AMERICAN GIRL SPY’S AMAZING SUCCESS.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXXVI, Issue 5516, 24 October 1919, Page 4 (Supplement)

AMERICAN GIRL SPY’S AMAZING SUCCESS.

Dora Charlton, the 24-year-old American girl spy in German pay, has committed suicide. She is described as the girl who tried to wreck the Allied campaign, and is known to have been in the pay of Austria. o All who came in contact with this amazing woman agree that she had the power to fascinate men of the most diverse characters. She sent many of them to a certain death and involved others in the ruin. Beyond the fact that she hailed from the U.S-, little was known of her before her appearance on the scene at Rome, in the early days of the war, when Italy was still debating the question of entry on the side of the Entente,

Supposed to be in Italy for the good of her health, she managed to give a great deal of time to certain functions, and at these gatherings she made the acquaintance of many persons of note in the military and diplomatic sets of Rome. From the first she was a great social success, and everybody talked of the beautiful and bewitching young American girl.

A FAVOURITE WITH OFFICERS

She was a favourite with array officers in particular, and when war was declared by Italy she seemed at the height of her social power. She was more than ever in the company of the Italian officers. Soon the capital began to fill with British and French naval and military officers, and later at Torino allied airmen made their appearance.

Among these men the bewitching American girl made many conquests and she was to be seen nightly in the company of some of the most highly placed men in the French and British Military Missions in Italy.

Such was her hold over her male victims that quarrels were frequent, but in spite of everything Miss Charlton seems to have been able to convince each of her admirers in turn that he alone was the favoured swain.

No one suspected for a moment that in this woman with many lovers Germany had one of the most dangerous spies then on the European continent.

BRITISH OFFICERS BETRAYED. It is said that from a young British officer named Russell she obtained particulars of the new type of aeroplane that the Allies were preparing to put in the field in 1915, and thanks to that information the Germans were able to go one better, and produce a new aeroplane that for fighting power and speed was far ahead of anything the Allies had. Too late this youngster discovered that he had been trapped into betraying a valuable secret, but he neevr for a moment believed that it was this beautiful woman who had been his evil genius. Together they decided to die, after she had convinced him that it was someone else who had been guiltv of treachery. It was decided that they should both take poison on a certain night in the early part of 1916. The young British officer was found dead in his quarters in Rome, but the woman was still alive to carry on her devilish work.

“THE MOST BEAUTIFUL DEVIL.” “The most beautiful and most bewitching devil I have ever met.” was how another of her victims described her, and th description was well merited. While the young officer with whom she had played so shamefully was being carried to a suicide’s grave, this woman was posing as a friend of the Allies, and denouncing as a traitor an obscure French officer whom she had first of all tried to corrupt- Strange as it may seem, her denunciation was believed, such was her influence in high places, and this unfortunate man was shot as a traitor to France.

New facts that have come into the possession of the Italian Secret Service suggest that this man was the victim of a judicial murder of a particularly cruel kind, and one of the matters to be gone into in the in-

quiry by the Italian authorities is the responsibility for the condemnation of this officer. The strange thing is that the French Government made no effort to save him, but left him to be dealt with by the Italians, who condemned him on the perjured evidence of Dora Charlton and her friends.

THE DISASTER OF CAPORETTO. The next event of importance in the career of this terrible woman is in connection with the great disaster of Caporetto. There is not the least doubt that she it was who supplied the German-Austrian command with the secrets of the Allied positions in Italy that enabled the disastrous blow to be struck at the moment when Italy was least prepared for it. She wormed the secrets out of officers whom she had fascinated, and some of these unfortunate men perished in the crowning disaster of Caporetto. The truth about the perfidy of this woman was discovered not in Rome, but in Berlin, and it was sent to the Allied Governments, who had inquiries made, and satisfied themselves that there was no doubt she had been carrying on her nefarious work from the early days of the war. Orders for her arrest were issued the other day, but from of her associates she seems to have received timely warning. She fled, and was followed to Turin. There she committed suicide when she found that all was discovered. A VISIT THAT FAILED. Among the many admirers of the fair American was a highly-placed officer of the British Army, and, as the guest of this officer, Miss Charlton made a inumber of trips to British Headquarters on the Piave. By that time she had been well schooled in the art of using her eyes, and she took back to her employers a wealth of information regarding the disposition of the British troops on the Italian front.

Fortunately for the Allies, she did not discover that on the day after her last visit to the British Headquarters, the dispositions of the General Diaz, and the faith of the Austrians in this woman is testified by the fact that they made their plans for the last offensive on the Italian front on the assumption that the dispositions were as set out in her memorandum. That was the greatest mistake the enemy made, for they found, on attacking, that the Allied line was strongest where it was supposed to be weakest, and the offensive that was to be so much for the Central Powers ended in a disaster no less crushing than that which ended their hopes on the Western front some months later. HOW SHE HELPED iHE

SUBMARINES. Miss Charlton was of great assistance to her employers in supplying information to submarine commanders operating in the Mediterranean. There is only too much reason to believe that she knew with the most amazing accuracy the movements of British transports in this region, and was able to advise the enemy so that measures were taken, a fact that accounts for the unprecedented success of the submarines in the Mediterranean.

Of her work in this direction her German employers say:—“lt cannot be doubted that our Seciet Service v. as most efficient in the Italian zoneu e obtained of the disposition and projected movements of our enemies moie accurate information than we had with regard to any other region and nowhere were our submarines more successful against enemy transports than in the Mediterranean. That is due very largely to the efficiency of our agent, the American, Miss Charlton.”

It was this entirely unsolicited testimonial to the worth of Miss Charlton as a spy that led to her undoing. How it came to be sent to the Allies is a matter that cannot be disclosed at the moment, because the life of the man still in Berlin might pay the penalty if the enemy knew.