MASTER SPIES

Waikato Times, Volume 105, Issue 17712, 16 May 1929, Page 4

MASTER SPIES

SYNOPSIS OF PARTS 1., 11., 111. Stieber organised for Frederick William, King of Prussia, a modernised and specialised organisation adapted to a gCßcral service of security, both of the interior and the exterior of the nation, enjoying autonomy under his leadership. The task of Stieber’s “exterior” espionage was to make a preliminary survey to enable Prussia to crush more easily the smaller kingdoms around it. One by one they fell and the power of Prussia grew. Then the growing Germany turned its eyes towards France. ’ Stieber undertook to “survey” it as he had Bohemia. He accompanied Bismarck on a State visit when Napoleon 111., Frederick and Alexander 11. of Russia met at Paris. Napoleon 111. sought an alliance with the Czar, which Bismarck hoped to prevent. Stieber discovers a Polish plot to assassinate the Czar and allows the assassin to lire, but sees that the shot goes wide. Germany has saved the Czar's life from a murderer in the French capital. A jury bribed with German money, acquitted the Pole and Alexander 11., incensed, drew back from alliance with France. In eighteen months Stieber had organised an army of 40,000 spies and Germany invaded France. Success attended every onslaught.

"Our Armies.”

In a hut at Falquemont one night Bismarck was host to his generals, and Stieber was present. The mood was an exultant one. Bismarck himself was serving coffee to his guests and was uttering prophecies as precise as military commands. “We will take Alsace and Lorraine and not return them,” he said. “Our army is invincible!” exclaimed Jubilantly an officer on the''headquarters staff.

(By JOSEPH GOLLOMB, Author of “Master Man Hunters.")

Stieber was the only one who was not enjoying his evening. The cause for his discomfort went as far back as' the time when his spies of the “interior” had made Stieber many powerful enemies. Some of them were high in military councils. And the more indispensable the spy master became to Bismarck the more these military men snubbed him. From a social feud there developed jealousy on the part of the military men of Stieber’s influence with Bismarck. Then, too, there was the oldfashioned contempt the soldier who lights in the open feels for the spy. Stieber had long smarted under this. And now here was an officer whose family had snubbed Stieber exclaiming, "Uur army is invincible 1” Stieber boiled over. "You should say ‘our armies!’ For my army preceded yours by many months. Make no mistake about this —my army prepared victory for you as surely as if with cannon!” His outbreak was met with an icy silence in the toom. The, feud placed Bismarck in a difficult position. It would be useless to try to try to compel peace between his espionage and military forces; even an Iron Chancellor cannot force the human heart to feel according to his bidding. But peace there had to be. If Bismarck should take the side of his generals Stieber would lose heart; if he gratified Stieber the generals would sulk. Whereupon Bismarck handled the situation with one of those touches of deftness which he used as effectively as his flst of mail. Bismarck’s Way. He held his tray of coffee cups with his right hand. Then he strode over to Stieber and held out his left hand His eyes said all that Stieber would have liked to hear in words. So the spy master grasped Bismarck's hand with both his. And the military men noticed that it was the left hand Bismarck gave Stieber; and they derived therefrom what Bismarck meant to convey to them and hide from Stieber. And Stieber, the hawk-eyed, in his hunger for Bismarck’s handclasp, for once was blind. On rolled the ruthless Prussian advance until at Sedan the backbone of French resistance broke. “In twelve days we are due at Versailles,” Stieber said to Zernicki at the end of August. “There in the palace of the Bourbons we will crown our King of Prussia as tiie Emperor of Germany. Go and prepare Versailles for us 1” Zernicki and Ivaltenbach went. Between them and their network of spies all over France word was flashed to the spies in the Departments of Meurthe, Moselle, Haut-Hhin, Jura, Vosges, Doubs, Ardennes, Haute- Saone and Nord. “Report at Versailles!"

Three thousand men and women {locked into the city of the royai palace of the Bourbons.

At No. 3 Boulevard de Roi was one of the finest mansions of the city. It had been selected for Stieber long before the first gun of the war. Now as if by magic the house began to seethe with preparations. Van upon van of furniture arrived at its doors, each piece marked with the precise location it was to occupy in the house. The ground floor was prepared for Kaltenbach's quarters and as waiting rooms for officials and spies. In one corner a sumptuous room was prepared as the private office of Dr. Stieber. On the floor above ills private apartment was prepared. The next floor was for Zernicki. In the rest of the house three wings were to house 120 Secret Service men heavily armed. In a summer house in the grounds eighty others were to be on guard. Prompt to the Hour. And to the hour, at the end of twelve days, down the road to Versailles came the triumphant army of the King and Bismarck at its head. Along the road hundreds of men and women frantically welcomed the procession. To the world at large it would seem they were French; but they were Stieber's agents. Through the city went the conquerors, and thousands of Frenchmen apparently cheered the spectacle. It is reliably reported that many of these were really French, each hired by Stieber at a franc or two per day to stage the “.welcome.”

To what an extent the city of Versailles was enmeshed in espionage may be gauged by this incident. Stieber asked Zernicki one clay—- “ What did the Mayor do this morning?" Zernicki took a slip out of his portfolio and read in the monotone of a sergeant reporting to his captain—“M. Rameau, the Mayor, reached his office at 10 minutes past 9. lie doubled-locked his.doors. In his private office he read his mail. Then he interviewed ” Followed a list of municipal councillors. “They said—” A verbatim report of conversation. “Then the Mayor answered his mail. Here are copies of the letters lie answered and the replies thereto. His lunch consisted of veal cutlets, salad and a piece o £ cheese?®

NO. 6—CHIEF TO 40,000 SPIES.

The dark hour for French pride was (he hour in which the King o" Prussia was crowned Emperor of Germany in (he palace where so many French triumphs had been celebrated. With the coronation went the loss of Alsace and Lorraine to France—a loss regained only in the World War fifty years later. No Secrets Safe. In January, after the coronation, Jules Favre was sent to Versailles to draw up a treaty with Bismarck. The Chancellor wanted to know what instructions Favre carried in his portfolio. “Find out,” he said to Sticber. When Favre got off the train at the station at Sevres Bridge there was but a single carriage waiting for him. The coachman was Zernicki. Favre was driven to No. 3 Boulevard du Roi. A sen-ant in livery was assigned to him —a model servant who anticipated every want and was devotion itself. It was Stiebcr in disguise again. And closely though M. Favre guarded his portfolio it yielded up its secrets to Otto von Bismarck. With the birth of modem Germany the picturesque part of Stieber’s career ends for us. On his return to Berlin decorations accumulated on his breast; riches and recognition piled up. And when he died, in 1892, the public funeral he was given was an event of national importance. He lies buried among the German great. But his most lasting monument has been the introduction or modern organisation and mass achievement in spying, both at home and abroad. (The End.)