SPYING IN GREAT WAR

Evening Star, Issue 20255, 16 August 1929, Page 13

SPYING IN GREAT WAR

GERMANS EMPLOY BRITISHER

TOLD TO DETECT HIMSELF Spies who gambled with death in the war—men and women who worked in the dark, with every main's hand against them—live their desperate lives again in a recently-published book on modern espionage, ‘ Spy and Counterspy,’ by R. W. Rowan. Here are stories of Englishmen who, posing as Germans, rose to high positions in Germany and sent a stream of priceless information into England—of a German who boasted after the war that he was actually invited by the French to see a demonstration of their new flame throwers —of a British spy on the staff of Prince Rupprecht. It was an Englishman named Everett who was actually given a big post in the German secret service—in Germany. “ Ho knew Germany as he knew Britain; he spoke the language with a native fluency acquired through years of commercial contact in Munich, Dresden, and Leipzig,” writes Mr Rowan. “ Contriving cleverly to insert himself into tho German military intelligence—it- has been said that_ he was even mobilised from his precious employment —he was devoted henceforth mainly to counter-spying along the Dutch border and m tho industrial Rhineland. The extent of his usefulness to the British was recognised by tho Germans even at the time of his largest activities. It was, in consequence, Everett’s singular privilege to overtake and arrest—himself 1 “ The German intelligence chiefs had somehow been informed that a daring British spy was getting carefullyguarded information from right under their noses in the vicinity of Essen; and Everett himself seems to have been that spy in the industrial area. As an energetic counter-spy he was ordered to devote himself to the detection of the Britisher, and for his failure and subsequent reprimand he had only himself to blamo. DANGERS. “Humorous though the situation may now appear, it was a period of excessive danger for him. His superiors counted upon him for some result, even though he might not get his man; and yet everything he reported to them had to be utterly fictitious, which, if found out, would accuse him at once of having been in league with or in some way bought over by the enemy. But Everett weathered these many perils and alarms, and was never exposed.” A British spy, sent into Germany before the war, served as a major on the staff of Prince Rupprecht, and held his post until just before the armistice, when, changing his uniform at last, he helped with the negotiations which ended the German resistance.

But a German spy equalled his audacity. Since the war came to an end a Prussian captain, safely returned to his own land and less perilous duty, has asserted that in the third year of hostilities—after nearly thirty months of spying in France—he was even invited to witness an exclusively military demonstration of the new French flame throwers.

“It appears that ho specialised in cultivating influential French friends. He claims to have corresponded cordially with more than thirty officers at once, each in a different regiment. By tracing a regiment he could follow the movement of a division or of an army corps. And so devoted to him and powerful were some of his friends—as also they were tho very foundation of his spying—that, when at last he was suspected, near the close of the war, he was warned by them and enabled to get out of the country. INSPECTED GUNS. Mr Rowan tells of two amazingly clever enemy spies in Palestine, whom Allenby’s military intelligence officers called ‘‘ Presusser ” and “ Francks.” Presusser, a master of Arabian disguise, penetrated the British headquarters at Cairo more than once, and was never caught. Francks passed as a British or colonial officer, never presenting himself as the same man twice. “ Of fine figure, easy manners, possessor of technical knowledge in nearly all military branches, and with an extensive and alarming enemy wardrobe. Francks conspicuously wore the uniform of tho staff, red tabs, and every other detail complete. Or he affected the blue tabs and special insignia of the ordnane staff, and thus once brazenly inspected a regiment of artillery. He acquired at another time the complete explanation of an intended barrage.” The story of the detection of spies in Britain makes fascinating reading. 80, too, does the account of tho work of a brilliant and courageous naval diver, E. C. Miller, who descended to great depths and extracted the secret code and plans from sunken German submarines. “ A special service unit was organised to rush him amd his air pump and other diving equipment to any spot on tho British coast where a U boat was known to have gone down, and / in time he came to be as familiar with the internal arrangements and devices of the German submarine raider as any engineer at Kiel or Cuxhaven.”