MI5 in the Great War

by Nigel West

  Early in the year, a method of writing with a chemical pencil, green with a white filling, on thick fibrous mauve-coloured paper, had come to light. The writing was absorbed by the paper but appeared clearly on attempting to burn it. Unglazed paper was also in use for writing in plain water with a new nib.

  Agents sent out from Antwerp were given a phial of some liquid which resembled alcoholised water; a sponge and a handkerchief which had been steeped in some liquid and then dried. The sponge and handkerchief were to be soaked in water and would then produce the liquid contained in the phial. The paper was to be moistened with a sponge and written on in a longitudinal sense, then dried, then damped with ammonia and water, dried again, and the en clair message written in ordinary ink. Some pre-arranged message in the en clair text, for instance, an allusion to the illness of Henry, would indicate that the cover address was no longer in use.

  The same process could be used with plain water for the secret message, and a word agreed upon beforehand was to be put in the text to show which liquid had been used. This method was followed by the British chemist, who discovered that iodine vapour would develop such writing. The paper was to have a smooth surface, and the writing done with a ball-pointed pen which would leave no mark.

  The Antwerp school used ammonia and alcoholised water, the Brussels organisation, lemon-juice, urine, sympathetic ink in bottles marked Belladonna, and milky ink. Many photographs were to be taken, and messages written on the mounts under the photograph, or in the envelopes.

  From time to time German agents would supply our officers with a bottle of secret ink. But it was always a question whether it was really the latest invention and not a plant.

  As to the writing of secret messages, the instructions varied: Peter Steunebrink and Frank Greite were to write across the message en clair and on both pages so as to avoid attracting the attention of the Censor’s eye by a blank page. Afterwards the messages had to be written on the back of the page containing the en clair letter. This letter must be interesting as the Censor would stop anything too uninteresting to be sent on.

  During the period under review in every case but one the spy was detected on information received from the Intelligence Service abroad. From August 1915 to May 1916 the cases appeared isolated and there is no connecting link of spy addresses to help the detection branch. And as regards spy letters the secret ink used by the Germans was so good as to escape notice in censoring, provided the spy wrote a good en clair letter. Therefore, the lesson of these cases is the necessary dependence of passive upon active intelligence in time of war.

  The principle has to be carried even further; the intelligence work abroad varied in quality so much that Scotland Yard, when requested to interrogate suspects signalled from foreign parts, asked for precise particulars as to the origin of the notices as a help in forming a judgement on the suspect, and the Censor asked for all particulars that could be given with regard to persons on his lists as a guide to his staff in examining correspondence.

  During 1915, therefore, the work done by MI-1(c) officers acting in conjunction with the consular offices abroad and specially in Holland, Denmark and Norway, grew to be of prime importance for G Branch; the outer frontier was actually in the foreign port where a visa must be obtained as a preliminary step in coming to England.

  With regard to outward bound passenger traffic, the permit system by which no person could leave the United Kingdom without stating where he was going, on what business and to what address, and without satisfying the authorities of his bona-fides, was inaugurated.

  As a third measure of precaution, in the course of the same year, a system guarding the ports was developed by E Branch, which collected statistics of all travellers and eventually acted as a link between the Special Intelligence Bureau and the permit office on the one hand and the Special Intelligence Bureau and the British consuls on the other. Thus there were three fences through which the traveller had to pass satisfactorily and at each of these a record would be kept to which E Branch had access.

  The value of these records in tracing the movements of undesirables needs no emphasis. But, as the cases previously recorded show, the frontier controls could be used in the most elastic way, to prevent spies from embarking in foreign ports, to allow them to embark subjecting them to thorough search at the ports, to take the papers from the suspects arriving in this country, forwarding them to Scotland Yard where the suspect could call to claim them and be subjected to examination by the police, or, in the case of known urgency, to arrest the spy on landing and send him under escort to Scotland Yard.

  These are the four grades of frontier work recorded in the files and, according to the nature of the case, G Branch would select the method to be put into practice by the port officers. Again, the cases reported show how by the working of the permit systems and E Circulars to the ports, persons possessing inconvenient knowledge could be kept in the country, others who were allowed to leave would be especially searched for documents or addresses, and sometimes the search was, as it were, advertised so as to brand the traveller in the eyes of the Germans.

  The second use in which MI-1(c) agents were put was to obtain evidence with regard to associates, employers and trading of reputed spies. A most important part of the evidence consisted in obtaining proof as to the veracity of a man’s statements on these points. After the arrest of many spies in Holland and the issue of DRR 18A, the British agents found great difficulty in getting clear evidence of spy connections: Christian Mulder, Alexander Blok and Philip Dikker proved so intractable that Hubert Ginhoven, a Special Branch detective of Dutch birth, was sent over from England to see what he could do. The same man was sent to Spain to collect evidence against Adolpho Guerrero and great difficulty occurred in America in connection with the enquiry into Frank Greite’s associates.

  The fact that Greite and Vieyra did genuine business was also an obstacle to detection: it afforded cover for journeys and cover very difficult to remove in case of arrest. In Greite’s case, delay could be and was imposed in spite of his bluster, but to stop him absolutely without proof of espionage was impossible. Vieyra was informed as soon as he arrived that he must either stay or go without return and undertook to stay. The difficulty in this case arose from the fact that trade letters, if genuine, could not be unreasonably delayed or spoiled by testing, and it was not until after his arrest that one of his letters was drastically treated as to develop secret writing.

  The advisability of checking frequent journeys in wartime, even if the motive be genuine business and the inadequacy of limiting such journeys to neutral countries, is amply illustrated. The importance of an accurate memory for and accurate recording of names is illustrated in the case of Greite, as well as the necessity for allowing a liberal margin for mis-spelling them. Brilliant work was done by Tinsley in tracking the connection with Blok through linking up the password ‘Remember Helen’ with Helen Lemaitre.

  Investigation in Albertine Stanaway’s case was hampered by the facts that intelligence services of three Allied nations were involved: i.e. French, Belgian and British, and that the case was merely the continuation of that of Pierre Rotheudt. It seems clear that if the case of Rotheudt had come within the province of the British authorities, the bureau would have pulled out every stop in 1915. As it was, the bureau took only such steps as were asked for by the Belgians and neglected the most ordinary precautions: e.g. a check on Winterberg’s address.

  Secondly, when Mrs Stanaway’s case was under consideration, it seems to have suffered from the fact of her association with Meisner-Denis: it was over-shadowed by the much more important George Vaux Bacon and Rutledge Rutherford investigations. The full import of the break, or apparent break, between Rotheudt and Stanaway does not seem to have been realised and there is no sign that she was questioned upon it. Her curious intimacy with Mrs Hebden, a woman who by marriage at least was in a totally different social position, was never explained.

  Among the achievements of the
year, the discovery of the new German secret ink ranks high. Hans Eils stated that Pickard (Vieyra’s alias) was one of the first agents to use it. Pickard came over in May, the development of the ink was discovered in September and used on the apparently blank paper of instructions carried by Graff in December and February 1917 with results already described.

  To other points of great interest to G Branch were the success of its efforts to limit the sending of news out of this country by limiting the despatch of newspapers and prohibiting the despatch of picture postcards. Eva de Bournonville had a number of picture postcards of London in her possession and with secret marks on these she could easily have indicated the places where bombs had fallen during air-raids. The fact that after the discovery of the spy address at Stockholm only one letter escaped notice reflects great credit on the GPO and Postal Censorship.

  In August 1915 the proposal that the bureau should be consulted in all important cases of contravention of DRR was approved. Power to search premises and seize prohibited documents had been conferred upon certain conditions and persons in July 1915; powers to arrest on suspicion that a person was carrying dangerous documents followed in February 1916.

  DRR regulation 19 was amended by giving power to the competent military or naval authority to specify areas in which the taking of photographs was prohibited and by deleting the clause ‘with intent to assist the enemy’. Finally by a regulation to prevent the misuse and loss of confidential documents, plans etc., it was considered that the counter-espionage legislation was made complete and the regulations 18, 18A, 19, and 19A supplemented by powers of search, interrogation and arrest under DRR 43, 51, 52, and 55 should form the basis of important amendments to the Official Secrets Act 1911.

  Communication of information regarding the passage of a ship along the coast of the United Kingdom was restricted to Lloyds and the recognised owners and agents; and a regulation was added to guard against the publication etc. of new inventions and designs of value to the public safety.

  Again this year, attention was drawn to the inadequate safe-guards obtaining with regard to neutrals who might infringe DRR repeatedly and yet, because no hostile association could be proved, would escape with a short term of imprisonment.

  On the other hand, the action of MI5 in ordering that Rutherford should be taken off any ship wherever found and the arrest of Grebst on board a neutral ship in transit between one neutral country and another indicates a changed and stronger policy necessitated by the harder pressure of the war.

  As the result of the Brugman, Lassen and de Bournonville cases, a clause was added to DRR 45 in November 1915 prohibiting false statements made with a view to obtain a pass, certificate, permit. Government departments also were warned that enemy agents were offering information about new inventions and other matters with a special view to espionage, and DRR 29A was issued. This regulation makes it an offence to trespass on factories, workshops etc. and provides for the issue of permits to authorised persons.

  Attempts to procure entrance into government departments or munitions factories etc. were guarded against by making it an offence to speak or act in such a way as to cause the unwarranted belief that a person was employed in any government department. This was extended in March to include false representation with regard to employment by the government of any of His Majesty’s Dominions or any foreign government. In October a clause was added to guard against the destruction, willful loss, unauthorised retention and loan to another person of passes, permits, certificates and licences.

  In July 1916 the Chief Constable and especially those on the coast were warned against travelling artistes; this was followed up by arranging privately with the dramatic agencies in London to forward lists of all alien music-hall artistes and theatrical performers obtaining contracts through their agencies, and of the places at which they were to perform. By this means it would be possible to acquaint the police and military and naval authorities beforehand.

  Subsequently, the Variety Artistes Federation asked the government to prohibit the entry of foreign music-hall artistes. Ramona de Amondarain had come into the country on false pretences through a bona-fide offer of work, and the decision to employ neutral workmen opened the door to a flood of applicants of a dangerous character; in August, consular authorities in Italy, Portugal, Scandinavia and Spain were warned not to consider applications for a visa unless the letters of engagement sent from Great Britain bore a police stamp.

  In the spring of 1916, the cases of Adolpho Guerrero, Frank Greite and ‘R’ seemed to show that enemy agents were no longer being paid by telegraphic money orders but by notes through banks. To abandon the safeguard of the existing check on telegraphic orders was not possible, safety lay only in development of policy. To the data supplied regularly by the GPO it was proposed to add data of remittances paid through British banks on advice received from neutral banks abroad, the individuals of whom the British firms had no special knowledge.

  In 1916 the bureau scarcely ventured to trust the Censorship to deal with a matter necessitating such absolute discretion, hence, with the help of Sir William Plender, a confidential circular to the managers of banks asking for the weekly returns of required information, was drawn up. It was never issued as the labour involved on the banks and on the bureau would have been stupendous. But from that time forward Sir William Plender supplied to MI5 monthly statistics of payments of from £15 upwards made to Germans here through the London agency of the Deutsche Bank. These lists were treated exactly as the previous lists of 1914; particulars were noted in the case of persons known to the bureau and fresh cases were enquired into at the rate of ten a day. Thus the enquiry initiated by Major Drake in 1914, was resumed with some modification in 1916, and for a time became a recognised detection method.

  The general effort with regard to the banks was not altogether dropped, however, but through Mr Martin Holland, secretary to the Bankers’ Clearing House, arrangements were made by which British bankers would report any suspicious payments of any kind which they might be called upon to make.

  Meantime the ports had been notified that the Germans were discontinuing the practice of sending money payments to their agents here and it was supposed that agents would arrive in future furnished with adequate supplies; hence any person landing in this country and carrying sums of from £50 to £150 was to be notified to the bureau. There were thus three possible checks on incoming monies: on telegraphic orders, bankers’ orders, and on money brought in at the ports.

  In December 1916 the data concerning recipients of telegraphic orders was made more generally accessible for reference by being tabulated on an index kept by G2(c).

  Under the ARO of April 1915 all aliens entering and leaving the United Kingdom were required to produce documents of identification. In November, under DRR 14C, the provisions of the order were extended to British subjects: all British subjects embarking in this country had to procure a permit; those entering the United Kingdom had to produce the same documents as aliens, a passport issued by a Secretary of State or a special permit. The permit system, which at first was enforced only for travellers to Scandinavia, Holland and France, was extended in August 1916 to all civilian travellers going to Spain, Portugal and South America. Power was conferred upon the competent military authority to remove all persons, aliens and British, who remained in prohibited areas in contravention of the regulations.

  In January 1916, under the ARO:

  1. Prohibited areas were extended so as to include all places within ten miles of the coast.

  2. Non-resident aliens found in prohibited areas without a permit or an identity book might be expelled.

  3. Every alien coming into the Metropolitan Police District after 14 February 1916, and every alien leaving the district to go and live elsewhere in the UK must register.

  4. Registered aliens wishing to enter a prohibited area must provide themselves with an identity book of a prescribed form.

  In June it was made an offence to
attest particulars given in an identity book if the relevant particulars were not filled in. In May 1916, the principle of making special military areas had been adopted, and in July the powers so conferred were put into force in the district north of the Caledonian Canal transforming Inverness into something resembling a continental frontier station. In the same month the aliens registration order was extended to cover all Allied subjects, including French, Russian, Italian and Serbian.

  In June compulsory registration of alien visitors to hotels, boarding-houses and lodging-houses, was extended to include all unfurnished rooms let to aliens. The registration of British visitors in hotels etc. had been made compulsory in January 1916. The effects of the Recruiting Act, and of German propaganda with regard to strikes, anti-recruiting and rebellion were seen in the Amendments.

  The decision was taken to import foreign labour under conditions agreed upon by the government departments concerned. MI5 insisted upon and obtained the condition that the men must agree to stay for the duration of the war. The Germans then obstructed the recruiting of good workmen. Regulation 27 was extended so as to prohibit theatrical or cinema representations likely to prejudice recruiting etc. of HM’s Forces. This was followed in July by an amendment making it penal to undermine public confidence in bank or currency notes. In order to enable the police to keep in touch with the strike-leaders deported from Glasgow, a paragraph was added to Regulation 55 enabling the police to take photographs and fingerprints of persons arrested under this Regulation.

  In order to deal adequately with the Irish rebels interned in England, Regulation 14B was amended to make any person interned under the order subject to the same restrictions as a prisoner of war – unless specially exempted by the Secretary of War. Free passage to Ireland was restricted in August.