My Adventures as a Spy by Robert Baden Powell
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6 MY ADVENTURES AS A SPY
BY
LIEUT.-GEN. SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL, K.C.B.
_Illustrated by the Author's Own Sketches_
LONDON
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD
HENRIETTA STREET, W.C.
1915
* * * * *
_OTHER WORKS BY_
Lieut.-Gen. SIR ROBERT BADEN-POWELL.
SCOUTING FOR BOYS.
A Handbook for Instruction in Good Citizenship. 7th Edition. The
Official Handbook of the Boy Scouts.
YARNS FOR BOY SCOUTS
Told round the Camp Fire. 2nd Edition.
"There is no gift book that could be put into the hands of a
schoolboy more valuable than this fascinating volume, and if
you asked the boy's opinion he would probably add, 'No book
that he liked better.'"--_Spectator_.
SCOUTING GAMES.
A splendid collection of Outdoor and Indoor Games specially compiled
for the use of Boy Scouts. 2nd Edition.
"No one who, as a schoolboy, has read a word of Fenimore
Cooper or Ballantyne, nobody who feels the fascination of
a good detective story, or who understands a little of the
pleasures of woodcraft, could fail to be attracted by these
games, or, for that matter, by the playing of the games
themselves."--_Spectator_.
BOY SCOUTS BEYOND THE SEAS
"My World Tour." Illustrated by the Author's own Sketches.
"Describes in brightest and most concise fashion his recent
tour of inspection amongst the Boy Scouts.... Every boy
will read it with avidity and pronounce it 'jolly
good.'"--_Graphic_.
_Price 1/- each in Pictorial Wrapper, or 2/- each in Cloth Boards.
Postage 3d. extra._
C. ARTHUR PEARSON, LTD.
* * * * *
CHIEF CONTENTS
PAGE
DIFFERENT DEGREES OF SPIES 11
GERMAN PLANS FOR INVADING ENGLAND 23
JAN GROOTBOOM, MY NATIVE SPY 32
SECRET MESSAGES AND HOW CARRIED 37
SPY SIGNS 39
SECRET PLANS OF FORTRESSES 52
"BUTTERFLY HUNTING" IN DALMATIA 57
HOW SPIES DISGUISE THEMSELVES 61
EXPLORING A FOREIGN DOCKYARD 74
SPYING ON MOUNTAIN TROOPS 79
MORE MOUNTAIN SPYING 86
FOOLING A GERMAN SENTRY 91
A SPY IS SUSPICIOUS 95
HOODWINKING A TURKISH SENTRY 100
TEA AND A TURK 106
WATCHING THE BOSNIANS 110
ENCOUNTER WITH FOREIGN POLICE 116
CAUGHT AT LAST 124
THE ESCAPE 128
* * * * *
MY ADVENTURES AS A SPY
It has been difficult to write in peace-time on the delicate subject
of spies and spying, but now that the war is in progress and the
methods of those much abused gentry have been disclosed, there is no
harm in going more fully into the question, and to relate some of my
own personal experiences.
Spies are like ghosts--people seem to have had a general feeling that
there might be such things, but they did not at the same time believe
in them--because they never saw them, and seldom met anyone who had
had first-hand experience of them. But as regards the spies, I can
speak with personal knowledge in saying that they do exist, and in
very large numbers, not only in England, but in every part of Europe.
As in the case of ghosts, any phenomenon which people don't
understand, from a sudden crash on a quiet day to a midnight creak of
a cupboard, has an affect of alarm upon nervous minds. So also a spy
is spoken of with undue alarm and abhorrence, because he is somewhat
of a bogey.
As a first step it is well to disabuse one's mind of the idea
that every spy is necessarily the base and despicable fellow he is
generally held to be. He is often both clever and brave.
The term "spy" is used rather indiscriminately, and has by use come to
be a term of contempt. As a misapplication of the term "spy" the case
of Major Andre always seems to me to have been rather a hard one. He
was a Swiss by birth, and during the American War of Independence in
1780 joined the British Army in Canada, where he ultimately became
A.D.C. to General Sir H. Clinton.
The American commander of a fort near West Point, on the Hudson River,
had hinted that he wanted to surrender, and Sir H. Clinton sent Andre
to treat with him. In order to get through the American lines Andre
dressed himself in plain clothes and took the name of John Anderson.
He was unfortunately caught by the Americans and tried by court
martial and hanged as a spy.
As he was not trying to get information, it seems scarcely right to
call him a spy. Many people took this view at the time, and George
III. gave his mother a pension, as well as a title to his brother, and
his body was ultimately dug up and re-interred in Westminster Abbey.
THE DIFFERENT DEGREES OF SPIES.
Let us for the moment change the term "spy" to "investigator" or
"military agent." For war purposes these agents may be divided into:
1. _Strategical_ and diplomatic _agents_, who study the political and
military conditions in peace time of all other countries which might
eventually be in opposition to their own in war. These also create
political disaffection and organise outbreaks, such, for instance,
as spreading sedition amongst Egyptians, or in India amongst the
inhabitants, or in South Africa amongst the Boer population, to bring
about an outbreak, if possible, in order to create confusion and draw
off troops in time of war.
2. _Tactical_, military, or naval _agents_, who look into minor
details of armament and terrain in peace time. These also make
tactical preparations on the spot, such as material for extra bridges,
gun emplacements, interruption of communications, etc.
3. _Field spies_. Those who act as scouts in disguise to reconnoitre
positions and to report moves of the enemy in the field of war.
Amongst these are residential spies and officer agents.
All these duties are again subdivided among agents of every grade,
from ambassadors and their attaches downwards. Naval and military
officers are sent to carry out special investigations by all
countries, and paid detectives are stationed in likely centres to
gather information.
There are also traitor spies. For these I allow I have not a good
word. They are men who sell their countries' secrets for money.
Fortunately we are not much troubled with them in England; but we have
had a notorious example in South Africa.
STRATEGICAL AGENTS.
The war treason--that is, preliminary political and strategical
investigation--of the Germans in the present campaign has not
been such a success as might have been expected from a scheme so
wonderfully organised as it has been. With the vast sums spent upon
it, the German General Staff might reasonably have obtained men in a
higher position in life who could have gauged the political atmosphere
better than was done by their agents immediately before the present
crisis.
Their plans for starting strikes at a critical time met with no
response whatever. They had great ideas of stirring up strife and
discontent among the Mahommedan populations both in Egypt and in
India, but they calculated without knowing enough of the Eastern races
or their feelings towards Great Britain and Germany--more especially
Germany.
They looked upon the Irish question as being a certainty for civil war
in Britain, and one which would necessitate the employment of a large
proportion of our expeditionary force within our own islands.
They never foresaw that the Boer and Briton would be working amicably
in South Africa; they had supposed that the army of occupation there
could never be removed, and did not foresee that South Africa would
be sending a contingent against their South African colonies while the
regulars came to strengthen our army at home.
They imagined the Overseas Dominions were too weak in men and ships
and training to be of any use; and they never foresaw that the manhood
of Great Britain would come forward in vast numbers to take up arms
for which their national character has to a large extent given them
the necessary qualifications. All this might have been discovered
if the Germans had employed men of a higher education and social
position.
TACTICAL AGENTS.
In addition to finding out military details about a country, such as
its preparedness in men, supplies, efficiency, and so on, these agents
have to study the tactical features of hills and plains, roads and
railways, rivers and woods, and even the probable battlefields and
their artillery positions, and so on.
The Germans in the present war have been using the huge guns whose
shells, owing to their black, smoky explosions, have been nicknamed
"Black Marias" or "Jack Johnsons." These guns require strong concrete
foundations for them to stand upon before they can be fired. But
the Germans foresaw this long before the war, and laid their plans
accordingly.
They examined all the country over which they were likely to fight,
both in Belgium and in France, and wherever they saw good positions
for guns they built foundations and emplacements for them. This was
done in the time of peace, and therefore had to be done secretly.
In order to divert suspicion, a German would buy or rent a farm on
which it was desired to build an emplacement. Then he would put down
foundations for a new barn or farm building, or--if near a town--for
a factory, and when these were complete, he would erect some lightly
constructed building upon it.
There was nothing to attract attention or suspicion about this, and
numbers of these emplacements are said to have been made before war
began. When war broke out and the troops arrived on the ground, the
buildings were hastily pulled down and there were the emplacements all
ready for the guns.
Some years ago a report came to the War Office that a foreign Power
was making gun emplacements in a position which had not before been
suspected of being of military value, and they were evidently going to
use it for strategical purposes.
I was sent to see whether the report was true. Of course, it would
not do to go as an officer--suspicions would be aroused, one would
be allowed to see nothing, and would probably be arrested as a spy.
I therefore went to stay with a friendly farmer in the neighbourhood,
and went out shooting every day among the partridges and snipe which
abounded there. The first thing I did was to look at the country
generally, and try to think which points would be most valuable as
positions for artillery.
Then I went to look for partridges (and other things!) on the hills
which I had noticed, and I very soon found what I wanted.
Officers were there, taking angles and measurements, accompanied by
workmen, who were driving pegs into the ground and marking off lines
with tapes between them.
As I passed with my gun in my hand, bag on shoulder, and dog at heel,
they paid no attention to me, and from the neighbouring hills I was
able to watch their proceedings.
When they went away to their meals or returned to their quarters, I
went shooting over the ground they had left, and if I did not get a
big bag of game, at any rate I made a good collection of drawings and
measurements of the plans of the forts and emplacements which they had
traced out on the ground.
So that within a few days of their starting to make them we had the
plans of them all in our possession. Although they afterwards planted
trees all over the sites to conceal the forts within them, and put up
buildings in other places to hide them, we knew perfectly well where
the emplacements were and what were their shapes and sizes.
This planting of trees to hide such defence works occasionally has
the other effect, and shows one where they are. This was notably
the case at Tsingtau, captured by the Japanese and British forces
from the Germans. As there were not any natural woods there, I had
little difficulty in finding where the forts were by reason of the
plantations of recent growth in the neighbourhood of the place.
RESIDENTIAL SPIES.
These men take up their quarters more or less permanently in the
country of their operations. A few are men in high places in the
social or commercial world, and are generally _nouveaux riches_,
anxious for decorations and rewards. But most of the residential spies
are of a more insignificant class, and in regular pay for their work.
Their duty is to act as agents to receive and distribute instructions
secretly to other itinerant spies, and to return their reports
to headquarters. For this reason they are nicknamed in the German
Intelligence Bureau "post-boxes." They also themselves pick up what
information they can from all available sources and transmit it home.
One, Steinbauer, has for some years past been one of the principal
"post-boxes" in England. He was attached to the Kaiser's staff during
his last visit to this country, when he came as the guest of the King
to the opening of Queen Victoria's memorial.
A case of espionage which was tried in London revealed his methods,
one of his agents being arrested after having been watched for three
years.
Karl Ernst's trial confirmed the discoveries and showed up the doings
of men spies like Schroeder, Gressa, Klare, and others.
Also the case of Dr. Karl Graves may be still in the memory of many.
This German was arrested in Scotland for spying, and was condemned
to eighteen months' imprisonment, and was shortly afterwards released
without any reason being officially assigned. He has since written
a full account of what he did, and it is of interest to note how his
correspondence passed to and from the intelligence headquarters in
Germany in envelopes embellished with the name of Messrs. Burroughs
and Wellcome, the famous chemists. He posed as a doctor, and sent
his letters through an innkeeper at Brussels or a _modiste_ in Paris,
while letters to him came through an obscure tobacconist's shop in
London.
One of these letters miscarried through having the wrong initial
to his name. It was returned by the Post Office to Burroughs and
Wellcome, who on opening it found inside a German letter, enclosing
bank-notes in return for services rendered. This raised suspicion
against him. He was watched, and finally arrested.
He states that a feeling that he was being followed dawned upon him
one day, when he noticed in his lodgings that the clothes which he had
folded on a chair had been since refolded in a slightly different way
while he was out. With some suspicion, he asked his landlady whether
anyone had entered his room, and she, in evident confusion, denied
that any stranger could have been there. Then he suggested that his
tailor might have called, and she agreed that it was so. But when an
hour or two later he interviewed his tailor, he, on his part, said he
had not been near the place. Graves consequently deduced that he was
being followed.
The knowledge that you are being watched, and you don't know by whom,
gives, I can assure you, a very jumpy feeling--especially when you
know you are guilty.
I can speak feelingly from more than one experience of it, since I
have myself been employed on this form of scouting in peace time.
OFFICER AGENTS.
It is generally difficult to find ordinary spies who are also
sufficiently imbued with technical knowledge to be of use in gaining
naval or military details. Consequently officers are often employed
to obtain such information in peace time as well as in the theatre of
action in war.
But with them, and especially with those of Germany, it is not easy to
find men who are sufficiently good actors, or who can disguise their
appearance so well as to evade suspicion. Very many of these have
visited our shores during the past few years, but they have generally
been noticed, watched, and followed, and from the line taken by
them in their reconnaissance it has been easy to deduce the kind of
operations contemplated in their plans.
I remember the case of a party of these motoring through Kent
nominally looking at old Roman ruins. When they asked a landowner
for the exact position of some of these he regretted he had not a
map handy on which he could point out their position. One of the
"antiquarians" at once produced a large scale map; but it was not
an English map: it had, for instance, details on it regarding water
supply tanks which, though they existed, were not shown on any of our
ordnance maps!
In addition to the various branches of spying which I have mentioned,
the Germans have also practised commercial espionage on systematic
lines.
COMMERCIAL SPYING.
Young Germans have been often known to serve in British business
houses without salary in order to "learn the language"; they took care
to learn a good deal more than the language, and picked up many other
things about trade methods and secrets which were promptly utilised
in their own country. The importance of commercial spying is that
commercial war is all the time at the bottom of Germany's preparations
for military war.
Carl Lody, a German ex-officer, was recently tried in London by
court-martial and shot for "war treason"--that is, for sending
information regarding our Navy to Germany during hostilities. ("War
treason" is secret work outside the zone of war operations. When
carried on within the zone of operations it is called spying or
"espionage.") Carl Lody's moves were watched and his correspondence
opened by the counter-spy police in London, and thus all his
investigations and information were known to the War Office long
before he was arrested.
The enormous sums paid by Germany for many years past have brought
about a sort of international spy exchange, generally formed of
American-Germans, with their headquarters in Belgium, and good prices
were given for information acquired by them. For instance, if the
plans of a new fort, or the dimensions of a new ship, or the power of
a new gun were needed, one merely had to apply and state a price to
this bureau to receive fairly good information on the subject before
much time had elapsed.
At the same time, by pretending to be an American, one was able to get
a good deal of minor and useful information without the expenditure of
a cent.
GERMANY'S INVASION PLANS.
On getting into touch with these gentry, I was informed of one of the
intended plans by which the Germans proposed to invade our country,
and incidentally it throws some light on their present methods
of dealing with the inhabitants as apart from the actual tactical
movements of the troops.
The German idea then--some six years ago--was that they could, by
means of mines and submarines, at any time block the traffic in the
British Channel in the space of a few hours, thus holding our home
fleets in their stations at Spithead and Portland.
With the Straits of Dover so blocked, they could then rush a fleet
of transports across the North Sea from Germany, to the East Coast of
England, either East Anglia or, as in this plan, in Yorkshire. They
had in Germany nine embarking stations, with piers and platforms,
all ready made, and steel lighters for disembarkation purposes or for
actual traversing of the ocean in case of fine weather.
They had taken the average of the weather for years past, and had come
to the conclusion that July 13th is, on an average, the finest day
in the year; but their attempt would be timed, if possible, to fall
on a Bank Holiday when communications were temporarily disorganised.
Therefore the nearest Bank Holiday to July 13th would probably be that
at the beginning of August; it was a coincidence that the present war
broke out on that day.
The spies stationed in England were to cut all telephone and telegraph
wires, and, where possible, to blow down important bridges and
tunnels, and thus to interrupt communications and create confusion.
Their idea of landing on the coast of Yorkshire was based on the
following reasons:--
They do not look upon London as strategically the capital of England,
but rather upon the great industrial centres of the north Midlands,
where, instead of six millions, there are more like fourteen millions
of people assembled in the numerous cities and towns, which now almost
adjoin each other across that part of the country.
Their theory was that if they could rush an army of even 90,000 men
into Leeds, Sheffield, Halifax, Manchester, and Liverpool without
encountering great opposition in the first few hours, they could there
establish themselves in such strength that it would require a powerful
army to drive them out again.
Bringing a week's provisions with them, and seizing all the local
provisions, they would have enough to sustain them for a considerable
time, and the first step of their occupation would be to expel every
inhabitant--man, woman, and child--from the neighbourhood and destroy
the towns. Thus, within a few hours, some fourteen millions of people
would be starving, and wandering without shelter over the face of the
country--a disaster which would need a large force to deal with, and
would cause entire disruption of our food supplies and of business in
the country.
The East Coast of Yorkshire between the Humber and Scarborough lends
itself to such an adventure, by providing a good open beach for miles,
with open country in front of it, which, in its turn, is protected
by a semi-circle of wolds, which could be easily held by the German
covering force. Its left would be protected by the Humber and the
right by the Tees, so that the landing could be carried out without
interruption.
That was their plan--based on careful investigation by a small army
of spies--some five or six years ago, before our naval bases had been
established in the north. If they had declared war then, they, might
have had no serious interference from our Navy during the passage of
their transports, which, of course, would be protected on that flank
by their entire fleet of warships.
At first glance, it seems too fanciful a plan to commend itself to
belief, but in talking it over with German officers, I found they
fully believed in it as a practical proposition. They themselves
enlarged on the idea of the use that they would thus make of the civil
population, and foreshadowed their present brutality by explaining
that when war came, it would not be made with kid gloves. The meaning
of their commands would be brought home to the people by shooting down
civilians if necessary, in order to prove that they were in earnest,
and to force the inhabitants through terror to comply with their
requirements.
Further investigations on the subject proved that the embarkation
arrangements were all planned and prepared for. At any time in the
ordinary way of commerce there were numerous large mail steamers
always available in their ports to transport numbers even largely in
excess of those that would be assembled for such an expedition. Troops
could be mobilised in the neighbourhood of the ports, ostensibly for
manoeuvres, without suspicion being aroused.
It is laid down in German strategical textbooks that the time for
making war is not when you have a political cause for it, but when
your troops are ready and the enemy is unready; and that to strike the
first blow is the best way to declare war.
I recounted all this at the time in a private lecture to officers,
illustrated with lantern slides and maps, as a military problem which
would be interesting to work out on the actual ground, and it was not
really until the report of this leaked into the papers that I realised
how nearly I had "touched the spot." For, apart from the various
indignant questions with which the Secretary of State for War was
badgered in the House of Commons on my account, I was assailed with
letters from Germany of most violent abuse from various quarters, high
and low, which showed me that I had gone nearer the truth than I had
even suspected.
"You are but a brown-paper general," said one, "and if you think that
by your foolish talk you are to frighten us from coming, you are not
right."
FIELD SPIES.
It is difficult to say where exactly a spy's work ends in war, and
that of a scout begins, except that, as a rule, the first is carried
out in disguise.
The scout is looked up to as a brave man, and his expedients for
gaining information are thought wonderfully clever, so long as he
remains in uniform. If he goes a bit further, and finds that he can
get his information better by adopting a disguise--even at the greater
risk to himself through the certainty of being shot if he is found
out--then he is looked down upon as a "despicable spy." I don't see
the justice of it myself.
A good spy--no matter which country he serves--is _of necessity_ a
brave and valuable fellow.
In our Army we do not make a very wide use of field spies on service,
though their partial use at manoeuvres has shown what they can do.
In "Aids to Scouting" I have stated: "In the matter of spying we
are behind other nations. Spying, in reality, is reconnaissance in
disguise. Its effects are so far-reaching that most nations, in order
to deter enemies' spies, threaten them with death if caught."
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