Read Strange Intelligence: Memoirs of Naval Secret Service Online

Authors: Hector C. Bywater,H. C. Ferraby

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Passing over the intervening years, each of which brought fresh evidence of Germany’s fixed resolve to try conclusions with us at her own appointed time, we come to the position that existed in 1910. By that time, Germany had recovered from the temporary setback her naval policy had met with by reason of Britain’s adoption of the dreadnought type of battleship. To Germany, indeed, the advent of the all-big-gun ship was a stroke
of great good fortune. By reducing all previous battleships to obsolescence it wiped out Britain’s crushing preponderance in this type, and enabled Germany to start level with us in the new building race. As an earnest of her determination she rebuilt the Kiel Canal at stupendous cost to make it navigable for her new mastodons.

Before the dreadnought era, no particular secrecy was observed by any of the powers in regard to their naval preparations. Comparatively full details of new ships were released well in advance of their completion, and not seldom before their keel plates had been laid. Germany was not less communicative than her neighbours, as a glance at the naval textbooks of that period will reveal. But with the construction of the
Dreadnought
all this was changed. Anxious to keep the secrets of his ‘wonder ship’, Lord Fisher imposed a ban on the publication of technical naval data that had heretofore been freely imparted to the press. Thus the ‘hush hush’ policy was first introduced by Great Britain, and not, as is commonly believed, by Germany.

But Germany, as was her unquestioned right, promptly retaliated by imposing a censorship that was soon proved to be much stricter and more watertight than our own. British journals, unaccustomed to, and possibly resentful of, any suggestion of official control over news, continued to print a great deal of information about new warships and other naval developments occurring in this country. The German authorities, wielding more arbitrary powers, were able virtually to muzzle their own press on this particular subject. Thus the ‘hush’ policy recoiled on the heads of its authors, for while it failed in its purpose of denying to the Germans important information about the British Navy, it enabled them to conceal their own
preparations behind a veil of secrecy, which, as we have seen, defied penetration for a number of years.

And it was precisely during this period that German naval technique was achieving its most formidable results. Revolutionary changes were taking place in the design and construction of German fighting craft; a thoroughly efficient and reliable type of submarine had been evolved after years of painstaking research and experiment; new methods of inter-fleet signalling, both wireless and visual – destined to demonstrate their amazing efficiency at the Battle of Jutland – were being introduced; new guns, new armour-piercing projectiles, new torpedoes, new mines and new explosives were in process of trial or adoption. Between 1906 and 1910 the combatant power of the German fleet may be said to have doubled, less by the increment in ship tonnage than by the improvements made in individual ships and their equipment.

Yet throughout this critical period we were receiving only the scantiest naval intelligence from Germany, and much of this was contradictory. Although we knew that a deadly weapon was being forged for eventual use against ourselves, ignorance of the characteristics and power of that weapon handicapped our efforts to devise a sure means of defence against its assault. To cite a case in point: had we obtained in advance full particulars of the Germany battlecruisers, it is extremely improbable that we should have built such ‘replies’ as the
Indefatigable
s or the
Lion
s. Again, had we known the extraordinary potency of the new German shells, torpedoes, and mines, we should perhaps have devoted much more attention to the armour and underwater protection of our capital ships. The word ‘perhaps’ is used advisedly, for, as will in due course appear, our naval authorities
were, in fact, apprised of many of these Germany innovations in ample time for counter-measures to be taken before the outbreak of war. Why such measures were not taken has never been satisfactorily explained.

It is not too much to say that the reports furnished to the intelligence department by ‘X’ gave our authorities their first insight into the internal mechanism of the German naval machine. Previously they could see the wood without being able to distinguish the trees. Yet in such a case detailed knowledge is of paramount importance. It was not enough for our purpose to know that Germany had laid down a new battleship of such-and-such a tonnage. To build a ship that should effectually surpass the German vessel in all-round fighting power it was necessary for us to learn her speed, radius of action and armament, the thickness and distribution of her armour plating, the method and extent of her underwater protection, and a number of other details.

Germany, however, was not sufficiently obliging to proffer such information, and thanks to her admirable system of censorship, we were left in ignorance of many essential features of new ships, not only while they were under construction, but long after they had been commissioned. It was to remedy this most unsatisfactory and, indeed, highly dangerous state of affairs that our intelligence service had to extend its activities, one branch of which was represented by ‘X’. Who, then, was this mysterious individual, whose reports, almost from the beginning, threw a flood of light on matters of vital moment that had hitherto been wrapped in the mists of obscurity?

For obvious reasons it would be improper, even after the passage of so many years, to disclose the identity of any member
of the pre-war intelligence service. Let us therefore introduce ‘X’ not as an individual, but as a type, even though in writing of his work we have in mind a certain person. How he came to join the ranks of the service would make an intriguing story in itself, but once more, alas, the impulse to be indiscreet must be sternly repressed. Suffice it that, although a mere civilian, he had exceptional qualifications for the task he was invited to undertake.

In every country, no doubt, and in England beyond question, there exists a certain number of people who have no professional connection with naval or military affairs, but who are, nevertheless, entitled to be considered experts on such matters. We could name today at least half a dozen English civilians who have at their fingertips the most intimate knowledge of the world’s navies. In some cases this knowledge is largely, if not wholly, theoretical; in others, it is fortified by practical experience obtained through personal contact with British and foreign warships and naval personnel.

Those men would be the first to ridicule the supposition that they could understudy the professional sailor as far as the practical side of his calling is concerned. They would even disclaim any qualification to pose as authorities on naval tactics – as distinct from strategy. They are simply students who have specialised in the study of the material elements of naval power, but of this particular subject their knowledge is extensive and even profound.

Let us give a few examples to illustrate the point. The prompt identification of warships at sea, whether British or foreign, is a science in itself, and one that assumes vital importance in wartime. We are well within the facts in stating that the most skilful
exponents of this science are civilians. The late Fred T. Jane, founder of the widely known
Fighting Ships
annual that bears his name, could, and repeatedly did, astound the most experienced naval officers by his uncanny familiarity with the minutest details of every vessel of war that floated during his lifetime. To such a degree had he cultivated this faculty that, upon being shown at sea a squadron of ships of uniform design, he could instantly name each unit, though even to the trained eye, they seemed as alike as peas. One of Jane’s diversions was the drawing up of questionnaires on the most abstruse technical minutiae of warships, guns, armour protection, and so forth, which he submitted to his naval friends for elucidation. As a rule the correct answers averaged 5 per cent, but Jane himself, confronted by a set of similar questions, was rarely at a loss for an accurate and immediate reply to every one.

Jane was probably unique but, before and since his time, there have been civilian students of naval technique whose mastery of their subject almost rivalled his own. During the Great War there was witnessed the apparent anomaly of civilians teaching naval officers how to recognise and identify enemy ships. In pre-war days the most comprehensive and detailed knowledge of the German Navy was that acquired by lay observers. Such, at least, was the testimony of intelligence officers of that period.

Now ‘X’ had been from boyhood a diligent student of naval affairs. Long before he went out into the world he knew almost by heart the ship tables and data published in
Brassey’s Naval Annual, Jane’s Fighting Ships
and other textbooks. His nearest conception of heaven was a visit to one of the royal dockyards, and on these all too rare occasions he invariably astonished and disconcerted the official guides – Metropolitan policemen as a
rule – by shyly but firmly correcting the misinformation they dispensed to visitors.

As a small boy he wrote an essay on the Japanese naval victory at the Yalu, which only escaped getting into print by an editor’s chance discovery of the author’s tender age. In his fourteenth year his modest library was enriched by a birthday gift of H. W. Wilson’s
Ironclads in Action
, by far the most informative work on modern naval warfare, which had appeared up to that time. Followed the
Wanderjahre
, which included prolonged sojourns in the United States and Canada and visits to several continental lands, including Germany, in which country he acquired the rudiments of what he considered to be one of the noblest and most expressive of modern tongues.

Still the victim of a roving disposition, his mid-twenties found him again in northern Europe, where he was destined to live through several hectic years. As at this time German sea power was on the flood tide of development, it was inevitable that ‘X’ should become deeply interested in the process. His specialised knowledge of warships and their equipment enabled him to appreciate the significance of much that he saw on his first casual visits to Kiel and the waterfronts of the Elbe and Weser. Moreover, since the nature of his business – which at this time had nothing to do with intelligence work – necessitated a careful reading of German periodical literature, he speedily became aware of the existence and extraordinary ramifications of Admiral von Tirpitz’s propaganda system, which was being so effectively employed to stimulate public interest in the national navy. There is not the remotest doubt that this intensive propaganda was mainly responsible for the startling growth of anti-British sentiment among the Germany people.

A steady stream of literature poured from the
Nachrichten-Büro
of the Berlin Navy Office, in which Great Britain was always portrayed as an implacable enemy who would stick at nothing to frustrate Germany’s hopes of commercial and colonial expansion. The whole nation was being indoctrinated with the belief that perfidious Albion was privily preparing for an unprovoked attack on the power that had already become her most dreaded trade competitor, and that only by the creation of a powerful fleet could this peril be averted.

When ‘X’ first settled in Germany in 1907 he was strongly biased in favour of the country and its people, from whom he had received many kindnesses on previous visits. He had also made German friends in the United States, while Carlyle’s ‘Frederick the Great’ had given him a very sincere admiration for the qualities that had raised Prussia from political insignificance to a commanding position in the world. But it soon became clear to him that Germany, far from being animated by friendship for Britain, entertained very different sentiments and designs.

Few intelligent Englishmen who lived in Germany during the seven or eight years that preceded the war felt any doubt as to what was impending. On every hand there was abundant evidence of a bellicose spirit, coupled with more or less open preparation for war by sea and land. Yet in Britain itself a great number of people, including many in high positions, were unable or unwilling to realise the danger, and dismissed as alarmist fiction the plainest evidence of German hostility.

Having observed all these disquieting symptoms of political animus and the concrete proofs of martial preparation, ‘X’ conceived it his duty to bring them to the notice of the most influential people he could reach at home. In due course his
manifest grasp of German naval affairs attracted attention in certain quarters, and eventually, though much against his own desire, he found himself a new but full-fledged member of the British secret service.

The succeeding chapters, which deal with the adventures and vicissitudes of ‘X’ and his co-workers in central Europe, will, it is hoped, serve to dispel many of the illusions in regard to this work, which have been created by sensational but over-imaginative writers who have no personal knowledge of their subject. We may claim, indeed, that these pages disclose for the first time the truth about the naval branch of the secret service, before and during the war. And it will be found, we think, that the wildest flights of fiction are less strange and less thrilling than the truth.

CHAPTER 2

THE MEN WHO DID THE WORK

N
O ONE CAN
appreciate the work of the intelligence men stationed abroad in the period of deep secrecy that marked the last five years before the war without some knowledge of the extremely technical information that they had to gather.

No useful purpose would have been served by sending in reports that a new battleship was going to be called the
Kaiser
, or that 200 extra hands had been put to work on the new cruiser
Emden
, or that two new submarines would be laid down on 1 March. That kind of thing was the province of the newspaper correspondent, far more than that of the intelligence man. The latter’s business was to find out what technical novelties or developments were included in the battleship, what mechanical innovations were being embodied
in the submarine, or what engine-room improvements characterised the cruiser.

The newspaper correspondent could not have sent this sort of information to his paper – or, if he did, he would have been very speedily invited to leave the country. And the invitation would have been one he could not well refuse.

A good idea of the brand of technical knowledge with which the intelligence men had to be equipped can be gathered from the very interesting discussion that broke out after the war between Sir Eustace Tennyson d’Eyncourt, who was director of naval construction at the admiralty, and Dr Bürkner, who held a corresponding position in Berlin as chief of the shipbuilding division of the
Marineamt
.

Sir Eustace, after he had visited the interned German ships at Scapa Flow and carefully examined them, presented a commentary on their designs to the Institution of Naval Architects.

Dr Bürkner, in reply, published lengthy comments in the German technical paper
Schiffbau
(shipbuilding). We may take a few of his disclosures about German design as indicating the abstruse technical details for which our intelligence men had to search.

In claiming for Germany the rank of pioneer in the development of underwater protection, Dr Bürkner gave some new and interesting particulars of what had been done in this direction before the war. As early as 1905 experiments were initiated to determine the best method of protecting a ship’s vitals against attack below water, and these were continued up to the outbreak of war. They involved the use of explosives against various models, including a huge floating target of 1,700 tonnes.

‘We never heard that any other navy went in for similar experiments on a corresponding scale,’ he comments.

In ships of the British Navy underwater protection is provided by the ‘bulge’. Much of the bulging has been done since the war. The German ships built before the war had an ‘outer torpedo bulkhead’ and Dr Bürkner claimed that this gave greater protection than the British system because, in order to reduce the resistance to the water, the bulge has to be fined down considerably at the extremities. Of the German ships equipped with the bulkhead system of sub-surface protection, only the
Blücher
was sunk by torpedo. Nine others were damaged by underwater attack (mine or torpedo), but all survived.

This bulkhead idea, or the sub-division of the ship into many watertight compartments, has been much discussed since the war. Sir Eustace d’Eyncourt, in his paper before the Institute of Naval Architects, said that the
Baden
and most of the more recent German capital ships were sub-divided more minutely than the British in some parts, but less so in others, so that the arrangement as a whole did not make for any greater safety than in the case of the British ships.

To this Dr Bürkner replied that, since the plans of the
Queen Elizabeth
and
Royal Sovereign
classes were unknown to him, he could not express an opinion about them, but as regards the earlier ships, he was able to give a comparison of the sub-division of the rival types, based on plans of the
Emperor of India
and
Princess Royal
that fell into German hands during the war. (An interesting disclosure, that, of a success for the enemy intelligence service.)

He contrasted them in a tabular statement with the
König
and
Derfflinger
, ships of corresponding size and date.

This table shows that the number of small compartments (double bottom, passages, etc.) was practically the same in the British and German ships.

SUB-DIVISION BELOW THE ARMOUR DECK GIVEN IN PERCENTAGES OF TOTAL SPACE
 
König
E. of I.
Derfflinger
P. Royal

Small compartments

(less than 300 cbm)

75
70
65
49

Medium compartments

(300 to 1,000 cbm)

25
7
28
9

Large compartments

(more than 1,000 cbm)

0
23
7
44

While, however, the German ships had many more medium compartments but practically no large ones, in the British ships the large compartments occupied from one-quarter to one-half of the total space below water.

Dr Bürkner points out that if damage to the armour deck of the
Princess Royal
caused one of the main engine rooms and its adjoining wing compartments to be flooded, the ship would assume a list of 15 degrees, whereas corresponding damage in the
Derfflinger
would produce a heel of only 9.5 degrees. In actual fact we know that the
Derfflinger
was so damaged at Jutland that she took in 3,400 tonnes of water, and yet remained in the fighting line and got home again after the battle.

Incidentally, Dr Bürkner is among those who deny the truth of the story, first told by Lord Fisher, that the German secret
service was tricked by the British counter-espionage over the design of our first battlecruisers. Lord Fisher’s story was that he had caused faked plans to be prepared, and carefully planted them, a section at a time, with known German agents in Britain, these plans considerably under-estimating the actual strength of the ships that we were building. And he claimed that, misled by the bogus drawings, the Germans built the
Blücher
; thinking she was an adequate reply to our ships.

Dr Bürkner, in his article in ‘Schiffbau’, said:

The ship was in no sense a reply to the
Invincible
, for England’s decision to build dreadnought cruisers was known in Germany only when work had progressed so far that her armament and leading dimensions could not be modified.
Blücher
was simply a later development of the
Scharnhorst
class and, within the limits of the design, a very successful ship. Her armour was far more extensive and no less thick – on the belt it was actually thicker than that of the
Invincible
, and her underwater protection was not limited to the magazine spaces, as in the British ship, but was continued in way of all vital parts.

Blücher
had also a 5.9-inch secondary armament, which the
Invincible
lacked, and her maximum speed of 25.8 knots, practically the same as the
Invincible
’s made her the fastest large reciprocating-engined vessel in the world. The real, though belated, reply to the
Invincible
was the
Von der Tann
, and the Battle of Jutland proved the ‘reply’ to be quite satisfactory.

If British comment may be allowed on this point, it may be said that the
Blücher
was probably the best and most powerful armoured cruiser (as opposed to battlecruiser) ever built.
The hammering she took at the Dogger Bank before going to the bottom revealed the staunchness of her protection.

British and German designs did, of course, follow each other pretty closely in those days, but Dr Bürkner challenged Sir Eustace d’Eyncourt’s statement that the
Baden
, the last German battleship to be built, was designed as soon as Germany heard of the
Queen Elizabeth
class, of which, he said, the
Baden
was a ‘fairly close, but inferior copy’.

‘That is a myth’, Dr Bürkner declared:

Except in the calibre and disposition of her guns, and in the general arrangement of her external armour, the
Baden
exemplifies totally different ideas of construction. In point of fact, not even in respect of her artillery can we admit her to be a copy of the
Queen Elizabeth
, for the calibre and arrangement of her guns were approved by the Kaiser on 6 January 1912, after endless discussion, and at that time no news as to the
Queen Elizabeth
had reached Germany beyond a rumour that a heavier British gun than the 13.5-inch was contemplated.

In parentheses it may be pointed out here that this statement puts Dr Bürkner in a dilemma. Either he implies that the German secret service was ineffective, or else he is saying something that is not strictly true. The plans of the
Queen Elizabeth
class were drawn in 1910. The ship was on the stocks in 1912. If by that time the German secret service had not discovered something more than ‘a rumour’ about bigger guns, it was far less efficient than even those who were battling against it supposed it to be!

He seems to realise this danger, because in the next sentence he goes on to say:

Surely Sir Eustace does not suppose that we had knowledge of the
Queen Elizabeth
’s armament, etc., nine months before she was laid down?

The
Baden
class was, in truth, developed out of the
König
class in all essential features except armament, and the latter was decided on in the first days of 1912.

Dr Bürkner contends, on the other hand, that the armour protection of the
Queen Elizabeth
was modelled after that of the German
Kaiser
class, which had been begun at the end of 1909; and, further, that we adopted German ideas in restoring the 6-inch secondary armament in the
Iron Duke
and later types.

He deals next with the statement that the
Baden’s
speed was inferior to that of the
Queen Elizabeth
and her protection inferior to that of the
Royal Sovereign
. As regards protection he writes:

The
Royal Sovereign
is inferior to the
Baden
in defence above and below water excepting only the 2-inch armour deck in the citadel, and even this deck would offer small resistance to armour-piercing shell with good delay-action fuses, owing to its high position, pronounced slope, and want of coal protection.

The corresponding arrangement in the
Baden
consists of a 1.1-inch steel deck, a 1.1-inch and 3-inch splinter bulkhead, and bunkers filled with coal.

Sir Eustace mentions that the
Baden
steamed 3 knots less on trial than the
Queen Elizabeth
, and that she suffers from the drawback of mixed boiler firing. The creation of a fast battleship division had been repeatedly discussed in Germany, and was a pet idea of the Kaiser’s, but it had been dropped at the time when the Baden was designed. Unless we had sacrificed fighting power
or increased the dimensions beyond the permissible limit, it could only have been realised by adopting oil fuel only, and this was objectionable on two grounds: first, because it was impossible to guarantee an adequate supply in wartime; secondly, because coal afforded excellent protection against shell fire, mines, and torpedoes, whereas oil fuel required protection itself.

Consequently, we contented ourselves in the
Baden
’s case with a speed no higher than that of the preceding
König
class.

It is to be hoped that readers will not have skipped all this technical material, which, by the way, is not nearly so technical as much that could have been put in to serve the same purpose. But it is important to realise that the work of discovering what was in progress behind the scenes could not be done by any untrained volunteer who simply had an itch for adventure.

The useful intelligence man had a fund of knowledge about engineering in all its aspects. He knew a great deal about gunnery. He had a practical knowledge of electricity. He was grounded in naval architecture and familiar with the problems of ship forms and the resistance of water to propeller thrust. He was not ignorant of metallurgy, and he had more than a bowing acquaintance with optics. Moreover, in the last years before the war he had to master the technicalities of wireless, which was then developing rapidly.

And having all that knowledge, he had to be very careful that none of the German naval authorities suspected him of knowing much about any of those subjects!

He had to play the simpleton if the conversation ever turned on technical subjects, and he had to swallow the most outrageous inaccuracies without a blink of an eyelid. He never knew what trap there might be in the apparently innocent chatter.

Some of our intelligence men were extraordinarily good actors. There was one character who was known to the inner circle as the ‘Hunting Parson’, though his name never appeared in
Crockford’s Clerical Directory
, nor ever will. He was one of the wonders of our intelligence service, with his bawdy comic songs, his hunting crop, his brick-red neck, and his voice of a bull of Bashan.

He did splendid work in southern waters during the war. Here is a description of him and his methods, by a man who met him out there:

It was a breathlessly hot night in the last summer of the war. There were a dozen of us in his room, of five different nationalities – six, if you count the Scottish journalist. We were not all intelligence men, that goes without saying; but every man in that room was a trained student of international politics. And yet not one of us had a tenth part the knowledge that lay behind the apparently vacuous, happy-go-lucky countenance of our host. There was no other man in Europe, I believe, who had as much secret knowledge of the currents, cross-currents, and under-currents of international life in the area he had to watch without seeming to watch. His reports were always accurate, down to the last detail.

And he sat at the piano that night, with a tumbler twice the normal size on a stand beside him, full of whisky and soda. He bawled his risqué songs in a cracked baritone to his own vamped accompaniment, and had us all in fits of laughter.

But he did not touch his drink all the evening.

Our glasses he filled time and again; his own drink he spilled surreptitiously at intervals into a wide bowl of flowers.

I knew, because I was a trained watcher, and I watched. But I don’t believe another soul in the room spotted it.

As we came away and walked to our respective hotels when the night was far advanced, a young foreign officer who was in his own country’s intelligence service accompanied me.

‘Good chap, X------’, he said cheerfully, as we meandered along the moonlit street. ‘Good company and, like all you English, quite mad. But, my God, what a fool to drink whisky as he does, in this climate!’

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