TRAITORS AND TREASON

Greymouth Evening Star, 28 November 1929, Page 12

TRAITORS AND TREASON

FRANCE IN WAR TIME.

In 1918 Joseph Caillaux .ex-fcrbmier wizard of finance, one of Europe s outstanding pre-war P 6rs ° n^ e Xtting flung into prison, charged with against the safety of France; Louis Malvy, Minister of the Interior, appeared on charges of treason bef ° r ® Senate; and Charles Humbert, Senator and newspaper magnate, was similar y accused. It was like England Pacing Mr. Asquith, Sir John Simon, and Lord Northcliffe in the dock. No wonder France was electrified (says John o London’s Weekly”). . Rudyard Kipling’s amazement at tne interest taken in the series of treason trials which followed M. Clemenceau s accession to power is not shared by the reader of Mr. George Adam’s unusually interesting “Treason and Tragedy, one of the best and most stirring books written about the war'years. Insidious propaganda had undermined the national morale to an alarming degree; newspapers preaching impossibility of victory penetrated the front line; mutinies had broken out in the sixteen divisions in the Champagne sector, and the safety of the whole front was imperilled. The accused fell into three categories. First the horde of wretched creatures who acted as informers in German pay in occupied zones. For fifty francs wounded Allied soldiers, lying hidden, were sold to the enemy, and compatriots betrayed for helping the Allied cause. Such, were the “Terror of Trelon,” ■wife of an interned French official, and informer to the German police; Hubert, who sold hlis own brother to the Germans for having harboured French airmen, and was arrested wearing a war medal stolen from a poilu’s corpse;. Toque, who in 1914 was released by the invading Germans from imprisonment for having used living natives as a set piece of firework celebrations in Africa and turned spy; Alice Loffroy, a veritable Fury, mistress of countless Germans and the Terror of Noyon:— “Her finest exploit was the denunciation of a village woman foi* keeping two Senegalese sharpshooters in a false chimney. After a good deal of bargaining she got the price she wanted, £6 a head, and asked for the loan of a German uniform, so that she might enjoy seeing what happened.” The village mayor was shot. How pathetic the farewell pennel to his wife: “I shall die in my cloth coat and waistcoat, and I’ll wear my sabots. I tell you this so that you may be able to recognise me when you come to fetch me.”

A TREACHEROUS BARRISTER.

Gaston Quien —a barrister, whose practice had been confined to defending himself unsuccessfully against charges of fraud and theft —was another informer, tried after the war. Though his treachery was amply prov- , ed, the prosecution failed to convict him of the historic crime of having betrayed Nurse Cavell. Next were the wholesale dealers in treason,- intelligent men who netted millions. Almeyreda, founder of the Bonnet Rouge, who died mysteriously in prison before trial; Duval, who propagated the poison that England, /having occupied Calais and the Channel ports, would never evacuate them; Lenoir, who received from Germany no less than 5,000,000 francs, 140,000 of them in blood-stained five-franc notes wrung from his compatriots by the invaders! When he was first taken to Vincen-

nes he begged for time in which to make revelations regarding Caillaux. He was put back into his cell, and it was found that what he had to say was of no particular interest. When he next reached the execution ground he was in a state of collapse so complete that the men who carried him from the motor car did not know whether it was not a corpse that they tied to the stake to be executed by the firing party. And there was 8010, who had absconded with his employer’s wife and jewels, been dentist, grocer, fishmonger, and bigamist reaped tainted fortunes from emeralds, and' posed as a Monte Cristo in Paris, before joining the deposed Khedive as Germany’s paid agent. Abbas Hilmi made 8010 a “Pasha,” but the two quarrelled over the swag, 8010 receiving at least one (if not two) million francs. By the time he had settled with his , more pressing creditors, given his wife a pearl necklace, and rounded off his i estates at Biarritz by purchasing a few . 10ts of lan d, there was practically nothing left for Germany, and Germany ■ awaited immediate results. Not the least dramatic incident at

his trial was that appearance .of his two “wives’ ’to plead together for his life. For his execution 8010 the debonar put on white gloves, and placed over his heart two handkerchiefs which he left in his will to his wife and his brother. ’into the third category fall such misguided, but not treacherous, politicians as Caillaux.

ACQUITTED OF MURDER. When war broke out France was ringing with Madame Caillaux’s acquittal of the murder of Calmette, editor of “Figaro.” The - circumstances surrounding the documents in the case were remarkable. These documents .... “had been purloined by a jealous wife and used as a weapon to break the ties between Caillaux and the lady whom he subsequently married. As the result of the compromise which had to be effected, Caillaux had to agree to abandon any idea of seeking a divorce and to break off relations with the lady. In return the letters were solemnly burnt in the presence of witnesses. A few months afterwards Caillaux began divorce proceedings, and when, he married again it ?became quickly clear that Madame 1 GueyddnCaillaux, while consenting to the burning of the letters, had taken the precaution of having them photographed, and it was the publication of those facsimiles which led to the killing of Calmette.” z • During the nine-day trial two of the

judges challenged each other to a duel, so high had passions run! In 1917 the public mind soon connected Caillaux with the defeatist campaign:—“Lenoir . . . was the son of a man used as an agent by Caillaux in his Moroccan negotiations with Germany. 8010 ... was among Caillaux’s friends. Almeyreda .. . whs the man who had organised Caillaux’s Corsican bodyguard during the trial of Madame Caillaux in 1914.” Caillaux was acquitted by the tribunal of the major charges, and released after twenty-seven months in prison. Since then he has again held office as Finance Minister!