SPYING IN GREAT WAR

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18352, 24 August 1929, Page 9

SPYING IN GREAT WAR

DEEDS BEYOND THE FRONT. Spies who gambled with death in the war—men and woman who worked in the dark, with every man’s hand against them—live their desperate lives again in a recenttly published book on modern espionage, "Spy and Counter-spy,” 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 wa6 actually given a big post in the German secret service—in Germany. "He 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 the German military intelligence—it has been said that he was even mobolised from his precious employment—he was devoted henceforth mainly to counter-spying along the Dutch border and in the industrial Rhineland. The extent of his usefulness to the British was recognised by the Germans even at the time of his largest activities. It was, in consequence, Everett’s singular privilege to overtake and arrest —himself! “The German Intelligence chiefs had somehow been informed that a daring British spy was getting care-fully-guarded information from right under their noses in the vicinity of Essen; and Everett himself seems to have been the spy in the industrial. 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 blame. Dangers. "Humorous though the situation may now appear, it was a period of excessive danger to him. His superiors counted on him for some results, 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 30 months of spying in France—he was even invited to witness an exclusively military demonstration of the new French flamethrowers.

“It appears that he specialised in cultivating influential French friends. He- claims to have corresponded cordially with more than 30 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 the 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 splee in Palestine, whom AUenby’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, possessed to technical knowledge In nearly all military branches, and with an extensive and alarming enemy wardrobe, Francks* conspicuously wore the uniform of the staff, red tabs, and every other detail complete. Or he affected the blue tabs and special insigna of the Ordnance staff, and thus once brazenly ‘inspected’ a regiment of artillery. He acquired at another time the complete explanation of an intended barrage.”