TRICKING THE SPY

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 66, 19 March 1915, Page 4

TRICKING THE SPY

GERMANS BEATEN AT THEIR OWN GAME BRITISH INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT DOES NOT ADVERTISE. Writing in the London Daily Mail, Mr. Edward Wright -says: — The Teutonic system of espionage ie, of course, a wonderful thing. The Germans tell us so themselves, and nobody would doubt the word of a German. Our own Intelligence Department does not advertise. It is like our Coventry Ordnance Works, which makes so little noise in the world in comparison with the resounding fame of Krupps. . The , German spy system was 1 not put into full operation against our stupid, backward country until Lord Fisher began to reorganise our Navy with a, view to meeting the threat made by the German Navy Act. Early in 1906 our Ad miralty was secretly building four capital ships of a new type— the Dreadnought and her swift sisters, the now famous Indomitable, Inflexible, and Invincible. Had our preparations gone on without discovery we should have gained a lead of about eighteen months. But the übiquitous German spy found out what was doing in our yards. As our Intelligence Department was asleep, he was able to obtain many valuable particulars concerning the Indomitable. On the base of the knowledge thus obtained the clever German naval architects set, to work. They were resolved to produce something in the way of battlecrdisers that should make the Indomitable and her sisters feeble, limping things m comparison. The Blucher was the result — that old-fashioned armoured cruiser with only Bi-inch guns! This was the German Dreadnought ! Our ships had eight 12-inch guns each, and they were completed a year before their hopelessly poor German imitation. A SIMPLE TRICK. Naturally, the' Germans were very angry. By a, simple trick our Intelligence Department had caused them to lose a vast sum of money and to fall years behind us in the race over naval armaments. For it was in 1906 that we mounted 12-inch guns in the Dreadnought. No German capital ship had a , & UI L. of simi]ar calibre until the battleShip Heligoland was completed in 1911. For when Krupps were thrown on their own resources and on their own genuis for invention they were exceedingly slow in producing the gun that the German Navy vitally needed. For years the firm had spent large sums of money in a campaign of slander against its British and French rivals. This had been done with a vievV to attracting orders for artillery from the small nations which lacked gun-making plant. Besides the business profit obtained in this way, the large amount of foreign work skilfully directed towaids Essen enabled the Krupjp plant to be extended so as greatly to increase the spefed with which Germany could be supplied with cannon in war time, But when all that German intrigue could do had been done and the ordnance experts at Essen were put on their mettle to meet the challenge of British inventive genius, the result was ignominious. Our first battle-cruiser of the Dreadnought type, with eight 12in guns, was completed in 1908. The Germans never had a battle-cruiser with guns of equal calibre till 1914. EFFICIENCY OF THE ENEMY'S ESPIONAGE SYSTEM. In connection with this there is another story, also illustrative of the wonderful efficiency of the German espionage system and the slackness of our underpaid, under-staffed Intelligence .Department. 1 As France lias "produced a designer of light field artillery, with a genius that no Teuton can distantly approach, so our country happily contains designers of naval ordnance who throw the learned professors employed by Krupps into hysterical perplexity. What out- men have done for years, and are still doing, is to make mountings for big naval guns such as the inventors in no other land can equal. The mounting makes the naval gun. It has, easily and quietly, to cushion the shock of the recoiling piece of ordnance as this flings back after the explosion With a force almost as terrific as that with which it has expelled the shell. The ship itself is composed of a nicely balanced scaffolding of steel, which is already subject to stresses through the weight of its armour-plate. The earthquake shocks of the recoil of eight to ten great naval guns must be so cushioned by the mounting that no strain is placet! on the ship s structure. It was the problem of devising such a mounting for the 12-in gun which was utterly beyond the talent of every man in Germany. Only after years of labour and experiment did Krupps man- | age to get proper recoil chambers for' an 11-inch gun. Then, at last* either by long study and costly trials or by the bribery of some British ordnance draughtsman, the problem was solved. Possibly the famous German master-spy overcame the difficulty, and at great trouble and expense obtained a working sketch of the British design. If go, it was just like our Naval Intelligence Department to allow such a, thing to happen. For while the happy Germans were hastily designing and building new capital ships to take the new 12-inch Krupp gun, our men, a.t the Coventry Ordnance Works, were busy making 13£-inch guns, with a far longer range and striking power than the Germans even dreamed of ! After this, the German Admiralty lost faith in its wonderful system of espionage. It had become only an instrument on which certain men "in Whitehall played alluring tunes that doomed German battleships to destruction before they were even built. •DISCOVERY MADE BY KRIJPPS. But the principal cause of this relaxation of interest in our naval affairs dn the part of German spies was a grand discovery made by Krupps. German science and German invention had at last triumphed over every difficulty. The British Fleet was as good as sunk. Only a few of its capital ships were armed with the new lS^-inch 'gun. Krupps had a miracle of a mounting that would take the recoil of a 14-inch gun. It was not a matter of a design on paper backed by intricate mathematical calculations. A 14-inch gun had been made and placed in a ' mounting of unparalleled strength. Again and again the gun had been fired, and the actual stresses transmitted through the mounting had been measured in the most scientific fashion. Everything stood firm. Having witnessed these experiments, the German Admiralty gave Krupps a large order for the manufacture of the incomparable gun, and the most brilliant of German naval architects at once designed the strongest*~and speediest capital ship in the world. All the latest German battleships atid battle-cruisere, that now carry only 12-inch guns, were really designed and constructed to sweep the North Sea with the new monster Krupp gun. But when the first ship was built and gunned and sent out for its firing test, it was nearly sunk by its own ordnatlce. The Krupp mounting gave way under the recoil. There was" nothing to do but to scrap all the 14-inch guns and build more of the 12-inch ones. And before the Germans diecoveved

how to mount the 13i-inch gun our Navy had a 15-inch gun throwing a ton of high explosive and hardened steel to a distance of Well, the Germans can discover what the distance is when tho great fleet action opens.