found drudgery?</p>
+
+<p>But we learned. Oh, yes. The war has shown
+how well we learned.</p>
+
+<p>There was one relief from the constant study
+which was highly prized by all the cadets at Gross
+Lichterfelde. It was the custom to select from
+our school a number of youths to act as pages
+at the Imperial court; and lucky were the ones
+who were detailed to this service. It meant a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_24"></a>[24]</span>
+vacation, at the very least, to say nothing of a
+change from the Spartan fare of the cadet school.</p>
+
+<p>I must have been a student for a full three
+months before my turn came; long enough, at
+any rate, for me to receive the news of my selection
+with the utmost delight. But I had not been
+on service at the Imperial Palace for more than
+a few days when a state dinner was given in
+honor of a guest at court. He was a young
+prince of a certain grand-ducal house, which by
+blood was half Russian and half German. I
+recall the appearance of myself and the other
+pages, as we were dressed for the function.
+Ordinarily we wore a simple undress cadet uniform,
+but that evening a striking costume was
+provided: nothing less than a replica of the garb
+of a mediaeval herald—tabard and all—for
+Wilhelm II has a flair for the feudal. From my
+belt hung a capacious pouch, which, pages of
+longer standing than I assured me, was the most
+important part of my equipment; since by custom
+the ladies were expected to keep these
+pouches comfortably filled with sweetmeats.
+Candy for a cadet! No wonder every boy welcomed
+his turn at page duty, and went back reluctantly
+to the asceticism of Gross Lichterfelde.</p>
+
+<p>That was my first sight of an Imperial dinner.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a>[25]</span>
+The great banquet hall that overlooks the square
+on the Ufer, was ablaze with lights. The guests—the
+men in their uniforms even more than the
+women—made a brilliant spectacle to the eyes of
+a youngster from the provinces; but most brilliant
+of all was Wilhelm II, resplendent in the
+full dress uniform of a field marshal. I can
+recall him as he sat there, lordly, arrogant, yet
+friendly, but never seeming to forget the
+monarch in the host. It seemed to me that he
+loved to disconcert a guest with his remarks; it
+delighted him to set the table laughing at some
+one’s else expense.</p>
+
+<p>By chance, during the banquet, it fell to me
+to render service to the young prince. Once, as
+I moved behind his chair, a German Princess exclaimed,
+“Oh, doesn’t the page resemble his
+Highness?”</p>
+
+<p>The Kaiser looked at me sharply.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he agreed, “they might well be twins.”
+Then, impulsively lifting up his glass, he
+flourished it toward the Russo-German prince
+and drank to him.</p>
+
+<p>That was all there was to the incident—then.
+I returned to Gross Lichterfelde the next morning,
+and proceeded to think no more of the
+matter. Nor did it come to my mind when a few<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_26"></a>[26]</span>
+weeks later, I was suddenly summoned to Berlin,
+and driven, with one of my instructors, to a
+private house in a street I did not know. (It was
+the Wilhelmstrasse, and the residence stood next
+to Number 75, the Foreign Office. It was the
+house Berlin speaks of as Samuel Meyer’s <i>Bude</i>—in
+other words, the private offices of the
+Chancellor and His Imperial Majesty.)</p>
+
+<p>We entered a room, bare save for a desk or
+two and a portrait of Wilhelm I, where my
+escort surrendered me to an official, who silently
+surveyed me, comparing his observations with a
+paper he held, which apparently contained my
+personal measurements. Later a photograph
+was taken of me, and then I was bidden to wait.
+I waited for several hours, it seemed to me, before
+a second official appeared—a large, round-faced
+man, soldierly despite his stoutness—who
+greeted my escort politely and, taking a photograph
+from his pocket, proceeded to scrutinize
+me carefully. After a moment he turned to my
+escort.</p>
+
+<p>“Has he any identifying marks on his body?”
+he asked.</p>
+
+<p>My escort assured him that there were none.</p>
+
+<p>“Good!” he exclaimed; and a moment later we
+were driving back toward Gross Lichterfelde—I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_27"></a>[27]</span>
+quite at sea about the whole affair, but not daring
+to ask questions about it. Idle curiosity was not
+encouraged among cadets.</p>
+
+<p>I was not to remain in ignorance for long,
+however. A few days later I was ordered to
+pack my clothing, and with it was transferred to
+a quiet hotel on the Dorotheen Strasse. The
+hotel was not far from the War Academy, and
+there I was placed under the charge of an exasperatingly
+puttering tutor, who strove to perfect
+me on but three points. He insisted that my
+French be impeccable; he made me study the
+private and detailed history of a certain Russian
+house; and he was most particular about the way
+I walked and ate, about my knowledge of Russian
+ceremonies and customs—in a word, about
+my deportment in general.</p>
+
+<p>The weeks passed. At last, by dint of much
+hard work, I became sufficiently expert in my
+studies to satisfy my tutor. I was taken back to
+the house on the Wilhelmstrasse, where the
+round-faced man again inspected me. He talked
+with me at length in French, made me walk
+before him and asked me innumerable questions
+about the family history of the house I had been
+studying. Finally he drew a photograph from<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_28"></a>[28]</span>
+his pocket—the same, I fancy, which had figured
+in our previous interview.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you recognize this face?” he inquired,
+offering me the picture.</p>
+
+<p>I started. It might have been my own likeness.
+But no! That uniform was never mine.
+Then in a moment I realized the truth and with
+the realization the whole mystery of the last few
+weeks began to be clear to me. The photograph
+was a portrait of the young Prince Z——; my
+double, whom I had served at the banquet.</p>
+
+<p>“It is a very remarkable likeness,” said the
+round-faced man. “And it will be of good service
+to the Fatherland.”</p>
+
+<p>He eyed me for a moment impressively before
+continuing.</p>
+
+<p>“You are to go to Russia,” he told me.
+“Prince Z—— has been invited to visit his family
+in St. Petersburg, and he has accepted the invitation.
+But unfortunately Prince Z—— has discovered
+that he cannot go. You will, therefore
+become the Prince—for the time being. You
+will visit your family, note everything that
+is said to you and report to your tutor, Herr
+——, who will accompany you and give you
+further instructions.</p>
+
+<p>“This is an important mission,” he added<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_29"></a>[29]</span>
+solemnly, “but I have no doubt that you will comport
+yourself satisfactorily. You have been
+taught everything that is necessary; and you
+have already shown yourself a young man of
+spirit and some discretion. We rely upon both
+of these qualities.” He bowed in dismissal of
+us, but as we turned to go he spoke again.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp52" id="illus02" style="max-width: 21.875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus02.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">This photograph, taken outside the Cuartel
+  at Juarez, Mexico, shows von der Goltz (at the right), then a Major in the
+  Mexican Army, and Lieut. Leiva, a Mexican officer later reported killed in
+  battle.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>“Remember,” he was saying. “From this day
+you are no longer a cadet. You are a prince.
+Act accordingly.”</p>
+
+<p>That was all. We were out of the door and
+halfway to our hotel before I realized to the full
+the great adventure I had embarked upon. Embarked?
+Shanghaied would be the better term.
+I had had no choice in the matter, whatsoever. I
+had not even uttered a word during the interview.</p>
+
+<p>At any rate, that night I left for Petrograd—still
+St. Petersburg at that time—accompanied
+by my tutor and two newly engaged valets, who
+did not know the real Prince. Of what was
+ahead I had no idea, but as my tutor had no
+doubts of the success of our mission, I wasted
+little time in speculating upon the future.</p>
+
+<p>What the real prince’s motive was in agreeing
+to the masquerade, and where he spent his time
+while I was in Russia, I have never been able to
+discover. From what followed, I surmise that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_30"></a>[30]</span>
+he was strongly pro-German in his sympathies
+but distrusted his ability to carry through the
+task in hand.</p>
+
+<p>In St. Petersburg I discovered that my
+“relatives”—whom I had known to be very
+exalted personages—were inclined to be more
+than hospitable to this young kinsman whom
+they had not seen in a long time. I found myself
+petted and spoiled to a delightful degree; indeed
+I had a truly princely time. The only drawback
+was that, as the constant admonitions of my
+tutor reminded me, I could spend my princely
+wealth only in such ways as my—shall I say,
+predecessor?—would have done. He, alas, was
+apparently a graver youth than I.</p>
+
+<p>So two weeks passed, while I was beginning to
+wish that the masquerade would continue indefinitely,
+when one day my tutor sent for me.</p>
+
+<p>“So,” he said, “We have had play enough, not
+so? Now we shall have work.”</p>
+
+<p>In a few words he explained the situation to
+me. Russia, it seemed, was about to enter into an
+agreement with England, regarding what appeared
+to be practically a partitioning of Persia.
+Already a certain Baron B—— (let me call him)
+was preparing to leave St. Petersburg with instructions
+to find out under what circumstances<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_31"></a>[31]</span>
+the British Government would enter into pourparlers
+on the subject. Berlin, whose interests
+in the Near East would be menaced by such an
+agreement, needed information—and delay. I
+was to secure both. It was the old trick of using
+a little instrument to clog the mechanism of a
+great machine.</p>
+
+<p>Let me explain here a feature of the drawing
+up of international treaties and agreements
+which, I think, is not generally understood. Most
+of us who read in the newspapers that such and
+such a treaty is being arranged between the representatives
+of two countries, believe that the
+terms are even then being decided upon. As a
+matter of fact these terms have long since been
+determined by other representatives of the two
+countries concerned, and the present meeting
+is merely for the formal and public ratification
+of a treaty that has already been secretly made.
+The usual stages in the making of a treaty
+are three: First, an unofficial inquiry by one
+government into the willingness or unwillingness
+of the other government to enter into
+a discussion of the question at issue. This
+is usually done by a man who has no official
+standing as a diplomat at the moment, but whose
+affiliations with officials in the second country<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_32"></a>[32]</span>
+have given him an influence there which will
+stand his government in good stead. After a
+willingness has been expressed by both sides to
+enter into discussions, official pourparlers are
+held in which the terms of the agreement are
+discussed and decided upon. Finally the treaty
+is formally ratified by the Foreign Ministers or
+special envoys of the countries involved. This
+secrecy in the first two stages is necessitated by
+the fear of meddling on the part of other governments,
+and also by a desire on the part of any
+country making overtures to avoid a possible
+rebuff from the other; and it explains why negotiations
+which are publicly entered into never fail.</p>
+
+<p>But to return to my adventures. My Government
+had learned of the impending pourparlers
+between Britain and Russia; it knew that Baron
+B——’s instructions would contain the conditions
+which Russia considered desirable. What
+was necessary was to secure these instructions.</p>
+
+<p>Now, my tutor had, long before this, seen to
+it that I should be on friendly terms with various
+members of the baron’s household; and he had
+been especially insistent that I pay a good deal
+of attention to the young daughter of the house,
+whom I shall call Nevshka. I had wondered
+at the time why he should do this; but I obeyed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_33"></a>[33]</span>
+his instructions with alacrity. Nevshka was
+charming.</p>
+
+<p>Now I saw the purpose of this carefully fostered
+friendship.</p>
+
+<p>“The baron will spend this evening at the
+club,” I was informed. “He will return, according
+to his habit, promptly at twelve. You will
+visit his house this evening, paying a call upon
+Nevshka. You will contrive to set back the
+clock so that his home coming will be in the
+nature of a surprise to her. The hour will be so
+late that she, knowing her father’s strictness, will
+contrive to get you out of the house without his
+seeing you. That is your opportunity! You
+must slip from the salon into the rear hall—but
+do not leave the house. And if, young man, with
+such an opportunity, you cannot discover where
+these papers are hidden <i>and secure them</i>, you are
+unworthy of the trust that your government has
+placed in you.”</p>
+
+<p>I nodded my comprehension. In other words
+I was to take advantage of Nevshka’s friendship
+in order to steal from her father—I was to perform
+an act from which no gentleman could help
+shrinking. And I was going to do it with no
+more qualms of conscience than, in time of war,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_34"></a>[34]</span>
+I should have felt about stealing from an enemy
+general the plan of an attack.</p>
+
+<p>For countries are always at war—diplomatically.
+There is always a conflict between the
+foreign ambitions of governments; always an
+attempt on the part of each country to gain its
+own ends by fair means or foul. Every man
+engaged in diplomatic work knows this to be
+true. And he will serve his government without
+scruple, for well he knows that some seemingly
+dishonorable act of his may be the means of
+averting that actual warfare which is only the
+forlorn hope that governments resort to when
+diplomatic means of mastery have failed.</p>
+
+<p>So I undertook my mission with no hesitation,
+rather with a thrill of eagerness. I pretended to
+be violently interested in Nevshka (no difficult
+task, that) and time sped by so merrily that even
+had I not turned back the hands of the clock, I
+doubt if the lateness of the hour would have
+seriously concerned either of us. Oh, yes, my
+tutor—who, as you of course have guessed by
+now, was no mere tutor—had analyzed the situation
+correctly.</p>
+
+<p>As the baron was heard at the door, I drew
+out my watch.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_35"></a>[35]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Nevshka, your clock is slow. It is already
+midnight.”</p>
+
+<p>Nevshka started.</p>
+
+<p>“Come!” she exclaimed. “Father must not
+see you. He would be furious at your being
+here at this hour.” In a panic she glanced about
+the salon. “Go out that way.” And she pointed
+to a door at the rear, one that opened on a dimly
+lit hallway.</p>
+
+<p>I went. I heard the baron express his surprise
+that Nevshka was still awake. I heard her lie—beautifully,
+I assure you. And I remained hidden
+while the baron worked in his library for
+a while; hardly daring to breathe until I heard
+him go up the stairs to his bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>He was a careless man, the baron. Or perhaps
+he had been reading Poe, and believed that the
+most obvious place of concealment was the safest.
+At any rate, there in a drawer of his desk, protected
+only by the most defenseless of locks, were
+the papers—a neat statement of the terms upon
+which Russia would discuss this Persian matter
+with England.</p>
+
+<p>I returned home with my prize, to find my
+tutor awaiting me. He said no word of commendation
+when I gave him the papers, but I
+knew by his expression that he was well pleased<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_36"></a>[36]</span>
+with my work. And I went to bed, delighted
+with myself, and dreaming of the great things
+that were to come.</p>
+
+<p>The next day we left Petersburg. A German
+resident of the city had telephoned my relatives,
+warning them that a few cases of cholera had
+appeared. Would it not, he suggested (Oh, it
+was mere kind thoughtfulness on his part) be
+best to let the young prince return to Germany
+until the danger was over? His parents would
+be worried. Indeed, it would be best, my
+“relatives” agreed. So with regret they bade
+leave of me; and in the most natural manner in
+the world I returned to Berlin.</p>
+
+<p>Wilhelmstrasse 76 again! The round-faced
+man again, but this time less military, less unbending,
+in his manner. I had done well, he told
+me. My exploit had attracted the favorable
+attention of a very exalted personage. If I could
+hold my tongue—who knows what might be in
+store for me?</p>
+
+<p class="tb">That was the end of the matter, so far as I
+was concerned. But in the history of European
+politics it was only the beginning of the chapter.</p>
+
+<p>It might be well, at this point, to recall the
+political situation in Europe, as it affected England,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_37"></a>[37]</span>
+Russia and Germany at this time. Even
+two years before—in 1905—it had become evident
+to all students of international affairs that
+the next great conflict, whenever it should come,
+would be between England and Germany; and
+England realizing this, had already begun to
+seek alliances which would stand between her and
+German ambitions of world dominance. The
+Entente with France had been the first step in
+the formation of protective friendships; and
+although this friendship had suffered a strain
+during the Russo-Japanese War, because of the
+opposing sympathies of the two countries, the
+end of the war healed all differences. The defeat
+of Russia removed all immediate danger
+of a Slavic menace against India. To England,
+then, the weakened condition of Russia offered
+an excellent opportunity for an alliance that
+would draw still more closely the “iron ring
+around Germany.” Immediately she took the
+first steps leading toward this alliance.</p>
+
+<p>Now, Russia stood badly in need of two
+things. War-torn and threatened by revolution,
+the government could rehabilitate itself only by
+a liberal amount of money. But where to get it?
+France, her ally, and normally her banker, was
+slow, in this instance to lend—and it was only<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_38"></a>[38]</span>
+through England’s intervention that the Czar
+secured from a group of Paris and London bankers
+the money with which to finance his government
+and defeat the revolution.</p>
+
+<p>But more than money, Russia needed an ice-free
+seaport to take the place of Port Arthur,
+which she had lost; and for this there were only
+two possible choices: Constantinople or a port
+on the Persian Gulf. In either of these aims she
+was opposed by Britain, the traditional enemy
+of a Russian Constantinople, on the one hand,
+and the possessor of a considerable “sphere of
+interest” in the Persian Gulf on the other.</p>
+
+<p>So matters stood, when in August, 1907, <i>but
+a few weeks after my masquerade</i>, Sir Arthur
+Nicholson, acting for England, and Alexander
+Iswolsky, acting for Russia, signed the famous
+Anglo-Russian Agreement, providing for the
+distribution of Persia into three strips, the
+northern and southern of which would be respectively
+Russian and British zones of influence;
+providing also, in a secret clause, that
+<i>Russia would give England military aid in the
+event of a war between Germany and England</i>!</p>
+
+<p>Meantime what was Germany doing?</p>
+
+<p>She had, you may be sure, no intention of
+allowing England to best her in the game of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_39"></a>[39]</span>
+intrigue. Her interests in the Near East were
+commercial rather than military; but she could
+not see them threatened by an Anglo-Russian
+occupation of Persia, such as the Agreement
+portended. Then, too, she was bound to consider
+the possible effect on Turkey, in whom she
+was taking an ever-increasing (and none too
+altruistic) interest.</p>
+
+<p>The details of what followed I can only surmise.
+I know that in the time between my trip
+to Russia and the signing of that Agreement, on
+August 31, the Kaiser held two conferences: one
+on August 3, with the Czar at Swinemunde; the
+other on August 14, with Edward VII, at the
+Castle of Wilhelmshohe. And when, on September
+24th, the terms were published, they were
+bitterly attacked by a portion of the English
+press, not so much because of the danger to
+Persia, as because of the fact that Russia got the
+best of the bargain!<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Had the Kaiser succeeded in having these
+terms changed? Who knows? Certainly one
+can trace the hand of German diplomacy in the
+events of the next seven years, most of which are<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_40"></a>[40]</span>
+a matter of common knowledge. The steady
+aggressions of Russia in Persia during the
+troubled years of 1910-1912; the almost open
+flouting of the terms of the treaty, which expressly
+guaranteed Persian integrity; the constant
+growth of German influence, culminating
+in the Persian extension of the German-owned
+Bagdad Railway; the founding of a German
+school and a hospital in Teheran, jointly supported
+by Germany and Persia; and finally, the
+celebrated Potsdam Agreement of 1910, between
+Russia and Germany, in which Germany agreed
+to recognize Russia’s claim to Northern Persia
+as its sphere of influence, which provided for a
+further rapprochement between the two countries
+in the matter of railroad construction and commercial
+development generally, and which has
+been generally supposed to contain a guarantee
+that neither country would join “any combination
+of Powers that has any aggressive tendency
+against the other.”</p>
+
+<p>And England did not protest, in spite of the
+fact that the Potsdam Agreement absolutely
+negatived her own treaty with Russia and made
+it, in the language of one writer, “a farce and a
+deception!” Why? Was it because she believed
+that when war came, as it inevitably must, Russia<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a>[41]</span>
+would forget this new alliance in allegiance to
+the old?</p>
+
+<p>England was mistaken, if she believed so.
+Russia—Imperial Russia—was never so much the
+friend of Germany as when, neglecting the war
+on her own Western front, she sent her armies
+into the Caucasus, persuaded the British to
+undertake the Dardanelles expedition, and, following
+her own plans of Asiatic expansion, betrayed
+England!</p>
+
+<p>As I write this the Kut el Amara muddle is
+creating a great stir in the allied countries. Lord
+Hardinge, Viceroy of India, and the government
+of India have been severely blamed for sending
+General Townsend into Mesopotamia with insufficient
+material, medical supplies and troops. At
+the time that the move was made the explanation
+given for it was that it was done in order to protect
+the oil pipes supplying the British navy in
+those waters from being destroyed by the enemy.
+There was no doubt in my mind at that time, in
+spite of the fact that I was in prison and communication
+with the outside was very meagre,
+that this was not the real reason. Subsequent
+developments have shown—and the abandonment
+of the inquiry instituted by the British Government
+about this affair only further supports<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_42"></a>[42]</span>
+my contention—that Russia intended to use England’s
+helpless position to secure for herself an
+access to the Persian Gulf. Grand Duke Nicholas
+himself abandoned the campaign on the Eastern
+front to go to the Caucasus. The Gallipoli enterprise
+which turned out to be such a monumental
+failure was undertaken upon his instigation. Do
+you think for one second that if Imperial Russia
+had thought England was able to capture Constantinople,
+a city which she herself has been
+wanting for centuries, she would have invited
+England to do so? The fact is that the Gallipoli
+enterprise tied up all of England’s available reserves
+so that the English could practically do
+nothing to forestall the Russian movements to
+the Persian Gulf. The Government of India,
+realizing the danger, sent General Townsend
+upon the famous Bagdad campaign rather as a
+demonstration, than as a military enterprise. I
+will quote from my diary which I kept while in
+prison.</p>
+
+<p>“Just read in <i>The Times</i>: ‘British moving
+north into Mesopotamia to protect oil pipes and
+capture Bagdad.’ I don’t need to read <i>Punch</i>
+any more, <i>The Times</i> being just as funny.
+My dear friends, you didn’t move up there for
+that reason. You went up there so as to be able<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_43"></a>[43]</span>
+to tell your Russian friends that there was no
+need to come further south as you were there
+already.”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus03" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus03.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">Raul Madero and Staff. Captain von der Goltz
+  is standing the second from the left.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus04" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus04.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">A group of recruits who came from the United
+  States to enter Villa’s Army. Captain von der Goltz is at the extreme left.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>As part of the Russian Army had already advanced
+as far as Kermansha, General Townsend
+disregarded all military rules and tactics in his
+desperate attempt to keep the Russians from
+going further South, paying very little attention
+to securing his line of communication, and he was
+subsequently cut off from his base and forced to
+surrender to the Turks.</p>
+
+<p>In the early part of the war Russia did not try
+to gain anything at the expense of Germany but
+consistently applied herself to the task of enriching
+herself at the expense of England. Imperial
+Russia as an ally has constantly been fighting
+England and done the Allied cause more damage
+than the German army.</p>
+
+<p>But Imperial Russia wrote her own death
+sentence by her treachery. There was a revolution
+in Russia ...</p>
+
+<p>But I anticipate.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">That is the story of my little expedition into
+Russia—and of what it brought about.</p>
+
+<p>As for me, I was sent back to Gross Lichterfelde,
+where I abruptly ceased to be a young<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_44"></a>[44]</span>
+prince, and became once more a humble cadet.
+But only to outside eyes. Dazzled by the success
+of my first mission, I regarded myself as a superman
+among the cadets. Life loomed romantically
+before me. I told myself that I was to
+consort with princes and beautiful noblewomen
+and to spend money lavishly. The future seemed
+to promise a career that was the merriest, maddest,
+for which a man could hope.</p>
+
+<p>I laugh sometimes now when I think of the
+dreams I had in those days. I was soon to learn
+that the life which fate had thrust upon me was
+set with traps and pitfalls which might not easily
+be escaped. I was to learn many lessons and to
+know much suffering; and I was to discover that
+the finding of my “document” was only the beginning
+of a chain of events that were to control
+my whole life—and that its influence over my
+career had not ended.</p>
+
+<p>But at that time I was all hopes and rosy
+dreams—of my future, of myself, occasionally
+of Nevshka.</p>
+
+<p>Nevshka. Is she still as charming as ever?</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_45"></a>[45]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Of what comes of leaving important
+papers exposed. I look and talk indiscreetly—and
+a man dies.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>In spite of my dreams and extreme self-satisfaction,
+I found the atmosphere of Gross
+Lichterfelde as drab and monotonous as ever it
+had been before my masquerade. Discipline sits
+lightly upon one who is accustomed to it solely,
+but to me, fresh from a glorious fortnight of
+intrigue and festivity, it was doubly galling. Yet
+there was one avenue of escape open to me, that
+was denied my fellows, for I was required to
+pay a weekly visit to my tutor in the Wilhelmstrasse,
+there to continue my studies in the art
+of diplomatic intrigue.</p>
+
+<p>It is a significant comment upon the life at
+Gross Lichterfelde that I could regard these
+visits as a kind of relaxation. Surely no drill-master
+was ever so exacting as this tutor of mine.
+And yet, despite his dryness and the complete
+lack of cordiality in his manner, there was somewhere<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_46"></a>[46]</span>
+the gleam of romance about him. To me
+he seemed, in a strangely inappropriate way,
+an incarnation of one of those old masters of
+intrigue who had been my heroes in former days
+at home; and my imagination distorted him into
+a gigantic, shadowy being, mysterious, inflexible
+and potentially sinister.</p>
+
+<p>We studied history together that autumn; not
+the dull record of facts that was forced upon us
+at Gross Lichterfelde, but rather a history of
+glorious national achievement, of ambitions attained
+and enemies scattered—a history that had
+the tone of prophecy. And I would sit there in
+the soft autumn sunlight viewing the Fatherland
+with new eyes; as a knight in shining armor,
+beset by foes, but ever triumphing over them by
+virtue of his righteousness and strength of arm.</p>
+
+<p>Then I would return to Gross Lichterfelde and
+its discipline.</p>
+
+<p>Yet even at Gross Lichterfelde, we contrived
+to amuse ourselves, chiefly by violating regulations.
+That is generally the result of walling
+any person inside a set of rules; his attention
+becomes centered on getting outside. Your own
+cadets at West Point, so I have been told, have
+their traditional list of deviltries, maintained with
+admirable persistence in the face of severe penalties.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_47"></a>[47]</span>
+At Gross Lichterfelde one proved his manliness
+by breaking bounds at least once a week,
+to drink beer, and flirt with maids none the less
+divine because they were hopelessly plebian.</p>
+
+<p>In the prevailing lawlessness, I bore my share,
+and in the course of my escapades, I formed an
+offensive and defensive alliance with a cadet of
+my own age against that common enemy of all
+our kind, the Commandant of the school, Willi
+von Heiden, I will call my chum, because that
+was not his name. We became close friends.
+And through our friendship there came an event
+which I shall remember to my last day. It gave
+me a glimpse into the terrible pit of secret
+diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>Often at the present, I find myself living it
+over in my mind. If I have learned to take a
+lighter view of life than most men, my attitude
+dates from that time when a careless word of
+mine, spoken in innocence, condemned a man to
+death. I will try to tell very briefly how it
+came about.</p>
+
+<p>The Christmas after my excursion to St.
+Petersburg I was invited by Willi von Heiden
+to visit him at his home. His father was a squireling
+of East Prussia, one of the <i>Junkers</i>. He
+had an estate in that rolling farm land between<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_48"></a>[48]</span>
+Goldap and Tilsit, which was the scene of countless
+adventures of Willi’s boyhood.</p>
+
+<p>Just before we left Gross Lichterfelde—yes,
+even there they allow you a few days vacation at
+Christmas—Willi received a letter and came to
+me with a joyous face.</p>
+
+<p>“Good news,” he cried, “we are sure to have
+a lively holiday. Brother Franz is getting a few
+days’ leave, too.”</p>
+
+<p>I had heard much of Willi’s older brother,
+Franz. He was a young man in the middle
+twenties, an officer of a famous fighting regiment
+of foot, one of the Prussian Guards. Willi had
+dilated upon him in his conversation with me.
+Franz was his younger brother’s hero. From all
+accounts Franz von Heiden was possessed of a
+mind of that rare sort which combines unremitting
+industry with cleverness. His future as
+a soldier seemed brilliant and assured.</p>
+
+<p>“Where is Franz?” was Willi’s first question
+when we reached his home.</p>
+
+<p>I shall be long forgetting my first impressions
+of the man. I had been looking for a dry,
+spectacled student, or a stiff young autocrat of
+the thoroughly Prussian type, which I, like many
+other Germans, thoroughly disliked and inwardly
+laughed at. Instead, I found another chum.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_49"></a>[49]</span>
+Franz was an engaging young man of slight
+build but very vigorous and athletic. I found
+him frank, friendly, unassuming, apparently
+wholly carefree and full of quiet drollery. From
+his first greeting any prejudice that I might have
+formed from hearing my chum, Willi, chant
+his excellencies, was quite wiped away. And as
+the days passed I found myself drawn to seek
+Franz’s company constantly. I have no doubt
+it flattered my vanity—always awake since my
+exploit in St. Petersburg—to find this older
+man treating me as a mental equal. It seemed
+to me that he differentiated between me and
+Willi, who was quite young in manner as well
+as years. At times the impulse was very strong
+for me to confide in Franz, to let him know that
+I was not a mere cadet, that I had been in Russia
+for my government. Luckily for myself I suppressed
+that impulse. Luckily for me, but very
+unluckily for Lieutenant Franz von Heiden—as
+it turned out.</p>
+
+<p>One sunny December morning we were all
+three going out rabbit shooting. While Willi
+counted out shells in the gun room, I went to
+summon Franz from the bedroom he was using
+as his study. It was characteristic of him that
+without any assumption of importance, he gave<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_50"></a>[50]</span>
+a few hours to work early every morning, even
+while on leave. I found him intent upon some
+large sheets of paper, but he pushed them aside.</p>
+
+<p>“Time to start now?” he asked. “Good! Wait
+a minute, while I dress.” He stepped into the
+adjoining dressing-room.</p>
+
+<p>And then, as if Fate had taken a hand in the
+moment’s activities, I did a thing which I have
+never ceased to regret. Fate! Why not? What
+is the likelihood that by mere vague chance I, of
+all the cadets of Gross Lichterfelde, should have
+become Willi von Heiden’s chum and shared his
+holidays? That by mere chance I should have
+been an inmate of his home when Franz was
+there, three days out of the whole year? That
+by mere chance, I, with my precocious knowledge
+and thirst for yet more knowledge, should have
+entered his study when he was occupied with a
+particular task? Why did I not send the servant
+to call him? And why, instead of doing any one
+of the dozen other things I might have done
+while I was waiting for Franz to change his
+clothes, should I have stepped across and looked
+at the big sheets of paper on his table?</p>
+
+<p>I did just that. I did it quite frankly and
+without a thought of prying. I saw that the
+sheets were small scale maps. They were the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_51"></a>[51]</span>
+maps of a fort and the names upon them were
+written both in French and in German. The
+thrill of a great discovery shot all through me.
+It flashed upon me that I had heard Willi say
+that during the previous summer Franz had spent
+a long furlough in the Argonne section of
+France. He had been fishing and botanizing—so
+Willi had said. Indeed, only the night before
+Franz himself had told us stories of the sport
+there; and all his family had accepted the stories
+at their face value. So had I until that moment
+when I stood beside his desk and saw the plans
+of a French field fortress. Then I knew the
+truth. Lieutenant Franz von Heiden was doing
+important work—so confidential that even his
+family must be kept in ignorance about it—for
+the intelligence department of the German
+General Staff. Like me, he was entitled to the
+gloriously shameful name of spy!</p>
+
+<p>If I had obeyed my natural impulse to rush
+into Franz’s room and exchange fraternal greetings
+with this new colleague of the secret service,
+so romantically discovered, he might have saved
+himself. Instead, something made me play the
+innocent and be the innocent, too, as far as intent
+was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>When Franz returned, dressed for the shoot, I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a>[52]</span>
+was standing looking out of his window, and I
+said nothing about my discovery.</p>
+
+<p>We had our rabbit shoot that day. We
+crowded all the fun and energy possible into it.
+It was our last day together and by sundown I
+felt as close to Franz von Heiden as though he
+were my own brother. A few days later Willi
+and I went back to Gross Lichterfelde.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly after I returned from my Christmas
+leave, my tutor sent for me. He even recognized
+the amenities of the occasion enough to unbend a
+little and greeted me with a trace of mechanical
+friendliness.</p>
+
+<p>“I trust you had a pleasant holiday,” he said,
+“you told me, did you not, that you were to
+spend it at the Baron von Heiden’s?”</p>
+
+<p>That touch of friendliness was the occasion of
+my tragic error. I remember that I plunged
+into a boisterous description of my vacation, of
+the pleasant days in the country, of the shooting,
+of Franz. As my tutor listened, with a tolerant
+air, I told him what a splendid fellow Franz was,
+how cleverly he talked and how diligently he
+worked. And then, with a rash innocence for
+which I have never forgiven myself, I told him
+of what I had seen on that day of the rabbit<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_53"></a>[53]</span>
+shooting—of the maps on the table. Franz was
+one of us!</p>
+
+<p>But my tutor was not interested. Abruptly
+he interrupted my burst of gossip; and soon after
+that he plunged me into a quiz in spoken French.
+My progress in that seemed his only preoccupation.</p>
+
+<p>A month later Willi von Heiden staggered
+into my room. “Franz is dead,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The brilliant young lieutenant, Franz von
+Heiden, had come to a sudden and shocking end.
+He was shot dead in a duel. His opponent was
+a brother officer, a Captain von Frentzen. The
+“Court of honor” of the regiment had approved
+of the duel and it was reported that the affair was
+carried out in accordance with the German code.</p>
+
+<p>Later I learned the story. Captain von Frentzen
+was suddenly attached to the same regiment
+as Franz. His transfer was a cause of great
+surprise to the officers and of deep displeasure
+to them, for the captain had a notorious reputation
+as a duelist. Naturally the officers, Franz
+among them, had ignored him, trying to force
+him out of the regiment. Upon the night of a
+regimental dance, the situation came to a head.</p>
+
+<p>In response to the gesture of a lady’s fan
+Franz crossed the ball room hurriedly. He was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_54"></a>[54]</span>
+caught in a sudden swirl of dancers and accidentally
+stepped on Captain von Frentzen’s foot.
+In the presence of the whole company von Frentzen
+dealt Franz a stinging slap in the face. “Apparently,”
+he sneered, “you compel me to teach
+you manners.” Franz looked at him, amazed
+and furious. There was nothing that he had
+done which warranted von Frentzen’s action. It
+was an outrage—a deadly insult. There was but
+one thing to do. A duel was arranged.</p>
+
+<p>To understand more of this incident you must
+understand the unyielding code of honor of the
+German officer. Franz von Heiden’s original
+offense had been so very slight that even had he
+refused to apologize to Frentzen the consequences
+might not have been serious. But
+Frentzen’s blow given in public was quite a different
+matter. It was a mortal affront. I heard
+that Franz’s captain had been in a rage about it.</p>
+
+<p>“My best lieutenant,” he had said to the
+colonel. “An extremely valuable man. To be
+made to fight a duel with that worthless butcher,
+von Frentzen. Shameful! God knows that laws
+are sometimes utterly unreasonable by many of
+our ideas, as officers are equally senseless. I have
+racked my brain to find a way out of this difficulty,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_55"></a>[55]</span>
+but it seems impossible. Can’t you do
+something to interfere?”</p>
+
+<p>The colonel looked at him steadily. “Your
+honest opinion. Is von Heiden’s honor affected
+by Frentzen’s action?”</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing Franz’s captain could do
+but reply, “Yes.”</p>
+
+<p>The duel was held on the pistol practice
+grounds of the garrison, a smooth, grassy place,
+surrounded by high bushes; at the lower end
+there was a shed built of strong boards, in which
+tools and targets were stored. At daybreak
+Franz von Heiden and his second dismounted at
+the shed and fastened their horses by the bridle.
+They stood side by side, looking down the road,
+along which a carriage was coming. Captain
+von Frentzen, his second, and the regimental
+surgeon got out. Sharp polite greetings were
+exchanged. On the faces of the seconds there
+was a singular expression of uneasiness, but
+Frentzen looked as though he were there for some
+guilty purpose. The prescribed attempts at
+reconciliation failed. The surgeon measured off
+the distance. He was a long-legged man and
+made the fifteen paces as lengthy as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Just at this moment the sun came up fully.
+Pistols were loaded and given to Franz and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_56"></a>[56]</span>
+Frentzen. Fifteen paces apart, the two men
+faced each other. One of the seconds drew out
+his watch, glanced at it and said, “I shall count;
+ready, one! then three seconds; two!—and again
+three seconds; then, stop! Between one and stop
+the gentlemen may fire.” He glanced round
+once more. The four officers stood motionless in
+the level light of the dawn. He began to count.
+Presently Franz von Heiden was stretched out
+upon the ground, his blue eyes staring up into
+the new day. He lay still....</p>
+
+<p>When I heard that story I ceased to be a boy.
+My outlook on the future had been that of an
+irresponsible gamester, undergoing initiation
+into the gayest and most exciting sports. All at
+once my eyes were hideously opened and I
+looked down into the pit that the German secret
+service had prepared for Franz von Heiden, and
+knew I <i>was the cause of it</i>. It was terrible! By
+leaving that map where I could see it Franz von
+Heiden had been guilty of an unforgivable
+breach of trust. By his carelessness he had let
+someone know that the Intelligence Department
+of the General Staff had procured the plans of
+a French fortress in the Argonne. Wherefore,
+according to the iron law of that soulless war
+machine, Franz von Heiden must die.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_57"></a>[57]</span></p>
+
+<p>And this is the sinister way it works. Trace
+it. I innocently betray him to my tutor, an
+official of the Secret Diplomatic Service. A few
+days later one of the deadliest pistol shots in the
+German army is transferred to Franz’s regiment.
+A duel is forced upon him and he is shot down
+in cold blood.</p>
+
+<p>Not long after the news of the duel, my tutor
+sent for me. “Is it not a curious coincidence,”
+he began, his cold gray eyes boring into mine,
+“that the last time you were here we spoke of
+Lieutenant Franz von Heiden? The next time
+you come to see me he is dead. I understand
+that certain rumors are in circulation about the
+way he died. Some of them may have already
+come to your attention. I caution you to pay no
+attention whatever to such silly statements.
+Remember that a Court of Honor of an honorable
+regiment of the Prussian Guards has
+vouched for the fact that Lieutenant von
+Heiden’s quarrel with Captain von Frentzen and
+the unfortunate duel that followed was conducted
+in accordance with the officers’ code of the Imperial
+Army.”</p>
+
+<p>I hung my head, sick at heart; but he was relentless.</p>
+
+<p>“Remember also,” he said in a pitiless voice,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_58"></a>[58]</span>
+“that men of intelligence never indulge in fruitless
+gossip, even among themselves. I hope you
+understand that—by now.” He paused a
+moment, as if he remembered something.</p>
+
+<p>“For some time,” he went on, in the most
+casual way, “I have been aware that it will be
+necessary for me to talk to you seriously. Now
+is as good a time as any. You know that your
+training for your future career has been put
+largely in my hands. I am responsible for your
+progress. The men who have made me responsible
+require reports about your development.
+They have not been wholly satisfied with what I
+was able to tell them. Your intentions are good.
+You show a certain amount of natural cleverness
+and adaptability, but you have also disappointed
+them by being impulsive and indiscreet.</p>
+
+<p>“Now,” he said, “I ask you to pay the closest
+attention to everything I shall say. Your attitude
+must be changed if you are to go on, and
+some day be of service to your government. You
+must learn to treat your work as a deadly serious
+business—not as a romantic adventure. We were
+just speaking of von Heiden. I seem to remember
+vaguely that the last time you were here you
+had some sort of a cock-and-bull story to tell
+me of—what was it?—of seeing some secret maps<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_59"></a>[59]</span>
+of French fortifications on the unfortunate young
+man’s table. I could hardly refrain from smiling
+at the time. Such poppycock! You do not
+imagine for a moment, do you, that if he had
+proved himself discreet enough to be intrusted
+with such highly confidential things, he would
+have been so imprudent as to betray that fact to
+a mere casual friend of his little brother? I hope
+you see how absurd such imaginings are.”</p>
+
+<p>I groaned mentally as he continued.</p>
+
+<p>“Remember now,” my tutor said icily, “every
+man in our profession is a man who not only
+knows very much, but may know too much,
+unless he can be trusted to keep what he knows
+to himself. There are three ways in which he can
+fail to do that—by carelessness, by accident, and
+by deliberate talking. Never talk—never be
+careless—never have accidents happen to you.
+Then you will be safe, and in no other way can
+you be so safe. Keep that in your mind. You
+will find it much more profitable and useful than
+remembering what anybody has to say about
+Franz von Heiden. It was a commonplace
+quarrel with Captain von Frentzen which killed
+him. A court of honor has said so.”</p>
+
+<p>That night at Gross Lichterfelde, after lights
+were out, Willi von Heiden came creeping to my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_60"></a>[60]</span>
+bed. I was the only intimate friend he had
+there and he felt the need of talking with some
+one about the big brother who had been his hero.
+Need I go into details of how his artless confidence
+made me feel? But human beings are
+exceedingly selfish and self-centered creatures.
+I had a heart-felt sorrow for my chum and his
+family in their tragic bereavement. And, blaming
+myself as I did for it, I was abased completely.
+Yet there was another feeling in me at least as
+deeply rooted as those two emotions. It was
+dread.</p>
+
+<p>Dread was to follow me for many years. I
+had learned the dangers of the dark secret world
+in which I lived. Its rules of conduct and its
+ruthless code had been revealed to me, not merely
+by precept but by example. And with that
+realization all the thrill of romance and adventure
+disappeared. For I knew that I, too, might
+at any time be counted among the men who
+“knew too much.”</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_61"></a>[61]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV.</h2>
+
+<p><i>I am sent to Geneva and learn of a plot.
+How there are more ways of getting rid of a
+King than by blowing him up with
+dynamite.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>If at any time in this story of my life, I have
+given the impression that accident did not
+play a very important part in the work of myself
+and other secret agents, I have done so unintentionally.
+“If” has been a big word in the
+history of the world; and even in my small share
+of the events of the last ten years, chance has
+oftentimes been a more able ally than some of the
+best laid of my plans. If, for instance, I had
+not happened to be in Geneva in the winter of
+1909-10; or if a certain official of the Russian
+secret police—the <i>Okrana</i>—had not met a well-deserved
+death at the hands of a committee of
+“Reds”; or if the German Foreign Office had
+not been playing a pretty little game of diplomacy
+in the Southwestern corner of Europe—why,
+the world to-day would be poorer by a King,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_62"></a>[62]</span>
+and possibly richer by another combatant in the
+Great War.</p>
+
+<p>And if another King had not kept a diary
+he might have kept his throne. And if both he
+and a certain young diplomat, whose name I
+think it best to forget, had not had a common
+weakness for pretty faces, Germany would have
+lost an opportunity to gain some information
+that was more or less useful to her, an actress
+whose name you all know would never have become
+internationally famous, and this book
+would have lost an amusing little comedy of
+coincidences.</p>
+
+<p>All of which sounds like romance and is—merely
+the truth.</p>
+
+<p>I had spent two uneventful years at Gross
+Lichterfelde at the time the comedy began; two
+years of study in which I had acquired some
+knowledge and a great weariness of routine, of
+hard work unpunctuated by any element of adventure.
+Of late it had almost seemed as if,
+after all, it was planned that I should become
+merely one of the vast army of officers that Gross
+Lichterfelde and similar schools were yearly
+turning out. For such a fate, as you can imagine,
+I had little liking.</p>
+
+<p>Consequently I was far from displeased when<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_63"></a>[63]</span>
+one day I received a characteristically brief note
+from my old tutor, asking me to call upon him.
+Still more was I elated when, the next day, he
+informed me that I had enough of books for the
+time being, and that he thought a little practical
+experience would be good for me. A vacation, I
+might call it, if I wished—with a trifle of detective
+work thrown in.</p>
+
+<p>H’m. I was not so delighted with that prospect,
+and when the details of the “vacation” were
+explained to me, I was strongly tempted to say
+no to the entire proposition. But one does not
+say no to my old tutor. And so, in the course of
+a week, I found myself spending my evenings in
+the <i>Café de l’Europe</i> in Geneva, bound on a still
+hunt for Russian revolutionists.</p>
+
+<p>Russia, at this time, had not quite recovered
+from the fright she received in 1905 and 1906,
+when, as you will remember, popular discontent
+with the government had assumed very serious
+proportions. “Bloody Sunday,” and the riots
+and strikes that followed it, were far in the past
+now, it is true, but they were still well remembered.
+And although most of the known revolutionary
+leaders had been disposed of in one way
+or another, there were still a few of them, as well
+as a large number of their followers, wandering<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_64"></a>[64]</span>
+in odd corners of Europe. These it was thought
+best to get rid of; and Russian agents promptly
+began ferreting them out. And Germany—always
+less unfriendly to the Romanoffs than has
+appeared on the surface—lent a helping hand.</p>
+
+<p>So it happened that on a particular night in
+December of 1909, I sat in the <i>Café de l’Europe</i>,
+bitterly detesting the work I had in hand, yet
+inconsistently wishing that something would
+turn up. I had no idea at the moment of what
+I should do next. Chance rumor had led me to
+Geneva, and I was largely depending upon
+chance for further developments.</p>
+
+<p>They came. I had been sitting for an hour
+I suppose, sipping vermouth and lazily regarding
+my neighbors, when the sound of a voice
+came to my ears. It was the voice of a man
+speaking French, with the soft accent of the
+Spaniard; the tone loud and unsteady and full
+of the boisterous emphasis of a man in his cups.
+But it was the words he spoke that commanded
+my attention.</p>
+
+<p>“Our two comrades,” he was saying, “will
+soon arrive from the center in Buenos Ayres.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” another voice assented—a harsher
+voice, this, to whose owner French was obviously
+also a foreign tongue. “In the spring, we hope.”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp52" id="illus05" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus05.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">The Brevet promoting Senior Captain von
+  der Goltz to the rank of Major of Cavalry in the Mexican Constitutionalist
+  Army. It will be noted that the commission bears the signature
+  of Raul Madero and General Villa.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a>[65]</span></p>
+
+<p>The Spaniard laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“An excellent business! So simple. <i>Boom!</i>
+And our dear Alfonso....”</p>
+
+<p>Some element of caution must have come over
+him, for his voice sank so that I could no longer
+hear his words. But I had heard enough to
+make me assume a good deal.</p>
+
+<p>Some one was to be assassinated! And that
+some one? It was a guess, of course, but the
+name and the accent of the speaker were more
+than enough to lead me to believe that the proposed
+victim must be King Alfonso of Spain.</p>
+
+<p>I sat there, undecided for the moment. It
+was really no affair of mine. I was on another
+mission, and, after all, my theory was merely a
+supposition. On the other hand, the situation
+presented interesting possibilities—and as I
+happened to know, Alfonso’s seemingly pro-German
+leanings and made him an object of
+friendly interest at that time to my government.</p>
+
+<p>I decided to look into the matter.</p>
+
+<p>It had been difficult to keep from stealing a
+glance at my talkative neighbors but I restrained
+myself. I must not turn around and yet it was
+vitally necessary that I see their faces. All I
+could do was to hope that they would leave before
+I finished my vermouth; for I had no mind<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_66"></a>[66]</span>
+to risk my clear-headedness with more than the
+glass I had already had.</p>
+
+<p>They did leave shortly afterward. As they
+passed my table I took care to study their faces,
+and my intention to keep them in sight was immensely
+strengthened. The Spaniard I did not
+know, but his companion I recognized as a Russian—<i>and
+one of the very men I was after</i>.</p>
+
+<p>I had been in Geneva long enough to know
+where I could get information when I needed it.
+It was only a day or two, therefore, before I had
+in my hands sufficient facts to justify me in
+reporting the matter to my government.</p>
+
+<p>Alfonso was in England at the time and presumably
+safe; for I had gathered that no attempt
+would be made upon his life until he returned to
+Spain. So I wrote to Berlin reporting what I
+had learned.</p>
+
+<p>A telegram reached me next day. I was
+ordered to Brussels to communicate my information
+to the Spanish Minister there.</p>
+
+<p>Mark that: I was ordered to Brussels, although
+there was a Spanish Minister in Switzerland.
+But my government knew that there were
+many factions in Spain, and it had strong
+reasons to believe that the Spanish Minister to
+Belgium was absolutely loyal to Alfonso. And<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_67"></a>[67]</span>
+in a situation such as this, one takes as few
+chances as possible.</p>
+
+<p>I followed my instructions. The Spanish Minister
+thanked me. He was more than interested;
+and he begged me, since I had no other direct
+orders, to do him the personal favor of staying
+a few days longer in the Belgian capital. I did
+so, of course, and a day or so later received from
+my government instructions to hold myself at
+the Spaniard’s disposal for the time being.</p>
+
+<p>That night, at the minister’s request, I met
+him and we discussed the matter fully. He
+wished me, he said, to undertake a more thorough
+investigation of the plot. I was already involved
+in it, and would be working less in the dark than
+another. Besides, he hinted, he could not very
+well employ an agent of his own government.
+Who knew how far the conspiracy extended?</p>
+
+<p>I was not displeased to abandon my chase of
+the Russian revolutionaries, toward whom I felt
+some sympathy. So, as a preliminary step, I
+went up to Paris, where through the good offices
+of one Carlos de Silva—a young Brazilian free-thinker,
+who was there ostensibly as a student—I
+succeeded in gaining admission into one of the
+fighting organizations of radicals there. They
+were not so communicative as I could have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_68"></a>[68]</span>
+wished, but by judicious pumping I soon learned
+that there was an organized conspiracy against
+the life of Alfonso, and that the details of the
+plot were in the hands of a committee in Geneva.</p>
+
+<p>Geneva, then, was my objective point. But
+what to do if I went there? I knew very well
+that conspirators do not confide their plans to
+strangers. And I dared not be too inquisitive.
+Obviously the only course to follow was to employ
+an agent.</p>
+
+<p>Now, <i>Cherchez la femme</i> is as excellent a
+principle to work on when you are choosing an
+accomplice, as it is when you are seeking the
+solution of a crime. I therefore proceeded to
+seek a lady—and found her in the person of a
+pretty little black-eyed “revolutionist,” who
+called herself Mira Descartes, and with whom I
+had already had some dealings.</p>
+
+<p>It is here that accident crosses the trail again.
+For if a certain official of the <i>Okrana</i> had not
+been murdered in Moscow three years before, his
+daughter would never have conceived an intense
+hatred of all revolutionary movements and I
+should have been without her invaluable assistance
+in the adventure I am describing.</p>
+
+<p>Mira Descartes! She was the kind of woman
+of whom people like to say that she would have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_69"></a>[69]</span>
+made a great actress. Actress? I do not know.
+But she was an artist at dissembling. And she
+had beauty that turned the heads of more than
+the “Reds” upon whom she spied; and a genius
+for hatred: a cold hatred that cleared the brain
+and enabled her to give even her body to men she
+despised in order the better to betray them.</p>
+
+<p>I was fortunate in securing her aid, I told
+myself; and I did not hesitate to use her services.
+(For in my profession, as must have been apparent
+to you, scrupulousness must be reserved
+for use “in one’s private capacity as a gentleman.”)</p>
+
+<p>So Mlle. Descartes went to Geneva, and armed
+with my previously acquired information and
+her own charms, she contrived to get into the
+good graces of the committee there, and surprised
+me a week later by writing to Paris that
+she had already contracted a liaison with the
+Spaniard whom I had overheard speaking that
+night in the <i>Café de l’Europe</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Soon I had full information about the entire
+plot. It was planned, I learned, to blow up
+King Alfonso with a bomb upon the day of his
+return to Madrid. The work was in the hands
+of two South Americans who were then in
+Geneva.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_70"></a>[70]</span></p>
+
+<p>But far more important than this was the information
+which Mlle. Descartes had obtained
+that a high official of Spain—a member of the
+Cabinet—was cognizant of the plot and had kept
+silent about it.</p>
+
+<p>Why, I asked myself, should this official—a
+man who surely had no sympathy with the aims
+of the revolutionists—lend his aid to them in this
+plot? The reason was not hard to discover.
+Alfonso’s position at the time was far from
+secure. His government was unpopular at
+home; and the pro-Teutonic leanings of many
+government officials had lost him the moral and
+political support of the English government and
+press—a fact of considerable importance.</p>
+
+<p>So it seemed possible that Alfonso’s reign
+might not be of long duration. And the new
+government? It might be radical or conservative;
+pro-English or pro-German. A man with
+a career did well to keep on friendly terms with
+all factions. Thus, I fancied, the Cabinet Minister
+must have reasoned. At any rate he said
+nothing of the plot.</p>
+
+<p>But I went to Brussels and reported all I had
+learned—and did not forget to mention the
+Cabinet Minister’s rumored share in the plot.</p>
+
+<p>There my connection with the affair ceased.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_71"></a>[71]</span>
+But not long after a little tragi-comedy occurred
+which was a direct result of my activities. Let
+me recall it to you.</p>
+
+<p>On the evening of May 24, 1910, those of the
+people of Madrid who were in the neighborhood
+of that monument which had been raised in memory
+of the victims of the attempted assassination
+of Alfonso, four years before, were horrified by
+a tragedy which they witnessed.</p>
+
+<p>There was a sudden commotion in the streets,
+an explosion, and the confused sound of a crowd
+in excitement.</p>
+
+<p>What had happened? Rumor ran wild through
+the crowd. The King was expected home that
+day—he had been assassinated. There had been
+an attempted revolution. Nobody knew.</p>
+
+<p>But the next day everybody knew. A bomb
+had burst opposite the monument—a bomb that
+had been intended for the King. One man had
+been killed; the man who carried the bomb. But
+the King had not arrived in Madrid that day
+after all.</p>
+
+<p>The police set to work upon the case and
+presently identified the dead man as Jose Tasozelli,
+who recently arrived in Spain from Buenos
+Ayres. It was not certain whether he had any
+accomplices.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_72"></a>[72]</span></p>
+
+<p>And while the police worked, the King, following
+a secret arrangement which had been
+made by the Spanish Minister at Belgium, and
+of which not even the Cabinet had been informed—arrived
+safely and quietly in Madrid; a day
+late, but alive.</p>
+
+<p>What became of the Cabinet Minister? There
+are no autocracies now, and not even a King may
+prosecute without proof. So the Minister
+escaped for the time being. But it is interesting
+to remember that this same Minister was assassinated,
+not a great while after.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">Now there are more ways of getting rid of a
+king than by blowing him up with dynamite.
+Foreign Offices are none too squeamish in their
+methods, but they do balk at assassination, even
+if the proposed victim is a particularly objectionable
+opponent of their plans. There is another
+method which, if it be correctly followed, is every
+bit as efficacious.... Again I must refer you
+to that excellent French proverb: <i>Cherchez la
+femme</i>.</p>
+
+<p>It would be difficult to estimate properly the
+part that women have played in the game of
+foreign politics. As spies they are invaluable:
+for amourous men are always garrulous. But as<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_73"></a>[73]</span>
+Enslavers of Kings they are of even greater
+service to men who are interested in effecting a
+change of dynasty. Even the most loyal of subjects
+dislikes seeing his King made ridiculous;
+and in countries where the line is not too strictly
+drawn between the public exchequer and the
+private resources of the monarch, a discontented
+faction may see some connection between excessive
+taxes and the jewels that a demi-mondaine
+wears. Revolutions have occurred for less than
+that—as every Foreign Office knows.</p>
+
+<p>I am not insinuating that all royal scandals
+are to be laid at the door of international politics.
+I merely suggest that, given a king who is to be
+made ridiculous in the eyes of his subjects, it is
+a simple matter for an interested government to
+see that he is introduced to a lady who will produce
+the desired effect. But no diplomat will
+admit this, of course. Not, that is, until after he
+has “retired.”</p>
+
+<p>This brings me to the second act of my comedy.</p>
+
+<p>If I were drawing a map of Europe—a diplomatic
+map, that is,—as it was in the years of
+1908 to 1910, I should use only two colors, Germany
+should be, let us say, black; England red.
+But the black of Germany should extend over
+the surfaces of Austria, Italy and Turkey; while<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_74"></a>[74]</span>
+France and Russia should be crimson. The rest
+of the continent would be of various tints, ranging
+from a discordant combination of red and
+black, through a pinkish gray, to an innocuous
+and neutral white.</p>
+
+<p>In the race to secure protective alliances
+against the inevitable conflict, both Germany
+and England were diligently attempting to color
+these indeterminate territories with their own
+particular hue. Not least important among the
+courted nations were Spain and Portugal. Both
+were traditionally English in sympathy; both
+had shown unmistaken signs, at least so far as
+the ruling classes were concerned, of transferring
+their friendship to Germany. It was inevitable,
+therefore, that these two countries should be the
+scene of a diplomatic conflict which, if not apparent
+to the outsider, was fought with the
+utmost bitterness by both sides.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow, by good fortune rather than any
+other agency—Spain had managed to avoid a
+positive alliance with either nation. Alfonso was
+inclined to be pro-German at that time; but an
+adroit juggling of the factions in his kingdom
+had prevented him from using his influence to
+the advantage of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>Portugal was in a different situation. Poorer<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_75"></a>[75]</span>
+in resources than her neighbor, and hampered by
+the necessity of keeping up a colonial empire
+which in size was second only to England’s, she
+had greater need of the protection of one of the
+Powers. Traditionally—and rightly from a
+standpoint of self-interest—that Power should
+have been England. There were but three obstacles
+to the continuance of the friendship that
+had existed since the Peninsular War—King
+Manuel, the Queen Mother and the Church.</p>
+
+<p>Germany seemed all-powerful in the Peninsula
+in 1908. Alfonso’s friendship was secured, and
+the boy king of Portugal was completely under
+the thumb of a pro-German mother and a Church
+which, as between Germany and England, disliked
+Germany the less. England realized the
+situation and in approved diplomatic fashion set
+about regaining her ascendancy.</p>
+
+<p>But diplomacy failed. At the end of two
+years Berlin was more strongly intrenched in
+Portugal than ever; and England knew that
+only heroic measures could save her from a
+serious diplomatic defeat.</p>
+
+<p>Then Manuel did a foolish thing. He kept a
+diary.</p>
+
+<p>It was a commonplace diary, as you will remember
+if you read the parts of it which were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_76"></a>[76]</span>
+published some time after the revolution which
+dethroned its author. The outpourings of a very
+undistinguished young man—conceited, self-indulgent,
+petulant—it gained distinction only as
+the revelation of an unkingly person’s thoughts
+on himself in particular and women in multitudes.
+But there were portions of it—many of
+them never published—which expressed unmistakably
+Manuel’s anti-English feeling and his
+affection for Germany.</p>
+
+<p><i>Somehow England came into possession of the
+diary.</i></p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it was the diary’s revelation of
+Manuel’s extreme susceptibility to feminine
+charms, which suggested the next step. That I
+cannot tell. In any event, not long after the
+diary became a matter of diplomatic moment,
+Manuel paid a visit to England, ostensibly in
+search of a bride. His search was unsuccessful;
+but in London he met and promptly became infatuated
+with Mlle. Hedwig Navratil—better
+known as Gaby Deslys.</p>
+
+<p>They chose well who selected the lovely Bohemian
+as the instrument of Manuel’s downfall.
+Young, charming, she had all the qualities which
+would appeal to Manuel’s nature. Added to
+that, it had been rumored that not long before<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_77"></a>[77]</span>
+King Alfonso had shown some interest in her—and
+Manuel was easily influenced by the example
+of his elders.</p>
+
+<p>You remember the rest of the story. Manuel’s
+frequent visits to Paris, where Mlle. Gaby was
+playing; the jewels—bought, it was said, with
+money from the public treasury—which he
+showered upon her; these were the subjects of
+countless rumors at the time. Then came reports
+that the lady was domiciled in one of the
+royal palaces. Finally, in September of 1910,
+the scandalized and tax-ridden populace of
+Portugal, learned that Mlle. Deslys had been
+“billed” at the Apollo Theatre in Vienna as the
+“Mistress of the King of Portugal.”</p>
+
+<p>On October 5th, this same scandalized and tax-ridden
+populace joined forces with the revolutionary
+party—and Manuel fled to England,
+where he attended numerous musical comedies
+and hoped against hope that the English Government
+would live up to that provision of the
+treaty of 1908 which pledged England to aid the
+Portuguese throne in the event of a revolution.</p>
+
+<p>But England—remembering the diary—wisely
+forgot its pledge. And a Republican government
+in Portugal looked with suspicion upon the
+diplomatic advances of a nation which had been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_78"></a>[78]</span>
+too friendly towards the exiled king—and became
+pro-English, as you know.</p>
+
+<p>There ends my comedy. The lady in the case
+achieved a sudden international fame and eventually
+came to America, where, I believe, she attracted
+more interest than commendation. But
+at best, so far as we are concerned, she is of importance
+merely as an illustration of how diplomacy—or
+chance, if you prefer—combines
+politics and the woman for its own purposes.</p>
+
+<p>But there is an amusing epilogue to the affair,
+which was not without its importance to the
+Wilhelmstrasse, and in which I had a small part.
+To tell it, I must pass over several months of
+work of one sort or another, until I come to the
+following winter—that of 1911.</p>
+
+<p>I was on a real vacation this time and had
+selected Nice as an excellent place in which to
+spend a few idle but enlivening weeks. The
+choice was not a highly original one, but as it
+turned out, chance seemed to have had a hand
+in it after all. Almost the first person I met
+there was a man with whom I had been acquainted
+for several years, and who was destined
+to have his share in the events which followed.</p>
+
+<p>People who have visited Europe many times
+can hardly have avoided seeing upon one occasion<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_79"></a>[79]</span>
+or another, a famous riding troupe who
+called themselves the “Bishops.” They were five
+in number—Old Bishop, his daughter and her
+husband, a man named Merrill, and two others—and
+their act, which was variously known as “An
+Afternoon on the Bois de Boulogne,” “An Afternoon
+in the Thiergarten,” etc. (depending upon
+the city in which they played), was a feature of
+many of the famous circuses of seven or eight
+years ago. At this time they were helping to
+pay their expenses through the winter, by playing
+in a small circus which was one of the current
+attractions of Nice.</p>
+
+<p>I had bought horses from old Bishop in the
+past and knew him for a man of unusual shrewdness,
+who besides being the father of a charming
+and beautiful daughter, was in himself excellent
+company; and I was consequently pleased to run
+across him and his family at a time when all my
+friends seemed to be in some other quarter of the
+earth. We talked of horses together and it was
+suggested that I might care to inspect an Arab
+mare, a recent acquisition, of which the old man
+was immensely proud.</p>
+
+<p>That evening I heard of the arrival in Nice of
+a young British diplomat, an undersecretary of
+one of the embassies, whom, I remembered I had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_80"></a>[80]</span>
+once met at a hotel in Vienna. I called upon him
+the following day—but I did so, not so much to
+renew our old acquaintance, as because that very
+morning I had received a rambling letter from
+my chief, commenting upon the imminent arrival
+of the Englishman and suggesting that I might
+find him a pleasant companion during my stay
+on the Riviera.</p>
+
+<p>More work, in other words. My chief did not
+waste time in encouraging purposeless friendships.
+As I read the letter, it was a hint that
+the Englishman had something which Berlin
+wanted and I was to get it.</p>
+
+<p>It was not difficult to recall myself to the
+Undersecretary. We became friendly, and proceeded
+to “do” Nice together; and in the course
+of our excursions we became occasional visitors
+at the villa of Maharajah Holkar, who, with his
+secretary (and his seraglio) lived—and still
+lives, for all I know—at 56 Promenade des
+Anglais.</p>
+
+<p>The Maharajah was at that time an engaging
+and eccentric old gentleman, who had been an
+uncompromising opponent of the English during
+his youth in India, and was now practically an
+exile, spending most of his time in planning
+futile conspiracies against the British Government,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_81"></a>[81]</span>
+which he hated, and making friends with
+Englishmen toward whom he had no animosity
+whatever. He was especially well disposed toward
+my diplomatic friend, and the two spent
+many a riotous evening together over the chess
+board, at which the Maharajah was invariably
+successful.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile I made various plans and cultivated
+the acquaintance of the Rajah’s secretary.
+He was a Bengali, who might well have stepped
+out of Kipling, so far as his manner went. In
+character the resemblance was not so close. I
+happened to know that he was paid a comfortable
+amount yearly by the British Government, to
+keep them informed of the Rajah’s movements;
+and I also happened to know that the German
+Government paid him a more comfortable
+amount for the privilege of deciding just what
+the British Government should learn. (I have
+often wondered whether he shared the proceeds
+with the Maharajah, and whether even he knew
+for whom he was really working.) The secretary,
+I decided, might be of use to me.</p>
+
+<p>As it happened, it was the secretary who unwittingly
+suggested the method by which I
+finally gained my object. It was he who commented
+upon the diplomat’s intense interest in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_82"></a>[82]</span>
+the Maharajah’s seraglio, giving me a clue to
+the character of the Englishman, which was of
+distinct service. And it was he who suggested
+one evening that the three of us—for the Maharajah
+was ill at the time—should attend a performance
+of the circus in which my friends, the
+Bishops, were playing.</p>
+
+<p>You foresee the end, no doubt. The diplomat,
+with his too susceptible nature, was infatuated
+by Mlle. Bishop’s beauty and skill. He wished
+to meet her, and I, who obligingly confessed that
+I had had some transactions with her father,
+undertook to secure the lady’s permission to
+present him to her.</p>
+
+<p>I did secure it, of course, although not without
+considerable opposition on the part of all three
+of the family; for circus people are very straight-laced.
+However, by severely straining my purse
+and my imagination, I convinced them that they
+would be doing both a friendly and a profitable
+act, by participating in the little drama that I
+had planned. Eventually they consented to aid
+me in discomfiting the diplomat, whom I represented
+as having in his possession some legal
+papers that really belonged to me, although I
+could not prove my claim to them.</p>
+
+<p>You will pardon me if I pass over the events<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_83"></a>[83]</span>
+of the next few days, and plunge directly into a
+scene which occurred one night, about a week
+later, the very night in fact on which the Bishops
+were to close their engagement with the little
+circus in which they were playing. It was in
+the sitting-room of the diplomat’s suite at the
+hotel that the scene took place; dinner <i>a deux</i>
+was in progress—and the diplomat’s guest was
+Mlle. Bishop, who had indiscreetly accepted the
+Englishman’s invitation.</p>
+
+<p>Came a knock at the door. Mademoiselle grew
+pale.</p>
+
+<p>“My husband,” she exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>Mademoiselle was right. It was her husband
+who entered—very cold, very businesslike, and
+carrying a riding crop in his hand. He glanced
+at the man and woman in the room.</p>
+
+<p>“I suspected something of the sort,” he said,
+in a quiet voice. “You are indiscreet, Madame.
+You do not conceal your infidelities with care.”
+He took a step toward her, put paused at an
+exclamation from the Englishman.</p>
+
+<p>“Do not fear, Monsieur—” elaborate irony
+was in his voice as he addressed the diplomat—“I
+shall not harm you. It is with this—lady—only,
+that I am concerned. She has, it appears, an
+inadequate conception of her wifely duty. I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_84"></a>[84]</span>
+must, therefore, give her a lesson.” As he spoke
+he tapped his boot suggestively with his riding
+whip.</p>
+
+<p>“My only regret,” he continued politely, “is
+that I must detain you as a witness of a painful
+scene, and possibly cause a disturbance in your
+room.”</p>
+
+<p>Again he turned toward his wife, who had sat
+watching him, with a terrified face. Now as he
+approached her she burst into tears, and ran to
+where the Englishman stood.</p>
+
+<p>“He is going to beat me,” she sobbed. “Help
+me, for Heaven’s sake. Stop him. Give him—give
+him anything.”</p>
+
+<p>But the Englishman did not need to be
+coached.</p>
+
+<p>“Look here!” he cried suddenly, interposing
+himself between the husband and wife. “I’ll
+give you fifty pounds to get out of here quietly.
+Good God, man, you can’t do a thing like this,
+you know. It’s horrible. And you have no
+cause. I give you my word you have no cause.”</p>
+
+<p>He was a pitiable mixture of shame and apprehension
+as he spoke. But Merrill looked at
+him calmly. He was quite unmoved and still
+polite when he replied:</p>
+
+<p>“The word of a gentleman, I suppose. No,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a>[85]</span>
+Monsieur, it is useless to try to bribe me. It is
+a great mistake, in fact. Almost—” he paused
+for a moment, as if he found it difficult to continue—“almost
+it makes me angry.”</p>
+
+<p>He was silent for a space, but when he spoke
+again it was as if in response to an idea that had
+come to him.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” he continued. “It does make me angry.
+Nevertheless, Monsieur, I shall accept your suggestion.
+Madame and I will leave quietly, and
+in return you shall give us—O, not money—but
+something that you value very much.”</p>
+
+<p>He turned to his wife.</p>
+
+<p>“Madame. You will go to Monsieur’s trunk,
+which is open in the corner, and remove every
+article so that I can see it.”</p>
+
+<p>The Englishman started. For a moment it
+seemed as if he would attack Merrill, who was
+the smaller man, but fear of the noise held him
+back. Meantime, the woman was riffling the
+trunk, holding up each object for her husband’s
+inspection. The latter stood at the door, his eyes
+upon both of the others.</p>
+
+<p>“We are not interested in Monsieur’s clothing,”
+he said calmly. “What else is there in the
+trunk? Nothing? The desk then. Only some
+papers? That is a pity. Let me have them,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_86"></a>[86]</span>
+however—all of them. And you may give me
+the portfolio that lies on the bureau.”</p>
+
+<p>As he took the packet, the rider turned to the
+diplomat, who stood as if paralyzed, in the corner
+of the room.</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know what is in these papers, Monsieur,
+but I judge from your agitation that they
+are valuable. I shall take them from you as a
+warning—a warning to let married women alone
+in the future. Also I warn you not to try to
+bribe a man whom you have injured. You have
+made me very angry to-night by doing so.</p>
+
+<p>“Above all,” he added, “I warn you not to
+complain to the police about this matter. This is
+not a pretty story to tell about a man in your
+position—and I prepared to tell it. Good
+night, Monsieur.”</p>
+
+<p>He did not wait to hear the Englishman’s
+reply.</p>
+
+<p class="tb">That night, while the two younger members
+of the Bishop family sped away on the train—to
+what place I do not know—and old Bishop
+expressed great mystification over their disappearance,
+I made a little bonfire in my grate of
+papers which had once been the property of the
+diplomat, and which I knew would be of no<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_87"></a>[87]</span>
+interest to my government. There were a few
+papers which I did not burn—a memorandum
+or two, and a bulky typewritten copy of
+Manuel’s diary, which I found amusing reading
+before I took it to Berlin.</p>
+
+<p>I called upon my English friend the next day
+but I did not see him. He had been taken ill,
+and had been obliged to leave Nice immediately.
+No, it was impossible to say what the ailment
+was.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, well, I thought, as I returned to my
+room, he would get over it. It was an embarrassing
+loss, but not a fatal one; and doubtless
+he could explain it satisfactorily at home.</p>
+
+<p>I was sorry for him, I confess. But more
+than once that day I laughed as I thought of the
+scene of last night, as Mlle. Bishop had described
+it to me. An old game—but it had worked so
+easily.</p>
+
+<p>But then, wasn’t it Solomon who complained
+about the lack of original material on this globe?</p>
+
+<p>The Diary? I took it to Berlin, as I have said,
+where it was a matter of considerable interest.
+Subsequently it was published, after discreet
+editing.</p>
+
+<p>But at that time I was engaged upon a matter
+of considerably more importance.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_88"></a>[88]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V.</h2>
+
+<p><i>Germany displays an interest in Mexico,
+and aids the United States for her own purposes.
+The Japanese-Mexican treaty and its
+share in the downfall of Diaz.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>It was in Paris that my next adventure occurred.
+I had gone there following one of
+those agreeably indefinite conversations with my
+tutor which always preceded some especial undertaking.
+“Why not take a rest for a few weeks?”
+he would say. “You have not seen Paris
+in some time. You would enjoy visiting the city
+again—don’t you think so?” And I would
+obligingly agree with him—and in due course
+would receive whatever instructions were necessary.</p>
+
+<p>It may seem that such methods are needlessly
+cumbersome and a little too romantic to be real;
+but in fact there is an excellent reason for them.
+Work such as mine is governed too greatly by
+emergencies to admit of definite planning beforehand.
+A contingency is foreseen—faintly, and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_89"></a>[89]</span>
+as a possibility only—and it is thought advisable
+to have a man on the scene. But until that contingency
+develops into an assured fact, it would
+be the sheerest waste of energy to give an agent
+definite instructions which might have to be
+changed at any moment.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp78" id="illus06" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus06.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">General Villa and Colonel Trinidad Rodriguez,
+  von der Goltz’s commanding officer.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="illus07" style="max-width: 20.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus07.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">General Raul Madero, the brother of the
+  murdered President of Mexico.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>So I had become accustomed to receive my instructions
+in hints and stingy morsels, understanding
+perfectly that it was part of my task
+to discover for myself the exact details of the
+situation which confronted my government. If
+I were not sufficiently astute to perceive for myself
+many things which my superiors would never
+tell me—well, I was in the wrong profession,
+and the sooner I discovered it the better.</p>
+
+<p>I went to Paris in just that way and put up
+at the Grand Hotel. So far as I knew I was on
+genuine leave of absence from all duties and I
+proceeded to amuse myself. Though under no
+obligations to report to anyone, I did occasionally
+drop around to the Quai d’Orsay—where
+most of the embassies and consulates are—to
+chat with men I knew. One day it was suggested
+to me at the Germany Embassy that I
+lunch alone the next day at a certain table in the
+Café Americaine. “I would suggest,” said one
+of the secretaries, “that you wear the black derby<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_90"></a>[90]</span>
+you have on. It is quite becoming,”—this with
+an expressionless face. “I would suggest
+also that you hang it on the wall behind your
+table, not checking it. Take note of the precise
+hook upon which you hang it. It may be that
+there will be a man at the next table who also
+will be wearing a black derby hat, which he will
+hang on the hook next to yours. When you go
+out be careful to take down his hat instead of
+your own.”</p>
+
+<p>I asked no questions. I knew better. Old and
+well known as it is, the “hat trick” is perennially
+useful. Its very simplicity makes it difficult
+of detection. It is still the best means of
+publicly exchanging documents between persons
+who must not be seen to have any connection
+with each other.</p>
+
+<p>I went to the Café Americaine, that cosmopolitan
+place on the Boulevard des Italiens
+near the opera. My man had not yet come, I
+noticed, and I took my time about ordering
+luncheon, drank a “bock” and watched the
+crowd. Near by was a party of Roumanians,
+offensively boisterous, I thought. An American
+was lunching with a dancer then prominent at
+the Folies. Two Englishmen—obviously officers
+on leave—chatted at another table, and in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a>[91]</span>
+a corner, a group of French merchants heatedly
+discussed some business deal. The usual scene
+... almost commonplace in its variety.</p>
+
+<p>Slowly I finished luncheon, and when I turned
+to get my hat, I saw, as I expected, that there
+was another black derby beside it. I took the
+stranger’s derby, and when I reached my room
+in the Grand Hotel I lifted up the sweatband.
+There on thin paper were instructions that took
+my breath away. For the time being I was to be
+in charge of the “Independent Service” of the
+German Government in Paris—that is, the
+Strong Arm Squad.</p>
+
+<p>This so-called “Independent Service” is an
+interesting organization of cut-throats and
+thieves whose connection with diplomatic undertakings
+is of a distinctly left-handed sort, and is,
+incidentally, totally unsuspected by the members
+of the organization themselves. Composed of
+the riff-raff of Europe—of men and women who
+will do anything for a consideration and ask no
+questions—it is frequently useful when subtler
+methods have failed and when by violence only
+can some particular thing be accomplished. As
+an organization the “Independent Service” does
+not actually exist: the name is merely a generic
+one applied for convenience to the large number<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_92"></a>[92]</span>
+of people in all great cities who are available for
+such work, and who, if they fail and are arrested
+or killed, can be spared without risk or sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally in illegal operations the trail must
+not lead to the embassy; and for that reason all
+transactions with members of the “Service” are
+carried on through a person who has no known
+connection with the Government. To his accomplices
+the Government agent is merely a man
+who has come to them with a profitable suggestion.
+They do not question his motives if his
+cash be good.</p>
+
+<p>My connection with this delightful organization
+necessitated a change of personality. I
+went round to the Quai d’Orsay and paid a few
+farewell calls to my friends there. I was going
+home, I said; and that afternoon the Grand
+Hotel lost one guest and <i>Le Lapin Agile</i> on the
+hill of Montmartre gained a new one. Acting
+under instructions I had become a social outcast
+myself.</p>
+
+<p>The place where I had been told to stay had
+been a tavern for centuries. Once it was called
+the <i>Cabaret of the Assassins</i>, then the <i>Cabaret
+of the Traitor</i>, then <i>My Country Place</i> and now,
+after fifty years, it was <i>The Sprightly Rabbit</i>.
+André Gill had painted the sign of the tavern,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_93"></a>[93]</span>
+a rabbit which hung in the street above the entrance.
+After I had taken my room—being
+careful to haggle long about the price, and finally
+securing a reduction of fifty centimes—for one
+does well to appear poor at <i>Le Lapin Agile</i>—I
+came down into the cabaret. It was crowded
+and the air was thick and warm with tobacco
+smoke. Disreputable couples were sitting
+around little wooden tables, drinking wretched
+wine from unlabeled bottles; an occasional shout
+arose for “tomatoes,” a specialty of Frederic, the
+proprietor, which was, in reality, a vile brew of
+absinthe and raspberry syrup. There was much
+shouting and once or twice one of the company
+burst into song.</p>
+
+<p>“Tomatoes,” I told the waiter who came for
+my order. As he went I slipped a franc into his
+hand. “I want to see <i>The Salmon</i>. Is he in?”</p>
+
+<p>He nodded.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later a man stood before me. I saw
+a short, rather thick-set fellow, awkward but
+wiry, whose face bore somewhere the mark of a
+forgotten Irish ancestor. He was red-haired.
+I did not need his words to tell me who he was.</p>
+
+<p>“I am <i>The Salmon</i>,” he said. “What do you
+want?”</p>
+
+<p>I studied him carefully before replying, appraising<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_94"></a>[94]</span>
+him as if he were a horse I contemplated
+buying. It was not tactful or altogether safe,
+as <i>The Salmon’s</i> expression plainly showed; but
+I wished to be sure of my man. After a moment:</p>
+
+<p>“Sit down, my friend,” I told him. “I have
+a business proposition to make. M. Morel sent
+me to you.”</p>
+
+<p>He smiled at the name. The fictitious M.
+Morel had put him in the way of several excellent
+“business propositions.”</p>
+
+<p>“It is a pleasure,” responded <i>The Salmon</i>.
+“What does Monsieur wish?”</p>
+
+<p>I told him....</p>
+
+<p>In order to make you understand the business
+I was on, it is necessary that I pause here,
+abandoning <i>The Salmon</i> for the moment, and
+recall to your memory a few facts about the
+political situation as it existed in this month of
+February, 1911. Europe at the time was alull—to
+outward seeming. As everybody knows
+now the forces that later brought about the War
+were then merrily at work, as indeed they had
+been for many years. But outwardly, save for
+the ever impending certainty of trouble in the
+Balkans, the world of Europe was at peace.</p>
+
+<p>But in America a storm was brewing. Mexico,
+which for so many years had been held at peace<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_95"></a>[95]</span>
+under the iron dictatorship of Diaz, was beginning
+to develop symptoms of organized discontent.
+Madero had taken to the field, and although
+no one at the time believed in the ultimate
+success of the rebellion, it was evident that many
+changes might take place in the country, which
+would seriously affect the interests of thousands
+of European investors in Mexican enterprises.
+Consequently Europe was interested.</p>
+
+<p>I do not purpose here to go into the events of
+those last days of Diaz’s rule. That story has
+already been told, many times and from various
+angles. I am merely interested in the European
+aspects of the matter, and particularly in the
+attitude of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>Europe was interested, as I have said. Diaz
+was growing old and could certainly not last
+much longer. Then change must come. Was
+the Golden Age of the foreign investor, which
+had so long continued in Mexico, to continue
+still longer? Or would it end with the death of
+the Dictator?</p>
+
+<p>To these questions, which were having their
+due share of attention in the chancellories as well
+as in the commercial houses of Europe, came
+another, less apparent but more troublesome and
+more insistent than any of these. Japan, it was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_96"></a>[96]</span>
+rumored, although very faintly, was seeking to
+add to its considerable interest in Mexico, by
+securing a strip of territory on the western coast
+of that country—an attempt which, if successful,
+would almost certainly bring about intervention
+by the United States.</p>
+
+<p>My government was especially interested in
+this movement on the part of Japan. It knew
+considerably more about the plan than any save
+the principals, for, as I happened to learn later
+on, it had carefully encouraged the whole idea—for
+its own purposes. And it knew that at that
+very time, the financial minister of Mexico, Jose
+Yves Limantour, was conducting preliminary
+negotiations in Paris with representatives of
+Japan, regarding the terms of a possible treaty.
+It knew that even then a protocol of this treaty
+was being drawn up.</p>
+
+<p>There was only one thing that my government
+wanted—a copy of the protocol. It was that
+which I had been instructed to get!</p>
+
+<p>The personality of Limantour is one of the
+most interesting of our day. Brilliant, incorruptible,
+unquestionably the most able Mexican
+of his generation, he had for seventeen years been
+closely associated with the dictator, and for a
+considerable portion of that period had been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_97"></a>[97]</span>
+second only to Diaz in actual power. His presence
+in Paris at this time was significant. He
+had left Mexico on the 11th of July, 1910, ostensibly
+because of the poor health of his wife,
+although it had been reported that a serious break
+had taken place between himself and Diaz. He
+had spent a certain amount of time in Switzerland,
+and had later come to Paris to arrange a
+loan of more that $100,000,000 with a group of
+English, French and German bankers. But that
+task had been completed in the early part of
+December, and in view of the unsettled conditions
+in Mexico, there was no good reason for his continuing
+in Paris, save one—the negotiations with
+Japan.</p>
+
+<p>It was this man against whom I was to fight—this
+man who had proven himself more than a
+match for some of the best brains of both continents.
+The prospect was not reassuring. I
+knew that already several attempts had been
+made by our agents to secure the protocol, with
+the result that Limantour was sure to be more
+on his guard than he ordinarily would have been.
+Yet I <i>must</i> succeed—and it was plain that I
+could do so only by violence.</p>
+
+<p>Violence it should be, then; and with the assistance
+of my friend <i>The Salmon</i>—to whom, you<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_98"></a>[98]</span>
+may be sure, I did not confide my real object—I
+prepared a plan of campaign, which we duly
+presented to a group of <i>The Salmon’s</i> friends,
+who had been selected to assist us. To these
+men—Apaches, every one of them—I was presented
+as a decayed gentleman who for reasons
+of his own had found it necessary to join the
+forces of <i>The Salmon</i>. I was a good fellow, <i>The
+Salmon</i> assured them, and by way of proving my
+friendship I had shared with him my knowledge
+of a good “prospect” whom I had discovered.</p>
+
+<p>“The man,” I said, “always carries lots of
+money and jewelry.” Of course I did not tell
+them his name was Limantour. I said he always
+played cards late at the club. “To stick him
+up,” I said, “will be the simplest thing in the
+world, but we must be careful not to hurt him
+badly—not enough to set the police hot on our
+trail.” The Apaches fell in with the proposal
+enthusiastically. We would attempt it the following
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Now the instructions which came to me under
+the sweatband of the black derby in the Café
+Americaine informed me that every night quite
+late Limantour received at the club a copy of
+the report of the day’s conference with the
+Japanese envoy. It was prepared and delivered<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_99"></a>[99]</span>
+to Limantour by his secretary and it was his
+habit to study it, upon returning home, and plan
+out his line of attack for the negotiations of the
+following day. I concluded that Limantour
+therefore would have it (the report) on his person
+when he left the club.</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly I had my Apaches waiting in the
+shadows. There were five of us. Limantour
+started to walk home, as I knew he was frequently
+in the habit of doing. We followed and
+in the first quiet street that he ventured down,
+he was blackjacked. In his pockets we found a
+little money and some papers, one glance of
+which assured me were of no value.</p>
+
+<p>My carefully planned <i>coup</i> had failed. You
+can imagine how I felt about such a fiasco and
+how very quickly I had to think. Here was my
+first big chance and I had thoroughly and hopelessly
+bungled it. Limantour was already stirring.
+The blow he had received had purposely
+been made light. If he recovered to find himself
+robbed merely of an insignificant sum of money
+and some papers his suspicions would be aroused.
+I could not hope for another chance at him. I
+knew that Limantour was too clever not to sense
+something other than ordinary robbery in such
+an attack upon him. Furthermore my Apaches<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a>[100]</span>
+had to be bluffed and deceived as thoroughly as
+he was. I had promised them a victim who
+carried loads of money and at the few coins they
+had obtained there was much growling. Luckily
+I had a flash of sense. I resolved to turn the
+mishap to my advantage.</p>
+
+<p>“We hit the wrong night, that’s all,” I muttered.
+“You take the coins and get away. I
+am going to try to fool him.” Like rats they
+scurried away. When Limantour came to he
+found a very solicitous young man concerned
+with his welfare.</p>
+
+<p>“I saw them from down the street,” I told
+him, “they evidently knocked you out, but they
+cleared out when I came. Did they get anything
+from you? Here seem to be some letters.”
+And from the sidewalk I picked up and restored
+to him the papers I had taken from his pockets,
+not two minutes before.</p>
+
+<p>Limantour accepted them and I knew that my
+audacity had triumphed.</p>
+
+<p>“They are not of very much importance,” said
+Limantour, “and I had only a few francs on me.”</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly, as if he just realized that he
+was alive and unharmed, Jose Limantour began
+to thank me for my assistance. I thought of
+those who had told me he was a cold, hard distant<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_101"></a>[101]</span>
+man. Limantour flung his arms around my
+neck. I was his savior! I was a very brave
+young gentleman. If I had not come up so
+boldly and promptly to his aid, he might have
+been very badly beaten, perhaps even killed.
+For all he knew he owed me his life. He must
+thank me. He must know his preserver. Here
+was his card. Might he have mine? I had been
+wise enough to keep some of my old cards when
+I changed the rest of my personality from the
+Grand Hotel to Montmartre. I gave him one
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>“A German,” he exclaimed, “and a worthy
+representative of that worthy race.” Limantour
+was enchanted. “And you live at the Grand
+Hotel?”</p>
+
+<p>That was better still. I was only a sojourner
+in Paris and one might venture to offer me hospitality—no?
+Next day he would send around
+a formal invitation to come and dine at his house
+and meet his family. They would be delighted
+to meet this brave and intrepid hero and would
+also wish to thank me.</p>
+
+<p>In a nearby café we had a drink and parted
+for the night. Next morning of course I had
+to appear again at the Grand Hotel. On foot
+I walked away from <i>Le Lapin Agile</i>, jumping<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_102"></a>[102]</span>
+into a taxi when I was out of sight. The taxi
+took me to the <i>Gare du Nord</i>; there I doubled
+in my tracks and presently, as if just having left
+a train, I took another taxi and was driven with
+my luggage to the hotel. I dropped around that
+afternoon to the Quai d’Orsay and called upon
+some of my acquaintances, remarking that I had
+come back for a little holiday. That night I had
+the pleasure of dining with Limantour.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter I had to lead a double life. By
+day, I was an habitue of prominent hotels, restaurants,
+and clubs. I associated with young
+diplomats and occasionally took a pretty girl to
+tea. By night I lived in <i>Le Lapin Agile</i> and
+consorted with thugs and their ilk. It cost me
+sleep, but I did not begrudge that in view of
+the stakes. All this time I was cultivating the
+acquaintance of Limantour and those around
+him.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterward I succeeded in taking one
+of the members of his household on a rather wild
+party and when his head was full of champagne
+he babbled that Limantour and his family were
+planning to sail for Cuba and Mexico on the
+following Saturday. I was also informed that
+on Friday, the day before the sailing, there would
+be a farewell reception at one of the embassies.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_103"></a>[103]</span>
+Knowing Limantour’s habits of work as I did
+by this time, I was able to lay my plans with as
+much certainty as prevails in my profession.
+After weighing all the possibilities I decided to
+defer my attempt on him until this last Friday
+night. I reasoned that he would probably receive
+a draft of the agreement from his secretary
+at the club late than night. He would take it
+home with him and go over it with microscopic
+care. The next forenoon—Saturday—he would
+meet the Japanese envoy just long enough to
+finish the matter and then he would hurry to the
+steamer. Of course Limantour might have
+acted in a different way. That was the chance
+one has to take.</p>
+
+<p>Friday night came. In his luxurious limousine,
+Limantour and his family went to the farewell
+reception of the embassy. Comparatively
+early, he said his farewell—leaving Madame to
+go home later—and in his car he proceeded to
+the club. I saw him pass through the vestibule
+after leaving his chauffeur with instructions to
+wait. My guess as to Limantour’s movements
+had been right, so the plans I had made worked
+smoothly.</p>
+
+<p>I, too, had an automobile waiting near his
+club. Two of my men sauntered over to Limantour’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_104"></a>[104]</span>
+car. Under pretence of sociability they
+invited his chauffeur to have a drink. They led
+him into a little café on a side street near by,
+the proprietor of which was in with the gang.
+Limantour’s chauffeur had one drink and went
+to sleep. My men stripped him of his livery,
+which one of them donned. Presently Limantour
+had a new chauffeur sitting at the wheel of
+his limousine.</p>
+
+<p>An hour later Limantour was seen hurrying
+out of the club. As a man will, he scarcely
+noticed his chauffeur but cast a brief “home” to
+the man at the wheel. His limousine started,
+following a route through deserted residential
+streets, in one of which I had the trap ready.
+Half blocking the road was a large automobile,
+apparently broken down. It was the automobile
+in which I had been waiting outside the club.
+In it were four of my Apaches. Limantour’s
+car was called upon to stop.</p>
+
+<p>“Can you lend me a wrench?” one of my men
+shouted to Limantour’s false chauffeur.</p>
+
+<p>His limousine stopped. That free masonry
+which existed in the early days between motorists
+lent itself nicely to the situation. It was most
+natural for the chauffeur of Limantour’s car to
+get out and help my stalled motor. Indeed,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_105"></a>[105]</span>
+Limantour himself opened the door of the limousine
+and half protruding his body, called out
+with the kindest intentions.</p>
+
+<p>To throw a chloroform-soaked towel over his
+head was the work of an instant. In half a
+minute he was having dreams—which I trust
+were pleasant. It was still necessary to keep my
+own men in the dark, to give these thugs no
+inkling that this was a diplomatic job. This
+time I was prepared; for I had learned of Limantour’s
+habits in regard to carrying money on his
+person. In my right hand overcoat pocket there
+were gold coins and bank notes. With the leader
+of the gang, I went through Limantour’s clothes.
+In the darkness of that street, it was a simple
+matter to seem to extract from them a double
+fist-full of gold pieces and currency, which I
+turned over to <i>The Salmon</i>.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps he has more bank notes,” I muttered,
+and I reached for the inner pocket of his
+coat. There my fingers closed upon a stiff document
+that made them tingle. “I’ll just grab
+everything and we can go over it afterwards.”
+Out of Limantour’s possession into mine came
+pocket-book, letters, card-case and that heavy
+familiar feeling paper.</p>
+
+<p>Dumping the unconscious Limantour into his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_106"></a>[106]</span>
+limousine we cranked up our car and were off,
+leaving behind us at the worst, plain evidence
+of a crime common enough in Paris. It was to
+be corroborated next morning by the discovery
+of a drunken chauffeur, for we took pains to go
+back and get him once more into his uniform
+and full of absinthe. But it did not come to even
+that much scandal. Limantour, for obvious
+reasons, did not report the incident to the police.
+The next morning it was given out that Limantour
+had gone into the country and would not
+sail for a week. He had had a sudden recrudescence
+of an old throat trouble and must rest and
+undergo treatment before undertaking the voyage
+to Mexico—so the specialist said. This report
+appeared in Paris newspapers of the day. Of
+the protocol nothing was said at that time or
+later—by Señor Limantour.</p>
+
+<p>I turned it over to the proper authorities in
+Berlin, and very soon departed from Montmartre,
+leaving behind me a well-contented
+group of Apaches, who assured me warmly that
+I was born for their profession. I did not argue
+the question with them.</p>
+
+<p>There the matter might have ended; but Germany
+had another card to play. On February
+27, 1911, Limantour left Paris for New York,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_107"></a>[107]</span>
+to confer with members of the Madero family,
+in order if possible to effect a reconciliation and
+to end the Madero revolt. He landed in New
+York on March 7th. On that very day, by an
+odd coincidence, as one commentator<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> calls it,
+the United States mobilized 20,000 troops on
+the Mexican border!</p>
+
+<p>It was no coincidence. The Wilhelmstrasse
+had read the proposed terms of the treaty with
+great interest. It had noted the secret clauses
+which gave Japan the lease of a coaling station,
+together with manoeuver privileges in Magdalena
+Bay, or at some other port on the Mexican
+coast which the Japanese Government might
+prefer. It had noted, too, that agreement which,
+although not expressly stipulating that Japan
+and Mexico should form an offensive and defensive
+alliance, implied that Japan would see
+to it that Mexico was protected against aggression.</p>
+
+<p>And then Germany—acting always for her
+own interests—forwarded the treaty to Mexico,
+where it was placed in the hands of the American
+Ambassador, Henry Lane Wilson.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Wilson immediately left for Washington
+with a photograph of portions of the treaty. A<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_108"></a>[108]</span>
+Cabinet meeting was held. That night orders
+were sent out for the mobilization of American
+troops, the assembling of United States marines
+in Guantanamo and the patrolling of the west
+coast of Mexico by warships of the United
+States.</p>
+
+<p>Within a week Mr. Wilson held a conference
+in New York with Señor Limantour. Limantour
+left hurriedly for Mexico City, arriving there
+March 20th. Conferences were held. Japan
+denied the existence of the treaty and Washington
+recalled its war vessels and demobilized its
+troops. But barely seven weeks after Limantour
+arrived in Mexico, Madero, the bankrupt,
+with his handful of troops “captured” Ciudad
+Juarez. And shortly after, Diaz, discredited and
+powerless, resigned from the office he had held
+for a generation.</p>
+
+<p>That is the story of the fall of Diaz so far as
+Germany was concerned in it. There were other
+elements involved, of course—but this is not a
+history of Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>Germany had done the United States a service.
+It is interesting to consider the motives for her
+action.</p>
+
+<p>Those motives may be explained in two words:
+South America.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a>[109]</span></p>
+
+<p>Germany, let it be understood, wants South
+America and has wanted it for many years. Not
+as a possession—the Wilhelmstrasse is not insane—but
+as a customer and an ally. Like many
+other nations, Germany has seen in the countries
+of Latin America an invaluable market for her
+own goods and an unequaled producer of raw
+supplies for her own manufacturers. She has
+sought to control that market to the best of her
+abilities. But she has also done what no other
+European nation has dared to do—she has attempted
+to form alliances with the South American
+countries which, in the event of war between
+the United States and Germany, would create a
+diversion in Germany’s favor, and effectively tie
+the hands of the United States so far as any
+offensive action was concerned.</p>
+
+<p>There was just one stumbling block to this
+plan: the Monroe Doctrine. It was patent to
+German diplomats that such an alliance could
+never be secured unless the South American
+countries were roused to such a degree of hostility
+against the United States that they would welcome
+an opportunity to affront the government
+which had proclaimed that doctrine. And Germany,
+casting about for a means of making
+trouble, had encouraged the Japanese-Mexican<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_110"></a>[110]</span>
+alliance, hoping for intervention in Mexico and
+the subsequent arousal of fear and ill-feeling
+toward the United States on the part of the
+South American countries.</p>
+
+<p><i>And Germany had been so anxious for the
+United States to intervene in Mexico that she
+had not only encouraged a treaty which would
+be inimical to your interests, but had made certain
+that knowledge of this treaty should come
+into your government’s hands by placing it there
+herself!</i></p>
+
+<p>The United States did not intervene and Germany
+for the moment failed. But Germany did
+not give up hope. The intrigue against the
+United States through Mexico had only begun.</p>
+
+<p>It has not ended yet.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_111"></a>[111]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>My letter again. I go to America and
+become a United States soldier. Sent to Mexico
+and sentenced to death there. I join
+Villa’s army and gain an undeserved
+reputation.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>I must leave Europe behind me now and go
+on to the period embraced in the last five
+years. A private soldier in your United States
+Army—the victim of an attempt at assassination
+in stormy Mexico—major in the Mexican army;
+once again German secret agent and aide of
+Franz von Papen, the German Military
+Attaché in Washington; prisoner under suspicion
+of espionage, in a British prison, and finally your
+Government’s central witness in the summer of
+1916, in a case that was the sensation of its hour—these
+are the roles I have been called on to play
+in that brief space of time.</p>
+
+<p>In the month of April, 1912, I abruptly quitted
+the service of my government. The reasons
+which impelled me were very serious. You remember<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_112"></a>[112]</span>
+that my active life began with the discovery
+of a document of such personal and political
+significance that government agents followed
+me all over Europe until I drove a bargain with
+them for it. In the winter of 1912, by a chain of
+circumstances I must keep to myself, that self-same
+document came again into my possession.
+I knew enough then, and was ambitious enough,
+to determine that this time I would utilize to the
+full the power which possession of it gave me.
+But it could not be used in Germany. Therefore
+I disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>There was an immediate search for me, which
+was most active in Russia. I was not in Russia
+nor in Europe. After running over in mind all
+the most unlikely places I could put myself I
+had found one that seemed ideal.</p>
+
+<p>While they were scouring Russia for me I was
+making my way across the Atlantic Ocean in the
+capacity of steward in the steerage of the steamship
+<i>Kroonland</i> of the Red Star Line.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus08" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus08.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">The telegram von der Goltz received from
+  Villa, inviting him to go to Mexico with Dr. Rachbaum, Villa’s physician,
+  and join the Constitutionalist army.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The <i>Kroonland</i> docked in New York City in
+May, 1912. I left her as abruptly as I had left
+a prouder service. Three days later a sorry-looking
+vagabond, I had applied for enlistment
+in the United States Army and had been accepted.
+I was sent to the recruiting camp at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_113"></a>[113]</span>
+Fort Slocum, and under the severe eye of a
+sergeant began to learn my drill.</p>
+
+<p>It was toward the middle of May that I—or
+rather, “Frank Wachendorf”—enlisted. After a
+stretch of recruit training at Fort Slocum, I was
+assigned to the Nineteenth Infantry, then at
+Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.</p>
+
+<p>I learned my drill—shades of Gross Lichterfelde!—with
+extreme ease. That is the only
+single thing that I was officially asked to do.</p>
+
+<p>But early in my short and pleasant career as a
+United States soldier something happened which
+gave me special occupation. My small library
+was discovered. Among the volumes were
+Mahan’s “Sea Power” and Gibbon’s “Decline
+and Fall”—not just the books one would look for
+among the possessions of a country lout hardly
+able to stammer twenty words in English. But
+the mishap turned in my favor. My captain sent
+for me.</p>
+
+<p>“Wachendorf,” he said, “you probably have
+your own reasons for being where you are. That
+is none of my business. But you don’t have to
+stay there. If you want to go in for a commission
+you are welcome to my books and to any aid
+I can give you.”</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter life in the Nineteenth was decidedly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_114"></a>[114]</span>
+agreeable. I set myself sincerely and
+whole-heartedly at the task of winning a commission
+in your army. I believe I might eventually
+have won it, too. But fate revealed other
+plans for me when I had been an American
+soldier some nine months.</p>
+
+<p>That winter of 1913, you remember, had been
+a stormy period in Mexico. Huerta had made
+his coup d’etat. Francisco Madero had been
+deposed and murdered. President Taft had
+again mobilized part of the United States forces
+on the border, leaving his successor, President
+Wilson, to deal with a Southern neighbor in the
+throes of revolution.</p>
+
+<p>The Nineteenth Infantry was ordered to Galveston,
+Texas. And in Galveston the agents of
+Berlin suddenly put their fingers on me again.
+It happened in the public library. I was reading
+a book there one day when a man I knew well
+came and sat down beside me. We will call him
+La Vallee—born and bred a Frenchman, but
+one of Germany’s most trusted agents.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Wie gehts, von der Goltz?</i>” was his greeting.</p>
+
+<p>I told him he had mistaken me for some one
+else. He laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the use of bluffing,” he asked, “when
+each of us knows the other? Just read these instructions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_115"></a>[115]</span>
+I’m carrying.” He laid a paper before
+me.</p>
+
+<p>La Vallee’s instructions were brief and outwardly
+not threatening. Find von der Goltz,
+they bade him. Try to make him realize how
+great a wrong he was guilty of when he deserted
+his country. But let him understand, too, that
+his government appreciates his services and believes
+he acted impulsively. If he will prove his
+loyalty by returning to his duty his mistake will
+be blotted out.</p>
+
+<p>I read carefully and asked La Vallee how I
+was expected to prove my loyalty at that particular
+time.</p>
+
+<p>“You know what it is like in Mexico now,” he
+said. “Our government has heavy interests
+there. Your services are needed in helping to
+look out for them.”</p>
+
+<p>“But,” I objected, “I am a soldier in the
+United States Army. You are asking me to be
+a deserter.”</p>
+
+<p>“Germany,” said La Vallee, “has the first
+claim on every German. If your duty happens
+to make you seem a deserter, that is all right.
+Frank Wachendorf must manage to bear the disgrace.
+Speaking of that,” he added, carelessly
+enough, but eyeing me severely, “were you not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_116"></a>[116]</span>
+indiscreet there? Suppose some enemy should
+find out that you made false statements when
+you enlisted? I believe there is a penalty.”</p>
+
+<p>La Vallee knew that he had me in his power.
+I had to yield, and was told to report to the
+German Consul at Juarez, across the Rio Grande
+from El Paso. So in March, 1913, Frank
+Robert Wachendorf, private, became a deserter
+from the United States Army and a reward of
+$50 was offered for his arrest.</p>
+
+<p>Before I crossed the border I had one very
+important piece of business to attend to, and I
+stopped in El Paso long enough to finish it.
+Mexico, under the conditions that prevailed, was
+an ideal trap for me. As the lesser of two evils
+I had decided to risk my body there. But I had
+no mind to risk also what was to Berlin of far
+more value than my body—namely, that document
+which, a year before, had led to my abrupt
+departure from Germany and her service.</p>
+
+<p>In El Paso, where I was utterly unacquainted,
+I had to find some friend in whose stanchness I
+could put the ultimate trust. Being a Roman
+Catholic, I made friends with a priest and led
+him into gossip about different members of his
+flock. He spoke of a harnessmaker and saddler,
+one E. Koglmeier, an unmarried man of about<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a>[117]</span>
+fifty, who kept a shop in South Santa Fe Street.
+He was, the priest said, the most simple-minded,
+simple-hearted and utterly faithful man he knew.</p>
+
+<p>I lost no time in making Koglmeier’s acquaintance,
+on the priest’s introduction, and we
+soon were on friendly terms. When I crossed
+the international bridge I left behind in his safe
+a sealed package of papers. He knew only that
+he was to speak to no one about them and was to
+deliver them only to me in person or to a man
+who bore my written order for them.</p>
+
+<p>I reported to the German Consul in Juarez.
+He asked me to carry on to Chihuahua certain
+reports and letters addressed to Kueck, the German
+Consul there. From Chihuahua Kueck sent
+me on to Parral with other documents. And a
+German official in Parral gave me another parcel
+of papers to carry back to Kueck.</p>
+
+<p>I had no sooner reached Chihuahua on the return
+trip than I was put under arrest by an
+officer of the Federal (Huertista) forces, then
+in control of the city. I asked on whose authority.
+On that, he said, of Gen. Salvador Mercado.
+I was a spy engaged in disseminating anti-Federal
+propaganda. I had to laugh at the
+sheer absurdity of that, and asked what proofs
+he had to sustain such charges.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_118"></a>[118]</span></p>
+
+<p>“The papers you are carrying,” he said then,
+“will be proof enough, I think.”</p>
+
+<p>Chihuahua was under martial law. I had not
+the slightest inkling as to what might be in those
+papers I had so obligingly transported. I had
+put my foot into it, as your saying goes, up to
+my neck, the place where a noose fits.</p>
+
+<p>They marched me up to the cuartel and into
+the presence of Gen. Mercado. That was June
+23, 1913, at 9 o’clock in the evening.</p>
+
+<p>Gen. Salvador Mercado, then the supreme
+authority in Chihuahua, with practical powers of
+life and death over its people, proved to be a
+squat, thick, bull-necked man with a face of an
+Indian and the bearing of a bully.</p>
+
+<p>His first words stirred my temper to the bottom,
+luckily for me. If I had confronted the
+man with any other emotion than raging anger
+I should not be alive now.</p>
+
+<p>“Your Consul will do no good,” he told me
+sneeringly. “He says you are not a German.
+You are a Gringo. You are a bandit and a
+robber. You have turned spy against us, too,
+I am going to make short work of you. But first
+you are going to tell me all you know.”</p>
+
+<p>As the completeness of the frame-up flashed
+upon me I went wild. There was a chair beside<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_119"></a>[119]</span>
+me. I converted one leg into a club and started
+for Mercado. The five other men in the room
+got the best holds upon me that they could. By
+the time they had mastered me Mercado had
+backed away into the furthest corner of the room.</p>
+
+<p>The remainder of our interview was stormy
+and fruitless. It resulted in my being taken to
+Chihuahua penitentiary, the strongest prison in
+Mexico, and thrown into a cell. It was two
+months and a half before I came out again.</p>
+
+<p>There is small use going in detail into the
+major and minor degradations of life in a Mexican
+prison. I pass over <i>cimex lectularius</i> and
+the warfare which ended with my release. There
+are more edifying things to tell. For instance,
+how I came into possession of half a blanket and
+a pair of friends.</p>
+
+<p>I was confined—incommunicado, a sentry with
+fixed bayonet standing before my door—in an
+upper tier in the officers’ wing. Confinement in
+the officers’ wing carried one special privilege
+in which I, the desperado, did not share. During
+the day the cell doors were left open and the
+prisoners had the run of the corridor and galleries.
+My sentry’s bayonet barred them from
+me, but could not keep them from talking of the
+new prisoner who claimed to be a German and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_120"></a>[120]</span>
+was suffering because he was suspected of attachment
+to the Constitutionalist cause.</p>
+
+<p>On my third or fourth night there I was attracted
+to my cell door by a sibilant “<i>Oiga!
+Aleman!</i>” and something soft was thrust between
+the bars.</p>
+
+<p>“German,” whispered a voice in Spanish out
+of the blackness, “it is cold to-night. We have
+brought you up a blanket.”</p>
+
+<p>So began my friendship with Pablo Almendaris
+and Rafael Castro, two young Constitutionalist
+officers. Almendaris, in particular, later
+became a chum of mine. He was a long, lank,
+solemn individual, the very image of Don
+Quixote of La Mancha. I remember him with
+love because he was the man who gave to me in
+prison, out of kindness of heart, a full half of his
+single blanket.</p>
+
+<p>This is how it happened. He and Rafael
+Castro, who were cellmates, had contrived a way
+to pick their lock and roam the cell block at
+night, stark naked, their brown skins blending
+perfectly with the dingy walls. They had already
+heard the story of my plight. That night Almendaris
+had cut his blanket in two, and the pair,
+with the bit of wool and a bottle of tequila they
+had bought that day when the prison market was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_121"></a>[121]</span>
+open, sneaked up to the gallery and my cell.
+They gave the liquor to the sentry, who, being an
+Indian, promptly drank the whole of it down and
+became blissfully unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>The blanket was the first of many gifts, and
+many were the chats we had together, all with a
+practical purpose.</p>
+
+<p>“If you ever escape or are released,” Almendaris
+kept telling me, “go to Trinidad Rodriguez.
+He is my colonel. And if you ever get
+out of Mexico, go to El Paso and hunt up
+Labansat. He is there.”</p>
+
+<p>So they contrived to alleviate the minor evils
+of my predicament, and I shall never forget
+them. The major difficulty was beyond their
+reach. The trap had closed completely round
+me. The charge of spying and Mercado’s general
+truculence were only cloaks for a more subtle
+hostility from another quarter. The reason for
+my imprisonment was soon revealed openly.</p>
+
+<p>I had made various attempts to communicate
+with Kueck, the German Consul. Always I met
+the retort that Kueck himself said I was no
+German. At the same time, managing to smuggle
+an appeal for aid to the American Consul, I
+was informed that etiquette forbade his taking
+any steps in my behalf. Kueck himself, he said,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_122"></a>[122]</span>
+had told him the German Consulate was doing
+all it could to protect me. It did not need a
+Bismarck to grasp the implications of those contradictory
+statements.</p>
+
+<p>After I had been in prison for about three
+weeks Kueck came to see me and made the whole
+matter thoroughly plain.</p>
+
+<p>“Von der Goltz,” he opened bluntly, “you are
+in a bad situation.”</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think so?” I asked him, significantly.</p>
+
+<p>“I have every reason to think so,” he said.
+“My hands are tied. I positively can take no
+steps in your behalf, unless”—he looked straight
+at me—“unless you restore certain documents
+you have no right to possess.”</p>
+
+<p>They had me nicely. The surrender of my
+letter was the price I must pay for my life.
+Acting under instructions, he had made me a
+definite offer. I had to take it or leave it.</p>
+
+<p>I could not give the letter up. It was my
+guarantee of safety. As long as Kueck did not
+know where it was I was valuable to him only
+while alive. Furthermore, I had some hopes of
+being freed by outside aid. Through Almendaris
+I had learned that the Constitutionalists were attacking
+Chihuahua, with good hope of taking the
+city. I knew that if they succeeded, the German—whose<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_123"></a>[123]</span>
+suffering for their cause, I was told, was
+known throughout their forces—would be well
+taken care of. So I reached my decision.</p>
+
+<p>“Herr Consul,” I said, “I will not give up the
+papers you refer to. I am not a child. Those
+papers are in a safe place. So are instructions
+as to their disposal in case of emergency. Let
+anything happen to me, and within a fortnight
+every newspaper in the United States will be
+printing the most sensational story within memory.”</p>
+
+<p>On July 23, 1913, I was tried by court-martial
+and sentenced to death. That led to a bitter
+personal quarrel between Gen. Manuel Chao, the
+Constitutionalist commander attacking the city,
+and Mercado, who defended it.</p>
+
+<p>Chao sent in a flag of truce, absolving me from
+any connection with his cause and threatening
+that if I were killed Mercado personally would
+have to pay the score when the Constitutionalists
+took Chihuahua. The Indian bully retorted that
+if the Constitutionalists ever captured the city
+they would not find their pet alive there.</p>
+
+<p>Three times in the weeks that followed, the
+Constitutionalist forces seemed on the point of
+capturing Chihuahua. Have you ever walked
+out with your own firing squad and spent an<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_124"></a>[124]</span>
+endless half hour on a chilly morning in the company
+of an officer with drawn sword, five soldiers
+with loaded rifles and a sergeant with the revolver
+destined to give you your <i>coup de grace</i>? Three
+times that happened to me, at Mercado’s orders.
+My profession has seldom permitted me to indulge
+in personal hatreds, but as I was marched
+back from that third bad half hour my mind was
+filled with one thought: If ever I got Mercado
+where he had me then I would let him know what
+it felt like.</p>
+
+<p>Then matters came to a crisis. Reinforcements
+were brought up from Mexico City and
+the Constitutionalist besiegers suffered a crushing
+defeat. I could put no more hope in them.</p>
+
+<p>Kueck came again to see me.</p>
+
+<p>“Give me an order on Koglmeier for those
+papers,” he demanded. “There’s no use saying
+Koglmeier hasn’t got them, for I know he has.”</p>
+
+<p>I could see he was not bluffing, and knew the
+game was up. I signed the release for the papers.
+There had been no personal animosity between
+Kueck and myself. I had seen too much of life
+to be angry with a man simply because he was
+obeying his orders.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus09" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus09.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">Constitutionalist soldiers surrounding
+  the first cannon captured by Villa after he was released from prison
+  in Mexico City.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>About September 12, 1913, Kueck came to
+escort me out of prison, and in his own carriage<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_125"></a>[125]</span>
+drove me to the railway station, bound north, out
+of Mexico. I had a sheaf of letters, signed by
+Kueck, which recommended me, as Baron von
+der Goltz, to the good offices of German Consular
+representatives throughout the United States
+and requested them to supply me with funds.</p>
+
+<p>The last man who spoke to me in Chihuahua
+was Col. Carlos Orozco, commander of the Sixth
+Battalion of Infantry, and Gen. Mercado’s right-hand
+man, though his bitter enemy. His farewell
+was a threat. “You are lucky to get out of
+Mexico,” he told me. “If you ever come back
+and I see you I will have you shot at once.” My
+next meeting with Col. Carlos Orozco occurred
+on Mexican soil.</p>
+
+<p>Escorted by Consul Kueck out of Mexico I
+went up to El Paso, determined to return to
+Mexico as soon as possible. But before I did
+anything else, I felt a very great desire to square
+accounts with Gen. Salvador Mercado.</p>
+
+<p>So I stopped off at El Paso to look for Labansat,
+the Constitutionalist about whom my friend
+Pablo Almendaris told me while I was in prison,
+I lost no time in getting into touch with him and
+other members of the Constitutionalist junta.</p>
+
+<p>Another acquaintance made at that time
+proved very useful to me later. Dr. L. A.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_126"></a>[126]</span>
+Raschbaum, Francisco Villa’s personal physician,
+was a fellow guest at the Ollendorf Hotel.</p>
+
+<p>We were an earnest but impecunious bunch.
+Juan T. Burns, now Mexican Consul General
+in New York, may still remember a morning
+when he and I found ourselves with one nickel
+between us and the necessity of getting breakfast
+for two at an El Paso lunch counter. That lone
+“jitney” bought a cup of coffee and two rolls.
+Each of us took a roll and we drank the cup of
+coffee mutually.</p>
+
+<p>I also renewed my intimacy with Koglmeier,
+the saddler in South Santa Fe Street. He told
+me a man he did not know had come with my
+written order for the papers I had left in his
+safe and he had turned them over.</p>
+
+<p>Despairing at last of obtaining results at El
+Paso, I availed myself of my consular recommendations
+and went out to Los Angeles, Cal.
+There I received help from Geraldine Farrar,
+whom I had known in Germany, and in November,
+1913, directly after the battle of Tierra
+Blancha, Chihuahua, I received a telegram saying:
+“Dr. Raschbaum’s proposition accepted;
+come at once,” and signed “Francisco Villa.”
+My way lay open before me and I was free to
+start.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_127"></a>[127]</span></p>
+
+<p>I reached El Paso on November 27th and
+went on to Chihuahua, which had fallen into the
+hands of the Constitutionalists. Once there, I
+looked up my friend of the half blanket, Pablo
+Almendaris, and by him was introduced to Col.
+Trinidad Rodriguez, commanding a cavalry
+brigade, who promptly attached me to his staff,
+with the rank of captain.</p>
+
+<p>The Federalists had retreated across the desert
+northward and settled themselves in Ojinaga,
+the so-called Gibraltar of the Rio Grande, a
+tremendously strong natural position.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the middle of December we received
+orders to proceed to the attack of Ojinaga. Our
+brigade and the troops of Gens. Panfilo Natira
+and Toribio Ortega were included in the expedition,
+some 7,000 men. The railway carried
+us seventy miles. The rest of the journey had
+to be made on horseback. During four days of
+marching in the desert I made acquaintance with
+Mexican mounted infantry, the most effective
+arm for such conditions and country the world
+has seen.</p>
+
+<p>Arriving before the outer defenses of Ojinaga,
+we began our siege of the city. Soon after I got
+my first sight of Pancho Villa.</p>
+
+<p>Of a sudden one evening, Trinidad Rodriguez<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_128"></a>[128]</span>
+told me that “Pancho” had just arrived
+and we must ride over for a conference with him.</p>
+
+<p>We found Villa lying on a saddle blanket in
+an irrigation ditch in the company of Raul
+Madero, brother of the murdered President, a
+handful of officers who had come up with them,
+and our own commanders, Natira and Ortega.</p>
+
+<p>Madero, to my mind one of the ablest Mexicans
+alive, was clad in the dingiest of old gray
+sweaters. Villa, unkempt, unshaven and unshorn,
+was begrimed and weary from his ride
+across the desert. But he seemed full of bottled-up
+energy, and when Gen. Rodriguez and I came
+up he was giving Gen. Ortega a talking to because
+so little had been accomplished in regard
+to taking Ojinaga.</p>
+
+<p>While we talked I rolled me a cigarette, and
+all at once he broke off abruptly. “Give me some
+of that, too,” he demanded. I handed him “the
+makings” and he attempted a cigarette. He was
+so clumsy with it that I had to roll it for him.
+Then for the first and last time in my acquaintance
+with him I saw Pancho Villa smoke. Contrary
+to the stories that have gone out about him,
+he is a most abstemious man with regard to
+alcohol and tobacco.</p>
+
+<p>On Christmas night, 1913, happened the adventure<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a>[129]</span>
+which made me, quite by accident, and
+without intention, a hero. Also, I underwent
+the greatest fright of my life.</p>
+
+<p>My commander, Rodriguez, had received
+orders to make an attack that night straight-forward
+toward Ojinaga. After it was completely
+dark we formed and advanced, finding
+ourselves very soon among the willows lining the
+bank of the Rio Conchas, which we had to cross.</p>
+
+<p>It was my first taste of genuine warfare, and
+I cannot begin to tell you how it affected me,
+how ghastly it was among the willows in the
+vague darkness through which the column was
+threading its way with the utmost possible quietness.
+The beat of hoofs was muffled in the soggy
+ground, and the only sound to break the utter
+stillness of the night was the occasional clank of a
+spur or thin neigh of a horse.</p>
+
+<p>Then all at once, to the front and in the distance,
+came a boom—the single growling of a
+field-gun. Ping! Ping! Ping! broke out a
+volley of rifle shots, and then with its r-r-r-r-r!
+a Hotchkiss machine gun got to work. A
+staccato bam! bam! bam! as a Colt’s machine
+gun joined the chorus. Somewhere troops were
+going into serious action. That was no skirmishing.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_130"></a>[130]</span></p>
+
+<p>We finally crossed the river and dismounted.
+Part of the brigade had gone astray. Rodriguez
+cursed impatiently and incessantly under his
+breath until it joined us. He was a born cavalry
+leader, mad for action. Any sort of waiting
+lacerated his nerves.</p>
+
+<p>In line, with rifles trailing, we moved across
+the unknown terrain of low, rolling hills. On
+our front there had been no firing. Then all at
+once, directly before us and not far ahead,
+sounded a startled “<i>Qui vive?</i>” and an instant’s
+silence while the surprised outpost of the enemy
+waited for an answer. “<i>Alerta! Alerta!</i>”
+sounded his shrill alarm.</p>
+
+<p>Hell broke open around us then. Rifles,
+machine guns and cannon opened fire all at once.
+Bullets whined above our heads and bursting
+shrapnel fell around us. We had just come to
+an irrigation ditch, six feet wide, with a high wire
+fence on the further bank of it.</p>
+
+<p>“Stay here till they’re all across and look for
+skulkers,” Trinidad Rodriguez gave himself
+time to order me, then leaped across the ditch
+and began to run toward the fence. “Come on
+here, boys!” he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>The men were quickly across. I followed, or
+tried to, and just as my front foot touched the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_131"></a>[131]</span>
+further bank the clay crumbled. Down I went
+into the ditch.</p>
+
+<p>When I recovered myself in that four feet
+of mud and water and poked my head up over
+the bank the fence had been demolished. Beyond
+it countless rifles spat tongues of fire toward
+me. But not a living soul was near. The
+night had swallowed up every last one of our
+men.</p>
+
+<p>Fright had not come yet. I was bewildered.
+I still had my rifle and began to use it. After
+a few discharges there came a violent wrench and
+the barrel parted company with the rest of the
+weapon. It had been shot to pieces in my hands.
+I threw the stock away and got out my revolver—a
+Colt .44 single-action, of the frontier model.</p>
+
+<p>Boom! There was a roar like a field-gun’s
+and a flash that lit up the night all round me.
+The wet weapon was outdoing itself in pyrotechnics,
+and I was unnecessarily attracting attention
+to myself. So, half swimming, half
+wading, I moved down the ditch in the direction
+of the high hill which, looming vaguely, seemed
+half familiar to me.</p>
+
+<p>I was lost, you understand. I had come at
+night into unknown terrain. I welcomed that
+hill, which seemed to give me back my bearings.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_132"></a>[132]</span>
+I reached the base of it, got out of my ditch
+and began to climb, with some caution, luckily
+for me. For just as I stole over the crest a roar
+and a flash obliterated the night. Two enemy
+field-pieces had been discharged together, almost
+into my face.</p>
+
+<p>Deeming it more than likely that the flash had
+shown the gunners one startled Teutonic face,
+I rolled down that hill and was once more in my
+ditch. But panic had full possession of me. I
+climbed out on the far side and ran among the
+scattered trees there until I realized that no
+racer can hope to outrun a bullet. Then I
+stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Phut! Phut! Bullets were hissing into the
+soft irrigated ground all round me, for by accident
+I had gotten into a very dangerous zone
+of dropping cross-fire, while overhead shrapnel
+was searching out blindly for our horses.</p>
+
+<p>By good luck I knew the trumpet calls. Whenever
+the signal to fire sounded I took what cover
+I could, going on again in what I decided was
+the direction of the Rio Conchas as soon as the
+bugles called “cease firing.”</p>
+
+<p>After a while I found a small gray horse
+standing dejectedly by a tree. I mounted him
+and eventually got among the willows on the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_133"></a>[133]</span>
+river bank. There the horse collapsed under me
+without a warning quiver or groan, and when I
+had wriggled myself loose and groped him over
+I discovered the poor brute must have been shot
+as full of holes as a flute before I ever found him.</p>
+
+<p>But I had small sympathy to spend on fallen
+horses just then. Cleaning my gory hands as
+best I could on breeches and tunic, I stumbled
+on through the bushes. After a long time I
+came, by accident, to the place where the brigade
+had dismounted to go into action. The mounts
+were mostly gone, but a few still stood there,
+with perhaps a score of men and one officer,
+Lieut. Col. Patricio, who was vastly surprised
+at my sudden appearance from the direction of
+the front.</p>
+
+<p>Our brigade had been withdrawn within
+twenty minutes of the beginning of the action—as
+soon as it was quite certain the surprise had
+failed. Patricio was waiting there because his
+brother had been killed and he wanted, if possible,
+to take back his body.</p>
+
+<p>“But,” cried the colonel, suddenly warming
+into emotion, “you—where have you been? You,
+valiant German, refused to come back with the
+others! All night, all by yourself, you have been
+fighting single-handed. Let me embrace you!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_134"></a>[134]</span></p>
+
+<p>He flung his arms about me, to receive a fresh
+surprise. “You are all sticky with something,”
+he cried. “What is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Blood,” I told him simply and truthfully.
+My reputation was made.</p>
+
+<p>Bravado stirs a Mexican as nothing else can.
+Counterfeit bravado is just as effective as any
+so long as the substitution is not suspected.
+Young Capt. von der Goltz, in his first real engagement,
+had got stupidly lost and very badly
+frightened. But of Capt. von der Goltz Col.
+Patricio and his troopers sang the praises for
+days thereafter to every officer and every peon
+soldier they met. He had fought on alone for
+hours after every comrade left him. He had
+bathed himself in the blood of his enemies, up to
+his hips and up to his shoulders. You could see
+it on his clothes.</p>
+
+<p>By the time Ojinaga fell “<i>El Diable Aleman</i>”—the
+German Devil—had become a tradition of
+the Constitutionalist Army.</p>
+
+<p>Ojinaga fell at New Year’s, 1914, the Federalists
+retreating across the Rio Grande into the
+United States. We pursued them. And on the
+bank of the river I had a little adventure.</p>
+
+<p>You remember that when I left Chihuahua, a
+released prisoner, the last person who spoke to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a>[135]</span>
+me was Col. Carlos Orozco, commanding the
+Sixth Infantry Battalion, and his farewell was
+a threat.</p>
+
+<p>That Sixth Battalion had been engaged in the
+defense of Ojinaga and had retreated with its
+fellow organizations. When I came up to the
+Rio Grande a small body of fugitives was in
+midstream. My handful of troopers rode in,
+surrounded them and brought them back to
+Mexico. Their heroic commander, who had
+offered no show of resistance, proved to be
+Orozco, with the colors of his outfit wrapped
+round his body, under his blouse!</p>
+
+<p>The provocation was too much for me. “Don
+Carlos,” I asked him, “is it possible you have forgotten
+me? When we parted last time you
+promised to shoot me if ever we met again. I
+am naturally all on fire to learn whether you are
+thinking of keeping your promise now?”</p>
+
+<p>Prominent prisoners were getting short shrift
+in those days, and Orozco preserved a sullen
+silence. But I let him ford the river to safety.
+He eventually got back to Mexico City and
+Huerta, by way of San Antonio, Galveston and
+Vera Cruz. The story of his exploit at Ojinaga,
+the sole Federal officer to come out of it alive,
+unwounded, and bringing his colors with him,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_136"></a>[136]</span>
+furnished columns of copy to <i>El Imparcial</i> and
+the other papers. Friends and admirers of his
+who heard the lion roar at that time may find
+some interest in this less romantic record of his
+adventure.</p>
+
+<p>I had another account to settle with my old
+acquaintance, Consul Kueck of Chihuahua.
+During the last battle before Ojinaga an officer
+struck up a rifle which he saw a peon aiming at
+my back. The ball whistled over my head. The
+soldier later saw fit to confess the reason for his
+act. He said that a big, fat German—Kueck’s
+secretary, he thought—had come to him just
+before we left Chihuahua on our expedition and
+had given him 500 pesos to attempt my life.</p>
+
+<p>Returning to Chihuahua very soon after New
+Year’s, I made it my business to call on Consul
+Kueck. He had cleared out across the border
+to El Paso, just before we got in.</p>
+
+<p>Failing the principal, I took the liberty of
+arresting Kueck’s secretary inside the sacred
+precincts of the Foreign Club. After my adjutant
+and he and I had three or four hours’
+private talk and he understood how likely he was
+to occupy the cell in Chihuahua penitentiary
+which had once been mine, he helped me obtain
+copies of certain documents in the consular<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_137"></a>[137]</span>
+archives, particularly the letter Kueck had
+written the American Consul affirming himself
+to be fully responsible for my safety, at the very
+time when he was setting Mercado on and telling
+me that he could and would do nothing for
+me. Once I got hold of that, I felt fairly certain
+that Kueck would be moderate in his dealings
+with me thereafter.</p>
+
+<p>Only Gen. Salvador Mercado stood wholly on
+the debit side of my account book. I had heard
+that he had been captured on United States soil,
+along with numerous other fugitive Federal
+officers, and had been put for safekeeping into
+the detention camp at El Paso.</p>
+
+<p>It chanced that Villa and Raul Madero went
+up to the border for a few days of the winter
+race-meet at Juarez, just across the river from
+El Paso. Don Raul was kind enough to invite
+me too, and I went along in fettle, with a new
+uniform. Our army was in funds and I had all
+the money I wanted.</p>
+
+<p>From Juarez it was merely a matter of crossing
+the international bridge to be in El Paso. I
+went over. I wanted to see Koglmeier, the
+saddler in South Santa Fe Street, and I wanted
+to visit the detention camp.</p>
+
+<p>I chose to see the camp first, and had the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_138"></a>[138]</span>
+forethought to fill one of the pockets of my overcoat
+with Mexican gold pieces, very welcome to
+my whilom enemies. Poor fellows, they were,
+most of them, in the tattered clothing they had
+worn when captured. Their faces were wan and
+meagre and they were glad enough to accept,
+along with my greeting, the bits of gold I contrived
+to slip into their hands.</p>
+
+<p>In the center of the camp we came upon a
+tent more imposing than its mates, though by no
+means palatial.</p>
+
+<p>“This,” said my cicerone, “is the quarters of
+Gen. Mercado, the ranking officer here. Do you
+wish to pay him your respects?”</p>
+
+<p>As I have said, Salvador Mercado is squat and
+thick in build, with a bull neck. Some day, I
+fear, he is going to die of apoplexy, if he does
+not fall, more gloriously, in action. He shows
+certain apoplectic symptoms. For instance, as
+we stepped inside his tent and he saw who one
+of his visitors was, his neck swelled till it
+threatened to burst his collar.</p>
+
+<p>“My General,” I assured him warmly, “it is
+indeed a pleasure and an honor to see you again.
+I trust the climate up here agrees with you?” I
+did not offer him a gold piece when he said
+good-bye.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a>[139]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp65" id="illus10" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus10.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">Photograph of a clipping from the El
+  Paso Herald of December 22, 1913. No motive has ever been discovered
+  for the crime, other than the theory advanced by Captain von der Goltz.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_140"></a>[140]</span></p>
+
+<p>From the detention camp I went to Koglmeier’s
+shop in South Santa Fe Street. Both
+front and rear doors were standing open, and
+through the back of one I could see Koglmeier’s
+horse, a beast I had often ridden, switching its
+tail in the yard, which was its stable. I went
+into the store. “Koglmeier!” I called. “Oh,
+Koglmeier!”</p>
+
+<p>From the side of the shop stepped out a man
+on whom I had never set eyes before.</p>
+
+<p>“Koglmeier ain’t here.”</p>
+
+<p>“But he must be here,” I insisted. “I can see
+his horse out there in the yard.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” said the man, “the horse is here, but
+Koglmeier ain’t. Nor he won’t be. It just
+happens that Koglmeier’s dead.”</p>
+
+<p>“When did he die?”</p>
+
+<p>“The 20th of last December,” said the man.
+“But he didn’t die. He got murdered.”</p>
+
+<p>On the night of that 20th of December, Koglmeier,
+the quietest, most inoffensive man in El
+Paso, had been murdered in his shop. It looked,
+said my informant, “like his head had been beat
+in with a hatchet, or something.” Robbery apparently
+had not been the motive, for his possessions
+were untouched. If he had made an
+outcry it had not attracted attention, perhaps<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_141"></a>[141]</span>
+because a carousel was going full blast in the
+vacant lot beside his place of business. The
+authorities were utterly at sea, and still are. The
+United States Department of Justice agents
+told me they could find no motive for the murder.
+I knew the motive. Koglmeier had kept “my
+documents” for me; therefore Imperial Germany
+had willed he die.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus11" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus11.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">This “six months’ leave of absence” granted
+  by Gen. Raul Madero of the Mexican Constitutionalist army to von der Goltz,
+  is declared by von der Goltz to have saved him from the death of a spy,
+  when the British captured him in London. With this document von der Goltz
+  was enabled to convince the London War Office that instead of being a German
+  spy he was a bona-fide Mexican army officer on leave of absence. At the
+  right is the letter of recommendation given von der Goltz by Madero at
+  the same time.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Koglmeier was the only German in El Paso
+who was a friend of mine, and knew of the existence
+of those documents which I had been forced
+to give up through the agency of Mercado’s
+firing squads.</p>
+
+<p>His end subdued the festive spirit in me and
+I was not sorry when we started back for the
+interior of Mexico.</p>
+
+<p>Torreon was taken by Villa on April 2, 1914,
+and we settled down there for a brief period of
+rest and recuperation. Rest! Torreon stands
+out in my memory as the scene of the most hectic
+activity I have indulged in. Raul Madero and
+I have since laughed over the ludicrousness of it.
+But at the time it was deadly serious. My reputation
+was at stake. I managed to save it barely
+by the skin of its teeth.</p>
+
+<p>Chief Trinidad Rodriguez got twenty machine
+guns down from the United States and turned<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_142"></a>[142]</span>
+them over to me. “Train your gun crews and
+get the platoons ready for field service,” he
+ordered. “You can have three weeks. Then I
+shall need them.”</p>
+
+<p>Without a word I saluted and turned on my
+heel. I could not very well tell my general that
+I had never in my life touched even the tip of
+one finger to a machine gun.</p>
+
+<p>The guns arrived next day, as promised. They
+had been sent to us bare, just the barrels and
+tripods. There were no holsters, no pack saddles
+for either guns or ammunition, not one of the
+accessories which equip a machine gun company
+for action. I had to start from the ground, in
+literal truth. And I had not a soul to advise me
+how to begin.</p>
+
+<p>We loaded the guns onto our wagons, took
+them over to camp and laid them side by side in
+a long row down the center of an empty ware-house
+in Torreon.</p>
+
+<p>That satisfied me for one afternoon. I went
+over to Gen. Rodriguez’s quarters.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve got the guns,” I reported.</p>
+
+<p>“Good!” he cried. “I shall want the platoons
+ready for action in three weeks. Not a day
+later.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_143"></a>[143]</span></p>
+
+<p>It was up to me to have them ready. So I got
+busy at once.</p>
+
+<p>My first move was an abduction. There happened
+to be in Torreon jail at that time a first
+class bank robber named Jefferson, who was
+being held for the arrival of extradition papers
+from Texas. The day after my guns arrived
+Jefferson escaped, and though the authorities
+made diligent search they failed to find him. He
+knew more about machine guns than I did. His
+profession had made him an excellent mechanic.
+Furthermore, he had Yankee ingenuity and
+American “git up and git.” We soon had all
+twenty guns set up in working order.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the problem of the gun crews. Our
+Indians, slow, thick-headed, stubborn and stolid,
+were no fit material for such highly specialized
+work. Machine gun manipulation requires
+special qualifications in every man concerned.
+Three men compose the crew. One squats behind
+the shield and pulls the trigger. The second,
+prone, slides the clips of cartridges into the
+breach. The third passes up the supply of ammunition.
+At any moment the gun may heat and
+jam. Also, at any moment any one of the trio
+may fall, yet his work must be carried on. I
+have seen a gunner sit on the dying body of a<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_144"></a>[144]</span>
+comrade and coolly aim and fire, the action being
+so hot there was not time to drag the wounded
+man aside. You cannot take an Indian wild from
+the hills and in twenty-one days fit him to do
+such work as that by any course of training.</p>
+
+<p>My only resort was to get my gun crews ready
+made.</p>
+
+<p>A brigade not far away from ours possessed
+machine gun platoons which were the pride of its
+heart. I looked at them, and broke first the
+Tenth and then the Eight Commandment.</p>
+
+<p>To a wise old sergeant I gave a hundred pesos.</p>
+
+<p>“Juan,” I told him, “get the men of those
+machine gun crews drunk in this quarter of
+Torreon. And encourage them to be noisy.”</p>
+
+<p>Juan obeyed instructions. Once the beer
+and mezcal took hold, the men I wanted became
+boisterous enough to justify our provost guard
+in running them all in. The rest was simple.
+The breach of discipline was condoned by Gen.
+Rodriguez only on condition that the culprits
+were turned over to him for further discipline.</p>
+
+<p>So I got my gun crews. I was beginning to
+have hopes. The best saddler in the city was
+making holsters. When I first approached him
+with an order he had promptly thrown up his<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_145"></a>[145]</span>
+hands. “There is not a scrap of leather left in
+Torreon,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>I instantly thought of chair backs. In Spanish
+countries furniture upholstered in old carved
+Cordovan leather is an heirloom. In time of war
+ruthlessness is a useful quality. I soon presented
+my saddler with sufficient leather for my
+purpose and could turn my attention to pack
+saddles. Not even the sawbuck frames were procurable
+in Torreon, but wood was plenty. And
+there was a jail filled with idle prisoners. Ten
+days after the first sight of my guns I was able
+to report to Gen. Rodriguez that the platoons
+were coming along.</p>
+
+<p>“But I have no mules for them yet,” I hinted.</p>
+
+<p>He sent a hundred next day, beauties, fat,
+strong, in the pink of condition. But they had
+come straight down from the mesa. They could
+be trusted to kick saddles, guns, tripods, holsters
+and ammunition cases into nothing at the least
+provocation.</p>
+
+<p>Torreon was celebrating its new Constitutionalism
+with daily bull fights. Each afternoon,
+while the fight was on, the plaza before the entrance
+to the ring was crowded with public rigs
+in waiting, all drawn by sorry-looking mules,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_146"></a>[146]</span>
+half fed and too worn out to have a single kick
+left in them.</p>
+
+<p>With a squad of troopers I descended on the
+plaza one day. No cabbie anywhere is markedly
+shy or retiring, and these were hill-bred muleteros.
+But we got the mules in the end.</p>
+
+<p>“You are getting the best of the bargain,” I
+assured them. “I am only swapping with you.
+In the corral I have a hundred fine, strong, new
+mules worth three times as much as these played-out
+beasts you are getting rid of. You can have
+the nice new ones to-morrow.”</p>
+
+<p>If Gen. Trinidad ever guessed how thoroughly
+improvised his favorite outfit was—the second in
+command a bank robber on enforced vacation,
+the gunners kidnapped, the equipment made by
+forced labor from commandeered material, and
+the mules snatched rudely from between the
+shafts of cabs—he made no comment.</p>
+
+<p>He did not live long to enjoy the fruits of my
+labors. In mid-June, during the ten-day attack
+which resulted in the fall of Zacatecas, he was
+mortally wounded.</p>
+
+<p>I shall always remember that day, not only
+for the death of my chief, but for a personal bit
+of adventure.</p>
+
+<p>I was temporarily away from my guns with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_147"></a>[147]</span>
+some riflemen in a trench. The enemy fire was
+very hot and the men became exceedingly restive.
+Something had to be done to steady them, for
+there was no cover of any sort on the bullet-swept,
+shrapnel-searched plain behind us. Retreat
+was impossible. There were plenty of
+horrors in the situation—the blazing sun, the
+sense of isolation, the cries and curses of the men
+who were being struck. And there was the
+cactus.</p>
+
+<p>Unless you have been under fire of high-power
+rifles in a region where the common broad-leaved
+cactus grows you cannot guess its nerve-shaking
+possibilities. A jacketed bullet can pierce a score
+of leaves without much diminution of its velocity,
+and as it goes through the thick, juicy flesh, it lets
+out a sound like the spitting of some gigantic
+cat. Ten Mauser bullets piercing cactus can
+make you believe a whole battalion is concentrating
+its fire on your one small but precious
+person.</p>
+
+<p>The men were getting demoralized. If they
+broke I was done for. If I stayed in the trench
+alone the Federals would eventually get me and
+stand me up to the nearest wall. If I retreated
+with them, nothing was gained. No man can
+hope to outrun a bullet.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_148"></a>[148]</span></p>
+
+<p>I stood up, exposing my body from mid-thigh
+upward to that withering fire, and took out my
+cigarette case. The nearest men watched side-wise,
+waiting to see me fall.</p>
+
+<p>By some fortune I was not hit, and after a
+moment looked down at the man beside me.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello, Pablo!” I said, “why aren’t you
+smoking, too?” I offered my case to him, but
+took good care to stretch out my arm quite level.
+To get at the contents he had to rise to his feet.</p>
+
+<p>Habit won. He did not even hesitate, and I
+held my cigarette, Mexican fashion, for him to
+take a light. Once committed in that fashion, he
+was too proud to show the white feather, and
+he and I smoked our cigarettes out while the
+bullets flew. It was the longest cigarette, I
+think, I ever smoked, but it turned the trick. We
+held on to that trench till darkness put an end
+to the fire.</p>
+
+<p>After the capture of Zacatecas I went to the
+staff of Gen. Raul Madero, with the rank of
+Major. The invitation had been extended several
+times before. Now that Trinidad was dead,
+there was nothing to hold me back, and I very
+gladly joined the official family of the brother
+of the murdered President. Since my first association
+with him, before Ojinaga, he had impressed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_149"></a>[149]</span>
+me as the ablest man I had seen south of
+the Rio Grande.</p>
+
+<p>The closer and constant contact entailed by
+my becoming a member of his staff confirmed
+that feeling. Raul Madero has clarity of intelligence,
+an encyclopaedic grasp of Mexican
+affairs, social, religious, political and financial,
+and a winning personality that masks abundant
+energy and determination.</p>
+
+<p>I was associated with him for only six weeks.
+On June 28th, 1914, you remember, the Archduke
+Francis Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated.
+All through July the Austrian Government
+was formulating its demands on Serbia,
+which culminated in the ultimatum of July 23.
+Long before that I had formed my opinion as to
+which way the wind was to blow. And I had a
+sufficiently conceited notion of my usefulness as
+a trained and experienced agent to believe that
+when the general European disturbance should
+break out my days as a soldier of fortune in
+Mexico would be ended.</p>
+
+<p>Toward the end of July a stranger brought
+me credentials proving him a messenger from
+Consul Kueck in El Paso.</p>
+
+<p>“The Consul,” he told me, “wishes to ask you
+one question, and the answer is a yes or a no.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_150"></a>[150]</span>
+This is the question: In case your Government
+wished your services again, could she expect to
+receive them?”</p>
+
+<p>“In case of war—yes,” I answered.</p>
+
+<p>It was not very long before I received a telegram
+from Kueck. “Come,” was all it said.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_151"></a>[151]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>War. I re-enter the German service
+and am appointed aide to Captain von Papen.
+The German conception of neutrality
+and how to make use of it. The
+plot against the Welland Canal.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>The meaning of Kueck’s telegram was plain.
+War had come at last, the war that we had
+expected and prepared for during so many years.
+My country was at war and I must leave whatever
+I was doing and return to its service.</p>
+
+<p>I went to Raul Madero with the telegram.</p>
+
+<p>“It has come,” I said. “War. I shall have to
+go.”</p>
+
+<p>We had spoken together too often, during the
+past few weeks, of my duty in the event of hostilities,
+for any long discussion to be necessary
+now. I asked for and received all that I believed
+to be necessary—a leave of absence for six
+months with the privilege of extension. The
+next day, August 3, 1914, I said good-bye to my
+troops and to my commander and hastened north
+to El Paso.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a>[152]</span></p>
+
+<p>At the Hotel el Paso del Norte, I met my
+former enemies, Kueck and his stout secretary.
+We had dinner together and he gave me letters
+containing instructions to proceed to New York
+and to place myself at the disposal of Captain
+Franz von Papen, the German military attaché
+at Washington.</p>
+
+<p>“When will Captain von Papen be in New
+York?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I have just received a communication from
+Papen,” replied Kueck, adding with a gratified
+smile, “I am keeping him informed of conditions
+along the border. He will be in New York two
+weeks from to-day.”</p>
+
+<p>There was no necessity for haste then, and I
+remained in El Paso for five days longer, keeping
+my eyes and ears open and learning, among
+other things, more “facts” about Mexico than I
+could have acquired in Mexico itself in a life time.
+“There are lies, damned lies and El Pasograms,”
+some one has said. I collected enough of the
+last-named to cheer me on my way to Washington
+and to make me marvel that Rome had ever
+been called the father of lies. No wonder newspaper
+correspondents like to report Mexican
+news from El Paso.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus12" style="max-width: 62.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus12.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">Dr. Kraske’s letter addressed to “Baron
+  von der Goltz,” arranging for an appointment with Captain von Papen.
+  Translated it reads:</p>
+  <div class="blockquote">
+    <p class="right">New York, August 21, 1914.</p>
+    <p class="noindent"><span class="smcap">Dear Herr von der Goltz</span>:</p>
+    <p>I am very sorry not to have found you in after another engagement. I
+    was unable to come round and try to catch you.</p>
+    <p>I had arranged a meeting for yesterday morning between you and a
+    gentleman who is interested in you.</p>
+    <p>If you call on me to-morrow morning at whatever time is convenient
+    to you, I shall probably be able to arrange another interview.</p>
+    <p class="center">I am, etc.,</p>
+    <p class="right"><span class="smcap">Dr. Kraske</span>.</p>
+  </div>
+</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Washington was technically on vacation at the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_153"></a>[153]</span>
+time, but there was an unwonted air of excitement
+about the city—far greater than formerly
+existed when Congress was in full session. At
+the German Embassy I found only a few clerks;
+but letters from Newport, to which the Ambassador
+and his staff had gone for the summer,
+informed me that Captain von Papen would
+meet me in New York in a fortnight. And then
+I learned for the first time that it was impossible
+for me to reach Germany, but that I was to be
+assigned to work in the United States.</p>
+
+<p>I knew what that meant, of course, and I was
+not wholly unprepared for it. Secret agents
+could be very useful in a neutral country,
+and I knew from my acquaintance with German
+methods in Europe, that plans would already
+have been made for conserving German interests
+in the United States. What those plans were I
+did not know; but my only immediate concern
+was to remove any possible suspicion from myself
+by doing something that on the surface
+would seem to be absolutely idiotic.</p>
+
+<p>I became violently and noisily pro-German.
+On the train I entered into arguments (as a
+matter of fact I could not have escaped them if
+I tried) in which I stoutly defended the invasion
+of Belgium and prophesied an early victory for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_154"></a>[154]</span>
+Germany. And when I arrived in New York
+I registered at the Holland House, where my
+actions would be more conspicuous than at one
+of the larger hotels, and proceeded to make myself
+as noticeable as possible by spending a great
+deal more money than I could afford—and talking.
+In a day or two the reporters were on my
+trail and I became their obliging prey. What I
+told them I do not now remember in its entirety,
+but newspaper clippings of the day assure me
+that I made many wild and bombastic statements,
+promising that Paris would be captured in a very
+few weeks—in a word uttering the most flagrant
+nonsense. The reporters decided that I was a
+fool and deftly conveyed that impression to their
+readers. And in a very brief time I had the
+satisfaction of learning that I was everywhere
+regarded as a person of considerably more
+loquacity than intelligence.</p>
+
+<p>That was the very reputation I had attempted
+to get. I wanted to be known—and widely—as
+a braggart, a spendthrift, a rattlebrain, for the
+very excellent reason that in no other way could
+I so easily divert suspicion from myself later on.
+I was a German, and consequently under the
+surveillance of enemy secret agents, with whom—oh,
+believe me!—the United States was filled.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_155"></a>[155]</span>
+It was impossible for me to escape some notice.
+Since that was the case, the safest course for me
+to pursue was to comport myself in such a way
+that all interested persons would report (as I
+afterwards learned they did report) that I was
+not worth watching, since no sane government
+would ever employ me.</p>
+
+<p>While I was engaged in achieving this enviable
+reputation, I had managed to keep in touch with
+the Imperial German Consulate in New York,
+and on August 21 I had received from the Vice-Consul,
+Dr. Kraske, a note informing me that
+“the gentleman who is interested in you”—Captain
+von Papen—“will meet you next morning
+at the Consulate.” That letter was to figure
+two years later in the trial of Captain Hans
+Tauscher. I reproduce it here. You might note
+that it is addressed to “Baron von der Goltz,”
+although my card did not bear that title, and I
+had registered at the Holland House under my
+Mexican military title of Major.</p>
+
+<p>Upon the following morning I went to that
+old building at Number Eleven Broadway. There
+in a little room in the offices of the Imperial
+German Consulate began a series of meetings
+that were designed to bear fruit of the greatest
+consequences to the United States—that would,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_156"></a>[156]</span>
+had they been successful, have made American
+neutrality a lie and would have perhaps drawn
+the United States into a serious conflict with
+England, if not into actual war.</p>
+
+<p>I remember von Papen’s enthusiasm as he
+outlined the general program to me. “It was
+merely a question of tying their hands”—that
+was the burden of his statements, time and again.
+We could hope for nothing from American neutrality;
+it was a fraud, a deception. Washington
+could not see the German viewpoint at all.
+Everything was done to favor England. Why,
+the entire country was supporting the allies—the
+government, the press, the people—all of
+them! Nowhere was there a good word for Germany.
+And that in spite of the excellent propaganda
+that Germany was conducting. I remember
+that the failure of German propaganda was
+an especially sore spot with him.</p>
+
+<p>“How about the German-Americans?” I asked
+him upon one occasion.</p>
+
+<p>He made a sound that was between a grunt
+and a cough.</p>
+
+<p>“I am attending to them,” was his reply. I
+did not understand what he meant until much
+later.</p>
+
+<p>We talked much of American participation in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_157"></a>[157]</span>
+the war in those days. Papen was convinced that
+it would come sooner or later; and certainly upon
+the side of the Entente—unless the German-Americans
+could be brought into line. They
+were being attended to, he would repeat, but
+meantime it was necessary for us to decide upon
+some immediate action. Of course there was
+Mexico to be considered. It was too bad that
+Huerta had fallen. What did I think of Villa?
+Could he be persuaded to cause a diversion if the
+United States abandoned its neutrality?</p>
+
+<p>I told him that I thought it very unlikely. “He
+is not very friendly toward Germans,” I said,
+“and he appreciates the importance of keeping on
+good terms with the United States. No, I don’t
+think you can reach him—now. Later on, he
+may take a different attitude—when we have had
+a few more victories.”</p>
+
+<p>Von Papen nodded. I was probably right, he
+thought. We must show these ignorant people
+how powerful the Germans were. It would have
+a great moral effect. But that was for the future.
+Meantime what did I think of this letter as a
+suggestion for possible immediate action?</p>
+
+<p>“This letter” was from a man named Schumacher,
+who lived in Oregon, at Eden Bower
+Farm. He had written to the Embassy, suggesting<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_158"></a>[158]</span>
+that we secretly fit out motor boats armed
+with machine guns, and using Buffalo, Detroit,
+Cleveland and Chicago as bases, make raids upon
+Canadian cities and towns on the Great Lakes.</p>
+
+<p>There were some good features to the plan—its
+value as a means of terrorizing Canadians,
+for instance—but it was doubtful whether at that
+time we could carry it out successfully. Then,
+too, we could not be sure whether it was not
+merely a trap for us. Papen had been making
+inquiries about Schumacher and was not entirely
+satisfied as to his good faith.</p>
+
+<p>There were a number of other schemes which
+we considered at this time. One was to equip
+reservists of the German Army, then in the
+United States, and co-operating with German
+warships then in the Pacific Ocean to invade
+Canada from the State of Washington. This
+plan was abandoned because of the impossibility
+of securing enough artillery for our purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Another plan that we considered more carefully,
+involved an expedition against Jamaica.
+This was a much more feasible scheme than any
+that had been proposed thus far, and we spent
+many days over it. Jamaica was none too well defended,
+and it seemed fairly probable that with
+an army of ragamuffins which I could easily<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_159"></a>[159]</span>
+recruit in Mexico and Central America, we could
+make a success of it. Arms were easy to secure;
+in fact, we had a very well equipped arsenal in
+New York; and filibustering had become so
+common since the outbreak of the Mexican revolution,
+that it would be easy to obtain what additional
+material we needed without disclosing
+our purpose. On the whole the idea looked
+promising, and matters had gone so far that von
+Papen secured my appointment as captain, so
+that in the event of my being captured on British
+soil with arms in my hand, I should be treated as
+a prisoner of war.</p>
+
+<p>Then just when we were making final preparations
+for my departure from New York, von
+Papen came to me in great excitement and said
+he had come upon a plan that would serve our
+purposes to perfection. Canada was, after all,
+our principal objective; we could strike a telling
+blow against it, and at the same time create consternation
+throughout America by blowing up
+the canals which connected the Great Lakes!</p>
+
+<p>“It is comparatively simple,” said von Papen.
+“If we blow up the locks of these canals, the
+main railway lines of Canada and the principal
+grain elevators will be crippled. Immediately
+we shall destroy one of England’s chief sources<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_160"></a>[160]</span>
+of food supply as well as hamper the transportation
+of war materials. Canada will be thrown
+into a panic and public opinion will <i>demand</i> that
+her troops be held for home defense. But best
+of all, it will make the Canadians believe that the
+thousands of German reservists and the millions
+of German-Americans in the United States are
+planning active military operations against the
+Dominion.”</p>
+
+<p>I looked at him in surprise. Where had he
+got such a plan? Papen enlightened me with his
+next words.</p>
+
+<p>Two men—not Germans but violently anti-English—had
+come to him with the suggestion,
+he said. It was in a very indefinite form as yet,
+but the idea was certainly worth careful consideration.
+He wished me to discuss the matter with
+the two men at my hotel.</p>
+
+<p>It did seem a good plan. As I discussed it the
+next evening with the two men, whom von Papen
+had sent to me, it seemed entirely practicable and
+immensely important. Together we went over
+the maps and diagrams they had brought with
+them, which showed the vulnerable points of the
+different canals and railways. After a number
+of conferences with them and with von Papen,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a>[161]</span>
+the plot took definite shape as a plan to blow up
+the Welland Canal.</p>
+
+<p>“It can be done,” I told von Papen one day,
+and together we discussed the details. Finally
+von Papen looked up from the notes we had been
+examining.</p>
+
+<p>“I think it will do admirably,” he said. “Will
+you undertake it?”</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“Good,” said von Papen. “I shall leave the
+details to you—but keep me informed of your
+needs and I shall see that they are taken care of.”</p>
+
+<p>So began the plot which was literally to carry
+the war into America. My first need was for
+men, and for help in getting these I appealed to
+von Papen, who obligingly furnished me with a
+letter of introduction—made out in the name of
+Bridgman H. Taylor—to Mr. Luederitz, the
+German Consul at Baltimore. There were several
+German ships interned at that port, and we felt
+that we should have no difficulty in recruiting our
+force from them.</p>
+
+<p>Before I went to Baltimore, however, I did
+engage one man, Charles Tucker, alias Tuchhaendler,
+who had already had some dealings with
+the two men who originally proposed the scheme.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_162"></a>[162]</span></p>
+
+<p>Tucker accompanied me to Baltimore, and
+together we paid a visit to Consul Luederitz.
+The consul glanced at the letter I presented to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>“Captain von Papen requests me to give you
+all the assistance you may ask for, Major von der
+Goltz,” he said, intimating by the use of my
+name that he had previously been informed of the
+enterprise. “I shall be happy to do anything in
+my power. What is it you wish?”</p>
+
+<p>Men, I told him, were my chief need at the
+moment. He said that there should be no difficulty
+about securing them. There was a German
+ship in the harbor at the time, and we could
+doubtless make use of part of the crew and an
+officer, if we desired. He offered me his visiting
+card, on the back of which he wrote a note of
+recommendation to the captain of the ship. But
+while we were talking this man entered the office
+and we made our preliminary arrangements
+there.</p>
+
+<p>The following day, a Sunday, Tucker and I
+visited the ship and after dinner selected our men,
+who were informed of their prospective duties. I
+also listened to the news that was being received
+on board by wireless; for the captain was still
+allowed to receive messages, although the harbor<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_163"></a>[163]</span>
+authorities had forbidden him to use his apparatus
+for sending purposes.</p>
+
+<p>I needed nothing more in Baltimore, so far as
+my present plans were concerned, but at Consul
+Luederitz’s suggestion, I decided to furnish myself
+with a passport, made out in my <i>nom de
+guerre</i> of Bridgman Taylor. Luederitz was of
+the opinion that it might be useful at some future
+time as a means of proving that I was an American
+citizen, and accordingly we had one of the
+clerks make out an application, which was duly
+forwarded to Washington; and on August 31st
+the State Department furnished the non-existent
+Mr. Bridgman H. Taylor with a very comforting,
+although as it turned out, a decidedly
+dangerous document. One other thing I needed
+at the moment—a pistol, for my own was out of
+order. This Mr. Luederitz provided me with,
+from the effects of an Austrian who had committed
+suicide in Baltimore, not long before, and
+whose property, in the absence of an Austrian
+Consulate in the city, had been turned over to
+the German Consul.</p>
+
+<p>The days immediately following my return to
+New York were filled with preparations for our
+coup. I engaged three additional men to act as
+my lieutenants, acquainted them with the main<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_164"></a>[164]</span>
+objects of our plan and agreed to pay them daily
+while in New York, and to add a bonus when
+our enterprise should succeed. These men had
+all been well recommended to me, and I knew
+I could trust them thoroughly. One, Fritzen,
+who was later captured in Los Angeles, had been
+a purser on a Russian ship. A second, Busse,
+was a commercial agent who had lived for many
+years in England; the third bore the Italian
+name of Covani.</p>
+
+<p>Meantime I saw von Papen frequently, and had
+on one occasion received from him a check for
+two hundred dollars, which I needed for the
+sailors who were coming from Baltimore. That
+check, which is reproduced in this book, was to
+prove a singularly disastrous piece of paper, for
+in order to avoid connecting my name with that
+of von Papen, it was made out to Bridgman
+Taylor. I cashed it through a friend, Frederick
+Stallforth, whose brother, Alberto Stallforth,
+had been the German Consul at Parral when I
+was there. He, incidentally, was later implicated
+in the Rintelen trial and was detained for a time
+on Ellis Island, from which he was subsequently
+released.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Stallforth lifted his eyebrows when he saw
+the name on the check. I smiled.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_165"></a>[165]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I am Bridgman Taylor,” I told him. He
+laughed, but said nothing, merely getting the
+check cashed for me at the German Club on
+Central Park South, of which he was a member.</p>
+
+<p>In a few days everything was ready. My men
+had arrived from Baltimore, my plans were
+definitely made—I needed but one thing: the
+explosives. These, von Papen told me, I could
+obtain through Captain Hans Tauscher, the
+American agent of the Krupps, which means, in
+effect, the German Government.</p>
+
+<p>It has been asserted many times in the last
+year that the charges against Capt. Tauscher
+were utterly unfounded. It is easy to understand
+the motives of this gentleman’s defenders.
+There are many people still in this country whose
+friendship with the amiable captain would wear
+a decidedly suspicious look were his complicity
+in the anti-American plots of the first two years
+of the war to be proved. I shall not quarrel with
+these people. But reproduced in this book are
+four documents, the originals of which are in the
+possession of the Department of Justice, which
+tell their own story to the curious and are a fair
+indication of the way I secured the explosives I
+needed for my expedition.</p>
+
+<p>These documents show:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_166"></a>[166]</span></p>
+
+<p>First, that on September 5, 1914, Captain
+Tauscher, American representative of the
+Krupps, ordered from the du Pont de Nemours
+Powder Company, 300 pounds of sixty per cent.
+dynamite to be delivered to bearer, “Mr. Bridgman
+Taylor,” and to be charged to Captain
+Tauscher.</p>
+
+<p>Second, that on September 11th, the du Pont
+Company sent Captain Tauscher a bill for the
+same amount of dynamite delivered to Bridgman
+Taylor, New York City, on September 5th;
+and on September 16th, they sent him a second
+bill for forty-five feet of fuse delivered to Bridgman
+Taylor on September 13th—the total of
+the two bills amounting to $31.13.</p>
+
+<p>Third, that on December 29, 1914, Tauscher
+sent a bill to Captain von Papen for a total
+amount of $503.24. <i>The third item, dated September
+11th, was for $31.13.</i></p>
+
+<p>Is it difficult to tell of whom I got my explosives
+or who eventually paid for them? I got
+the dynamite at any rate, by calling for it myself
+at one of the company’s barges in a motor boat,
+and taking it away in suitcases. At 146th Street
+and the Hudson River we left the boat, and,
+carrying the explosives with us, went to the
+German Club, where I applied to von Papen for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_167"></a>[167]</span>
+automatic pistols, batteries, detonators, and wire
+for exploding the dynamite. Von Papen
+promised them in two or three days—and he kept
+his word.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp62" id="illus13" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus13.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">Before going to Baltimore, “Mr. Bridgeman
+  Taylor”—Captain von der Goltz—received this letter from Capt. von Papen.
+  Translated it reads:</p>
+  <div class="blockquote">
+    <p class="right">New York, 27. VIII. 14.</p>
+    <p>I request the Consuls in Baltimore and St. Paul to give the bearer of
+    this letter—Mr. Bridgeman Taylor—all the assistance he may ask for.</p>
+    <p class="center"><span class="smcap">von Papen</span>,<br>
+    Captain in the General Staff of the Army<br>
+    and Military Attaché.</p>
+  </div>
+</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Bit by bit, all this material was removed from
+the German Club—in suitcases and via taxi-cab.
+They were exciting little rides we took those days,
+and my heart was often in my mouth when our
+chauffeur turned corners in approved New York
+fashion. But luckily there were no accidents and
+in a day or so all of our materials were stored
+away; part of them in my apartments—not in
+the Holland House, alas!—but in a cheap section
+of Harlem. For von der Goltz, the spendthrift,
+the braggart, was seen no longer in the gay
+places of New York. He had spent all his
+money, and now, no longer of interest to the
+newspapers—or to the secret agents of the allies—had
+taken a two dollar and a half room in
+Harlem where he could repent his follies—and
+be as inconspicuous as he pleased.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_168"></a>[168]</span></p>
+
+<p>So it came about that toward the middle of
+September we five—Fritzen, Busse, Tucker,
+Covani and myself—took train for Buffalo,
+armed with dynamite, automatic guns, detonators
+and other necessary implements, and proceeded
+absolutely unmolested, to go to Buffalo.
+There I engaged rooms at 198 Delaware Avenue
+and began to reconnoitre the ground. I made
+a trip or two over the Niagara River via aëroplane,
+with an aviator who unquestionably
+thought me mad and charged accordingly; and
+at the suggestion of von Papen, I secured money
+for my expenses from a Buffalo lawyer, John
+Ryan.</p>
+
+<p>It had been decided that von Papen should let
+us know when the Canadian troops were about
+to leave camp so that we might strike at the
+psychological moment. A telegram came from
+him, signed with the non-committal name of
+Steffens, telling me that Ryan had money and
+instructions. Ryan gave me the money, as I
+have stated, but insisted that he had no instructions
+whatever.</p>
+
+<p>Then, after a stay of several days in Niagara,
+during which we did nothing but exchange futile
+telegrams with Ryan and “Mr. Steffens”—we
+learned that the first contingent of Canadian<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_169"></a>[169]</span>
+troops had left the camp—and my men and I
+returned to New York, unsuccessful.</p>
+
+<p>Our failure was greater than appears on the
+surface, for my men and I were a blind. Our
+equipment, our loud talking, our aggressive pro-Germanism—even
+our secret preparations, which
+had not been secret enough—were intended
+primarily to distract attention from other and
+far more dangerous activities.</p>
+
+<p>We had been watched by United States Secret
+Service men from the very beginning of our
+enterprise. During our entire stay in Buffalo
+and Niagara, we had been under the surveillance
+of men who were merely waiting for us to make
+their suspicions a certainty by some positive attempt
+against the peace of the United States.
+We <i>knew</i> it and wanted it to be so.</p>
+
+<p>And while they were waiting for sufficient
+cause to arrest us, other men, totally unsuspected,
+were making their way down through Canada,
+intent upon destroying <i>all</i> of the bridges and
+canal locks in the lake region!</p>
+
+<p>You can see what the effect would have been
+had our plan succeeded—Canada crippled and
+terrorized—England robbed of the troops which
+Canada was even then preparing to send her,
+but which would have been forced to remain at<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_170"></a>[170]</span>
+home to defend the border. But far more desirable
+in German eyes, the United States would
+have been convicted in the sight of the world of
+criminal negligence. For my band of men—the
+obvious perpetrators of one crime had been acting
+suspiciously for weeks. And yet, in spite of
+that, we were at liberty. <i>The United States had
+made no effort to apprehend us.</i></p>
+
+<p>Good fortune saved the United States from
+serious international complications at that time.
+While we were waiting for word from von Papen
+the Canadian troops had left Valcartier Camp,
+and were then on their way to England. Part
+of our object had been removed, and for the rest—well,
+the plan would keep, we thought.</p>
+
+<p>It was a disappointed von Papen whom I met
+on my return to New York—a rather crest-fallen
+person, far different from the urbane soldier
+that Washington knew in those days. We
+commiserated with each other upon our failure,
+and talked of the better luck that we should have
+next time. I did not know that there was to be
+no next time for me.</p>
+
+<p>For it came about that Abteilung III B., the
+Intelligence Department of the General Staff
+wished some first-hand information about conditions
+in the United States and in Mexico; and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_171"></a>[171]</span>
+I, who knew both countries (and who was the
+possessor of an American passport bearing an
+American name) was selected to go.</p>
+
+<p>On October 3rd, 1914, Bridgman Taylor
+waved farewell to New York from the deck of
+an Italian steamer, bound for Genoa. The
+curious might have been interested to know that
+in Mr. Taylor’s trunk were letters of recommendation
+to various German Consuls in Italy;
+strangely enough, they bore the name of Horst
+von der Goltz within them, and the signature of
+each was “von Papen.”</p>
+
+<p>I had said good-bye to von Papen the night
+before, at the German Club. He had asked me
+to turn over to him all the fire-arms I had, for
+use again when needed.</p>
+
+<p>We talked of the war that night, and of Germany,
+which I had not seen in two years. And
+we spoke of the United States, and of what I
+was to tell them “over there.”</p>
+
+<p>“Say that they need not worry about this
+country,” he told me. “The United States may
+still join us in the splendid fight we are making.
+But if they do not it is of small moment. <i>And
+always remember that if things look bad for us,
+something will happen over here.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>I left him, speculating upon the “something”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_172"></a>[172]</span>
+that would happen; for then I did not know of
+all the plans that were in my captain’s head. I
+was to learn more about them later on—and I
+was to know a bitter disgust at the things that
+men may do in the name of patriotism. But of
+those things I will speak in their proper place.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_173"></a>[173]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>I go to Germany on a false passport.
+Italy in the early days of the war. I meet the
+Kaiser and talk to him about Mexico
+and the United States.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>It was peaceful sailing in those early days of
+the war, and our ship, the <i>Duca d’Aosta</i>,
+reached Genoa with no mishap. I had but one
+moment of trepidation on the voyage, for on the
+last day the ship was hailed by a British cruiser.
+Here, I thought, was where I should put my
+passport to the test, but as it happened, our ship
+was not searched. An officer came alongside
+inquiring, among other things, if there were any
+Germans on board, but he accepted the captain’s
+assurance that there were none—to my great
+relief.</p>
+
+<p>Genoa, like all the rest of the world, was in a
+state of great excitement in those days. Rumors
+as to the possible course of the Italian Government
+were flying about everywhere, and one
+could hear in an hour as many conflicting statements<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_174"></a>[174]</span>
+of the Government’s intentions as he might
+wish. The country was a battlefield of the
+propagandists at the moment. Nearly all of the
+German consuls, who had been forced to leave
+Africa at the declaration of war, had taken up
+their quarters in Italy, and were busily disseminating
+pro-German literature of all sorts. I was
+told, too, that the French Ambassador had
+already spent large sums of money buying
+Italian papers, in which to present the Allied
+cause to the as yet neutral people of Italy. And
+when I went into the office of the Imperial German
+Consul General, von Nerf, I was amused
+to see a huge pile of copies of—of all papers in
+the world!—the Berlin <i>Vorwaerts</i>, which had
+been imported for distribution throughout the
+country. Here was a pretty comedy! That
+newspaper, which during its entire existence had
+been the bitterest foe of German autocracy in the
+Empire, had become a propagandist sheet for its
+former enemy and was now being used as a lure
+for the hesitating sympathies of the Italian
+people! In German, French and Italian editions
+it was spread about the country, carrying the
+message of Teutonic righteousness to the uninformed.</p>
+
+<p>I found von Nerf to be a large man, with<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_175"></a>[175]</span>
+whiskers that recalled those of Tirpitz, although
+without that gentleman’s temperament or embonpoint.
+He assured me that Italy would never
+enter the war; there were too many factions in
+the country which would oppose such a step.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, consider,” he bade me, “we have the
+three most important parties on our side. The
+Catholics will never consent to a break with
+Germany; the business men are all our staunch
+partisans; and the Labor Party is too violently
+opposed to war ever to consider entering it.
+Besides,” he continued, “laboring men all over
+the world know that it is in Germany that the
+Labor Party has reached its greatest strength.
+Why, then, should they consider taking sides
+against us?”</p>
+
+<p>“But do you think that there is any chance of
+Italy entering the war on our side?” I asked him.</p>
+
+<p>Von Nerf shrugged his shoulders. “It is
+doubtful,” was his reply. “What could they do
+in their situation?”</p>
+
+<p>I had come to von Nerf with von Papen’s
+letter of introduction, to ask for assistance in
+reaching Germany. Accordingly he arranged for
+my passage, and soon I was on a train bound for
+Milan and Kufstein, where I was to change for
+the train to Munich. At that time the German<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_176"></a>[176]</span>
+consuls were paying the passage of thousands of
+Germans who wished to leave Italy for service in
+the army. The train on which I traveled was
+full of these volunteers, who later disembarked
+at Kufstein, on the Austro-German border, to
+report to the military authorities there.</p>
+
+<p>At Munich we passed some wounded who were
+being taken from the front—the first real glimpse
+of the war that I had had. There was little evidence
+of any war-feeling in the Bavarian capital;
+restaurants were crowded, and everyone was
+light-hearted and confident of victory. I saw
+few signs of any hatred there, or elsewhere
+during my stay in Germany. All that there was
+was directed against England; France was universally
+respected, and I heard only expressions
+of regret that she was in the war.</p>
+
+<p>On the train from Munich to Berlin I had the
+first good meal I had eaten in several weeks. It
+was good to sit down to something besides miles
+of spaghetti and indigestible anchovies. And
+the price was only two marks—for that was
+long before the days of the Food Controller and
+$45 ham.</p>
+
+<p>Berlin was filled with Austrian officers, some of
+them belonging to motor batteries—the famous
+’32’s—which had been built before the war in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_177"></a>[177]</span>
+Krupp factories, not for Germany—for that
+would have occasioned additional armaments on
+the part of France—but by Austria, who could
+increase her strength without suspicion. The
+city, always martial in appearance, had changed
+less than one would have expected. There, too,
+the restaurants were filled; in particular the
+Piccadilly, which had been rechristened the
+Fatherland, and was enjoying an exceptional
+popularity in consequence. One was wise to go
+early if he wished to secure a table there; and
+that fortunate person could see the dining-room
+filled with happy crowds, eating and drinking,
+and applauding vociferously when <i>Die Wacht
+am Rhein</i> or some other patriotic air was played.</p>
+
+<p>I had returned to Germany for two purposes;
+to fight and to bring full details of conditions in
+Mexico and the United States to the War Office.
+One of my first official visits was paid to the
+Foreign Office, where I found every one busy
+with routine matters and very little concerned
+about the success or failure of the German
+propaganda in Italy—an attitude in marked
+contrast to that of the General Staff. There the
+first question asked me related to conditions in
+Italy. This indifference of the Foreign Office
+would seem, in the light of after events, to indicate<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_178"></a>[178]</span>
+a false security on the Ministry’s part;
+but in reality the facts are otherwise. Germany
+had never expected Italy to enter the war on the
+side of the Central Powers; she did hope that her
+former ally would remain neutral, and at that
+time was doing her utmost to keep her so, both
+by propaganda and by assuring her of a supply
+of coal and other commodities, for which Italy
+had formerly depended upon England, and which
+Germany now hoped to secure for her from
+America. But even at the time of my visit the
+indications of Italy’s future course were fairly
+clear—and the Foreign Office was accepting its
+failure with as good grace as could be mustered
+to the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>But if the Foreign Office was indifferent to
+the attitude of Italy, it was intensely interested
+in that of Turkey, which had not yet entered the
+war. It seemed to me as if Mannesmann and Company,
+a house whose interests in the Orient are
+probably more extensive than those of any other
+German company, seemed almost to have taken
+possession of the Colonial Office, so many of its
+employees were in evidence there: and I had an
+extended conference with Bergswerkdirektor
+Steinmann, who had formerly been in charge of
+the Asia Minor interests of this company.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_179"></a>[179]</span>
+Mexico, of course, was the principal topic of our
+conversation, but many times he spoke of Turkey
+and of the small doubt that existed as to her
+future course of action.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus14" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus14.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">Captain Tauscher’s order upon the du Pont
+  de Nemours Powder Company for explosives to be delivered to “Bridgeman
+  Taylor” and a bill for “merchandise” charged to Captain von Papen. The
+  third item on Tauscher’s bill corresponds with the amount of the
+  two bills shown in the preceding illustrations. The four photographs
+  indicate how von der Goltz secured ammunition for the Welland
+  Canal Enterprise.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Next door to the Foreign Office, every corner
+of which was a-hum with busy clerks and officials,
+stood the house to which I had been taken from
+Gross Lichterfelde so many years before—“Samuel
+Mayer’s Bude.” It was very quiet and
+empty to outward appearance; and yet from
+within that silent, deserted house, I think it safe
+to say, the destiny of Europe was being directed.
+It was there that the Kaiser spent his days, when
+he was in Berlin. And it was there that the
+Imperial Chancellor had his office and determined
+more than any man except the Kaiser, the
+policies of the Empire.</p>
+
+<p>One entered the house, going directly into a
+large room that was occupied no longer by the
+round-faced man of my cadet days, but by Assessor
+Horstman, the head of the Intelligence
+Department of the Foreign Office. Upstairs
+was the private office of the Emperor, and, to the
+rear of that, the Nachrichten Bureau—a newspaper
+propaganda and intelligence office,
+directed by the Kaiser and under the charge of
+Legation-Secretary Weber.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_180"></a>[180]</span></p>
+
+<p>I visited the Turkish Legation, at the suggestion
+of Herr Steinmann, and discussed at length
+and very seriously with the Ambassador the attitude
+of Italy and its effect upon Turkey’s possible
+entry into the war. He assured me that the
+only thing necessary to make Turkey take part
+in the conflict was a guarantee that Germany
+was capable of handling the Italian situation,
+and that whatever Italy might do would not
+affect Turkish interests.</p>
+
+<p>But it was with the General Staff that my chief
+business was. At the outbreak of hostilities this—the
+“War Office” so-called—had become two
+organizations. One, devoted to the actual supervision
+of the forces in the field, had its headquarters
+in Charleville, France, far behind the
+battle front; the other branch remained in the
+dingy old building on the Koenig’s Platz, in
+which it had always been quartered. It is here
+that the army department of “Intelligence,”
+officially known as Abteilung III B., is located,
+and it was to this department that I had been
+assigned.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="illus15" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus15.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">Bills from the du Pont de Nemours Powder
+  Company for explosives delivered to “Bridgeman Taylor” and charged to
+  Captain Tauscher.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Von Papen had, of course, communicated to
+Berlin an account of our various activities and
+there was little that I could add to the information
+the department possessed about conditions<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_181"></a>[181]</span>
+in the United States. Mexico seemed rather the
+chief point of interest, and Major Köhnemann,
+to whom I spoke, asked innumerable questions
+about the attitude of Villa towards both the
+United States and Germany; what I thought of
+his chances of ultimate success, and whether I
+believed that he, if he succeeded, would be more
+friendly to Germany than Carranza was at the
+time. After an hour of such discussion, which
+more closely resembled a cross-examination, he
+suddenly rose.</p>
+
+<p>“Your information is of great interest, Captain
+von der Goltz,” he said. “I shall ask you to
+return here at five o’clock this evening. Wear
+your heaviest underclothing. You are going to
+see the Emperor.”</p>
+
+<p>I started. Prussian officers do not joke, as a
+rule, but for the life of me, I could not see any
+sane connection between his last two remarks.
+The major must have noticed my perplexity, for
+he smiled as he continued.</p>
+
+<p>“You are going to travel by Zeppelin,” he
+explained. “It will be very cold.”</p>
+
+<p>That night I drove by motor to a point on
+the outskirts of the city, where a Zeppelin was
+moored. It was one of those which had formerly
+been fitted up for passenger service, and was now<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_182"></a>[182]</span>
+used when quick transportation of a small number
+of men was necessary. There were several
+officers of the General Staff whose immediate
+presence at Coblenz, where the Emperor had
+stationed himself, was needed; and since speed
+was essential we were to travel this way.</p>
+
+<p>The miles that lay between Berlin and Coblenz
+seemed but so many rods to me, as I sat in
+the salon of the great airship, resting and talking
+to my fellow passengers. One would have
+thought that we had been traveling but a few
+moments when suddenly there loomed below us
+in the moonlight, the twin fortresses of Ehrenbreitstein
+and Coblenz, each built upon a high
+plateau. Between them, in the valley, the lights
+of the city shone dimly; in the center of the town
+was the Schloss, where the Emperor awaited us.</p>
+
+<p>But I did not see the Emperor that night.
+Instead, I was shown to a room in the castle—a
+room lighted by candle—and there my attendant
+bade me goodnight.</p>
+
+<p>At half-past three I was awakened by a knock
+at the door. “Please dress,” said a voice. “His
+Majesty wishes to see you at four o’clock.”</p>
+
+<p>It was still dark when at four o’clock I entered
+that room on the ground floor of the castle where
+the Emperor of Emperors worked and ate and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_183"></a>[183]</span>
+slept. In the dim light I saw him, bent over a
+table on which was piled correspondence of all
+kinds. He did not seem to have heard me enter
+the room, and as he continued to work, signing
+paper after paper with great rapidity, I looked
+down and noticed that, in my haste to appear
+before him on time, I had dressed completely save
+for one thing. I was in my stocking feet.</p>
+
+<p>I coughed to announce my presence. He
+looked up then, and I saw that he wore a Litewka,
+that undress military jacket which is used by
+soldiers for stable duty, and which German officers
+wear sometimes in their homes. But the
+face that met mine, startled me almost out of my
+composure; for it was more like the countenance
+of Pancho Villa than that of Wilhelm Hohenzollern.
+That face, as a rule so majestic in its
+expression, was drawn and lined; his hair was
+disarranged and showed numerous bald patches
+which it ordinarily covered. And his moustaches—for
+so many years the target of friend and foe
+and which were always pointed so arrogantly
+upward—drooped down and gave him a dispirited
+look that I had never seen him wear
+before.</p>
+
+<p>In a word, it was an extremely nervous and
+not a stolid, Teutonic person who sat before me<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_184"></a>[184]</span>
+in that room. And it was not an assertive, but
+merely a very tired human being, who finally
+addressed me.</p>
+
+<p>“I am sorry to have been obliged to call you at
+this hour,” he said, “but I am very busy and it is
+important that I should see you.”</p>
+
+<p>And then instead of ordering me to report to
+him, instead of commanding me to tell him those
+things which I had been sent to tell him, this
+autocrat, this so-called man of iron, spoke to me
+as one man to another, almost as a friend speaks
+to a friend.</p>
+
+<p>I do not remember all that we spoke of in that
+half hour—the three years that have passed have
+brought me too much of experience for me to
+recall clearly more than the general tenor of our
+conversation. It is his manner that I remember
+most vividly, and the general impression of the
+scene. For as I stood before him then, it suddenly
+seemed to me that he spoke and looked as
+a man will who is confronted by a problem that
+for the moment has staggered him—not because
+of its immensity but because he sees now that he
+has always misunderstood it.</p>
+
+<p>Here, I thought, is a man, accustomed to
+facing all issues with grand words and a show of
+arrogance; and now at a time when oratory is of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_185"></a>[185]</span>
+no avail, he finds himself still indomitable, perhaps,
+but a trifle lost, a trifle baffled, when he
+contemplates the work before him. For Wilhelm
+II had labored for years to prevent, or if that
+were impossible, to come victoriously through,
+the crisis which he knew must some day develop,
+and which he himself had at last precipitated.
+He had striven constantly to entrench Germany
+in a position that would command the world;
+and had sought to concentrate, so far as may be,
+the trouble spots of the world into one or two, to
+the end that Germany, when the time came, might
+extinguish them at a blow. But the time had
+come, and he knew that despite his efforts, there
+were not two but many issues that must be faced,
+and each one separately. He had striven with a
+sort of perverted altruism, to prepare the world
+for those things which he believed to be right and
+which, therefore, must prevail. And now after
+long years of preparation, of diplomatic intrigue
+with its record of nations bribed, threatened or
+cajoled into submission or alliance, he was faced
+with a condition which gave the lie to his expectations
+and he knew that “failure” must be
+written across the years. Russia, Japan, were
+for the moment lost; Italy was making ready to
+cast itself loose from that alliance which had been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_186"></a>[186]</span>
+so insecurely founded upon distrust. And in
+America—who could tell? And yet, for all that
+I read weariness and bewilderment in his every
+tone, I could find in him no trace of hesitation or
+uncertainty. Instead, I knew that running
+through every fibre of the man there was an unquestioning
+assurance of victory—a victory that
+must come!</p>
+
+<p>While I stood there imagining these things, he
+spoke of our aims in Europe and in America and
+of the things that must be done to bring them to
+success. He bade me tell him the various details
+of our affairs in Mexico and the United States;
+and he, like Köhnemann, was chiefly interested in
+Mexico. It was in fact, almost suspicious, his
+interest was so great; and I could explain it only
+in one way—that he viewed Mexico as the ultimate
+battlefield of Japan and the United States
+in the next great struggle—the struggle for the
+mastery of the Pacific. For just as Belgium has
+been the battlefield of Europe, so must Mexico
+be the battleground of America in that war
+which the future seems to be preparing.</p>
+
+<p>I remember wondering, as he spoke of what
+might come to pass, at the tremendous familiarity
+he displayed with the points of view of the
+peoples and governments of both Americas. I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_187"></a>[187]</span>
+had thought myself well acquainted with conditions
+in both continents; but here was a man
+separated by thousands of miles from the peoples
+of whom he talked, whose knowledge was, nevertheless,
+more correct, as I saw it, than that of
+anyone—Dernburg not excepted—whom I had
+met.</p>
+
+<p>It was then, I think, that he told me what
+Germany wished of me, outlining briefly those
+things which he thought I could do best.</p>
+
+<p>“You can serve us,” he said, “in Turkey or in
+America. In the one you will have an opportunity
+to fight as thousands of your countrymen
+are fighting. In the other, you will have chosen
+a task that is not so pleasant perhaps, and not
+less dangerous, but which will always be regarded
+honorably by your Emperor, because it
+is work that must be done. Which do you
+choose?”</p>
+
+<p>I hesitated a moment.</p>
+
+<p>“It shall be as your Majesty wishes,” I said
+finally.</p>
+
+<p>He looked at me closely before he spoke again.
+“It is America, then.”</p>
+
+<p>And then, as I bowed in acquiescence, he
+spoke once more—for the last time so far as my
+ears are concerned.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_188"></a>[188]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I must be ready by 7; my train leaves at 7.10.
+I may never see you again, but I shall always
+know that you have done your duty. Good-bye.”</p>
+
+<p>And so I left him—this man who is a menace
+to his people, not because he is vicious or from
+any criminal intent; not, I believe, because his
+personal ambitions are such that his country
+must bleed to satisfy them; but merely because
+his mind is the outcome of a system and an education
+so divorced from fact that he could not
+see the evil of his own position if it were explained
+to him.</p>
+
+<p>For in spite of his remarkable grasp of the
+facts of Empire, the deeper human realities have
+passed him by. For years he has had a private
+clipping bureau for his own information; but he
+does not know that he has never seen any but the
+clippings that the Junkers—those who stood to
+gain by the success of his present course—have
+wished him to see. He does not know that he
+has been shut out from many chapters of the
+world’s real history; or that this insidious censorship
+has kept from him those things, which, I am
+sure, had he known in the days when his intellect
+was susceptible to the influence of fact, would
+have made him a man instead of an Emperor.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a man who honestly believed that he<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_189"></a>[189]</span>
+was doing what was best for his people, but so
+hopelessly warped by his training and so closely
+surrounded by satellites that even had the truth
+borne wings, it could not have reached him.</p>
+
+<p>To me it seems that the menace of the Hohenzollerns
+lies in this: not that they are worse than
+other men, not that they mean ill to the world,
+but that time and experience have left them
+unaroused by what others know as progress.
+They stand in the pathway of the world to-day,
+believing themselves right and regarding themselves
+as victims of an oppressive rivalry. They
+do not know that their viewpoint is as tragically
+perverted as that of the fox who, feeling that he
+must live, steals the farmer’s hens. But, like the
+farmer, the world knows only that it is injured;
+and just as the farmer realizes that he must rid
+himself of the fox, so the world knows, to-day,
+and says that the Hohenzollerns must go!</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_190"></a>[190]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX.</h2>
+
+<p><i>In England—and how I reached there.
+I am arrested and imprisoned for fifteen months.
+What von Papen’s baggage contained.
+I make a sworn statement.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>Back in Berlin, I sought out Major Köhnemann,
+and together we spent many days in
+planning my future course of action. It was
+a war council in effect, for the object toward
+which we aimed was nothing less than the crippling
+of the United States by a campaign of
+terrorism and conspiracy. It was not pleasant
+work that I was to do, but I knew, as every informed
+German did, that it was necessary.
+Therefore I accepted it.</p>
+
+<p>What would you have? Germany was in the
+war to conquer or be conquered. America, the
+source of supply for the Allies, stood in the way.
+Knowing these things, we set about the task of
+preventing America from aiding our enemies,
+by using whatever means we could. We did not
+feel either compunction or hostility. It was<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_191"></a>[191]</span>
+war—diplomatic rather than military, but war none
+the less.</p>
+
+<p>I do not intend to go into the details of our
+plans at the present moment. Those will have
+their place in a later chapter. Enough to say that
+after a brief visit to both the eastern and western
+fronts I left Germany for England—en route to
+America with a program that in ruthlessness or
+efficiency left nothing to be desired.</p>
+
+<p>But before going to England it was necessary
+that I take every possible precaution against exposure
+there. My passport might be sufficient
+identification, but I knew that since the arrest of
+Carl Lody and other German spies in England,
+the British authorities were examining passports
+with a great deal more care than they had
+formerly exercised. Accordingly, one morning,
+Mr. Bridgman Taylor presented himself at the
+American Embassy for financial aid with which
+to leave Germany. There was good reason for
+this. To ask a consulate or embassy to visé a
+passport when that is not necessary, may easily
+seem suspicious. But the applicant for aid, receives
+not only additional identification in the
+form of a record of his movements, but also
+secures an advantage in that his passport bears
+an indorsement of his appeal for assistance, in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_192"></a>[192]</span>
+my case signed with the name of the Ambassador.
+At The Hague I again applied for help from the
+United States Relief Commission. I amused
+myself on this occasion by making two drafts;
+one for fifteen dollars on Mr. John F. Ryan
+of Buffalo, N. Y., and one for thirty dollars on
+“Mr. Papen” of New York City.</p>
+
+<p>I was fairly secure, then, I thought. If suspicion
+did fall upon me, it would be simple to
+prove that I had submitted my passport to a
+number of American officials, and had consequently
+satisfied them of my good faith as well
+as that the passport had not been issued to some
+one other than myself, as in the case of Lody.</p>
+
+<p>As a final step I took care to divide my personal
+papers into two groups: those which were
+perfectly harmless, such as my Mexican commission
+and leave of absence, and those which
+would tend to establish my identity as a German
+agent. These I deposited in two separate safe-deposit
+vaults in Rotterdam, taking care to remember
+in which each group was placed—and
+that done, with a feeling of personal security,
+and even a certain amount of zest for the adventure,
+I boarded a channel steamer for England.</p>
+
+<p>I was absolutely safe, I felt. In my confidence,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_193"></a>[193]</span>
+I went about very freely, ignoring the
+fact that England was at the moment in the
+throes of a spy-scare, and even so well-recommended
+a German-American as Mr. Bridgman
+Taylor, was not likely to escape scrutiny.</p>
+
+<p>And yet, I believe that I should not have been
+caught at all, if I had not stopped one day in
+front of the Horse Guards and joined the crowd
+that was watching guard mount. Why I did it,
+it is impossible for me to say. There was no
+military advantage to be gained; that is certain.
+And I had seen guard mount often enough to
+find no element of novelty in it. Whim, I suppose,
+drew me there; and as luck would have it,
+it drew into a particularly congested portion of
+the crowd. And then chance played another
+card, by causing a small boy to step on my foot.
+I lost my temper and abused the lad roundly for
+his carelessness—so roundly in fact that a man
+standing in front of me turned around and looked
+into my face.</p>
+
+<p>I recognized him at once as an agent of the
+Russian Government, whom I had once been
+instrumental in exposing as a spy in Germany.
+I saw him look at me closely for a moment
+and I could tell by his expression, although
+he said no word, that he had recognized me also.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_194"></a>[194]</span>
+Thrusting a penny into the boy’s hand, I made
+haste to get out of the crowd as quickly as I
+could.</p>
+
+<p>Here was a pleasant situation, I thought, as
+I made my way very quietly to my hotel. I
+could not doubt that the Russian would report
+me—but what then? His word against mine
+would not convict me of anything, but it might
+lead to an inconvenient period of detention. I
+sat down to consider the situation.</p>
+
+<p>After all, I decided, the situation was serious
+but not absolutely hopeless. Unquestionably I
+should be reported to the police; unquestionably
+a careful investigation would result in the discovery
+that there was no Bridgman H. Taylor
+at the address in El Paso which I had given to
+the Relief Commission at the Hague. For the
+rest, my accent would prove only that I was of
+German blood; not that I was a German subject.</p>
+
+<p>So far, so bad. But what then? I had, in the
+safe deposit vaults at Rotterdam, papers proving
+that I was a Mexican officer on leave. It would
+be a simple matter to send for these papers, to
+admit that I was Horst von der Goltz, and to
+state that I was in England <i>en route</i> from a visit
+to my family in Germany and now bound for
+Mexico to resume my services. There remained<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_195"></a>[195]</span>
+but one matter to explain: why I was using an
+American passport bearing a name that was not
+mine.</p>
+
+<p>That should not be a difficult task. Huerta
+had been overthrown barely a week before my
+leave of absence was issued. Carranza’s government
+had not yet been recognized, and already
+my general, Villa, had quarreled with him, so that
+it was impossible for me to procure a passport
+from the Mexican Government. In my dilemma,
+I had taken advantage of the offer of an American
+exporter, who had been kind enough to lend
+me his passport, which he had secured and found
+he did not need at the time. As for my name, it
+was not a particularly good one under which to
+travel in England, so I had naturally been
+obliged to use the one on my passport.</p>
+
+<p>It was a good story and had somewhat the appearance
+of truth. The question was, would it
+be believed? Even if it were, it had its disadvantages;
+for I should certainly be arrested as
+an enemy alien, and after a delay fatal to all my
+plans, I should probably be deported. I decided
+to try a bolder scheme.</p>
+
+<p>In Parliamentary White Paper, Miscellaneous
+No. 13, (1916), you will find a statement which
+explains my next step. “Horst von der Goltz,”<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_196"></a>[196]</span>
+it says, “arrived in England from Holland on
+the fourth of November, 1914. He offered information
+upon projected air raids, the source
+whence the Emden derived her information as to
+British shipping, and how the Leipsic was obtaining
+her coal supply. <i>He offered to go back
+to Germany to obtain information and all he
+asked for in the first instance was his traveling
+expenses.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>What is the meaning of these amazing
+statements? Simply this. I realized that even if
+the story I had concocted were believed it would
+mean a considerable delay and ultimate deportation.
+And as I had no mind to submit to either
+of these things if I could avoid them, I decided
+to forestall my Russian friend by taking the
+only possible step—one commendable for its
+audacity if for nothing else. Accordingly I
+walked straight to Downing Street and into the
+Foreign Office. I asked to see Mr. Campbell of
+the Secret Intelligence Department. This was
+walking into the jaws of the lion with a vengeance.</p>
+
+<p>I told Mr. Campbell that I wished to enter the
+British Secret Service; that I was in a position
+to secure much valuable information.</p>
+
+<p>“Upon what subject?” asked Mr. Campbell.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="illus16" style="max-width: 43.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus16.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">The check which almost cost von der Goltz
+  his life. It was this “Scrap of Paper” which was found among von Papen’s
+  effects and which enabled the British authorities to prove von der Goltz’s
+  connection with the German Government. In the British White Paper,
+  Miscellaneous No. 6 (1916) is to be found this comment:</p>
+  <div class="blockquote">
+    <p>Mr. Bridgeman Taylor: This person came over to England to offer himself
+    for work under His Majesty’s Government. His real name is von der Goltz,
+    and he is now in England.</p>
+  </div>
+</figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_197"></a>[197]</span></p>
+
+<p>Zeppelin raids, I told him. I choose that subject
+first, because it was the least harmful I could
+think of in case my “traitorous” offer ever
+reached the ears of Berlin. No one knew better
+than I how impossible it was to obtain information
+about Zeppelins. I reasoned that the officers in
+command of Abteilung III B in the General
+Staff would know that I was bluffing when I
+offered to get information upon that subject for
+the English. They would know that I was not
+in a position to have or to obtain any such
+knowledge, for in Germany no topic is so closely
+guarded as that. Also, I reasoned that it was a
+topic in which the English were vastly interested.
+They were.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Campbell was hesitating, so I added two
+other equally absurd subjects, the movements of
+the <i>Emden</i> and the <i>Leipsic</i>, about which I knew—and
+the service chiefs knew that I knew—absolutely
+nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Campbell was plainly puzzled. My intentions
+seemed to be good. At any rate, I had
+come to him quite openly, and any ulterior
+motives I might have had were not apparent.
+Then, too, I had offered him the key of my safe
+deposit box, telling him what it contained. He
+considered a moment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_198"></a>[198]</span></p>
+
+<p>“We shall have to investigate your story,” he
+said finally. “We shall send to Holland for the
+papers you say are contained in the vault there;
+and you will be questioned further. In the
+meantime I shall have to place you under
+arrest.”</p>
+
+<p>I had expected nothing better than this, and
+went to my jail with a feeling that was relief
+rather than anything else. My papers would
+establish my identity and then, if all went well,
+I should go back to Germany and make my way
+to America by another route.</p>
+
+<p>But all did not go well. Somehow, in spite of
+my commission and leave of absence—perhaps
+because my offer seemed too good to be true—the
+British authorities decided that it would be
+better to lose the information I had offered them
+and keep me in England. Whatever their suspicions,
+the only charge they could bring against
+me and prove was that I was an alien enemy who
+had failed to register. They had no proof whatever
+of any connection between me and the German
+Government. So on the 13th of November,
+1914, they brought me into a London police
+court to answer the charge of failing to register.
+I was delighted to do so. It was far more comfortable
+than facing a court martial on trial for<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_199"></a>[199]</span>
+my life as a spy, as the English newspapers had
+seemed to expect. Accordingly on the 26th of
+November I was duly sentenced to six months at
+hard labor in Pentonville Prison, with a recommendation
+for deportation at the expiration of
+my sentence. I served five months at Pentonville—where
+Roger Casement was hanged—and
+then my good behavior let me out. Home Secretary
+MacKenna signed the order for my deportation.
+I was free. I was to slip from under the
+paw of the lion.</p>
+
+<p>And then something happened—to this day I
+don’t know what. Instead of being deported I
+was thrust into Brixton Prison, where Kuepferer
+hanged himself, strangely enough, just after his
+troubles seemed over. Kuepferer had driven a
+bargain with the English. He was to give them
+information in return for his life and freedom;
+and then, when he had everything arranged, he
+committed suicide. In Brixton I was not sentenced
+on any charge, I was simply held in
+solitary confinement, with occasional diversions
+in the form of a “third degree.” After my first
+insincere offer to give the English information I
+kept my mouth shut and made no overtures to
+them, although I confess that the temptation to
+tell all I knew was often very great. The English<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_200"></a>[200]</span>
+got nothing out of me and in September,
+1915, I was shifted to another prison. They
+took me out of Brixton and placed me into Reading—the
+locale of Oscar Wilde’s ballad. Conditions
+were less disagreeable there. I was
+allowed to have newspapers and magazines, and
+to talk and exercise with my fellow prisoners.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure that all this time the English
+made attempts to solve my personal identity as
+well as to learn the reason for my being in England.
+They could not shake my story. Time
+after time I told them: “I am Horst von der
+Goltz, an officer of the Mexican army on leave.
+I used the United States passport made out to
+Bridgman Taylor from necessity—to avoid the
+suspicion that would be attached to me because
+of my German descent.</p>
+
+<p>“Gentlemen, that is all I can tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>Over and over again I repeated that meagre
+statement to the men who questioned me. I
+would not tell them the truth, and I knew that
+no lie would help me. And then came an event
+which changed my viewpoint and made me tell—if
+not the whole story—at least a considerable
+part of it.</p>
+
+<p>I had, as I have said, managed to secure newspapers
+in my new quarters. It is difficult to say<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_201"></a>[201]</span>
+how eagerly I read them after so many months of
+complete ignorance, or with what anxiety I
+studied such war news as came into my hands.
+It was America in which I was chiefly interested,
+for I knew that after my capture, some other
+man must have been sent to do the work which I
+had planned to do. I know now that it was von
+Rintelen who was selected—that infinitely resourceful
+intriguer who planted his spies throughout
+the United States, and for a time seemed
+well on the way to succeeding in the most gigantic
+conspiracy against a peaceful nation that had
+ever been undertaken. But at the time I could
+tell nothing of this, although I watched unceasingly
+for reports of strikes, explosions and German
+uprisings which would tell me that that
+work which I had been commanded to do and
+from which I was only too glad to be spared, was
+being prosecuted.</p>
+
+<p>So several months passed—months in which I
+had time for meditation and in which I began
+to see more clearly some things which had been
+hinted at in Berlin—and of which I shall tell
+more later on. And then one day I read a dispatch
+that caused me to sit very silently for a
+moment in my cell, and to wonder—and fear a
+little.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_202"></a>[202]</span></p>
+
+<p>Von Papen had been recalled.</p>
+
+<p>I read the story of how he and Captain Boy-Ed
+had over-reached and finally betrayed themselves;
+of the passport frauds that they had conducted;
+of the conspiracies and sedition that they
+had sought to stir up. I learned that they had
+been sent home under a safe-conduct which did
+not cover any documents they might carry. It
+was this last fact which caused me uneasiness.
+Had von Papen, always so confident of his success,
+attempted to smuggle through some report
+of his two years of plotting? It seemed improbable,
+and yet, knowing his tendency to take
+chances, I was troubled by the possibility. For
+such a report might contain a record of my
+connection with him—and I was not protected
+by a safe-conduct!</p>
+
+<p>My fears were well-founded, as you know.
+Von Papen carried with him no particular reports,
+but a number of personal papers which
+were seized when his ship stopped at Falmouth.</p>
+
+<p>In my prison I read of the seizure and was
+doubly alarmed; increasingly so when the newspapers
+began publishing reports that they implicated
+literally hundreds of Irish- and German-Americans
+whose services von Papen had used in
+his plots. Then as the days passed, and my<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_203"></a>[203]</span>
+name was not mentioned in the disclosures, I
+became relieved.</p>
+
+<p>“After all,” I thought, “he knows that I am
+here in prison and that I have kept silent. He
+will have been careful. These others—he has had
+some reason for his incautiousness with them.
+But, he will not betray me, just as he has betrayed
+none of his German associates.”</p>
+
+<p>Then, on the night of January 30th, 1916, the
+governor of Reading Prison informed me that
+I was to go to London the next day.</p>
+
+<p>“Where to?” I asked.</p>
+
+<p>“To Scotland Yard,” he said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>“What for?”</p>
+
+<p>“I do not know.”</p>
+
+<p>My heart sank, for I realized at once that
+something had occurred which was of vital import
+to me. I have faced firing squads in Mexico. I
+have stood against a wall, waiting for the signal
+that should bid the soldiers fire. And I have
+taken other dangerous chances, without, I believe,
+more fear than another man would have
+known. But never have I felt more reluctant
+than that night when I stood outside of Scotland
+Yard, waiting—for what?</p>
+
+<p>I was brought in to the office of the Assistant
+Commissioner and found myself in the presence<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_204"></a>[204]</span>
+of four men, who regarded me gravely and in
+silence. I had never seen them before, but later I
+learned their names: Capt. William Hall of the
+Admiralty Intelligence Department; Mr. Nathan,
+the Oriental expert of the Foreign Office; Captain
+Carter of the War Office, and Mr. Basil
+Thompson, Assistant Commissioner of the Police
+of London.</p>
+
+<p>There was something tomb-like about the atmosphere
+of the room, I thought, as I faced these
+men—and then I changed my opinion, for I saw
+lying open on the table around which they were
+seated—a box of cigarettes. I reached forward
+to take one, forgetting all politeness (for I had
+not smoked in six weeks) when my eye caught
+sight of a little pink slip of paper which one of
+them held in his hand—a slip which, I knew at
+once, was the cause of my presence there.</p>
+
+<p>It was Captain Hall who held the paper
+toward me. It read:</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">Washington, D. C.</span><br>
+September 1, 1914.</p>
+
+<p class="noindent">The Riggs National Bank,</p>
+
+<p>Pay to the order of Mr. Bridgman Taylor
+two hundred dollars.</p>
+
+<p class="right"><span class="smcap">F. von Papen.</span></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_205"></a>[205]</span></p>
+
+<p>When I had read it he turned over the check
+so that I could see the endorsement.</p>
+
+<p>They were all watching me. The room was
+very still. I could hear myself breathe. Mr.
+Nathan of the Foreign Office handed me a pen
+and paper.</p>
+
+<p>“Sign this name, please—Mr. Bridgman
+Taylor.”</p>
+
+<p>I knew it would be folly to attempt to disguise
+my handwriting. I wrote out my name. It
+corresponded exactly with the endorsement on
+the back of the check.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know that check?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” I admitted, racking my wits for a possible
+explanation of the affair.</p>
+
+<p>“Why was it issued?”</p>
+
+<p>I had an inspiration.</p>
+
+<p>“Von Papen gave it to me to go to Europe and
+join the army—but you see I didn’t——”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! Von Papen gave it to you.”</p>
+
+<p>I was doing quick thinking. My first fright
+was over, but I realized that that little check
+might easily be my death warrant. I knew that
+von Papen had many reports and instructions
+bearing my name. I was afraid to admit to
+myself that after all these months of security, I
+had at last been discovered. Von Papen’s check<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_206"></a>[206]</span>
+proved that I had received money from a representative
+of the German Government. There
+might be other papers which would prove every
+thing needed to sentence me to execution. I was
+groping around for an idea—and then in a flash
+I realized the truth. It angered and embittered
+me.</p>
+
+<p>There passed across my memory the year and
+more of solitary confinement, during which I had
+held my tongue.</p>
+
+<p>I swung around on the Englishmen.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you the executioners of the German
+Government?” I asked. “Are you so fond of
+von Papen that you want to do him a favor? If
+you shoot me you will be obliging him.”</p>
+
+<p>The four grave faces looked at me. “We are
+going to prosecute you on this evidence,” was the
+only answer.</p>
+
+<p>“You English pride yourselves,” I said, “on
+not being taken in. Von Papen is a very clever
+man. Are you going to let him use you for his
+own purposes? Do you think he was foolish
+enough not to realize that those papers would be
+seized? Do you think”—this part of it was a
+random shot, and lucky—“do you think it is an
+accident that the only papers he carried, referring
+to a live, unsentenced man in England refer<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_207"></a>[207]</span>
+to me? Just think! Von Papen has been recalled.
+The United States can investigate his
+actions now without embarrassment. And he,
+knowing me to be one of the connecting links in
+the chain of his activities, and knowing that I am
+a prisoner liable to extradition, would ask nothing
+better than to be permanently rid of me. And
+in the papers he carried he very obligingly furnished
+you with incriminating evidence against
+me. You can choose for yourselves. Do him this
+favor if you want to. But I think I’m worth
+more to you alive than dead. Especially now
+that I see how very willing my own government
+is to have me dead.”</p>
+
+<p>The four men exchanged glances. I had made
+the appeal as a forlorn hope. Would they accept
+it and the promise it implied? I could not tell
+from their next words.</p>
+
+<p>“We shall discuss that further,” said Captain
+Carter. “You will return to Reading.”</p>
+
+<p>The next few days were full of anxiety for me.
+I could not tell how my appeal had been regarded,
+but I knew that it would be only by good
+fortune that I should escape at least a trial for
+espionage—for that is what my presence in England
+would mean. Finally I received a tentative
+assurance of immunity if I should tell what I<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_208"></a>[208]</span>
+knew of the workings of German secret agencies.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of any hesitancy I might formerly
+have felt at such a course, I decided to make a
+confession. Von Papen’s betrayal of me—for
+that he had intentionally betrayed me, I was, and
+am, convinced—was too wanton to arouse in me
+any feeling except a desire for my freedom,
+which for fifteen months I had been robbed of,
+merely through the silence which my own sense
+of honor imposed upon me. But I must be careful.
+I had no desire to injure anyone whom von
+Papen had not implicated. And I did not wish
+to betray any secret which I could safely withhold.</p>
+
+<p>I speculated upon what other documents von
+Papen might have carried. So far as I knew
+the only one involving me was the check; but of
+that I could not be sure, nor did it seem likely.
+It was more probable that there were other
+papers which would be used to test the sincerity
+of my story. My aim was to tell only such
+things as were already known, or were quite
+harmless. But how to do that? I needed some
+inkling as to what I might tell and on what I
+must be silent.</p>
+
+<p>That knowledge was difficult to obtain, but I
+finally secured it through a rather adroit questioning<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_209"></a>[209]</span>
+of one of the men who interrogated me
+at the time. He had shown me much courtesy
+and no little sympathy; and after some pains I
+managed to worm out of him a very indefinite
+but useful idea of what matters the von Papen
+documents covered.</p>
+
+<p>What I learned was sufficient to enable me to
+exclude from my story any facts implicating
+men who might be harmed by my disclosures. I
+told of the Welland Canal plot so far as my part
+in it was concerned, and I told of von Papen’s
+share in that and other activities. And I took
+care to incorporate in my confession the promise
+of immunity that had been made me tentatively.</p>
+
+<p>“I have made these statements,” I wrote, “on
+the distinct understanding that the statements I
+have made, or should make in the future, will not
+be used against me; that I am not to be prosecuted
+for participation in any enterprise directed
+against the United Kingdom or her Allies I
+engaged in at the direction of Captain von Papen
+or other representatives of the German Government;
+and that the promise made to me by Capt.
+William Hall, Chief of the Intelligence Department
+of the Admiralty, in the presence of Mr.
+Basil Thompson, former Governor of Tonga,
+and Assistant Commissioner of Police, and in the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_210"></a>[210]</span>
+presence of Superintendent Quinn, political
+branch of Scotland Yard, that I am not to be
+extradited or sent to any country where I am
+liable to punishment for political offences, is
+made on behalf of His Majesty’s Government.”</p>
+
+<p>It was on February 2nd that I turned in my
+confession and swore to the truth of it. Affairs
+went better with me after that. I was sent to
+Lewes Prison, and there I was content for the
+remainder of my stay in England. And although
+I was still a prisoner I felt more free
+than I had felt in many years. I was out of it
+all—free of the necessity to be always watchful,
+always secret. And above all, I had cut myself
+loose from the intriguing that I had once enjoyed,
+but which in the last two years I had
+grown to hate more than I hated anything else
+on earth.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp60" id="illus17" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus17.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">In the safe-deposit vault, the receipt for
+  which is reproduced herewith, Capt. von der Goltz deposited his Mexican
+  Commission and other papers which would prove his connection with the
+  Mexican Constitutionalist army. It will be noted that the receipt bears
+  von der Goltz’s signature as “B. H. Taylor,” the name under which he
+  returned to Europe.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>And there my own adventures end—so far as
+this book is concerned. I shall not do more than
+touch upon my return to the United States on
+so far different an errand than I had once
+planned. My testimony in the Grand Jury proceedings
+against Captain Tauscher, von Igel and
+other of my onetime fellow conspirators, is a
+matter of too recent record to deserve more than
+passing mention. Tauscher, you will remember,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_211"></a>[211]</span>
+was acquitted because it was impossible to prove
+that he was aware of the objects for which he
+had supplied explosives. Von Igel, Captain von
+Papen’s secretary, was protected by diplomatic
+immunity. And Fritzen and Covani, my former
+lieutenants, had not yet been captured.<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>But though my intriguing was ended, Germany’s
+was not. It may be interesting to consider
+these intrigues, in the light of what I had
+learned during those two years—and what I have
+discovered since.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_212"></a>[212]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X.</h2>
+
+<p><i>The German intrigue against the United
+States. Von Papen, Boy-Ed and von Rintelen,
+and the work they did. How the German-Americans
+were used and how they were betrayed.</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>In the long record of German intrigue in the
+United States one fact stands out predominantly.
+If you consider the tremendous ramifications
+of the system that Germany has built, the
+extent of its organization and the efficiency with
+which so gigantic a secret work was carried on,
+you will realize that this system was not the work
+of a short period but of many years. As a
+matter of fact, Germany had laid the foundation
+of that structure of espionage and conspiracy
+many years before—even before the time when
+the United States first became a Colonial Power
+and thus involved herself in the tangle of world
+politics.</p>
+
+<p>I am making no rash assertions when I state
+that ten years ago the course which German<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_213"></a>[213]</span>
+agents should adopt toward the United States
+in the event of a great European war, had been
+determined with a reasonable amount of exactness
+by the General Staff, and that it was this
+plan that was adapted to the conditions of the
+moment, and set into operation at the outbreak
+of the present conflict. No element of hostility
+lay behind this planning. Germany had no
+grievance against you; and whatever potential
+causes of conflict existed between the two nations
+lay far in the future.</p>
+
+<p>That plan, so complete in detail, so menacing
+in its intent, was but part of a world plan
+that should assure to Germany when the time
+was ripe the submission of all her enemies and
+the peaceful assistance and acquiescence in her
+aims of whatever parts of the world should at
+that time remain at peace. Germany looked far
+ahead on that day when she first knew that war
+must come. She realized, if no other nation did,
+that however strong in themselves the combatants
+were, the neutrals who should command the
+world’s supplies, would really determine the
+victory.</p>
+
+<p>Knowing this, Germany—which does not play
+the game of diplomacy with gloves on—laid her
+plans accordingly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_214"></a>[214]</span></p>
+
+<p>The United States offered a peculiarly fruitful
+field for her endeavors. By tradition and geography
+divorced from European rivalries, it was,
+nevertheless, from both an industrial and agricultural
+standpoint, obviously to become the most
+important of neutral nations. The United
+State alone could feed and equip a continent;
+and it needed no prophet to perceive that whichever
+country could appropriate to itself her resources
+would unquestionably win the war, if a
+speedy military victory were not forthcoming.</p>
+
+<p>It was Germany’s aim, therefore, to prepare
+the way by which she could secure these supplies,
+or, failing in that, to keep them from the enemy,
+England—if England it should be. In a military
+way such a plan had little chance of success.
+England’s command of the seas was too complete
+for Germany to consider that she could establish
+a successful blockade against her. It was then, I
+fancy, that Germany bethought herself of a
+greatly potential ally in the millions of citizens
+of German birth or parentage with whom the
+United States was filled.</p>
+
+<p>One may extract a trifle of cynical amusement
+from what followed. Those millions of German-Americans
+had never been regarded with affection
+in Berlin. The vast majority of them were<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_215"></a>[215]</span>
+descendants of men who had left their homes
+for political reasons; and of those who had been
+born in Germany many had emigrated to escape
+military service, and others had gone to seek a
+better opportunity than their native land provided.
+They had been called renegades who had
+given up their true allegiance for citizenship in
+a foreign country, and Bernstorff himself, according
+to the evidence of U. S. Senator Phelan,
+had said that he regarded them as traitors and
+cowards.</p>
+
+<p>But Germany voicing her own spleen in
+private and Germany with an axe to grind, were
+two different beings. And no one who observed
+the honeyed beginnings of the <i>Deutschtum</i>
+movement in America would have believed that
+these men who in public were so assiduously and
+graciously flattered were in private characterized
+as utter traitors to the Fatherland—and worse.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly no one believed it when, in 1900,
+Prince Henry of Prussia paid his famous visit to
+America. No word of criticism of these “traitors”
+was spoken by him; and when at banquets
+glasses were raised and Milwaukee smiled across
+the table at Berlin, the sentimental onlooker
+might have known a gush of joy at this spectacle
+of amity and reconciliation. And the sentimental<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_216"></a>[216]</span>
+onlooker would never have suspected that Prince
+Henry had traveled three thousand miles for any
+other purpose than to attend the launching of the
+Kaiser’s yacht <i>Meteor</i>, which was then building
+in an American yard.</p>
+
+<p>But to the cynical observer, searching the
+records of the years immediately following
+Prince Henry’s visit, a few strange facts would
+have become apparent. He would have discovered
+that German societies, which had been
+neither very numerous nor popular before, had
+in a comparatively short time acquired a membership
+and a prominence that were little short of
+remarkable. He would have noted the increasing
+number of German teachers and professors
+who appeared on the faculties of American
+schools and colleges. He would have remarked
+upon the growth in popularity of the German
+newspapers, many of them edited by Germans
+who had never become naturalized. And yet, observing
+these things, he might have agreed with
+the vast majority of Americans, in regarding
+them as entirely harmless and of significance
+merely as a proof of how hard love of one’s
+native land dies.</p>
+
+<p>He would have been mistaken had he so regarded
+them. The German Government does not<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_217"></a>[217]</span>
+spend money for sentimental purposes; and in
+the last ten years that Government has expended
+literally millions of dollars for propaganda in
+the United States. It has consistently encouraged
+a sentiment for the Fatherland that
+should be so strong that it would hold first place
+in the heart of every German-American. It has
+circulated pamphlets advocating the exclusive use
+of the German language, not merely in the
+homes, but in shops and street cars and all other
+public places. It has lent financial support to
+German organizations in America, and in a
+thousand ways has aimed so to win the hearts of
+the German-Americans that when the time
+should come the United States, by sheer force of
+numbers, would be delivered, bound hand and
+foot, into the hands of the German Government.</p>
+
+<p>It was this object of undermining the true
+allegiance of the German citizens of the United
+States which transformed an innocent and
+natural tendency into a menace that was the
+more insidious because the very people involved
+were, for the most part, entirely ignorant of its
+true nature. Germany seized upon an attachment
+that was purely one of sentiment and race
+and sought to make it an instrument of political
+power; and she went about her work with so<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_218"></a>[218]</span>
+efficient a secrecy that she very nearly accomplished
+her purpose.</p>
+
+<p>By the time the Great War broke out the
+German propaganda in America had assumed
+notable proportions. German newspapers were
+plentiful and had acquired a tremendous influence
+over the minds of German-speaking folk.
+Many of the German societies had been consolidated
+into one national organization—the German-American
+National Alliance, with a membership
+of two millions, and a president, C. J.
+Hexamer of Chicago, whose devotion to the
+Fatherland has been so great that he has since
+been decorated with the Order of the Red Eagle.
+And the German people of the United States
+had, by a long campaign of flattery and cajolery,
+coupled with a systematic glorification of German
+genius and institutions, been won to attachment
+to the country of their origin that required
+only a touch to translate it into fanaticism.</p>
+
+<p>Germany had set the stage and rehearsed the
+chorus. There were needed only the principals
+to make the drama complete. These she provided
+in the persons of four men: Franz von
+Papen, Karl Boy-Ed, Heinrich Albert, and
+later, Franz von Rintelen.</p>
+
+<p>They were no ordinary men whom Germany<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_219"></a>[219]</span>
+had appointed to the leadership of this giant
+underground warfare against a peaceful country.
+Highly bred, possessing a wide and intensive
+knowledge of finance, of military strategy and
+of diplomatic finesse, they were admirably
+equipped to win the admiration and trust of the
+people of this country, at the very moment that
+they were attacking them. All of them were
+men skilled in the art of making friends; and so
+successfully did they employ this art that their
+popularity for a long time contrived to shield
+them from suspicion. Each of these men was
+assigned to the command of some particular
+branch of German secret service. And each
+brought to his task the resources of the scientist,
+the soldier and the statesman, coupled with the
+scruples of the bandit.</p>
+
+<p>It is impossible in this brief space to tell the
+full story of the activities of these gentlemen and
+of their many, highly trained assistants. Violence,
+as you know, played no small part in their
+plans. Sedition, strikes in munitions plants, attacks
+upon ships carrying supplies to the Allies,
+the crippling of transportation facilities, bomb
+outrages—these are a few of the main elements
+in the campaign to render the United States
+useless as a source of supply for Germany’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_220"></a>[220]</span>
+enemies. But ultimately of far more importance
+than this was a program of publicity that
+should not only present to the German-Americans
+the viewpoint of their fatherland (an entirely
+legitimate propaganda) but which was
+aimed to consolidate them into a political unit
+which should be used, by peaceful means if possible—such
+as petitions and the like—and if that
+method failed, by <i>absolute armed resistance</i>, to
+force the United States Government to declare
+an embargo upon shipments of munitions and
+foodstuffs to the Allies, and to compel it to
+assume a position, if not of active alliance with
+Germany (a hope that was never seriously entertained)
+at least one which should distinctly
+favor the German Government and cause serious
+dissension between America and England.</p>
+
+<p>There followed a two-fold campaign; on the
+one hand active terrorism against private industry
+insofar as it was of value to the Allies,
+reinforced by the most determined plots against
+Canada; on the other an insincere and lying
+propaganda that presented the United States
+Government as a pretender of a neutrality which
+it did not attempt to practise—as an institution
+controlled by men who were unworthy of the
+support of any but Anglophiles and hypocrites.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_221"></a>[221]</span></p>
+
+<p>Left to itself the sympathy of German-Americans
+would have been directed toward Germany;
+stimulated as it was by an unremitting campaign
+of publicity, this sympathy became a devotion
+almost rabid in its intensity. Race consciousness
+was aroused, and placed upon the defensive by
+the attitude of the larger portion of the American
+press, the German-Americans became defiant
+and aggressive in their apologies for the Fatherland.
+Even those whose German origin was so
+remote that they were ignorant of the very
+language of their fathers, subscribed to newspapers
+and periodicals whose sole reason for
+existence was that they presented the truth—as
+Germany saw it. If in that presentation the
+German press adopted a tone that was seditious—why,
+there were those in Berlin who would
+applaud the more heartily. And in New York
+Captain von Papen and his colleagues would
+read and nod their heads approvingly.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first two months of the war,
+and of my active service in America, the campaign
+of violence was well under way. Already
+plans had been made for several enterprises
+other than the Welland Canal plot, which I have
+discussed already. Attacks had been planned
+against several vulnerable points in the Canadian<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_222"></a>[222]</span>
+Pacific Railway, such as the St. Clair Tunnel,
+running under the Detroit River at Point
+Huron, Mich.; agents had been planted in the
+various munitions factories, and spies were
+everywhere seeking possible points of vantage at
+which a blow for Germany could be struck. A
+plan had even then been made to blow up the
+railroad bridge at Vanceboro.</p>
+
+<p>But already von Papen and his associates,
+including myself, knew that Germany could
+never succeed in crippling Allied commerce in
+the United States and in proceeding effectively
+against Canada until we could count upon the
+implicit co-operation of the German-Americans,
+even though that co-operation involved active
+disloyalty to the country of their adoption.</p>
+
+<p>There lay the difficulty. That the bulk of the
+German-Americans were loyal to their government,
+I knew at the time. Now, happily, that is
+a matter that is beyond doubt. Among them
+there were, of course, many whose zeal outran
+their scruples and others whose scruples were for
+sale. But for the most part, although they could
+be cajoled into a partnership that was not always
+prudent, they could not be led beyond this point
+into positive defiance of the United States, however
+mistaken they might believe its policies.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_223"></a>[223]</span></p>
+
+<p>The rest of the story I cannot tell at first hand,
+for I was not directly concerned in the events
+that followed. What I know I have pieced
+together from my recollection of conversations
+with von Papen, and from what many people in
+Berlin, who thought I was familiar with the
+affair, told me. Who fathered the idea, I do not
+know. Some one conceived a scheme so treacherous
+and contemptible that every other act of this
+war seems white beside it. <i>It was planned so
+to discredit the German-Americans that the
+hostility of their fellow-citizens would force them
+back into the arms of the German Government.</i>
+These millions of American citizens of German
+descent were to be given the appearance of disloyalty,
+in order that they might become objects
+of suspicion to their fellows, and through their
+resentment at this attitude the cleavage between
+Germans and non-Germans in this country would
+be increased and perhaps culminate in armed
+conflict.</p>
+
+<p>On the face of it this looks like the absurd and
+impossible dream of an insane person, rather
+than a diplomatic program. And yet, if it be
+examined more closely, the plan will be seen to
+have a psychological basis that, however far-fetched,
+is essentially sound. Given a people<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_224"></a>[224]</span>
+already bewildered by the almost universal condemnation
+of a country which they have sincerely
+revered; add to that serious difference in sympathies
+an attitude of distrust of all German-Americans
+by the other inhabitants of this country;
+and you have sown the seed of a race-antagonism
+that if properly nurtured may easily
+grow into a violent hatred. In a word, Germany
+had decided that if the German-Americans could
+not be coaxed back into the fold they might be
+beaten back. She set about her part of the task
+with an industry that would have commanded
+admiration had it been better employed.</p>
+
+<p>Glance back over the history of the past three
+years and consider how, almost over night, the
+“hyphen” situation developed. America, shaken
+by a war which had been declared to be impossible,
+become suddenly conscious of the presence
+within her borders of a portion of her population—a
+nation in numbers—largely unassimilated,
+retaining its own language, and possessing
+characteristics which suddenly became conspicuously
+distasteful. Inevitably, as I say, the
+cleavage in sympathies produced distrust. But
+it was not until stories of plots in which German-Americans
+were implicated became current that
+this distrust developed into an acute suspicion.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_225"></a>[225]</span>
+Germanophobia was rampant in those days, and
+to hysterical persons it was unthinkable that any
+German could be exempt from the suspicion of
+treason.</p>
+
+<p>It was upon this foundation that the German
+agents erected their structure of lies and defamation.
+Not content with the efforts which the
+jingo press and jingo individuals were unconsciously
+making in their behalf, they deliberately
+set on foot rumors which were intended to increase
+the distrust of German-Americans. I
+happen to know that during the first two years
+of the war, many of the stories about German
+attempts upon Canada, about German-American
+complicity in various plots, <i>emanated from the
+offices of Captain von Papen and his associates</i>.
+I know also that many plots in which German-Americans
+were concerned had been deliberately
+encouraged by von Papen and afterward as
+deliberately betrayed! Time after time, enterprises
+with no chance of success were set on foot
+with the sole purpose of having them fail—for
+thus Germany could furnish to the world evidence
+that America was honey-combed with
+sedition and treachery—evidence which Americans
+themselves would be the first to accept.</p>
+
+<p>It was in reality a gigantic game of bluff.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_226"></a>[226]</span>
+Germany wished to give to the world convincing
+proof that all peoples of German descent were
+solidly supporting her. It was for this reason
+that reports of impossible German activities were
+set afloat; that rumors of Germans massing in
+the Maine woods, of aëroplane flights over
+Canada, and of all sorts of enterprises which had
+no basis in fact, were disseminated. And since
+many anti-German papers had been indiscreet
+enough to attack the German-Americans as disloyal,
+the German agents used and fomented
+these attacks for their own purposes.</p>
+
+<p>Who could gain by such a campaign of slander
+and the feeling it would produce? Certainly not
+the Administration, which had great need of a
+united country behind it. Certainly not the
+American press, which was certain to lose circulation
+and advertising; nor American business,
+which would suffer from the loss of thousands of
+customers of German descent, who would turn
+to the German merchant for their needs. Only
+two classes could profit: the German press, which
+was liberally subsidized by the German Government,
+and the German Government itself.</p>
+
+<p>It was to the interests of the administration at
+Washington to keep the country united by keeping
+the Germans disunited. The reverse condition<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_227"></a>[227]</span>
+would tend to indicate that Americanism was a
+failure, since the country was divided at a
+critical time; it would seriously hamper the
+Government in its dealings with all the warring
+nations; and it would be of benefit only to the
+German societies and German press, and through
+them to the German Government. It <i>was</i> of
+benefit. The German newspapers increased their
+circulations and advertising revenues, in many
+cases by more than one hundred per cent. German
+banks and insurance companies received
+money that had formerly gone to American institutions
+and which now went to swell the
+Imperial German War Loans. And the German
+clubs increased their memberships and became
+more and more instruments of power in the work
+of Germany.</p>
+
+<p>There is a typical German club in New York—the
+<i>Deutscher Verein</i> on Central Park South.
+During the war it has been used as a sub-office
+of the German General Staff. It was here that
+von Papen used to store the dynamite that was
+needed in such enterprises as the Welland Canal
+plot. It was here that conspirators used to meet
+for conferences which no one, not even the other
+members of the club, could tell were not as innocent
+as they seemed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_228"></a>[228]</span></p>
+
+<p>These German societies and other agencies
+were used not merely to promote sympathy for
+the German cause, but also to influence public
+opinion in matters of purely American interest.
+On January 21, 1916, Henry Weismann, president
+of the Brooklyn branch of the German-American
+National Alliance sent a report to
+headquarters in Chicago, regarding the activities
+of his organization in the recent elections. In
+the Twenty-third Congressional District of New
+York, Ellsworth J. Healy had been a candidate
+for Congress. Both he and another man, John
+J. Fitzgerald, candidate for Justice of the
+Supreme Court of New York, were regarded by
+German interests as “unneutral.” They were
+defeated, and Weismann in commenting upon
+the matter, wrote: “<i>The election returns prove
+that Deutschtum is armed and able, when the
+word is given, to seat its men.</i>”</p>
+
+<p>Even in the campaign for preparedness Germany
+took a hand. Berlin was appealed to in
+some cases as to the attitude that American citizens
+of German descent should adopt toward this
+policy. Professor Appelmann of the University
+of Vermont wrote to Dr. Paul Rohrbach, one of
+the advisers of the Wilhelmstrasse, requesting his
+advice upon the subject. Dr. Rohrbach replied<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_229"></a>[229]</span>
+that American <i>Deutschtum</i> should not be in
+favor of preparedness, because “<i>it is quite conceivable
+that in the event of an American-Japanese
+war, Germany might adopt an attitude of
+very benevolent neutrality toward Japan and so
+make it easier for Japan to defeat the United
+States</i>.” And not long ago the <i>Herold des
+Glaubens</i> of St. Louis, made this statement:
+“When we found that the agitation for preparedness
+was in the interest of the munition
+makers and that its aim was a war with Germany,
+we certainly turned against it and we have
+agitated against it for the last three months.”</p>
+
+<p>But this anti-militaristic spirit was a rather
+sudden development on the part of the German
+societies. In 1911, when a new treaty of arbitration
+with Great Britain was under consideration,
+a group of roughs, <i>led and organized by a German</i>,
+violently broke up a meeting held under
+the auspices of the New York Peace Society to
+support that treaty. The man who broke that
+meeting up was Alphonse G. Koelble. It was
+this same Koelble who in 1915, when Germany’s
+attack upon America was most bitter, organized
+a meeting of “The Friends of Peace,” in order
+to protest against militarism! Strange, is it not,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_230"></a>[230]</span>
+this inconsistency? <i>Or was it that Mr. Koelble
+was acting under orders?</i></p>
+
+<p>Germany did these things not only for their
+political effect, but also because she knew that
+she could turn the evidence of her own meddling
+to account. It was for the same reason that
+Wolf von Igel, von Papen’s secretary and successor,
+retained in his office a list of American
+citizens of German descent who “could be relied
+on.” This list was found by agents of the Department
+of Justice when von Igel’s office was
+raided. And the German agents were glad it
+was discovered. <i>It gave to Americans an additional
+proof of the hold that Germany had
+obtained over a large group of German-Americans.</i></p>
+
+<p>It was as late as March, 1916, that the members
+of the Minnesota chapter of the German-American
+National Alliance received a circular,
+advising them of the attitude <i>toward Germany</i>
+of the various candidates for delegate to the
+national conventions of the different parties, and
+indicating by a star the names of those men
+“about whom it has been ascertained that they are
+in agreement with the views and wishes of
+<i>Deutschland</i> and that if elected they will act
+accordingly.” I do not believe that the men who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_231"></a>[231]</span>
+sent that circular expected it to be widely obeyed.
+But unquestionably they knew it would be made
+public.</p>
+
+<p>I think that if the German conspirators in
+America had confined their activities to this field
+they might ultimately have succeeded. They had
+managed to seduce a sufficient number of German-Americans
+to cause the entire German-American
+population to be regarded with suspicion.
+They had contrived to discredit the
+pacifist and labor movements by making public
+their own connection with individuals in these
+bodies. They had aroused the public to such a
+pitch of distrust that in the Presidential campaign
+of 1916 the support of the “German vote”
+was regarded with distaste by both candidates.
+And they had helped to create so tremendous a
+dissension in America that friendships of long
+standing were broken up, German merchants in
+many communities lost all but their German
+customers, and German-Americans were belabored
+in print with such twaddle as the following:</p>
+
+<p>“The German-Americans predominate in the
+grog-shops, low dives, pawn shops and numerous
+artifices for money-making and corrupt practices
+in politics.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_232"></a>[232]</span></p>
+
+<p>The foregoing statement, which I quote from
+a book, “German Conspiracies in the United
+States,” written by a gentleman named Skaggs,
+is not perhaps a fair sample of the attacks made
+upon German-Americans by the press in general,
+but it is indicative of the heights to which feeling
+ran in the case of a few uninformed or hysterical
+persons. The point is that to a large portion of
+the populace the German-Americans had become
+enemies and objects of abuse.</p>
+
+<p>They, in turn, beset on all sides by a campaign
+of slander insidiously fostered by men to whom
+they had given their trust, did exactly what had
+been expected. They fell right into the arms
+of that movement which for fourteen years had
+been subsidized for that very purpose. They
+ceased to read American newspapers. They read
+German newspapers, many of which almost
+openly preached disloyalty to the United States.
+They became clannish and joined German
+societies which frequently contained German
+agents. They began to boycott American business
+houses and dealt only with those of German
+affiliations.</p>
+
+<p>Germany had gained her point. She alone
+could gain by the disunity of the country. It was
+to her advantage that the profits which had<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_233"></a>[233]</span>
+formerly gone to American business houses
+should be deflected to German corporations.
+<i>And had she rested her efforts there, she might,
+as I say, have seen them produce results in the
+form of riots and armed dissension, which would
+have effectively prevented the United States
+from entering the war.</i></p>
+
+<p>But Germany over-reached herself. Emboldened
+by the apparent success of their schemes,
+her principal agents, von Papen, Boy-Ed and
+von Rintelen (who had begun his work in January,
+1915) became careless, so far as secrecy was
+concerned, and so audacious in their plans that
+they betrayed themselves, perhaps intentionally,
+as a final demonstration of their power. The
+results you know. Insofar as the disclosures of
+their activities tended further to implicate the
+German-Americans, they did harm. But by
+those very disclosures the eyes of many German-Americans
+were opened to the true nature of the
+influence to which they had been subjected, and
+through that fact the worst element of the German
+propaganda in America received its death
+blow.</p>
+
+<p>To-day the United States is at war and no
+intelligent man now questions the loyalty of the
+majority of the citizens of German blood. That<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_234"></a>[234]</span>
+in the past their sympathies have been with
+Germany is unquestioned and, from their standpoint,
+entirely proper. That in many cases they
+view the participation of the United States in
+the war with regret is probable. But that they
+will stand up and if need be fight as staunchly
+as any other group in the country, no man may
+doubt.</p>
+
+<p>That is the story of the darkest chapter in the
+history of German intrigue. Other things have
+been done in this war at which a humane man
+may blush. Other crimes have been committed
+which not even the staunchest partisan can condone.
+But at least it may be said that those
+things were done to enemies or to neutral people
+whom fortune had put in the way of injury. The
+betrayal of the German-Americans was a wanton
+crime against men whom every association and
+every tie of kinship or tradition should have
+served to protect.</p>
+
+<p>Germany has not yet abandoned that attack.
+There are still spies in the United States, you
+may be sure—still intrigues are being fostered.
+And there are still men who, consciously or unconsciously,
+are striving to discredit the German-Americans
+by presenting them as unwilling to
+bear their share in the burden of the nation’s<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_235"></a>[235]</span>
+war. Only a week before these lines were written
+one man—George Sylvester Viereck—circulated
+a petition begging that Germans should not be
+sent to fight their countrymen, and an organization
+of German Protestant churches in America
+is repeating this plea. As a German whom
+fortune has placed outside the battle, and as one
+whose patriotism is extended toward blood rather
+than dynasty, I ask Mr. Viereck and these other
+gentlemen if they have not forgotten that many
+German-Americans have already shown their
+feelings by volunteering for service in this war—and
+if they have not also forgotten that the two
+great wars of American history were fought
+between men of the same blood.</p>
+
+<p>Ties of blood have never prevented men from
+fighting for a cause which they believed to be
+just. They will not in this war! And when Mr.
+Viereck and his kind protest against the participation
+in the war of men of any descent whatever,
+they imply that the American cause is <i>not</i> just
+and that it is not worthy of the support of the
+men they claim to represent.</p>
+
+<p>Is this their intention?</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_236"></a>[236]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI.</h2>
+
+<p><i>More about the German intrigue against
+the United States. German aims in Latin
+America. Japan and Germany in Mexico.
+What happened in Cuba?</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>“American intervention in Mexico would
+mean another Ireland, another Poland—another
+sore spot in the world. Well, why not?”</p>
+
+<p>Those were almost the last words spoken to
+me when I left Germany in 1914, upon my ill-fated
+mission to England. I had in my pocket
+at the moment detailed memoranda of instructions
+which, if they could be carried out, would
+insure such disturbances in Mexico that the
+United States would be compelled to intervene.
+I had been given authority to spend almost unlimited
+sums of money for the purchase of arms,
+for the bribery of officials—for anything in fact
+that would cause trouble in Mexico. And the
+words I have quoted were not spoken by an uninformed
+person with a taste for cynical comment;
+they were uttered by Major Köhnemann,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_237"></a>[237]</span>
+of Abteilung III B of the German General
+Staff. They form a lucid and concrete explanation
+of German activities in Mexico during the
+past eight years.</p>
+
+<p>Long before this war began German agents
+were at work in Mexico, stirring up trouble in
+the hope of causing the United States to intervene.
+I have already told how, in 1910 and 1911,
+Germany had encouraged Japan and Mexico in
+negotiating a treaty that was to give Japan an
+important foothold in Mexico. I have told how,
+after this treaty was well on the way to completion,
+Germany saw to it that knowledge of the
+projected terms was brought to the attention of
+the United States—thereby indirectly causing
+Diaz’s abdication. That instance is not an
+isolated case of Germany meddling in Mexican
+affairs. Rather is it symptomatic of the traditional
+policy of Wilhelmstrasse in regard to
+America.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well to examine this policy more
+closely than I have done. Long ago Germany
+saw in South America a fertile field for exploitation,
+not only in a commercial way, in which it
+presented excellent opportunities to German
+manufacturers, but also as a possible opportunity
+for expansion which had been denied her elsewhere.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_238"></a>[238]</span>
+All of the German colonies were in torrid
+climates, in which life for the white man was
+attended with tremendous hardships and exploitation
+and colonization were consequently
+impeded. Only in the Far East and in South
+America could she find territories either unprotected
+through their own weakness, or so thinly
+settled that they offered at once a temptation
+and an opportunity to the nation with imperialistic
+ambitions. In the former quarter she was
+blocked by a concert of the Powers, many of
+them actuated by similar aims, but all working at
+such cross purposes that aggression by any one
+of them was impossible. I have already alluded
+to the result of such a situation in my discussion
+of the Anglo-Persian Agreement. In South
+America there was only one formidable obstacle
+to German expansion—the Monroe Doctrine.</p>
+
+<p>I am stating the case with far less than its true
+complexity. There were, it is true, many facts
+in the form of conflicting rivalries of the Powers
+as well as internal conditions in South America,
+that would have had a deterrent effect upon the
+German program. Nevertheless, it is certain
+that the prime factor in keeping Germany out
+of South America was the traditional policy of
+the United States; and, so far as the German<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_239"></a>[239]</span>
+Government’s attitude in the matter is concerned,
+it is the only phase of the problem worth considering.</p>
+
+<p>Germany had no intention of securing territory
+by a war of conquest. Her method was far
+simpler and much less assailable. She promptly
+instituted a peaceful invasion of various parts of
+the continent; first in the persons of merchants
+who captured trade but did not settle permanently
+in the country; second, by means of a vast
+army of immigrants, who, unlike those who a
+generation before had come to the United States,
+settled, <i>but retained their German citizenship</i>.
+With this unnaturalized element she hoped to
+form a nucleus in many of the important South
+American countries, which, wielding a tremendous
+commercial power and possessing a
+political influence that was considerable, although
+indirect, would aid her in determining the course
+of South American politics so that by a form of
+peaceful expansion she could eventually achieve
+her aims.</p>
+
+<p>Was this a dream? At any rate it received
+the support of many of the ablest statesmen of
+Germany, who duly set about the task of discrediting
+the Monroe Doctrine in the eyes of the
+very people it was designed to protect, so that<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_240"></a>[240]</span>
+the United States, if it ever came forcibly to defend
+the Doctrine, would find itself opposed not
+only by Germany but by South America as well.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the easiest way to cast suspicion upon a
+policy is to discredit the sponsor of it. In the
+case of the United States and South America
+this was not at all difficult; for the southern
+nations already possessed a well defined fear and
+a dislike of their northern neighbor that were
+not by any means confined to the more ignorant
+portions of the population. Fear of American
+aggression has been somewhat of a bugaboo in
+many quarters. Recognizing this, Germany,
+which has always adopted the policy of aggravating
+ready-made troubles for her own ends,
+steadily fomented that fear by means of a quiet
+but well-conducted propaganda, <i>and also by
+seeking to force the United States into taking
+action that would justify that fear</i>.</p>
+
+<p>As a means toward securing this latter end,
+Mexico presented itself as a heaven-sent opportunity.
+Even in the days when it was, to outward
+eyes, a well-ordered community, there had
+been men in the United States who had expressed
+themselves in favor of an expansion southward
+which would result in the ultimate absorption of
+Mexico; and although such talk had never attracted<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_241"></a>[241]</span>
+much attention in the quarter from which
+it emanated, there were those who saw to it that
+proposals of this sort received an effective publicity
+south of the Isthmus. Given, then, a
+Mexico in which discontent had become so acute
+that it was being regarded with alarm by American
+and foreign investors, the possibility of intervention
+became more immediate and the opportunity
+of the trouble-maker increased proportionately.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp44" id="illus18" style="max-width: 31.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus18.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">The order for the deportation of von der
+  Goltz which for some reason was not put into effect.</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>Germany’s first step in this direction, was, as
+you know, the encouragement of a Japanese-Mexican
+alliance, the failure of which was a vital
+part of her program. It was a risky undertaking,
+for if, by any chance, the alliance were
+successfully concluded, the United States might
+well hesitate to attack the combined forces of the
+two countries; and Mexico, fortified by Japan,
+would present a bulwark against the real or
+fancied danger of American expansion, that, for
+a time at least, would effectually allay the fears
+of South America. That risk Germany took,
+and insofar as she had planned to prevent the
+alliance scored a success. That she failed in her
+principal aim was due to the anti-imperialistic
+tendencies of the United States and the statesmanship<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_242"></a>[242]</span>
+of Señor Limantour, rather than to any
+other cause.</p>
+
+<p>Then came the Madero Administration with
+its mystical program of reform—and an opposition
+headed by almost all of the able men in
+the republic, both Mexican and foreign. Bitterly
+fought by the ring of Cientificoes, who saw the
+easy spoils of the past slipping from their hands;
+distrusted by many honest men, who sincerely
+believed that Mexico was better ruled by an able
+despot than by an upright visionary; hampered
+by the aloofness of foreign business and governments,
+waiting for a success which they alone
+could insure, before they should approve and
+support; and constantly beset with uneasiness by
+the incomprehensible attitude of the Taft Administration
+and of its Ambassador—the fate of
+the Madero Government was easily foreseen.</p>
+
+<p>Before Madero had been in power for three
+months this opposition had taken form as a campaign
+of obstruction in the Mexican Chamber of
+Deputies, supported by the press, controlled
+almost exclusively by the Cientificoes and by
+foreign capitalists; by the clergy, who had reason
+to suspect the Government of anti-clerical tendencies;
+and by isolated groups of opportunity
+seekers who saw in the Administration an obstacle<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_243"></a>[243]</span>
+to their own political and economic aims.
+The Madero family were represented as incompetent
+and self-seeking; and in a short time the
+populace, which a month before had hailed the
+new government as a savior of the country, had
+been persuaded that its program of economic
+reform had been merely a political pretense, and
+accordingly added its strength to the party of
+the Opposition.</p>
+
+<p>Here was tinder aplenty for a conflagration
+of sorts. Germany applied the torch at its most
+inflammable spot.</p>
+
+<p>That inflammable spot happened to be a
+man—Pazcual Orozco. Orozco had been one of
+Madero’s original supporters, and in the days
+of the Madero revolution had rendered valuable
+services to his chief. An ex-muleteer, uncouth
+and without education, he possessed considerable
+ability; but his vanity and reputation were far
+in excess of his attainments. Unquestionably he
+had expected that Madero’s success would mean
+a brilliant future for himself, although it is difficult
+to tell in just what direction his ambitions
+pointed. Madero had placed him in command of
+the most important division of the Federal army,
+but this presumably did not content him. At any
+rate, early in February, 1912, he made a demand<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_244"></a>[244]</span>
+upon the Government for two hundred and fifty
+thousand pesos, threatening that he would withdraw
+from the services of the Government unless
+this “honorarium”—honesty would call it a bribe—were
+paid to him. Madero refused his demand,
+but with mistaken leniency retained Orozco
+in office—and on February 27, Orozco repaid
+this trust by turning traitor at Chihuahua, and
+involving in his defection six thousand of Mexico’s
+best troops as well as a quantity of supplies.</p>
+
+<p>Now mark the trail of German intrigue. In
+Mexico City, warmly supporting the Madero
+Government, but of little real power in the country,
+was the German Minister, Admiral von
+Hintze. Under normal circumstances, his influence
+would have been of great value in helping
+to render secure the position of Madero; but with
+means of communication disrupted as they were
+to a large extent, his power was inconceivably
+less than that of the German consuls, all of whom
+were well liked and respected by the Mexicans
+with whom they were in close touch. Apart from
+their political office, these men represented German
+business interests in Mexico, particularly in
+the fields of hardware and banking. In the three
+northern cities of Parral, Chihuahua and Zacatecas,
+the German consuls were hardware merchants.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_245"></a>[245]</span>
+In Torreon the consul was director of
+the German bank. As such it would seem that it
+was to their interests to work for the preservation
+of a stable government in Mexico. And yet the
+fact remains that when Orozco first began to show
+signs of discontent, these men encouraged him
+with a support that was both moral and financial;
+and when the general finally turned traitor, it
+was my old friend, Consul Kueck, who, as President
+of the Chamber of Commerce of Chihuahua,
+voted to support him and to recognize Orozco’s
+supremacy in that State!</p>
+
+<p>I leave it to the reader to decide whether it was
+the Minister or the consuls who really represented
+the German Government.</p>
+
+<p>It would be idle to attempt to trace more than
+in the briefest way Germany’s part in the events
+of the next few years. Always she followed a
+policy of obstruction and deceit. During the
+months immediately succeeding the Orozco outbreak,
+at the very moment that von Hintze was
+lending his every effort to the preservation of the
+Madero regime, sending to Berlin reports which
+over and over again reiterated his belief that
+Madero could, if given a free hand, restore order
+in the republic, the German consuls were openly
+fomenting disorder in the North.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_246"></a>[246]</span></p>
+
+<p>They were particularly well equipped to make
+trouble, by their position in the community and
+by the character and reputation of the rest of the
+German population. It may be said with safety
+that however careless Germany has been about
+the quality of the men whom she has allowed to
+emigrate to other countries, her representatives
+throughout all of Latin-America have been conspicuous
+for their commercial attainments and
+for their social adaptability. This, in a large way
+has been responsible for the German commercial
+success in Central and South America. As bankers
+they have been honest and obliging in the
+matter of credit. As merchants they have
+adapted themselves to the local conditions and to
+the habits of their customers with notable success.
+In consequence they have been well-liked as individuals
+and have been of immense value in increasing
+the prestige of the German Empire. In
+Mexico they were the only foreigners who were
+not disliked by either peon or aristocrat; and it
+is significant to note that during seven years of
+unrest in that country, Germans alone among
+peoples of European stock have remained practically
+unmolested by any party.</p>
+
+<p>Consider of what service this condition was in
+their campaign. Respected, influential, they<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_247"></a>[247]</span>
+were in an excellent position to stimulate whatever
+anti-American feeling existed in the Latin
+American countries. At the same time, they
+were equally well situated to encourage the unrest
+in Mexico that would be the surest guarantee
+of American intervention—and the coalition
+against the United States which intervention
+would be certain to provoke. They made the
+utmost use of their advantage, and they did it
+without arousing suspicion or rebuke.</p>
+
+<p>After the failure of the short-lived Orozco outbreak,
+events in Mexico seemed to promise a
+peaceful solution of all difficulties. Many of
+Madero’s opponents declared a truce, and the
+irreconcileables were forced to bide their time in
+apparent harmlessness. In November came the
+rebellion of Felix Diaz, fathered by a miscellaneous
+group of conspirators who hoped to find
+in the nephew sufficient of the characteristics of
+the great Porfirio to serve their purposes. This
+venture failed also. Again Madero showed a
+mistaken leniency in preserving the life of Diaz.
+He paid for it with his life. Out of this uprising
+came the <i>coup d’etat</i> of General Huerta—made
+possible by a dual treachery—and the murder of
+the only man who at the time gave promise of
+eventually solving the Mexican problem.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_248"></a>[248]</span></p>
+
+<p>What share German agents had in that tragic
+affair I do not know. You may be sure that they
+took advantage of any opportunity that presented
+itself to encourage the conspirators in a
+project that gave such rich promise of aiding
+them in their purposes. I pass on to the next
+positive step in their campaign. That was a
+repetition of their old plan of inserting the
+Japanese question into the general muddle.</p>
+
+<p>The Japanese question in Mexico is a very
+real one. I know—and the United States Government
+presumably knows, also—that Japan
+is the only nation which has succeeded in gaining
+a permanent foothold in Mexico. I know that
+spies and secret agents in the guise of peddlars,
+engineers, fishermen, farmers, charcoal burners,
+merchants and even officers in the armies of every
+Mexican leader have been scattered throughout
+the country. The number of these latter I have
+heard estimated at about eight hundred; at any
+rate it is considerable. There are also about ten
+thousand Japanese who have no direct connection
+with Tokio but who are practically all men of
+military age, either unmarried or without wives
+in Mexico—most of them belonging to the army
+or navy reserve. And, like the Germans, the
+Japanese never lose their connection with the<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_249"></a>[249]</span>
+Government in their capacity as private individuals.</p>
+
+<p>Through the great government-owned steamship
+line, the Toyo Kisen Kaisha, the Japanese
+Government controls the land for a Japanese
+coaling station at Manzanilla. At Acapulco a
+Japanese company holds a land concession on a
+high hill three miles from the sea. It is difficult
+to see what legitimate use a fishing company
+could make of this location. It is, however, an
+ideal site for a wireless station. In Mexico City
+an intimate friend of the Japanese Chargé
+d’Affaires owns a fortress-like building in the
+very heart of the capital. Another Japanese
+holds, under a ninety-nine year lease, an
+L-shaped strip of land partly surrounding and
+completely commanding the water works of the
+capital of Oxichimilco. The land is undeveloped.
+Both of these Japanese are well supplied with
+money and have been living in Mexico City for
+several years. Neither one has any visible means
+of support. And in all of the years of revolution
+in Mexico no Japanese have been killed—except
+by Villa. He has caused many of them to be
+executed, but always those that were masquerading
+as Chinese. Naturally a government cannot
+protest under such circumstances.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_250"></a>[250]</span></p>
+
+<p>These facts may or may not be significant.
+They serve to lend color to the convictions of
+anti-Japanese agitators in the United States, and
+as such they have been of value to Germany.
+Accordingly it was suggested to Señor Huerta
+that an alliance with Japan would be an excellent
+protective measure for him to take.</p>
+
+<p>Huerta had two reasons for looking with favor
+upon this proposal. He was very decidedly in
+the bad graces of Washington, and he was constantly
+menaced by the presence in Mexico of
+Felix Diaz, to whom he had agreed to resign the
+Presidency. Diaz was too popular to be shot,
+too strong politically to be exiled and yet—he
+must be removed. Here, thought Huerta, was
+an opportunity of killing two birds with one
+stone. He therefore sent Diaz to Japan, ostensibly
+to thank the Japanese Government for its
+participation in the Mexican Centennial celebration,
+three years before, but in reality to begin
+negotiations for a treaty which should follow the
+lines of the one unsuccessfully promulgated in
+1911.</p>
+
+<p>Señor Diaz started for Japan—but he never
+arrived there. Somehow the State Department
+at Washington got news of the proposed<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_251"></a>[251]</span>
+treaty—how, only the German agents know—and
+Señor Diaz’s course was diverted.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, in spite of the strained relations
+between Huerta and Washington, Germany was
+aiding the Mexican president with money and
+supplies. In the north, Consuls Kueck of Chihuahua,
+Sommer of Durango, Muller of Hermosillo,
+and Weber of Juarez were exhibiting
+the same interest in the Huertista troops that
+they had formerly displayed toward Orozco.
+Kueck, as I happened to learn later, had financed
+Salvator Mercado, the general who had so
+obligingly tried to have me shot; and at the same
+time he was assiduously spreading reports of
+unrest in Mexico, and even attempted to bribe
+some Germans to leave the country, upon the
+plea that their lives were in danger.</p>
+
+<p>When I raided the German Consulate at Chihuahua,
+I found striking documentary proof of
+his activities in this direction. There were letters
+there proving that he had paid to various Germans
+sums ranging as high as fifty dollars a
+month, upon condition that they should remain
+outside of Mexico. These letters, in many cases,
+showed plainly that this was done in order to
+make it seem that the unrest was endangering
+the lives of foreign inhabitants; in spite of which<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_252"></a>[252]</span>
+several of the recipients complained that their
+absence from Mexico was causing them considerable
+financial loss, and showed an evident desire
+to brave whatever dangers there might be—if
+they could secure the permission of Consul
+Kueck.</p>
+
+<p>During the year and more that Huerta held
+power, Germany followed the same tactics. I
+need not remind you of the attempt to supply
+Huerta with munitions after the United States
+had declared an embargo upon them; or that it
+has been generally admitted that the real purpose
+of the seizure of Vera Cruz by United States
+marines was to prevent the German steamer
+<i>Ypiranga</i> from delivering her cargo of arms to
+the Mexicans. That is but one instance of the
+way in which German policy worked—a policy
+which, as I have indicated, was opposed to the
+true interests of Mexico, and has been solely
+directed against the United States. Up to the
+very outbreak of the war it continued. After
+Villa’s breach with Carranza, emissaries of
+Consul Kueck approached the former with offers
+of assistance. Strangely enough he rejected
+them, principally because he hates the Germans
+for the assistance they gave his old enemy,
+Orozco. Villa had, moreover, a personal grudge<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_253"></a>[253]</span>
+against Kueck. When General Mercado was
+defeated at Ojinaga, papers were found in his
+effects that implicated the Consul in a conspiracy
+against the Constitutionalists, although at the
+time Kueck professed friendship for Villa and
+was secretly doing all he could to increase the
+friction that existed between the general and
+Mercado. Villa had sworn vengeance against the
+double-dealer; and Kueck, in alarm, fled into the
+United States.</p>
+
+<p>With the outbreak of the Great War the situation
+changed in one important particular. Heretofore,
+German activities had been part of a plan
+of attack upon the prestige of the United States.
+Now they became necessary as a measure of defense.
+Before two months had passed it became
+evident to the German Government that the
+United States <i>must</i> be forced into a war with
+Mexico in order to prevent the shipment of
+munitions to Europe.</p>
+
+<p>So began the last stage of the German intrigue
+in Mexico—an intrigue which still continues. As
+a preliminary step, Germany had organized her
+own citizens in that country into a well-drilled
+military unit—a little matter which Captain von
+Papen had attended to during the spring of 1914.
+One can read much between the lines of the report<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_254"></a>[254]</span>
+sent to the Imperial Chancellor by Admiral
+von Hintze, commenting upon the work of
+Captain von Papen in this direction. The
+Admiral says in part: “He showed especial industry
+in organizing the Germany colony for
+purposes of self-defense, and out of this shy and
+factious material, unwilling to undertake any
+military activity, he obtained what there was to
+be got.”</p>
+
+<p>Von Hintze significantly recommends that the
+captain should be decorated with the fourth class
+of the Order of the Red Eagle.</p>
+
+<p>As I have stated elsewhere, I left Germany in
+October of 1914, with a detailed plan of campaign
+for the “American front,” as Dr. Albert
+once put it. My final instructions were simple
+and explicit.</p>
+
+<p>“There must be constant uprisings in Mexico,”
+I was told, in effect. “Villa, Carranza, must be
+reached. Zapata must continue his maraudings.
+It does not matter in the least how you produce
+these results. Merely produce them. All consuls
+have been instructed to furnish you with whatever
+sums you need—<i>and they will not ask you
+any questions</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Rather complete, was it not? I left with every
+intention of carrying the instructions out—and in<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_255"></a>[255]</span>
+a little over a week was made <i>hors de combat</i>. It
+was then that von Rintelen, who had already
+planned to come over to the United States in
+order to inaugurate a vast blockade running system,
+undertook to add my undertaking to his
+own responsibilities.</p>
+
+<p>What von Rintelen did is well known, so I
+shall only summarize it here. His first act was
+an attempted restitution of General Huerta,
+which he knew was the most certain method of
+causing intervention. Into this enterprise both
+Boy-Ed and von Papen were impressed, and the
+three men set about the task of making arrangements
+with former Huertistas for a new uprising
+to be financed by German money. They sent
+agents to Barcelona to persuade the former
+dictator to enter into the scheme; and finally,
+when the general was on his way to America, they
+attempted to arrange it so that he should arrive
+safely in New York and ultimately in Mexico.
+It was a plan remarkably well conceived and
+well executed. It would have succeeded but for
+one thing. General Huerta was captured by
+the United States authorities at the very moment
+that he tried to cross from Texas into Mexico!</p>
+
+<p>But the indomitable von Rintelen was not discouraged.
+He had but one purpose—to make<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_256"></a>[256]</span>
+trouble—and he made it with a will. He sent
+money to Villa, and then, like the philanthropist
+in Chesterton’s play, supported the other side by
+aiding Carranza, financing Zapata and starting
+two other revolutions in Mexico. Meanwhile
+anti-American feeling continued to be stirred up.
+German papers in Mexico presented the Fatherland’s
+case as eloquently as they did elsewhere,
+and to a far more appreciative audience. Carranza
+was encouraged in his rather unfriendly
+attitude toward Washington. In a word, no
+step was neglected which would embarrass the
+Wilson Administration and make peace between
+the two countries more certain or more difficult
+to maintain.</p>
+
+<p>Need I complete the story? Is it necessary to
+tell how, after the recall of von Papen and
+Boy-Ed and the escape of von Rintelen, Mexico
+continued to be used as the catspaw of the German
+plotters? Every one knows the events of the
+last few months; of the concentration of German
+reservists in various parts of Mexico; of the
+bitter attacks made upon the United States by
+pro-German newspapers; and of the reports,
+greatly exaggerating German activities in Mexico,
+which have been circulated with the direct
+intention of provoking still more ill-feeling between<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_257"></a>[257]</span>
+the two countries by leading Americans to
+believe that Mexico is honey-combed with German
+conspiracies.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp54" id="illus19" style="max-width: 25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/illus19.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption><p class="caption">Cover of the British White Paper,
+  containing von der Goltz’s confession, and referring to him as
+  “Bridgeman Taylor.”</p></figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>These activities have not applied to Mexico
+alone. It is significant that twice in February of
+this year the Venezuelan Government has declined
+to approve of the request of President
+Wilson that other neutral nations join him in
+breaking diplomatic relations with Germany as
+a protest against submarine warfare, and that
+many Venezuelan papers have stated that this
+refusal is due to the representations of resident
+Germans, who are many and influential. These
+are, of course, legitimate activities, but they are
+in every case attended by a threat. Revolutions
+are easily begun in Latin America, and the
+obstinate government can always be brought to
+a reasonable viewpoint by the example of recent
+uprisings or revolutions, financed by Germany,
+in Costa Rica, Peru and Cuba. Within a very
+recent time, rumors were afloat in Venezuela that
+Germany was assisting General Cipriano Castro
+in the revolutionary movement that he had been
+organizing in Porto Rico. It was reported that
+there were on the Colombian frontier many disaffected
+persons who would gladly join Castro<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_258"></a>[258]</span>
+if he landed in Colombia and marched on Caracas,
+as he did successfully in 1890.</p>
+
+<p>For several years the Telefunken Co., a German
+corporation, has tried to obtain from the
+Venezuelan Government a concession to operate
+a wireless plant, which should be of greater power
+than any other in South America. When this
+proposal was last made, certain ministers were
+for accepting it, but the majority of the Government
+realized the uses to which the plant could be
+put and refused to grant the concession. An
+alternative proposal, made by the Government,
+to establish a station of less strength, was rejected
+by the company.</p>
+
+<p>Germany has steadily sought such wireless
+sites throughout this region. Several have been
+established in Mexico, and in 1914 it was through
+a wireless station in Colombia, that the German
+Admiral von Spee was enabled to keep informed
+of the movements of the squadron of Admiral Sir
+Christopher Cradock—information which resulted
+in the naval battle in Chilean waters with
+a loss of three British battleships. It was after
+this battle that Colombia ordered the closing of
+all wireless stations on its coasts.</p>
+
+<p>In Cuba, too, the hand of Germany has been
+evident, in spite of the disclaimers which have<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_259"></a>[259]</span>
+been made by both parties in the recent rebellion.
+That rebellion grew out of the contested election
+in November, in which both President Menocal
+and the Liberal candidate, Alfredo Zayas,
+claimed a victory. It is strange if this is the real
+cause of the uprising, that hostilities did not
+begin until February 9, when General Gomez,
+himself an ex-president, began a revolt in the
+eastern portion of the island. The date is important;
+it was barely a week before new elections
+were to be held in two disputed provinces
+and <i>only six days after the United States had
+severed diplomatic relations with the German
+Government, and but four days after President
+Menocal’s Government had declared its intention
+of following the action of the United States</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A little study of the personnel and developments
+of the rebellion form convincing evidence
+as to its true backing. The Liberal Party is
+strongly supported by the Spanish element of
+the population, who are almost unanimously pro-German
+in their sympathies. All over the island,
+both Germans and Spaniards have been arrested
+for complicity in the uprising. Nor have the
+clergy escaped. Literally, dozens of bishops have
+been jailed in Havana, upon the same charges.</p>
+
+<p>It is also a notorious fact that the Mexicans<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_260"></a>[260]</span>
+have supported the Liberals, and that the staffs
+of the Liberal newspapers are almost exclusively
+composed of Mexican journalists. These newspapers
+were suppressed at the beginning of the
+revolution.</p>
+
+<p>But far more significant are the developments
+in the actual fighting.</p>
+
+<p>Most of the action has taken place in the eastern
+provinces of Camaguey, Oriente and Santa
+Clara—in which the most fertile fields of sugar
+cane are situated. The damage to the cane fields
+has been estimated at 5,000,000 tons and is, <i>from
+a military standpoint, unnecessary</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Col. Rigoberto Fernandez one of the revolutionary
+leaders, stated that the rebels were plentifully
+supplied with hand-grenades and artillery—although
+the reports prove that they had none.
+Was this an empty boast—or may there be a connection
+between Fernandez’s statement and the
+capture by the British of three German ships,
+which were found off the Azores, laden with mines
+and arms?</p>
+
+<p>I was in Havana in the latter part of March—upon
+a private errand, although the Cuban
+papers persisted in imputing sinister designs
+to me. Naturally, the Germans were not inclined
+to tell all their secrets, but my Mexican<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_261"></a>[261]</span>
+acquaintances, all of whom were well informed regarding
+Cuban affairs, gave me considerable information.
+Among other Mexicans I met
+General Joaquin Maas, the former general of
+the Federal forces under Huerta. The general
+has since made peace with Carranza and was at
+this time acting as the latter’s go-between in
+negotiations with Germany. When I last saw
+Maas, it was after the battle of El Paredo. He
+was about to blow out his brains, but one of his
+lieutenants elegantly informed him that he was
+a fool and dissuaded him from suicide. Maas received
+me with the courtesy due a former opponent
+and was not averse to telling me much
+about the situation. I also had ample occasion to
+speak with Spaniards, whose sympathies were
+decidedly pro-German. Little by little I was
+enabled to acquire a rather complete idea—not of
+the issues underlying the Cuban revolution—but
+who had brought matters to a head. The answer
+may be found in one word—Germany. German
+agents—notably one Dr. Hawe ben Hawas, who
+recently took a mysterious botanizing expedition
+throughout that part of Cuba, which later became
+the scene of revolutionary activities, and
+who has thrice been arrested as a German spy—saw
+in the political unrest of the country another<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_262"></a>[262]</span>
+opportunity to create a diversion in favor of
+Germany. Cuba at peace was a valuable economic
+ally of the United States. Cuba in rebellion
+was a source of annoyance to this country,
+since it meant intervention, the political value of
+which was unfavorable to the United States, and
+a serious loss in sugar, which is one of the most
+important ingredients in the manufacture of
+several high explosives.</p>
+
+<p>Hence the burning of millions of tons of sugar
+cane. Hence the rebel seizure of Santiago de
+Cuba. Hence the large number of negroes who
+joined the rebel army, and whose labor is indispensable
+in the production of sugar.</p>
+
+<p>The ironic part of it all is that Germany had
+nothing to gain by a change of government in
+Cuba. Any Cuban government must have a
+sympathetic attitude toward the United States.
+What Germany wanted was a disruption of the
+orderly life of the country—and she wanted it to
+continue for as long a time as possible.</p>
+
+<p>At the present writing the Cuban rebellion is
+ended. General Gomez and his army have been
+captured, President Menocal is firmly seated in
+power again, and the rebels hold only a few unimportant
+points. But much damage has been
+done in the lessening of the sugar supply—and<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_263"></a>[263]</span>
+the rebellion has also served its purpose as an
+illustration of Germany’s ability to make trouble.</p>
+
+<p>Germany has played a consistent game
+throughout. She has sought to use all the existing
+weaknesses of the world for her own purposes—all
+the rivalries, all the fears, all the antipathies,
+she has utilized as fuel for her own
+fire. And yet, although she has played the
+game with the utmost foresight, with a skill
+that is admirable in spite of its perverse uses, and
+with an unfailing assurance of success—she has
+come to the fourth year of the Great War with
+the fact of failure staring her in the face.</p>
+
+<p>But she has not given up. You may be sure
+that she has not given up.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_264"></a>[264]</span></p>
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII.</h2>
+
+<p><i>The last stand of German intrigue.
+Germany’s spy system in America. What is
+coming?</i></p>
+
+</div>
+
+<p>As I write these last few pages three clippings
+from recent newspapers lie before me on
+my desk. One of them tells of the new era of
+good feeling that exists between the governments
+of Mexico and the United States, and speaks of
+the alliance of Latin-American republics against
+German autocracy.</p>
+
+<p>Another tells how the first contingent of
+American troops have landed in France, after a
+successful battle with a submarine fleet. And a
+third speaks of the victorious advance of the
+troops of Democratic Russia, after the world had
+begun to believe that Russia had forgotten the
+war in her new freedom.</p>
+
+<p>I read them over again and I think that each
+one of these clippings, if true, writes “failure”
+once again upon the book of German diplomacy.</p>
+
+<p>I remember a day not so very many months<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_265"></a>[265]</span>
+ago, when a man with whom I had some business
+in—for me—less quiet days, came to see me.</p>
+
+<p>“B. E. is in town,” he said quietly. “He says
+he must see you. Can you meet him at the
+—— Restaurant to-night?”</p>
+
+<p>Boy-Ed! I was not surprised that he should
+be in this country, for I knew the man’s audacity.
+But what could he want of me? Well, it would
+do no harm to meet him, I thought, and, anyway,
+my curiosity was aroused.</p>
+
+<p>I nodded.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll be there,” I said. “At what hour?”</p>
+
+<p>“Six-thirty,” my friend replied. “It’s only for
+a minute. He is leaving to-night.”</p>
+
+<p>That evening for the first time in two years
+I saw the man who had done his share in the
+undermining of America. I did not ask him
+what his presence in this country meant, and
+needless to say, he did not inform me.</p>
+
+<p>Our business was of a different character. I
+had just arranged to write a series of newspaper
+articles exposing the operations of the Kaiser’s
+secret service and Boy-Ed tried to induce me to
+suppress them.</p>
+
+<p>“I cannot do it,” I told him.</p>
+
+<p>But the captain showed a remarkable knowledge
+of my private affairs.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_266"></a>[266]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Under your contract,” he said, “the articles
+cannot be published until you have endorsed
+them. As you have not yet affixed your signature
+to them, you can suppress them by merely
+withholding your endorsement.”</p>
+
+<p>This I declined to do and our conversation
+ended.</p>
+
+<p>Shortly afterward, Boy-Ed returned to Germany
+on the U-53. He did not attempt to see
+me again, but three times within the following
+weeks, attempts were made upon my life. Later,
+pressure was brought to bear from sources close
+to the German Embassy, but they failed to
+secure the suppression of the articles.</p>
+
+<p>But my curiosity was aroused as to the meaning
+of Boy-Ed’s presence here and I set to work
+to discover the purpose of it. This was not difficult,
+for although I have ceased to be a secret
+agent, I am still in touch with many who
+formerly gave me information, and I know ways
+of discovering many things I wish to learn.</p>
+
+<p>Soon I had the full story of Boy-Ed’s latest
+activities in this country.</p>
+
+<p>He had, I learned, gone first to Mexico in an
+attempt to pave the way for that last essay at a
+Mexican-Japanese alliance, which the discovery
+of the famous Zimmermann note later made<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_267"></a>[267]</span>
+public. Whether he had succeeded or no, I did
+not discover at the time. But what was more
+important, I did learn that while he was in Mexico,
+Boy-Ed had selected and established several
+submarine bases for Germany! His plans had
+also carried him to San Francisco, to which he
+had gone disguised only by a mustache. There
+he had identified several men who were needed
+by the counsel of the defense of the German
+Consul Bopp, who had been arrested on a charge
+of conspiracy and for fomenting sedition within
+the United States.</p>
+
+<p>From the Pacific Coast Boy-Ed had gone to
+Kansas City and had bought off a witness who
+had intended to testify for the United States in
+the trial of certain German agents. Thence,
+after a private errand of his own, he had made
+his way to New York, <i>en route</i> to Newport and
+Germany.</p>
+
+<p>It may be well here to comment upon one
+feature of the Zimmermann note which has
+generally escaped attention. It was through no
+blunder of the German Government that that
+document came into possession of the United
+States, as I happen to know. I have pointed out
+before that diplomatic negotiations are carried
+through in the following manner. The preliminary<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_268"></a>[268]</span>
+negotiations are conducted by men of unofficial
+standing and it is not until the attitude
+of the various governments involved is thoroughly
+understood by each of them that final negotiations
+are drawn up. Now, although no negotiations
+had taken place between Germany, Japan
+and Mexico, the form of the Zimmermann note
+would seem to indicate that there was a thorough
+understanding between these countries. They
+were drawn up in this form with a purpose.
+Germany wished the United States to conclude
+that Mexico and Japan were hostile to her;
+Germany hoped that this country would be outwardly
+silent about the Zimmermann note but
+would take some diplomatic action against Mexico
+and Japan which would inevitably draw these
+two countries into an anti-American alliance.</p>
+
+<p>Did President Wilson perceive this thoroughly
+Teutonic plot? I cannot say; but at any rate
+upon February 28, he astounded America by
+revealing once again Germany’s evil intentions
+toward the United States, and by so doing not
+only defeated the German Government’s particular
+plan but effectively cemented public
+opinion in this country, bringing it to a unanimous
+support of the government in the crisis
+which was slowly driving it toward war.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_269"></a>[269]</span></p>
+
+<p>That marked the last stand of German intrigue,
+as it was conducted before the war. Now
+there is a new danger—a danger whose concrete
+illustration lies before me in the account of that
+first engagement between United States warships
+and German submarines.</p>
+
+<p>The people of the United States, just entered
+into active participation in the war, are faced with
+a new peril—the betrayal of military and naval
+secrets to representatives of the German Government
+working in this country. Not only was
+it known to Germany that American troops had
+been sent to France, but the very course that the
+transports were to take had been communicated
+to Berlin. It is probable that other news of equal
+value has been or is being sent to Germany at
+the present time; and the United States is confronted
+with the possibility of submarine attacks
+upon its troop ships, as well as other dangers
+which, if not properly combated, may result in
+serious losses and greatly hamper it in its conduct
+of the war.</p>
+
+<p>What exactly is this spy peril which this
+country now faces and which constitutes a far
+greater, because less easily combated danger than
+actual warfare?</p>
+
+<p>How can it be got rid of?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_270"></a>[270]</span></p>
+
+<p>These are the questions which the American
+people and the American Government are asking
+themselves and must ask themselves if they
+are to bear an effective share in the war in which
+they are now engaged.</p>
+
+<p>Because of my former connection with the
+German Government and my work as a secret
+agent both in Europe and America, in the former
+of which I was brought into intimate contact with
+the workings of the secret service in other countries,
+I am prepared to give a reliable account
+of the general structure and workings of the
+German spy system in the United States as it is
+to-day.</p>
+
+<p>It is important to remember that the secret
+diplomatic service, as it was conducted in this
+country before the war, and with which I was
+connected, is entirely different both in its personnel
+and methods with the spy system which is
+in operation to-day. A little further on I shall
+point out why this is so and why it must be so.</p>
+
+<p>Before the entry of the United States into the
+war, the principal activities of the German
+Government’s agents were confined to the
+fomenting of strikes in munitions plants and
+other war activities, the organizing of plots to<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_271"></a>[271]</span>
+blow up ships, canals, or bridges—anything which
+would hamper the transportation of supplies to
+the Allies—and the inciting of sedition by stirring
+up trouble between German-Americans and
+Americans of other descent. All of these acts
+were committed in order to prevent you from
+aiding in any way the enemies of Germany; and
+also, by creating disorder in this country in peace
+times to furnish you with an object lesson of
+what could be done in war times.</p>
+
+<p>These things were planned, overseen and
+executed by Germans and by other enemies of
+the Allies, under the leadership of men like von
+Papen, who were accredited agents of the German
+Government and who were protected by
+diplomatic immunity.</p>
+
+<p>Now that war has come an entirely new task
+is before the German Government and an entirely
+new set of people are needed to do it. Wartime
+spying is absolutely different from the work
+which was done before the war, and the two have
+no connection with each other—except as the
+work done before the war has prepared the way
+for the work which is being done now.</p>
+
+<p>And whereas the work done before the war
+was conducted by Germans, the present work,
+for very obvious reasons, cannot be done by any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_272"></a>[272]</span>
+one who is a German or who is likely to be suspected
+of German affiliations.</p>
+
+<p>I venture to say that not one per cent. of the
+persons who are engaged in spying for the
+German Government at the present time are
+either of German birth or descent.</p>
+
+<p>I say this, not because I know how the German
+secret service is being conducted in this country,
+but because I know how it has been conducted in
+other countries.</p>
+
+<p>Let me explain. It is obvious that such
+activities as the inciting to strikes, and the conspiring
+which were done in the last three years
+could be safely conducted by Germans, because
+the two countries were at peace. The moment
+that war was declared, every German became an
+object of suspicion, and his usefulness in spying—that
+is, the obtaining of military, naval, political
+and diplomatic secrets—was ended immediately.
+For that reason Germany and every other
+government which has spies in the enemy country
+make a practice during war of employing practically
+no known citizens of its own country.</p>
+
+<p>At the present time more than ninety per cent.
+of the German spies in England are Englishmen.
+The rest are Russians, Dutchmen,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_273"></a>[273]</span>
+Roumanians—what you will—anything but Germans.</p>
+
+<p>One of the former heads of the French secret
+service in this country was a man who called himself
+Guillaume. His real name is Wilhelm and
+he was born in Berlin!</p>
+
+<p>For that reason to arrest such men as Carl
+Heynen or Professor Hanneck is merely a precautionary
+measure. Whatever connection these
+men may have had with the German Government
+formerly, their work is now done, and their
+detention does not hinder the workings of the
+real spy system one iota.</p>
+
+<h3>HOW THE SPY SYSTEM WORKS.</h3>
+
+<p>It is difficult to distinguish between the work
+done in neutral countries by the secret diplomatic
+agent—the man who is engaged in fomenting
+disorders, such as I have described—and the spy,
+who is seeking military information which may
+be of future use. The two work together in that
+the secret agent reports to Berlin the names of
+inhabitants of the country concerned, who may be
+of use in securing information of military or
+naval value. It is well to remember, however,
+that the real spy always works alone. His connection<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_274"></a>[274]</span>
+with the government is known only to a
+very few officials, and is rarely or never suspected
+by the people who assist him in securing information.
+Here permit me to make a distinction between
+two classes of spies: the agents or directors
+of espionage, who know what they are doing;
+and the others, the small fry, who secure bits of
+information here and there and pass it on to their
+employers, the agents, often without realizing
+the real purpose of their actions.</p>
+
+<p>In the building of the spy system in America,
+Germans and German-Americans have been
+used. Business houses, such as banks and insurance
+companies, which have unusual opportunities
+of obtaining information about their
+clients—most of whom, in the case of German
+institutions in this country, are of German birth
+or descent—have been of service in bringing the
+directors of spy work into touch with people who
+will do the actual spying.</p>
+
+<p>The German secret service makes a point of
+having in its possession lists of people who are
+in a position to find out facts of greater or less
+importance about government officials. Housemaids,
+small tradesmen, and the like, can be of
+use in the compiling of data about men of importance,
+so that their personal habits, their<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_275"></a>[275]</span>
+financial status, their business and social relationships
+become a matter of record for future use.
+These facts are secured, usually by a little
+“jollying” rather than the payment of money, by
+the local agent—a person sometimes planted in
+garrison towns, state capitals, etc.—who is paid
+a comparatively small monthly sum for such
+work. This information is passed to a director
+of spies, who thereby discovers men who are in a
+position to supply him with valuable data and
+who determine whether or not they can be
+reached.</p>
+
+<p>Now, just how is this “reaching” done?
+Mainly, I think it safe to say, by blackmail and
+intimidation. If from this accumulated gossip
+about his intended victim—who may be an army
+or naval officer, a manufacturer of military supplies,
+or a government clerk—the spy learns of
+some indiscretion committed by the man or his
+wife, he uses it as a club in obtaining information
+that he desires. Or he may hear that a man is
+in financial straits. He will make a point of
+seeing that his victim is helped, and then will
+make use of the latter’s friendship to worm facts
+out of him. In this way, sometimes without the
+suspicion of the victim being aroused, little bits
+of information are secured, which may be of no<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_276"></a>[276]</span>
+importance in themselves, but are of immense
+value when considered in conjunction with facts
+acquired elsewhere.</p>
+
+<p>Ultimately the victim will balk or become suspicious.
+Then he is offered the alternative of
+continuing to supply information or of being
+exposed for his previous activities. Generally
+he accepts the lesser evil.</p>
+
+<p>In this manner the spy system is built up even
+in peace times. The tremendous sums of money
+that are spent in this manner amount to millions.
+The quantity of information secured is on the
+other hand, inconceivably small for the most part.
+But in the mass of useless and superfluous facts
+that are supplied to the spies and through them
+to the government, are to be found a few that are
+worth the cost of the system. By the time war
+breaks out, if it does, the German Government
+has in its possession innumerable facts about the
+equipment of the army and navy of its enemy—and
+more important still, it has in its power men,
+sometimes high in the confidence of the enemy
+government, who can be forced into giving additional
+information when needed.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the moment that war breaks out, what
+happens? The German Government has distributed
+throughout the country thousands of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_277"></a>[277]</span>
+men and women who have legitimate business
+there; it has its hands on men who are not spies,
+but who will betray secrets for a price either in
+money or security; it is acquainted with the
+strength and weakness of fortresses, various
+units of the service, the exact armament of every
+ship in the navy, the resources of munition factories—in
+a word almost all of the essential
+details about that country’s fighting and economic
+strength. It also knows what portion of
+the populace are inclined to be disaffected. And
+it is thoroughly familiar with the strategical
+points of that country, so that in case of invasion
+it may strike hard and effectively.</p>
+
+<p>What is must learn now is:</p>
+
+<p>First, what are the present military and naval
+activities of the enemy.</p>
+
+<p>Second, what are they planning to do.</p>
+
+<p>Finally, the German Government must learn
+the how, why, when and where of each of these
+things.</p>
+
+<p>That, with the machinery at its command, is
+not so difficult as it would seem.</p>
+
+<p>Here is where the value of the minor bits of
+information comes in. A trainman tells, for instance,
+that he has seen a trainload of soldiers
+that day, upon such and such a line. A similar<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_278"></a>[278]</span>
+report comes in from elsewhere. Meantime
+another agent has reported that a certain packing
+house has shipped to the government so many
+tons of beef; while still another announces the
+delivery at a particular point of a totally different
+kind of supplies. Do you not see how all
+these facts, taken together, and coupled with an
+accurate knowledge of transportation conditions
+and of the geographical structure of the country
+would constitute an important indication of an
+enemy’s plans, even failing the possession of any
+absolute secrets? Do you not suppose that
+weeks before you were aware that any United
+States soldiers had sailed for France, the Germans
+might have known of all the preparations
+that were being made and could deduce accurately
+the number of troops that were sailing, and
+many facts of importance about their equipment.
+There is no need for the betrayal of secrets for
+this kind of information to become known. It is
+a mere matter of detective work.</p>
+
+<p>But mark one feature of it. These facts are
+communicated by different spies—not to a central
+clearing house of information in this country,
+as has been surmised, but to various points
+outside the country for transmission to the Great
+General Staff. They are duplicated endlessly<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_279"></a>[279]</span>
+by different agents. They are sent to many different
+people for transmission. <i>And even if half
+of the reports were lost, or half of the spies were
+discovered, there would still be a sufficient number
+left to carry on their work successfully.</i></p>
+
+<p>Germany does not depend upon one spy alone
+for even the smallest item. Always the work is
+duplicated. Always the same information is
+being secured by several men, not one of whom
+knows any of the others; and always that information
+is transmitted to Berlin through so
+many diverse channels that it is impossible for the
+most vigilant secret service in the world to prevent
+a goodly part of it from reaching its
+destination.</p>
+
+<p>How that information is transmitted I shall
+tell in a moment. First, I wish to explain how
+more important facts are secured—the secret
+plans of the government, such, for instance, as the
+course which had been decided upon for the
+squadron which carried the first American troops
+to France.</p>
+
+<p>It is obvious that such facts as these could not
+have been deduced from a mass of miscellaneous
+reports. That secret must have been learned in
+its entirety. Exactly how it was discovered I do
+not pretend to know nor shall I offer any<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_280"></a>[280]</span>
+theories. But here, in a situation of this sort,
+unquestionably, is where the real spy—the
+“master spy,” if you wish to call him so—steps
+in.</p>
+
+<p>Now, it is impossible, in spite of the utmost
+vigilance, to keep an important document from
+the knowledge of all but one or two people. No
+matter how secret, it is almost certain to pass
+through the hands of a number of officials and
+possibly several clerks. And with every additional
+person who knows of it, the risk of discovery
+or betrayal is correspondingly increased.
+If in code, it may be copied or memorized by a
+spy who is in a position to get hold of it, or by a
+person who is in the power of that spy! Once
+in Berlin, it can be deciphered. For the General
+Staff and the Admiralty have their experts in
+these matters who are very rarely defeated.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure that Germany has made her
+utmost efforts to put her spies into high places
+in this country, just as she has tried to do elsewhere.
+You may be sure, also, that she has
+neglected no opportunity to gain control over
+any official or any naval or army officer—however
+important or unimportant—whom the
+agents could influence. That has always been<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_281"></a>[281]</span>
+her method; nor is it difficult to see why it frequently
+succeeds.</p>
+
+<p>Imagine the situation of a man who in time of
+peace had supplied, either innocently or otherwise,
+a foreign agent with information which
+possessed a considerable value. It is probable
+that he would revolt at a suggestion that he do
+it in time of war—but with his neck once in the
+German noose, with the alternative of additional
+compliance or exposure facing him, it is not hard
+to see how some men would become conscious
+traitors and others would be driven to suicide.</p>
+
+<p>By a system of blackmail and intimidation the
+Germans have attempted to force into their ranks
+many people from whom they extort information
+that would now be regarded as traitorous,
+although formerly it might have been given out
+in all innocence.</p>
+
+<p>Undoubtedly it was for purposes of intimidation
+that von Papen carried with him to England
+papers incriminating Germans and German-Americans
+who had been associated with him in
+one way or another. And why did von Rintelen
+return to this country and aid this government
+in exposing the German affiliations of people
+who had no German blood in them? The obvious
+answer is that those people had balked at aiding<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_282"></a>[282]</span>
+him in some scheme he had proposed. Therefore
+he made examples of them, with the double purpose
+of demonstrating to the United States the
+extent of German intrigue and of filling other
+implicated people with fear of the exposure that
+would come to them if they were not more compliant.</p>
+
+<p>Once in possession of secret information, the
+spy is faced with the necessity of transmitting it
+to Berlin. Here again, the spy who is a German
+would meet with considerable difficulty. He may
+mail letters if no mail censorship has been instituted;
+but these are liable to seizure and are
+not so useful in the transmission of war secrets
+as they were in informing his government before
+the war of more or less standard facts about the
+strength of fortifications and the like. He may
+use private messengers—as do all spies—but the
+delay in this method is a severe handicap.</p>
+
+<p>In sending news of the movements of troops,
+speed is the prime essential. Consequently he
+must communicate either by wireless or by cable.
+How does he do it?</p>
+
+<p>There are innumerable ways. There may be in
+the confidential employ of many business houses
+which do a large cable business with neutral
+countries men who are either agents or dupes of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_283"></a>[283]</span>
+the German Government. These men may send
+cables which seem absolutely innocent business
+messages, but which if properly read impart facts
+of military value to the recipient in Holland, say,
+or in Spain or South America. It is not a difficult
+matter to use business codes, giving to the
+terms an entirely different meaning from the one
+assigned in the code-book. Personal messages
+are also used in this way, as is well known. As
+to the wireless, although all stations are under
+rigid supervision, what is to prevent the Germans
+from establishing a wireless station in the Kentucky
+Mountains, for instance, and for a time
+operating it successfully?</p>
+
+<p>But in spite of all cable censorship, the spy
+can smuggle information into Mexico, where it
+can be cabled or wirelessed on to Berlin, either
+directly or indirectly by way of one of the neutral
+countries. Even in spite of the most rigid censorship
+of mails and telegrams this sort of smuggling
+can be accomplished.</p>
+
+<p>When I was in the Constitutional Army in
+Mexico, I used to receive revolver ammunition
+from an old German who carried it over the
+border <i>in his wooden leg</i>. Could not this method
+be applied to dispatches?</p>
+
+<p>There are numerous authenticated cases of<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_284"></a>[284]</span>
+spies who have sent messages concealed in
+sausages or other articles of food. Moreover,
+the current of the Rio Grande at certain places
+runs in such a manner that a log or a bucket
+dropped in on the American side will drift to the
+Mexican shore and arrive at a point which can
+be determined with almost mathematical certainty.</p>
+
+<p>I mention those instances merely to show how
+little of real value the censorship of cables and
+mails can accomplish. The question arises:
+What can be done? I shall try to indicate the
+answer.</p>
+
+<h3>HOW TO GET RID OF THE SPY SYSTEM.</h3>
+
+<p>I say frankly that I think it absolutely impossible
+to eradicate spies from any country.
+Certainly it cannot be done in a week or a year,
+or even in many years. It is more than probable
+that the German spy systems in France and England
+are more complete to-day than they were at
+the beginning of the war. Three years ago the
+spies in those countries were made up of both
+experienced and inexperienced men. Now the
+bunglers have been weeded out, and only those
+who are expert in defying detection remain. But<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_285"></a>[285]</span>
+these are the only men who were ever of real use
+to Germany; and fortified as they are by three
+years of unsuspected work in these countries,
+they are enabled to secure information of infinitely
+more worth than they formerly were.
+What is the situation in America?</p>
+
+<p>I have shown you the structure of that system.
+Let me repeat again that Germany has installed
+in this country thousands of men, whose nationality
+and habits are such as to protect them from
+suspicion, who work silently and alone, because
+they know that their very lives depend upon
+their silence, and who are in communication with
+no central spy organization, for the very simple
+reason that no such organization exists. There
+is no clearing house for spy information in this
+country. There are no “master spies.”</p>
+
+<p>Do you think that the German Government
+would risk the success of a work so important as
+this, by organizing a system which the arrest of
+any one man or group of men would betray? The
+idea of centralization in this work is popular at
+present. In theory it is a good one. In practise
+it is impossible. By the very nature of the spy’s
+trade, he must run alone, and not only be unsuspected
+of any connection with Germany now,
+but be believed never to have had such a connection.<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_286"></a>[286]</span>
+If the secret service were a chain, the
+loss of one link would break it. With a system
+of independent units, endlessly overlapping,
+eternally duplicating each other’s work, they
+continue their practices even though half of their
+number are caught.</p>
+
+<p>Now with these men, protected as they are by
+the fact that not even their fellows know them,
+with their wits sharpened by three years of silent
+warfare against the agents of other governments
+and your own neutrality squad, the task of
+ferreting them out is an utterly impossible one.
+You cannot prevent spies from securing information.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot prevent the transmission of that
+information to Berlin, without instituting, not a
+censorship, but a complete suppression of all
+communications of any sort.</p>
+
+<p>But you can do much to counteract their
+methods by doing two things:</p>
+
+<p>I. Delaying all mails and cables, other than
+actual government messages.</p>
+
+<p>II. Instituting a system of counter espionage,
+which shall have for its object the detection
+<i>but not the arrest</i> of enemy spies; and the dissemination
+of misleading information.</p>
+
+<p>The war work of the spy depends for success<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_287"></a>[287]</span>
+upon the speed with which he can communicate
+new facts to Berlin. If all his messages are delayed,
+his effectiveness is severely crippled.</p>
+
+<p>If in addition to that, all persons sending suspicious
+messages anywhere are carefully
+shadowed; if their associations are looked up, it
+may be possible to determine from whom they
+are getting information, and by seeing that incorrect
+reports are given them, render them of
+negligible value to their employers.</p>
+
+<p>Public arrests of suspected men are worthless.
+Such disclosures only serve to put the real spies
+on their guard. But if the spies are allowed to
+work in fancied security, it will be possible to find
+out just what they know and the government can
+change its plans at the last moment and so nullify
+their efforts.</p>
+
+<p>Eternal vigilance, here as elsewhere, is the
+price of security. Germany has regarded the
+work of her spies as of almost as much importance
+as the force in the field. She has spent
+millions of dollars in building up a system in this
+country, whose ramifications extend to all points
+of your national life. And since upon this system
+rests all of her hopes of rendering worthless
+your participation in the war, she will not lightly
+let it fail.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_288"></a>[288]</span></p>
+
+<p>I toss aside my clippings and sit looking out
+into the New York street which shows such little
+sign of war as yet. Defeat! That is the end of
+this silent warfare, this secret underground attack
+that has in it nothing of humanity or honor.
+I think of Germany, a country of quiet, peaceful
+folk as I once knew it, bearing no malice, going
+cheerfully about their work, seeking their destiny
+with a will that has nothing in it of conquest.
+And I think of Germany embattled, ruled by a
+group of iron men who see only their own ambitions
+as a goal—who have brought upon the
+country and the world this three-year tyranny of
+hate.</p>
+
+<p>What will be the end? Will the war go on,
+eating up the lives and honor of men with its
+monstrous appetite? Or will there be peace—a
+peace that will bring nothing of revenge or oppression;
+that will carry with it only a desire for
+justice to all the peoples of the earth—that will
+kill forever this desire for conquest which now
+and in the past has borne only sorrow and bloodshed
+as its fruit? Will the peace bring forgetfulness
+of the past, in so far as men <i>can</i> forget?</p>
+
+<p>That would be worth fighting for.</p>
+
+<p class="titlepage">THE END.</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="footnotes">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="FOOTNOTES">FOOTNOTES</h2>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a> You will find an interesting account of the effect of this
+treaty upon Persia in William Morgan Shuster’s valuable
+book, “The Strangling of Persia.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a> Mr. Edward I. Bell, in his “The Political Shame of Mexico.”</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a> It is interesting to remember that Captain von Papen
+had in the earlier part of the year, while he was still
+in Mexico, conducted an investigation into the types of explosives
+used in Mexico for similar enterprises. This investigation
+had been undertaken at the request of the German
+Ministry of War. Letters regarding this matter were found
+in Captain von Papen’s effects by the British authorities, and
+are printed in the British White Papers, Miscellaneous No. 6
+(1916).</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<div class="footnote">
+
+<p><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a> Fritzen, who was captured in Hartwood, Cal., on March 9,
+1917, was arraigned in New York City on March 16, and
+after pleading not guilty, later reversed his plea. He is at
+present serving a term of eighteen months in a Federal
+prison.</p>
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75931 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
+
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
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+
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+
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for
+book #75931 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/75931)