Strange Intelligence: Memoirs of Naval Secret Service (4 page)

Here, in brief, are some of the results we owed to the unremitting vigilance, enterprise, skill, and courage of our secret service naval agents, who worked silently and patiently during those critical pre-war years.

The gist of the epoch-making German fleet Law Amendment Act of 1912, which foreshadowed a huge increase in the combative strength of the High Seas Fleet, was communicated to Whitehall weeks before the bill itself was tabled in the Reichstag.

The admiralty was supplied with ample information about:

• The German mobilisation plans;
  
• The emergency war measures that were to take effect as soon as the ‘
  Mobilmachung
  ’ signal was flashed to Kiel and Wilhelmshaven;
  
• The war stations of the High Seas Fleet and the special arrangements made for passing heavy ships through the Kiel Canal in a much shorter time than we had been led to believe was possible;
  
• The distribution of light squadrons, destroyers and submarines immediately after the declaration of war;
  
• The plans for reinforcing minesweeping flotillas and coastal patrols, afloat and ashore;
  
• The worldwide network of intelligence and coaling facilities that German consuls and other agents abroad had established in anticipation of operations by German commerce raiders.
  

Readers of Lord Jellicoe’s volume,
The Grand Fleet
, will recall many passages that suggest we were utterly surprised by the
abnormal powers of resistance displayed by German battleships and cruisers at Jutland and in earlier encounters, and not less by the high quality of their gunnery, ammunition, optical instruments, torpedoes, mines, and other equipment. Yet the archives of the naval intelligence division must contain documentary evidence to prove that all these German ‘secrets’ had been uncovered and reported by British agents long before the war.

The massive armour and extensive underwater protection of the German dreadnoughts were well known to the British Admiralty, which had received particulars and diagrams of practically every ship that Admiral Scheer commanded at Jutland. These had been secured by our agents years beforehand, and it was not their fault if the admiralty had neglected to produce armour-piercing shells capable of piercing the sides and decks of the German ships and detonating with full force inside.

An accurate description of the shell that the Germans used with deadly effect at Jutland was in the hands of the admiralty as far back as 1911, together with an account of its performance against armoured targets on the Krupp proving-ground at Meppen and specially constructed target ships at sea.

At or about the same date, drawings and details were furnished of the latest torpedoes in production at the government factory of Friedrichsort, near Kiel – these being the weapons by which the U-boats were destined to sink millions of tonnes of shipping.

All essential particulars of the German naval mine, which, though simple, was extraordinarily reliable and destructive, were contained in our pre-war ID files, yet in spite of this information we ourselves clung to an obsolete and inefficient type of mine for nearly two years after the outbreak of war.

Almost the only vital secret our agents failed to unearth was the manner in which the German Navy would be employed in a war with Great Britain. It is just as well that this remained hidden from us, for had it been otherwise we should have been completely deceived.

To elucidate this seeming paradox it is necessary to recall the singular state of affairs that existed in the German naval administration in August 1914.

Grand Admiral von Tirpitz had then served seventeen years as Secretary of State for the Navy. The High Seas Fleet was virtually his own creation. It had been built and organised in strict conformity with his own strategical theories, and, as we know from his own writing, he never doubted for a moment that when ‘
Der Tag
’ dawned his imperial master would order him to forsake his desk in the Navy Office for the bridge of the flagship
Friedrich der Grosse
as Commander-in-Chief of the entire fleet.

All his plans were based upon that assumption. It was to be the apotheosis of those long years of single-minded and devoted service to the fatherland. And when the opportunity came he was determined to make the most of it. Not for him the timid, cautious strategy of keeping the fleet intact behind the shoals, minefields, and batteries of ‘the wet triangle’, preserving it as an asset for securing favourable peace terms. To him it was as a mighty sword for the striking of deadly blows at British sea power, which he had always recognised as the most formidable obstacle to the realisation of Germany’s soaring ambitions.

Tirpitz, therefore, intended to seek a decisive battle with the British fleet at the earliest possible moment. He had a well-founded faith in the weapon he had forged, tempered and tested repeatedly in manoeuvres. If he exaggerated the power of the surface
torpedo boat and under-estimated that of the submarine, he erred in the company of nearly all the senior naval officers of his day. The soundness of his policy in regard to capital ship construction and armament was brilliantly vindicated at Jutland. The German battlecruisers, especially, were magnificent fighting machines. That he was not personally responsible for the inadequate armament of the German light cruisers is conclusively proved by his memoirs.

But the declaration of hostilities brought him the bitterest disappointment of his life.

The Kaiser ignored his urgent request to be granted a free hand in directing the operations of the fleet, and retained in the chief command Admiral von Ingenohl, an officer of mediocre abilities who owed his advancement to the personal friendship of the Supreme War Lord and to prolonged service in the imperial yacht.

Nor was this all.

King Edward, many years before, had enraged his nephew by referring to the German fleet as ‘Willie’s toy’. This jest contained a profound truth. It soon became evident that Wilhelm II regarded the fleet as his personal property, to be cherished and conserved at all costs. The prospect of exposing his precious ships to the rude blasts of war filled him with dismay. He could view with equanimity the sacrifice of whole army corps on the battlefield, but he shrank from risking a single one of the dreadnoughts, which were, to him, majestic symbols of the aggrandisement and prestige of the Hohenzollern dynasty.

Therefore, immediately after Great Britain had declared war, he drafted with his own hand the notorious ‘
Operations-Befehl
’, which doomed the German fleet to inactivity at the very moment when a prompt and resolute offensive might well have yielded the most fruitful results.

There is no question that even a partial German success in the North Sea would have delayed indefinitely the passage of the British Expeditionary Force to France, and vitally affected the whole war situation to the detriment of the Allied cause. Without the presence of the BEF, the Battle of the Marne might never have been fought, or, if it had been fought, the result would probably have been very different. Even a mass attack by German submarines in the southern area of the North Sea would have seriously embarrassed and retarded our military dispositions. Moreover, a bold offensive by the navy would have evoked intense enthusiasm in Germany and, by enhancing the popularity and prestige of what was, after all, a new and untried arm, might have so raised the morale of the sea service as to render impossible the humiliating events of November 1918.

But the Kaiser thought of none of these things. ‘My ships must not be risked’ was the purport of his ‘operational orders’.

These forbade the High Seas Fleet to leave its sheltered anchorages except in the remote contingency of a British attack on the German coast. No ships of any importance were permitted to move without the express sanction of the Supreme War Lord, who arrogated to himself full executive control of the fleet. Thus, save for an abortive reconnaissance by a submarine flotilla and the despatch of a single minelayer towards the Thames Estuary, the entire German fleet lay idle at its moorings during the first crucial weeks of the war.

In vain did von Tirpitz plead for the
Entscheidungs-Schlacht
, the decisive battle, which at the very outset might have impeached Great Britain’s command of the home seas and thus altered the subsequent course of the war.

The Kaiser’s obstinate timidity where his ships were concerned
found support from the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg – who wanted the fleet to be kept as a bargaining asset at the peace table – and also from admirals who were jealous of von Tirpitz. Even before the war he had had contend with the enmity and intrigues of high officers who resented his unique position in the councils of the state. Between him and the chief of the
Marinekabinett
there existed a bitter feud, and as the department in question was empowered to make all naval appointments, subject only to the Kaiser’s approval, it followed that von Tirpitz’s recommendations were usually ignored and his protégés left out in the cold. Nor were his relations with the naval staff by any means cordial. Consequently, despite his virtual dictatorship of naval policy in regard to shipbuilding and equipment, he exercised only a very limited control over questions of personnel or strategy.

In this lack of coordination among the heads of the naval high command, coupled with the Kaiser’s morbid dread of losing ships, we find the clue to the otherwise inexplicable management of German naval affairs during the first eighteen months of the war.

While the dissensions prevailing at the Berlin Navy Office were known to our secret service agents, they could not possibly forecast the effect on the operations of the German fleet in time of war.

The British Admiralty wisely prepared for all eventualities, including an immediate offensive by the High Seas Fleet, this latter being regarded as most probable. When, therefore, the long-expected conflict did eventuate, the absolute quiescence and the lack of initiative displayed by the German naval command caused much perplexity at Whitehall.

The first fruits of our intelligence work in Germany were
garnered almost at once. Thanks to our foreknowledge of the arrangements made, not only for despatching armed liners from Germany to attack the trade routes, but also for arming and equipping for the same purpose a large number of selected German merchantmen at sea or in neutral ports on the outbreak of war, we were able to take prompt counter-measures that had the effect of nipping these plans in the bud. The fact that only one armed liner (
Kaiser Wilhelm der Grosse
) left Germany in the first month of hostilities, instead of the fleet of such ships that had been earmarked for the purpose, was due in large part to the swift action taken by the British Admiralty ‘from information received’.

This one among many concrete examples of the benefit we derived from our pre-war intelligence system in central Europe. Compared with the huge organisation built up subsequently, and presided over with conspicuous ability by Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, it was almost insignificant in personnel and resources. Yet its labours were singularly fruitful, as this book will show. That their full value has never been appreciated is no doubt due to the secrecy in which they were necessarily shrouded. But to those who knew the perils and anxieties of the service it is discouraging to find genuine intelligence work bracketed and pilloried with the comic-opera performances of amateur ‘secret service’ agents in neutral capitals during the war. It would be just as rational to introduce the pantomime policeman as a typical member of the Metropolitan Force.

O
NE OF THE
by-products of the intense activity in naval intelligence work all over Europe during the years between 1911 and 1914 was the planting of ‘faked’ news in the way of known agents.

This was an entirely different thing, of course, from the attempts on the part of the purely mercenary spy bureaux to dispose of ‘information’ to any gullible customer. Any number of amusing stories can be told of that aspect of the work.

For example, very shortly after the war began a plausible individual wormed his way into the confidence of a prominent British naval authority and offered him (for a price) plans of the latest German submarines.

He produced a printed folding diagram, large enough to occupy a complete spread of a daily newspaper, and closely annotated in German.

The authority was rather impressed. It looked like a real find.
Fortunately he had at hand a colleague who knew Germany well. This man was called into consultation. And he pointed out, with as much gravity as he could muster, that the plan was a print produced by a well-known Berlin publisher as an extra illustration to a boys’ magazine, and that it had been sold on the bookstalls in thousands, at a shilling a time, for months before the war. It contained no information of any sort about German submarine construction that could not be found in the most elementary textbooks!

That same plausible gentleman, however, scored a minor triumph when he sold to the editor of a certain English review a ridiculous article on the German naval defences. The editor was unlucky. He had no colleague with first-hand German knowledge whom he could consult, and the article duly appeared, to the intense amusement of all those who knew the facts.

An attempt to ‘sell the dummy’, which may have been inspired from German sources or may have been a commercial effort on the part of a spy, led to very careful investigation of the admiralty a year or two before the war.

The would-be vendor, a German, offered a large-scale map of Borkum, which we regarded as the key of the German coastal defences in the Bight, and about which, as everyone knew, we had a quite legitimate curiosity. It was an enormous map, and it bore the imprint of the naval hydrographic bureau in Berlin.

It showed in full detail the batteries and other defensive works on the island, and at first sight was decidedly impressive. The German asked a very big price for it, something far beyond the means of our intelligence service to pay for out of its normal budget. But the offer was too promising to reject out of hand.

In order to present the case for it as strongly as possible in the
right quarter, the head of the department decided to check it up with the information our own men had obtained about Borkum. And he found that the map was wrong in every important point!

The probability is that the attempt to plant it with us was officially inspired in Berlin. When the German called for his money he was politely shown the door but the map was retained by us as a souvenir, and thereafter adorned one of the walls at ID headquarters.

Lord Fisher always claimed to have achieved the outstanding success of ‘selling the dummy’ when he caused bogus plans of our first battlecruisers to be passed through to Berlin, as narrated in a previous chapter.

Lord Fisher made the story public in his memoirs, and since then it has been categorically repudiated by more than one German authority, notably Dr Bürkner, but there is nothing inherently improbable in the Fisher version, and the very fact that the Germans built the
Blücher
after we had laid down the first battlecruisers indicates strongly that they did not suspect the real nature of the ‘armoured cruisers’ included in the British programme for 1905.

Nevertheless, towards the end of 1908 it became privately known in British shipbuilding circles that plans, generally believed to be a complete set, of our first battlecruisers had vanished in transit between a shipyard and the admiralty. The boxes that should have contained them were intact and sealed, but from each box some of the plans were missing, and, collectively, the missing parts provided a definite guide to the design of the ships.

The first German battlecruiser, the
Von der Tann
, was laid down in 1909.

We know that the German intelligence department did
purchase a considerable number of ‘dummies’. For some psychological reason the Russians were uncommonly good at planting spurious documents with the intelligence departments of other powers. The German Admiralty was as much interested in the Russian coastline and the fortifications of Riga, Libau and Reval as we were in the Heligoland Bight defences. It will be remembered that the German Baltic forces launched several attacks in the Moon Sound area of the Baltic during the war, and that on the first two occasions their efforts were remarkably unsuccessful.

One reason for this was that before the war the Russian counter-espionage bureau had planted with the German Admiralty (for a very large sum of money) wholly misleading plans of the defences in that area. British intelligence men who were in close touch with the Russians in the early months of the war were assured that the Germans had paid hundreds of thousands of marks for the plans, which were very skilfully prepared and full of the most detailed information – all of it wrong.

British intelligence agents working in Germany were either more shrewd or more fortunate than their opponents. Numberless efforts were made to palm off spurious plans on them, but rarely, very rarely, with success. At the admiralty it was well understood that material that came from our agents had been thoroughly sifted before being sent home, and that consequently there was good reason to credit it.

Our agents abroad dodged most of the spurious material, partly because they were so very careful about the men with whom they dealt. As will be made clear in the course of this volume, most of them depended for their facts almost entirely on personal observation. This in itself would have prevented them from falling into the traps laid for them. They were well
aware of the danger of negotiating with any stranger who offered to furnish secret information.
Agents provocateurs
were ubiquitous and unwearying in their efforts to lay snares for our men. For that reason the latter refused time and again even to look at material that was offered to them, on the very simple plea that as they were not interested in naval or military secrets there was no point in inspecting the plans or other documents that the obliging
agent provocateur
might propose to show them.

Even so, a good deal of spurious matter did come their way. Early in 1912 one of their number was offered by a man, whom he knew to be trustworthy, diagrams revealing the secrets of the latest German dreadnoughts, the
Nassau, Helgoland
and
Kaiser
classes. In view of the source from which they were proffered, our agent felt justified in examining the plans; but as he had already placed with the home intelligence department complete details of all the ships in question, he did not expect to be able to do much more than verify his own report by the new material.

When the plans were laid before him it did not take five minutes for him to discover that they were spurious. What is more, he realised that he himself was probably in a position of grave danger. The sequel is best told in his own words:

Another man who was present when this story was told had also worked for our intelligence service in Germany.

‘I once had a bad fright,’ he said, ‘but mine went a bit further than yours. I was actually detained on suspicion – and then got away with it.’

He paused, and his listeners sat in expectant silence.

‘It does turn your stomach over, doesn’t it?’ he added after a moment, and then went on: