The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918. John Price Jones
secret agents, his silent forces everywhere ready for active coöperation in carrying out the naval enterprises Germany should see fit to undertake in Western waters.
America learned gradually of the machinations of the four executives, Bernstorff, Albert, Papen and Boy-Ed. America had not long to wait for evidences of their activity, but it was a long time before the processes of investigation revealed their source. It was inevitable that they could not work undiscovered for long, and they seem to have realized that they must do the utmost damage at top speed. Their own trails were covered for a time by the obscure identities of their subordinates. The law jumps to no conclusions. Their own persons were protected by diplomatic courtesy. It required more than two years of tedious search for orthodox legal evidence to arraign these men publicly in their guilt, and when that evidence had finally been obtained, and Germany's protest of innocence had been deflated, it was not these men who suffered, but their country, and the price she paid was war with America.
A hundred or more of their subordinates have been convicted of various criminal offenses and sent to prison. Still more were promptly interned in prison camps at the outbreak of war in 1917. The secret army included all types, from bankers to longshoremen. Many of them were conspicuous figures in American public life, and of these no small part were allowed to remain at large under certain restrictions—and under surveillance. Germany's army in the United States was powerful in numbers; the fact that so many agents were working destruction probably hastened their discovery; the loyalty of many so-called German-Americans was always questionable. The public mind, confused as it had never been before by the news of war, was groping about for sound fundamentals, and was being tantalized with false principles by the politicians. Meanwhile Count von Bernstorff was watching Congress and the President, Dr. Albert was busy in great schemes, Captain von Papen was commanding an active army of spies, and Captain Boy-Ed was engaged in a bitter fight with the British navy.
CHAPTER II THE CONSPIRATORS' TASK
The terrain—Lower New York—The consulates—The economic problem of supplying Germany and checking supplies to the Allies—The diplomatic problem of keeping America's friendship—The military problem in Canada, Mexico, India, etc.—Germany's denial.
The playwright selects from the affairs of a group of people a few characters and incidents, and works them together into a three-hour plot. He may include no matter which is not relevant to the development of his story, and although in the hands of the artist the play seems to pierce clearly into the characters of the persons involved, in reality he is constructing a framework, whose angles are only the more prominent salients of character and episode. The stage limits him, whether his story takes place in the kitchen or on the battlefield.
The drama of German spy operations in America is of baffling proportions. Its curtain rose long before the war; its early episodes were grave enough to have caused, any one of them, a nine-days' wonder in the press, its climax was rather a huge accumulation of intolerable disasters than a single outstanding incident, and its dénouement continued long after America's declaration of war. In the previous chapter we have accepted our limitations and introduced only the four chief characters of the play. It is necessary, in describing the motives for their enterprises, to appreciate the problems which their scene of operations presented.
The world was their workshop. Plots hatched in Berlin and developed in Washington and New York bore fruit from Sweden to India, from Canada to Chili. The economic importance of the United States in the war needs no further proof than its vast area, its miles of seacoast, its volume of export and import, and its producing power. As a diplomatic problem it offered, among other things, a public opinion of a hundred million people of parti-colored temperament, played upon by a force of some 40,000 publications. As a military factor, the United States possessed a strong fleet, owned the only Atlantic-Pacific waterway, was bounded on the south by Mexico and the coveted Gulf, and on the north by one of Germany's enemies. There was hardly a developed section of the nation which did not require prompt and radical German attention, or one which did not receive it in proportion to its industrial development. Washington, as the governmental capital, and New York as the real capital became at once the headquarters of German operations in the western world.
Count von Bernstorff directed all enterprises from the Imperial Embassy in Washington, and from the Ritz-Carlton in New York. An ambassador was once asked by an ingenuous woman at a New York dinner whether he often ran counter of European spies. "Oh, yes," he replied. "I used to stop at the——, but my baggage was searched by German agents so often that I moved to the——. But there it was just as bad." "Didn't you complain to the management?"—the lady wanted particulars. "No," the diplomat answered naturally, "for you see every time Bernstorff stops at the—— I have his baggage searched, too!"
The strands of intrigue focussed from every corner of America upon the lower tip of Manhattan. In a tall building at 11 Broadway, which towers over Bowling Green and confronts the New York Custom House, Captain Boy-Ed had his office. A long stone's throw to the northward stood the Hamburg-American building; there Dr. Albert carried on much of his business. Captain von Papen had offices on the twenty-fifth floor of No. 60 Wall Street. If we regard 11 Broadway as the tip of a triangle, with Wall Street and Broadway forming its right angle and 60 Wall Street as its other extremity, we find that its imaginary hypotenuse travels through the building of J. P. Morgan & Company, chief bankers for the Allies; through the New York Stock Exchange, where the so-called "Christmas leak" turned a pretty penny for certain German sympathizers in 1916; through the home of the Standard Oil Companies, as well as through several great structures of less strategic importance. There is more than mere coincidence in this geometrical freak—Germany held her stethoscope as close as possible to the heart of American business. Fortunately, however, the offices of Chief William J. Flynn—until January, 1918, head of the United States Secret Service—were in the Custom House near by.
After business hours these men met their subordinates at various rendezvous in the city; the hotels were convenient, the Manhattan was frequently appointed, and the Deutscher Verein at 112 Central Park South was the liveliest ganglion of all the nerve centers of a system of communication which tapped every section of the great community.
William J. Flynn, chief of the United States Secret Service
until 1918, who led the hunt of the German spy
In the lesser cities the German consulate served as the nucleus for the organization. That in San Francisco is conspicuous for its activity, for it prosecuted its own warfare on the entire Pacific coast. Wherever it was necessary German sympathizers furnished accommodations for offices and storage room. Headquarters of every character dotted the country from salons to saloons, from skyscrapers to cellars, each an active control in the manipulation of Germany's almost innumerable enterprises.
Those enterprises may be best outlined perhaps, by recalling the three phases of warfare which Germany had to pursue. America had shipped foodstuffs and raw materials in enormous quantities for many years to Germany. Dr. Albert must see to it that she continue to do so. The Imperial funds were at his disposal. He had already the requisite contact with American business. But let him also exert his utmost influence upon America to stop supplying the Allies. If he could do it alone, so much the better; if not, he was at liberty to call upon the military and naval attachés. But in any case "food and arms for Germany and none for the Allies" was the economic war-cry.
American supplies must be purchased for Germany and shipped through the European neutral nations, running the blockade. If capital proved obstinate and the Allies covered the market, it would be well to remember that labor produced supplies; labor must therefore be prevented from producing or shipping to the Allies. If labor refused to be interfered with, the cargoes should be destroyed.
His enormous task would depend, of course, very much upon the turn of affairs diplomatic. The State Department must be kept amicable. The Glad Hand was to be extended to official