The Spy Net (14 page)

Chance modified their plans. On arrival at the family estate, they found an aviation unit installed there. Ever anxious to obtain military information, they made friends with one of the non-commissioned officers. Details of the latest German fighting plane was their objective, but their thoughts were quickly diverted when they discovered that he was leaving for Charleville the next day to bring back supplies with one of his unit’s covered motor lorries. The opportunity was too good to lose, and so with all the guile they could summon up, and using the
pretext that they wished to visit a relative, they begged him to hide them in the truck.

Thinking that it was merely a youthful escapade, and, no doubt, not insensible to their charms, the good fellow – as Clémie herself described him – willingly took the risk. It was rash of the non-commissioned officer, if he had been caught it would have meant a court martial; but he knew, as well as did our valiant young friends, that the interior of a military vehicle was the very last place the Secret Police would search for them. He dropped them off at a secluded spot outside of Charleville, and it was there that they met him again the next day.

The journey was safely accomplished and so was their mission. Monsieur Crépel, the Mayor of Nouzon, was a friend of the Grafetiauxs, and as he had to come to Charleville frequently on business for his commune, he was persuaded to act as courier from Charleville to Nouzon. The courier service from Nouzon to Gedinne was undertaken by Lucien Voltèche, and so communications were once again established. They remained intact from then until the Armistice.

T
HE PERCENTAGE OF
women condemned to death was not as great as that of the men. Close to 300 men were shot as spies in the occupied territories. But in the prison sentences, no discrimination was shown. For the women life imprisonment with hard labour was the order of the day.

Prior to their trial, all prisoners were confined in the local prisons in Belgium and occupied France. I have already described the prison regime, and have also told in detail about the stool-pigeons and the third-degree methods employed. Once they had been sentenced, they were transferred, almost without exception, to some prison in Germany; and in the case of the women,
it was to Siegburg that they were almost invariably sent (some were also confined in the prisons at Delizch and at Sagan).

The town of Siegburg, situated in the valley of the Rhine, about two hours from Bonn, is a typical Rhineland town, dominated by a ridge of hills whose fertile slopes are covered with vineyards. In the lower end of the town, we find the prison, composed of two T-shaped buildings, one for men, the other for women, surrounded and separated from each other by high prison walls.

The director of both the male and female sections of the prison was one whom I shall call von G., a retired Prussian officer. Having been wounded during the early stages of the war, he seemed to have a grudge against the political prisoners. He was a martinet, and did not have enough generosity to understand that though they had harmed the Germans, they had committed no moral offence against Society. He insisted on an iron discipline, and for the least offence punished the political prisoners with the utmost severity.

On the walls of the cells the following warning was posted: ‘You are now a prisoner. Your window is barred, your door is locked, the colour of your clothing indicates that you have lost your liberty. God has not wished that you continue to abuse it for the purpose of sinning against His laws and those of man. He has brought you here to expiate your crimes. Therefore, bow down under the all-powerful hand of God, bow down under the iron regulations of this prison. If you do not obey willingly, your spirit will be broken. But if you accept humbly the punishment which has been inflicted upon you, the fruit of your submission will be a humbled heart, and a tranquil conscience. God wishes this to be so.'

That was his creed and he carried it into effect. He was
universally hated by everyone, even by the German personnel, who felt that they, too, were being watched as von G. went round on his daily tour of inspection. He was arrested by the British when the army of occupation reached the Rhine, but, fortunately for him, he managed to escape.

Frau R., the directress of the female section of the prison, had secured her appointment through influence in higher quarters. The widow of a former army officer, and a woman of some refinement, she seemed at times to have some compassion for the tragic lot of the women under her charge; but any generous impulse by which she might have been moved was never put into effect, for she was completely under the domination of von G., of whom she was in mortal fear.

The prisoner on arrival was taken to the office for an examination of her commitment papers and the establishing of her identity. After this she was taken to the bath house where, in the presence of the ‘Housemother', she was forced to undress and take a bath. Her clothing was then removed, and she was given her prison outfit.

The prison dress was brown for those sentenced to hard labour, and grey for the others. It consisted of a blouse, and a skirt reaching down to the ankles, both of which were made of a rough woollen material. To this was added a blue and white cotton neckerchief, a white apron, blue and white cotton stockings and sandals. Underclothing was of cotton. This prison uniform remained obligatory until 1917 when, on account of the shortage of clothing, the prisoners were allowed to wear the clothes with which they had entered the prison. If, however, they used this privilege, they were forced to pay for their laundry.

The cells, arranged in three tiers on both sides of a large gallery from which all the doors could be seen at a glance, were 12 ft long, 8 ft wide and 9 ft high. Each contained a small table and an iron bed on which a straw mattress in three sections was placed. Opposite the door was a small barred window, one section of which could be opened with an iron key in possession of the wardress. The windows were only opened for a stated period during the day; however, the prisoners soon learned to open them clandestinely at night with a wooden key of their own manufacture. The heavy cell door contained a peephole, but had to be opened completely to pass food to the prisoners.

An oil lamp, attached to the whitewashed wall, was allowed to be lit for an hour during the winter; but on Sundays and holidays, even this privilege was withdrawn. Lights were extinguished before the evening meal, and it was only by touch that the bowl of thin gruel could be reached. These long hours of darkness, which during the winter often lasted fifteen hours, had a most depressing effect on the prisoners.

At seven o'clock a bell announced that it was the hour to rise. The doors were opened by the wardresses, and the prisoners put out their water jugs and their sanitary buckets. Fifteen minutes later, these were ready to be taken in again. At eight o'clock, 100 grams of black bread and a cup of hot black unsweetened liquid, which passed for coffee, were handed in. Except for two promenade periods in the courtyard, one in the morning and one in the afternoon, each of forty-five minutes' duration, the prisoners were kept busy in their cells from the morning until the evening meal. Those who were expert with the needle were allowed to make garments; the others were provided with machines with
which they stamped out men's trouser buttons. Sunday was a day of rest. Mass was celebrated at nine o'clock, vespers at one-thirty.

The principal meal of the day was a vegetable soup, served at 11.30 a.m. This was nourishing, but the vegetables were so badly washed that insects often floated on the liquid; hence the name ‘bug soup' by which it came to be known. Before 1917, a few pieces of meat were occasionally discovered in this soup; but after this period, meat was never seen again. At four o'clock, the prisoners received another cup of black coffee, together with 75 grams of black bread. The final meal, consisting of a bowl of thin gruel, was passed in at six o'clock. The cell doors were then locked, and under no circumstances were they opened again until seven o'clock the next morning.

The food was entirely insufficient to sustain the prisoners, and as food became scarce in Germany, what was offered the prisoners became worse and worse. In the bread, potato meal was used; and in the soup, beetroot became the exclusive vegetable. During March 1917 packets of food started reaching the prisoners from France. It was a godsend. They were allowed to receive 4 lbs of biscuits a week. It was time, for many of the younger prisoners, some of whom were only fifteen years of age, were suffering terribly from hunger. The most pitiful cases, however, were the unfortunate mothers who had given birth to children in the prison, and were not getting enough nourishment to nurse them.

If births occurred at night, they often took place without any assistance. Mothers were permitted to keep their babies for nine months. After this, the infants were either put in a home in Siegburg, or were given out to some German nurse.
On one Sunday a month, the mother was allowed to have the child brought to her; the leave-taking was heart-rending, and it was especially sad for the mother to perceive that her baby was gradually forgetting her.

Bad as the food was, it was the lack of medical care, and the insanitary conditions in the prison, which caused the greatest suffering. I have already mentioned the bucket. Those who became ill were required to report sick to the prison doctor. In a long file, outside his office, they could be viewed each morning waiting to see him. The care they received, however, was almost nil. Doctor ‘Get Out', for this is what the prisoners called him, either prescribed nothing, or gave the same pills for a dozen varied ailments. Some of the prisoners had such little faith in the prison doctor that they were discovered dead in their cells without having approached him. Dysentery, typhoid, and tuberculosis ravaged the prison. A large percentage of the 300 prisoners died within its walls. Prisoners were not even spared the sad task of having to carry the coffins out of the cells.

The number of victims would have been even greater had it not been for the devotion of some of the prisoners, such as Léonie Vanhutte, who were allowed to nurse their companions. Léonie Vanhutte herself contracted typhoid and nearly died.

The case of Louise de Bettignies was typical of the harsh treatment meted out to the prisoners. Having discovered that her companions were engaged in assembling shell fuses without knowing what they were intended for, she encouraged them to refuse the work. For this, she was thrown into a special cell for recalcitrant prisoners. These cells, smaller than the others,
contained no furniture other than a narrow wooden plank, which served as a bed. The meagre food ration was also reduced. But von G. relied on the cold to break her spirit. Even though it was mid-winter and the cells were unheated, he removed her blankets and took away from her the woollen underwear which she had brought to the prison, substituting in their place the regulation cotton ones.

Shivering in her cell, Louise contracted pneumonia. For days she hovered between life and death. Eventually she recovered, but her health remained permanently shattered. Shortly afterward, a small tumour appeared in one of her breasts. As it grew at an alarming pace, she was forced to consult the doctor. He quickly diagnosed the malignant growth and urged an immediate operation. Having no faith in him, however, and knowing that the small prison infirmary was not equipped for a major operation of this kind, she asked for permission to be transferred to a clinic in Bonn.

Von G. was adamant. Louise was a prisoner and had no rights. For a time she held out against him; but, finally, realising that she had no alternative, she signed the paper giving the prison doctor the right to operate. The operation, as she had feared, was unsuccessful. It was only when she was dying that von G. eventually granted permission for her to be transferred to a hospital in Cologne. There she died 17 September 1918.

After the Armistice, with full military ceremonial her remains, draped with the French flag and placed on a gun-carriage, were escorted through the streets of Cologne to the railway station, en route to her last resting-place in Lille. General Degoutte and General Simon, representatives of the French and British armies of the Rhine, marched in the funeral procession. This was Louise
de Bettignies, the valiant patriot, whom von G. had treated as a criminal.

No one can adequately portray the tragic lives of these women prisoners. Even worse than the prison treatment was the mental agony they had to endure not knowing what was happening to those who were dear to them.

In spite of all their suffering, not one of these brave women, from the Princess de Croy down to the humblest peasant, regretted having served her country. Those who survived returned home at the Armistice, happy that their sacrifice had not been in vain.

F
ROM TIME TO
time, German deserters were crossing the frontier into Holland. Our frontier agents reported this; the Dutch papers also occasionally made reference to it.

I was so busy, however, organising our services in Belgium that at first I could not give much attention to it. Besides, how was I to get hold of them? I certainly wasn’t going to compromise our frontier agents by having them lead deserters in uniform to me.

One day, walking on the Blaak, I came face to face with two deserters. Their tattered uniforms and their drawn faces told me their story: they were down and out, wandering around like stray dogs, ready to be pounced upon by the Dutch authorities as vagrants, and sent off to the concentration camp at Alkmaar, which they hated almost as much as being in the German Army.

I boldly accosted them, and told them to come and see me at the office. I had no fear of compromising myself. By now, both the Germans and Dutch knew what I was doing; the former were powerless to prevent my activities, and it was the policy of the latter not to interfere with me.

For the price of a suit of clothes apiece, and a few loose gulden in their pockets, the means of making them look respectable and obtain work, they gave me full details of their regiment, their division, the place and date at which they had left them; and, on a large map, one of a complete set for the Western and Eastern Fronts, I marked off battery emplacements, regimental and divisional headquarters, and other objectives for our artillery and aeroplanes. Colonel Oppenheim was delighted with the information.

To get more deserters, I offered a reward to the ones I had interrogated, for each deserter they brought me. My plan worked admirably; somehow or other, each deserter crossing the frontier gravitated to his companions, who passed him on to me. I am sure I missed very few.

Most of these men deserted from leave trains on their way back to the Front. The Herbesthal–Liège line passed within sight of the Dutch frontier, and I suppose the temptation was too great for some of the poor devils. These men were of interest, for it was important to know exactly what part of the line each division held; but the most valuable ones were those who deserted from trains carrying their divisions from east to west, or vice versa. Train-watchers gave the movements, but since the German troops no longer wore their regimental numbers, they could not identify the divisions.

I can still hear the shout of satisfaction from Colonel Oppenheim, when, after our posts had reported the passage of two divisions going east into Germany through Liège, I announced to him that I had just interrogated two deserters, and knew conclusively that it was the 8th Corps. Two weeks later, he sent me a copy of a telegram from GHQ, which read: ‘Congratulations 8th Corps identified by prisoners on the Russian Front.’ It was such telegrams, received from time to time, that kept us keyed to the greatest enthusiasm.

Sometimes a deserter would try to give me wrong information, and sometimes the German secret service in Holland deliberately sent me fake deserters. But armed with detail maps of the eastern and western battle fronts which gave the last location of each German division in line, as established by prisoners, and also having in my possession the army Brown Book,
1
which gave the regimental numbers of the units in each division with the names of divisional commanders and a mass of other information, I knew enough to be able to trap any deserter immediately whenever I found him telling lies. They soon passed the word around that I was not to be fooled.

Once, I will admit, the German secret service had both Colonel Oppenheim and myself worried. To some extent, we were deceived. One morning, on entering one of the cubicles in which I interrogated deserters and other suspects so as to keep them isolated from the main office, I found myself to my surprise facing a Turk in semi-uniform. In fluent French, he informed me
that he had deserted at Trier from a Turkish division, which was on its way by rail from the Dardanelles to the Western Front.

I was at a loss. I knew nothing about the Turkish Army; I had no Brown Book on it; I had no maps of the Turkish Front. I knew that considerable re-grouping had been going on; German divisions had appeared on the Italian Front in support of the Austrians, and heavy Austrian howitzer batteries had been located on the Western Front. Colonel Oppenheim had sent me a ‘blue slip’: ‘Be on the look-out for the appearance of Austrian troops.’ I suspected the Turk, even though he made a good impression and had a good story, complete in every detail, even as to his place of entrainment, and the route his train had followed. If it was true, here was information of the greatest importance; and yet, if it were false, and I reported it, I knew I should be laughed at.

I reported my views to Colonel Oppenheim, and asked him if he would like to see the man. To my relief, he agreed. He was unable to break down the man’s story, and, under the circumstances, did the only thing he could do: he telegraphed the information. The man was paid, and the Germans probably had a good laugh. No Turkish division ever appeared on the Western Front. Months later, I ran into our man peddling carpets on the streets of Rotterdam. As I looked at him closely, I could swear I saw him smile.

I didn’t mind this continual crossing of swords with the German secret service; it added zest to our work.

We now pulled off one of the biggest secret service scoops of the war. On entering one of the cubicles in response to word from our doorman that there was a deserter to see me, I found a
young anæmic-looking fellow, who nervously pulled a package out from under his coat. ‘What is this worth to you?’ said he, as he pulled a book out of the wrapping. ‘It is the latest edition of the German field post directory. Two days ago I removed it from the Düsseldorf post office, where I was working.’

I was undoubtedly a comical sight, for blank amazement must have been clearly written on my face. I grasped the book, not believing my ears, and hardly trusting my eyes. I am sure that my hand shook as I thumbed its pages. Here was a complete list of every unit in the German Army. It was of vital importance to the Allies to know what new regiments, batteries, aeroplane flights, and other units were being formed from time to time; knowing this, they could make an exact estimate of the strength of the German Army. In addition, there in the most authentic form was the location on the Eastern and Western Fronts of each of the German field posts. This meant that we had the code by means of which we could tell, from intercepted post cards and letters, the exact place where all the regiments or units indicated in the addresses were located.

I made a dash for my Brown Book. Incomplete as it was, I knew it was sufficient to enable me to check up the authenticity of this field post directory. Hastily, by means of my battle-front maps, and by some intercepted post cards, I checked up the location of those regiments whose position in the front line had been established by captured prisoners. Hurriedly I searched in the book for the mention of the new regiments of the 600 series; I had just had some deserters from infantry regiment 606, not listed in the Brown Book, and at the time I was afraid that, encouraged by their success with the Turk, the German Service was again trying a joke on me.

Everything tallied. The book was undoubtedly genuine. No monetary value could be put on the volume; it was priceless. An army of spies could not have gathered the data it contained. It made our Brown Book look silly, and yet the Brown Book represented the sum total of our information about the German Army gained during more than three years of spy activity, and from the interrogation of several hundred thousand German prisoners of war captured by both the French and British armies. By adroit negotiation and by handing us for examination a torn-out page instead of the whole directory, the deserter could have demanded and received a fabulous sum for it; instead, he meekly accepted £100, the first sum I offered him.

I often wondered afterwards what happened to these German deserters, who sold their country for a mess of pottage. I confess I hated interrogating them. They were such poor devils, without a country, without money, without work, and without friends in a foreign country. Perhaps I kept them from the concentration camp, and helped them to get work. I hope I did. At least, I salved my conscience by thinking so. Anyhow, I had to do it; it was war.

Of all the many German deserters who passed through my hands, Heinrich Feldmann made the best impression. I felt that he was giving me information, not just to get a few gulden, but because he had a genuine grievance against the German authorities. There was no mistaking his sincerity and his real grief when he told me about his wife and three children in Berlin: how for months they had lived on nothing but turnips and watery potatoes; how white and emaciated he had found them on returning home on leave; and how he had sworn he would
desert to Holland, obtain work, and send them money to buy a few of the bare necessities of life. He declared that he had a greater responsibility towards his family than to the Kaiser and the military clique who were driving Germany to its ruin.

When, therefore, Colonel Oppenheim asked me to check up on certain of the new regiments and batteries which we had found mentioned in the field post directory, it was quite natural that I should think of Feldmann. Knowing where he was working, I sent a confidential agent to arrange a secret meeting with him. Feldmann was surprised at the sudden precautions, and he was evidently curious to know what I had in mind.

I outlined to him briefly what I wanted him to do, explaining that he would be well paid, and that here was an opportunity for him to help his family. I admitted that it was obviously a dangerous mission, as, of course, he was perfectly aware, but that I could diminish the danger by supplying him with the necessary papers ‘proving’ that he was unfit for military service. He hesitated, but when I showed him the perfect specimens of our engraver’s art, including a pass permitting its bearer to travel on the German railways, he accepted. He recognised that he had a sporting chance of success.

In a week I had coached him in the sort of information I required, and he was ready to pass the frontier. With a handshake and wishes for his good luck, he departed, having in his possession the address of our secret agent in Sittard, who had been warned of his coming, and who had received instructions to take him across the border into Aachen. Once there, it was up to Feldmann to continue on his own.

Our Sittard agent, who belonged to a band of smugglers
operating there, reported that the journey to Aachen had been successfully accomplished. We sat back and waited. Three weeks elapsed. Then one morning I got a telegram from Roermond, addressed to one of our confidential agents in Rotterdam. ‘Please send eight more bags this evening Johannes.’ This was a code message, which meant that Fleischer had returned, and would meet me at 8 p.m. at the same place as before.

He brought back information of the greatest value to us. He had visited several training camps, and had secured, not only confirmation of the formation of several new regiments, such as those of the 600 and 700 series, but also details of the formation and tactics of the special storm troops,
sturmtruppen
which the Germans were to use so successfully in their great offensive in March 1918. He reported that these
sturmtruppen
, made up of picked veterans, were being formed into units and drilled in the training centres in Germany and behind the Front. They were to be used as spearheads to make gaps in the enemy’s front line, through which the less-experienced troops would then be poured. This was the German ‘infiltration’ process, which the Allies had to combat later on, and with which the war
communiques
were filled after the launching of the German offensive.

In addition, Feldmann gave a valuable description of economic conditions in Germany, and brought back with him samples of cards, composed of coupons for each day in the month, which entitled the German citizen to specific daily quantities of bread, fat, and other foods; he also supplied us with a variety of
ersatz
products, the substitutes for coffee and other foodstuffs which the Germans were using. He confirmed what we already knew, that starvation conditions were rapidly developing in Germany,
but maintained that, spurred on by the Austrian successes against the Italians, and by the collapse of Russia and the subsequent signing of the peace of Brest Litovsk, the German people still hoped for victory in the great offensive, which they all knew their High Command was preparing on the Western Front.

Feldmann was now set a new and much more difficult task. We were extremely anxious to establish a train-watching post at Trier. We were getting all the troop movements coming out of Germany on the Aachen–Herbesthal–Liège line, but the other main artery through Trier was unwatched. If we could mount a post here, we would be catching every troop movement out of Germany to the Western Front between Verdun and the sea. Success would mean a magnificent achievement.

Feldmann was afraid. He could not have been more sceptical of success than I was. Again and again I had failed in the attempt. We never had been able to mount a train-watching post in Germany itself. It was obviously a far different affair working with Germans in Germany, than with Belgians or the French in the occupied territory. In the one case, we only had money as the incentive; in the other, we had patriotism. Again, it was harder to spy in Germany because the agent was continually surrounded by neighbours who would give him away if they saw anything suspicious. Finally, a train-watcher, having to remain at his post, had to rely on a courier. It was chiefly at this that the German agents balked. We had had many successful ones, like Fleischer, working alone; but they steadily refused to put their lives in the hands of a compatriot worker.

However, Feldmann finally accepted the mission, and returned to Germany. We never saw him again. Whether the fairly large
sum which I gave him for organisation purposes was too great a temptation, or whether he was caught and shot, I do not know. I have a suspicion that having found out that the papers we gave him were such perfect forgeries that they could pass muster with the Germans, and having saved a fairly large sum of money, he returned to his family in Berlin. He realised that their existence depended on him, and he probably thought we had set him an impossible task. They were obviously his greatest and only consideration in life, and as he had refused to sacrifice them for his Kaiser, we could not expect him to sacrifice them for us.