The German Secret Service in America 1914-1918. John Price Jones
Mailed Fist thrashed about in official America's constituencies. Thus also with Congress, through influential lobbying or the pressure of constituents. Count von Bernstorff knew that the shout raised in a far-off state by a few well-rehearsed pacifists, reinforced by a few newspaper comments, would carry loud and clear to Washington. Upon his shoulders rested the entire existence of the German plan, and he spent a highly active and trying thirty months in Washington in an attempt to avoid the inevitable diplomatic rupture.
The military problem quickly resolved itself into two enterprises: carrying war to the enemy, and giving aid and comfort to its own forces—in this case the German navy. As the war progressed, and the opportunity for strictly military operations became less likely, the two Captains occupied their time in injecting a quite military flavor into the enterprises Bernstorff and Albert had on foot. As a strategic measure Mexico must divert America's attention from Europe and remove to the border her available forces. Meanwhile, German reservists must be supplied to their home regiments. Failing that they must be mobilized for service against Germany's nearest enemy here—Canada. German raiders at sea must be supplied. German communication with her military forces abroad must be maintained uninterrupted.
Long after the departure of the principals for their native land the enterprises persisted. It may be well here to extend to the secret agents of the United States the tribute which is their due. To Chief Flynn, of the United States Secret Service of the Treasury Department, to A. Bruce Bielaski, head of the special agents of the Department of Justice, to W. M. Offley, former Superintendent of the New York Bureau of Special Agents, to Roger B. Wood, Assistant United States District Attorney, to his successor, John C. Knox, (now a Federal judge), to Raymond B. Sarfaty, Mr. Wood's assistant who developed the Rintelen case, to former Police Commissioner Arthur Woods of New York, his deputy, Guy Scull, his police captain, Thomas J. Tunney, and to the men who worked obscurely and tirelessly with them to avert disasters whose fiendish intention shook the faith if not the courage of a nation. Those men found Germany out in time.
Inspector Thomas J. Tunney of the New York Police Depart-
ment, head of the "Bomb Squad" and foremost in
apprehending many important German agents
Germany was fluent in her denials. When the President in his message to Congress in December, 1915, bitterly attacked Germans and German-Americans for their activities in America, accusing the latter of treason, the German government authorized a statement to the Berlin correspondent of the New York Sun on December 19, 1915, to the effect that it
"naturally has never knowingly accepted the support of any person, group of persons, society or organization seeking to promote the cause of Germany in the United States by illegal acts, by counsels of violence, by contravention of law, or by any means whatever that could offend the American people in the pride of their own authority. If it should be alleged that improper acts have been committed by representatives of the German Government they could be easily dealt with. To any complaints upon proof as may be submitted by the American Government suitable response will be duly made. … Apparently the enemies of Germany have succeeded in creating the impression that the German Government is in some way, morally or otherwise, responsible for what Mr. Wilson has characterized as anti-American activities, comprehending attacks upon property in violation of the rules which the American Government has seen fit to impose upon the course of neutral trade. This the German Government absolutely denies. It cannot specifically repudiate acts committed by individuals over whom it has no control, and of whose movements it is neither officially nor unofficially informed."
To this statement there is one outstanding answer. It is an excerpt from the German book of instructions for officers:
"Bribery of the enemy's subjects with the object of obtaining military advantages, acceptances of offers of treachery, reception of deserters, utilization of the discontented elements in the population, support of the pretenders and the like are permissible; indeed international law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery and the like) to the prejudice of the enemy. Considerations of chivalry, generosity and honor may denounce in such cases a hasty and unsparing exploitation of such advantages as indecent and dishonorable, but law, which is less touchy, allows it. The ugly and inherently immoral aspect of such methods cannot affect the recognition of their lawfulness. The necessary aim of war gives the belligerent the right and imposes upon him, according to circumstances, the duty not to let slip the important, it may be decisive, advantages to be gained by such means."
("The War Book of the German General Staff," translated by J. H. Morgan, M.A., pp. 113–114.)
CHAPTER III THE RAIDERS AT SEA
The outbreak of war—Mobilization of reservists—The Hamburg-American contract—The Berwind—The Marina Quezada—The Sacramento—Naval battles.
A fanatic student in the streets of Sarajevo, Bosnia, threw a bomb at a visiting dignitary, and the world went to war. That occurred on the sunny forenoon of June 28, 1914. The assassin was chased by the police, the newspaper men, and the photographers, who reached him almost simultaneously, and presently the world knew that the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, of Austria, was the victim, and that a plain frightened fellow, struggling in the shadow of a doorway, was his assailant.
Austria's resentment of the crime mounted during July and boiled over in the ultimatum of July 23. Five days later, with Germany's permission, Austria declared war on Servia. By this time continental tempers had been aroused, and the Central Empires knew that "Der Tag" had come. Austria, Russia, Germany, England, France and Belgium entered the lists within a fortnight.
By mid-July Germany had warned her agents in other lands of the imminence of war and a quiet mobilization had begun of the more important reservists in America. Captain von Papen, after dispatching his telegram from Mexico via El Paso to Captain Boy-Ed, hurried to Washington, arriving there on August 3. He began to weld together into a vast band the scientists, experts, secret agents and German army-reservists, who were under German military oaths, and were prepared to gather information or to execute a military enterprise "zu Befehl!" How rapidly he assembled his staff is shown in testimony given on the witness stand by "Horst von der Goltz," alias Bridgeman Taylor, alias Major Wachendorf, a German spy who had been a major in a Mexican army until July.
A German consul in El Paso had sounded out Goltz's willingness to return to German service. "A few days later, the 3rd of August, 1914, license was given by my commanding officer to separate myself from the service of my brigade for the term of six months. I left directly for El Paso, Texas, where I was told by Mr. Kueck, German Consul at Chihuahua, Mexico, who stayed there, to put myself at the disposition of Captain von Papen." This was two days before the final declaration of war.
All German and Austro-Hungarian consulates received orders to coördinate their own staffs for war service. Germany herself supplied the American front with men by wireless commands to all parts of the world. Captain Hans Tauscher, who enjoyed the double distinction of being agent in America for the Krupps and husband of a noted operatic singer, Mme. Johanna Gadski, chanced to be in Berlin when war broke out, reported for duty and was at once detailed to return to the United States and report to von Papen, as Wilhelmstrasse saw the usefulness of an ordnance expert in intimate touch with our Ordnance Department and our explosives plants. Two German officers detailed to topographical duty, who had spent years mapping Japan, and were engaged in the same work in British Columbia, jumped the border to the United States, taking with them their families, their information and their fine surveying and photographic instruments, and in the blocking out of the country which the wise men in the East were performing, were assigned to the White Mountains. Railroads and ships to the Atlantic seaboard bore every day new groups of reserve officers from the Orient and South America to New York for sailing orders.
They found von Papen already there. He established