IN SWITZERLAND

Evening Star, Issue 16092, 18 April 1916, Page 2

IN SWITZERLAND

CHARGES OF ESPIONAGE.

HIGH ARMY OFFICERS' ARREST.

The Swiss Colonels Watterwyll and Karl Egli, who are accused of having transmitted to the Central Powers information which came to their knowledge in the course of their duties, have been placed under close arrest. The Swiss journal 'Democrats' Tecalls the fact that they were intimately connected with Major Bismarck, Military Attache to the German Legation. The journal 'La Suisce' adds tnat the question of the recall of the ■Military Attaches involved will be considered shortly. The ' National Suisse' publishes particulars regarding the two accused colonels, which, it ie alleged, have been drawn from a reliable source. Colonol Watterwyll, Chief of the Intelligence Department, i 3 accused of having transmitted, each evening, by mean? of a military cyclist, secret Staff information to the German and Austrian Military Attaches. It was one of those cyclists who first spoke of the matter in a cafe at Geneva. Colonel Egli, Under-chief of the Staff of the army, ia accused of having had translated > a cipher document taken from the Russians by the Germans (which the latter were unable to by means of a clever cryptograph belonging to the Staff. Ho succeeded, and the text was afterwards transmitted to the German Staff. Colonel Egli is also said to he the object of a further accusation about which nothing definite is at present known. One may discern in this matter just the same procedure on the part of Germany as has been exercised in the United States. Her diplomatic representatives are merely official spies who endeavor to corrupt the administrations and the army in all countries where they are received

The flo-betwoen employed by Colonels Egli and Watterwyll and tho Gorman and Austrian Attaches was a person named Stcgemawi, a Gorman, who became a naturalised 'Swiss three years ago. The F-'-'-iss newspapers called for the recall of the German and Austrian ? ttaches if the facts alleged are found to be true.

In the Magistrate's Court at Wellington yesterday Alexander Lindsay waa fined £25 on a charge of being the occupier of pemiass in Vivian street wbeiein beer hail been sold, in default ono month in gaol. He was also fined £SO, or two montha' imprisonment, for selling liquor without a