So began the plot which was literally to carry the war into America. My first need was for men, and for help in getting these I appealed to von Papen, who obligingly furnished me with a letter of introduction made out in the name of Bridgeman H. Taylor to Mr. Luederitz, the German Consul at Baltimore. There were several German ships interned at that port, and we felt that we should have no difficulty in recruiting our force from them.
Before I went to Baltimore, however, I did engage one man, Charles Tucker, alias Tuchhaendler, who had already had some dealings with the two men who originally proposed the scheme.
Tucker accompanied me to Baltimore, and together we paid a visit to Consul Luederitz. The Consul glanced at the letter I presented to him.
"Captain von Papen requests me to give you all the assistance you may ask for, Major von der Goltz," he said, intimating by the use of my name that he had previously been informed of the enterprise. "I shall be happy to do anything in my power. What is it you wish?"
Men, I told him, were my chief need at the moment. He said that there should be no difficulty about securing them. There was a German ship in the harbour at the time, and we could doubtless make use of part of the crew and an officer, if we desired. He offered me his visitingcard, on the back of which he wrote a note of recommendation to the captain of the ship. But while we were talking this man entered the office and we made our preliminary arrangements there.
The following day, a Sunday, Tucker and I visited the ship and after dinner selected our men, who were informed of their prospective duties. I also listened to the news that was being received on board by wireless; for the captain was still allowed to receive messages, although the harbour authorities had forbidden him to use his apparatus for sending purposes.
I needed nothing more in Baltimore, so far as my present plans were concerned, but at Consul Luederitz's suggestion I decided to furnish myself with a passport, made out in my nom de guerre of Bridgeman Taylor. Luederitz was of the opinion that it might be useful at some future time as a means of proving that I was an American citizen, and accordingly we had one of the clerks make out an application, which was duly forwarded to Washington; and on August 31 the State Department furnished the non-existent Mr. Bridgeman H. Taylor with a very comforting, although, as it turned out, a decidedly dangerous document. One other thing I needed at the moment a pistol, for my own was out of order. This Mr. Luederitz provided me with from the effects of an Austrian who had committed suicide in Baltimore not long before, and whose property, in the absence of an Austrian Consulate in the city, had been turned over to the German Consul.
The days immediately following my return to New York were filled with preparations for our coup. I engaged three additional men to act as my lieutenants, acquainted them with the main objects of our plan, and agreed to pay them daily while in New York, and to add a bonus when our enterprise should succeed. These men had all been well recommended to me, and I knew I could trust them thoroughly. One, Fritzen, who was later captured in Los Angeles, had been a purser on a Russian ship. A second, Busse, was a commercial agent who had lived for many years in England; the third bore the Italian name of Covani.
Meanwhile I saw von Papen frequently, and had on one occasion received from him a cheque for two hundred dollars, which I needed for the sailors who were coming from Baltimore. That cheque, which is reproduced in this book, was to prove a singularly disastrous piece of paper, for in order to avoid connecting my name with that of von Papen, it was made out to Bridgeman Taylor. I cashed it through a friend, Frederick Stallforth, whose brother, Alberto Stallforth, had been the German Consul at Parral when I was there. He, incidentally, syas later implicated in the Bintelen trial, and was detained for a time on Ellis Island, from which he was subsequently released.
Mr. Stallforth lifted his eyebrows when he saw the name on the cheque. I smiled.
"I am Bridgeman Taylor," I told him. He laughed, but said nothing, merely getting the cheque cashed for me at the German Club in Central Park South, of which he was a member.
In a few days everything was ready. My men had arrived from Baltimore, my plans were definitely made--I needed but one thing: the explosives. These, von Papen told me, I could obtain through Captain Hans Tauscher, the American agent of the Krupps, which meant, in effect, the German Government.
It was asserted many times, in 1916 especially, that the charges against Captain Tauscher were utterly unfounded. It is easy to understand the motives of this gentleman's defenders. There are many people still in the United States whose friendship with the amiable captain would wear a decidedly suspicious look were his complicity in the anti-American plots of the first two years of the war to be proved. I shall not quarrel with these people. But reproduced in this book are four documents, the originals of which are in the possession of the Department of Justice, which tell their own story and are a fair indication of the way I secured the explosives I needed.
These documents show:
First, that on September 5, 1914, Captain Tauscher, American representative of the Krupps, ordered from the du Pont de Nemoury Powder Company 300 pounds of 60 per cent dynamite to be delivered to bearer, "Mr. Bridg man Taylor," and to be charged to Captain Tauscher.
Second, that on September 11, the du Pont Company sent Captain Tauscher a bill for the same amount of dynamite delivered to Bridgman Taylor, New York City, on September 5; and on September 16 they sent him a second bill for forty-five feet of fuse delivered to Bridgman Taylor on September 13 the total of the two bills amounting to $31.13.
Third, that on December 29, 1914, Tauscher sent a bill to Captain von Papen for a total amount of $503.24. The third item, dated September 11, was for $31.18.
Is it difficult to tell of whom I got my explosives or who eventually paid for them? I got the dynamite, at any rate, by calling for it myself at one of the company's barges in a motor boat, and taking it away in suit cases. At 146th Street and the Hudson River we left the boat, and, carrying the explosives with us, went to the German Club, where I applied to von Papen for automatic pistols, batteries, detonators, and wire for exploding the dynamite* Von Papen promised them in two or three days and he kept his word.
Bit by bit, all this material was removed from the German Club in suit cases by taxi-cab. They were exciting rides we took in those days, and my heart was often in my mouth when our chauffeur turned corners in approved New York fashion. But luckily there were no accidents, and in a day or so all of our materials were stored away; part of them in my apartments not in the Holland House, alas! but in a cheap section of Harlem. For von der Goltz, the spendthrift, the braggart, was seen no longer in the gay places of New York. He had spent all his money, and now, no longer of interest to the newspapers or to the secret agents of the Allies had taken a two dollar and a half room in Harlem where he could repent his follies and be as inconspicuous as he pleased.
So it came about that towards the middle of September we five Fritzen, Busse, Tucker, Covani and myself took train for Buffalo, armed with dynamite, automatic guns, detonators and other necessary implements, and proceeded, absolutely unmolested, to go to Buffalo. There I engaged rooms at 198 Delaware Avenue and began to reconnoitre the ground. I made a trip or two over the Niagara River via aeroplane, with an aviator who unquestionably thought me mad and charged accordingly; and at the suggestion of von Papen I secured money for my expenses from a Buffalo lawyer, John Ryan.
It had been decided that von Papen should let us know when the Canadian troops were about to leave camp so that we might strike at the psychological moment. A telegram came from him, signed with the non-committal name of Steffens, telling me that Ryan had money and instructions. Ryan gave me the money, as I have stated, but insisted that he had no instructions whatever.
Then, after a stay of several days in Niagara, during which we did nothing but exchange futile telegrams with Ryan and "Mr. Steffens," we learned that the first contingent of Canadian troops had left the camp and my men and I returned to New York unsuccessfu
l.
Our failure was greater than appears on the surface, for my men and I were a blind. Our equipment, our loud talking, our aggressive pro- Germanism even our secret preparations which had not been secret enough were intended primarily to distract attention from other and far more dangerous activities.
We had been watched by United States Secret Service men from the very beginning of our enterprise. During our entire stay in Buffalo and Niagara we had been under the surveillance of men who were merely waiting for us to make their suspicions a certainty by some positive attempt against the peace of the United States. We knew it and wanted it to be so.
And while they were waiting for sufficient cause to arrest us, other men, totally unsuspected, were making their way down through Canada, intent upon destroying all of the bridges and canal locks in the lake region!
You can see what the effect would have been had our plan succeeded Canada crippled and terrorised England robbed of the troops which Canada was even then preparing to send her, but which would have been forced to remain at home to defend the border. But, far more desirable in German eyes, the United States would have been convicted in the sight of the world of criminal negligence. For my band of men the obvious perpetrators of one crime had been acting suspiciously for weeks. And yet, in spite of that, we were at liberty. The United States had made no effort to apprehend us.
Good fortune saved the United States from serious international complications at that time. While we were waiting for word from von Papen the Canadian troops had left Valcartier Camp, and were then on their way to England. Part of our object had been removed, and for the rest well, the plan would keep, we thought.
It was a disappointed von Papen whom I met on my return to New York a rather crestfallen person, far different from the urbane soldier that Washington knew in those days. We commiserated with each other upon our failure, and talked of the better luck that we should have next time. I did not know that there was to be no next time for me.
For it came about that Abteilung III. B., the Intelligence Department of the General Staff, wished some first-hand information about conditions in the United States and in Mexico; and I, who knew both countries (and who was the possessor of an American passport bearing an American name), was selected to go.
On October 3, 1914, Bridgeman Taylor waved farewell to New York from the deck of an Italian steamer, bound for Genoa. The curious might have been interested to know that in Mr. Taylor's trunk were letters of recommendation to various German Consuls in Italy; strangely enough, they bore the name of Horst von der Goltz within them, and the signature of each was "von Papen."
I had said good-bye to von Papen the night before at the German Club. He had asked me to hand over to him all the firearms I had, for use again when needed.
We talked of the war that night, and of Germany, which I had not seen in two years. And we spoke of the United States, and of what I was to tell them "over there."
"Say that they need not worry about this country," he told me. "The United States may still join us in the splendid fight we are making. But if they do not it is of small moment. And always remember that if things look bad for us, something will happen over here."
I left him, speculating upon the "something" that would happen; for then I did not know of all the plans that were in my captain's head. I .was to learn more about them later and I was to know a bitter disgust at the things that men may do in the name of patriotism. But of these matters I will speak in their proper place.
CHAPTER VIII
MY INTERVIEW WITH THE KAISER
I go to Germany on a false passport -- Italy in the early days of the war -- I meet the Kaiser and talk to him about Mexico and the United States.
IT was peaceful sailing in those early days of the war, and our ship, the Duca d'Aosta, reached Genoa without mishap. I had but one moment of trepidation on the voyage, for on the last day the ship was hailed by a British cruiser. Here, I thought, was where I should put my passport to the test but, as it happened, our ship was not searched. An officer came alongside inquiring, among other things, if there were any Germans on board, but he accepted the captain's assurance that there was none to my intense relief.
Genoa, like all the rest of the world, was in a state of great excitement in those days. Rumours as to the possible course of the Italian Government were flying about everywhere, and one could hear in an hour as many conflicting statements of the Government's intentions as he might wish. The country was a battlefield of the propagandists at the moment. Nearly all of the German Consuls, who had been forced to leave Africa at the declaration of war, had taken up their quarters in Italy, and were busily disseminating pro-German literature of all sorts. I was told, too, that the French Ambassador had already spent large sums of money buying Italian papers in which to present the Allied cause to the as yet neutral people of Italy. And when I went into the office of the Imperial German Consul-General, von Nerf, I was amused to see a huge pile of copies of of all papers in the world! the Berlin Vorwaerts, which had been imported for distribution throughout the country. Here was a pretty comedy! This newspaper, which during its entire existence had been the bitterest foe of German autocracy in the Empire, had become a propagandist sheet for its former enemy and was now being used as a lure for the hesitating sympathies of the Italian people! In German, French and Italian editions it was spread about the country, carrying the message of Teutonic righteousness to the uninformed.
I found von Nerf to be a large man, with whiskers that recalled those of Tirpitz, although without that gentleman's temperament or embonpoint. He assured me that Italy would never enter the war; there were too many factions in the country which would oppose such a step.
"Why, consider," he bade me, "we have the three most important parties on our side. The Catholics will never consent to a break with Germany; the business men are all our stanch partisans; and the Labour Party is too violently opposed to war ever to consider entering it. Besides," he continued, "labouring men all over the world know that it is in Germany that the Labour Party has reached its greatest strength. Why, then, should they consider taking sides against us?"
"But do you think that there is any chance of Italy entering the war on our side?" I asked him.
Von Nerf shrugged his shoulders. "It is doubtful," was his reply. "What could they do in their situation?"
I had come to von Nerf with von Papen's letter of introduction, to ask for assistance in reaching Germany. Accordingly he arranged for my passage, and soon I was on a train bound for Milan and Kuf stein, where I was to change for the train to Munich. At that time the German Consuls were paying the passage of thousands of Germans who wished to leave Italy for service in the army. The train on which I travelled was full of these volunteers, who later disembarked at Kufstein, on the Austro-German border, to report to the military authorities there.
At Munich we passed some wounded who were being taken from the front the first real glimpse of the war that I had had. There was little evidence of any war feeling in the Bavarian capital; restaurants were crowded, and everyone was light-hearted and confident of victory. I saw few signs of any hatred there, or elsewhere during my stay in Germany. All that there was was directed against England; France was universally respected, and I heard only expressions of regret that she was in the war.
On the train from Munich to Berlin I had the first good meal I had eaten in several weeks. It was good to sit down to something besides miles of spaghetti and indigestible anchovies. And the price was only two marks for that was long before the days of the Food Controller and $45 ham.
Berlin was filled with Austrian officers, some of them belonging to motor batteries the famous '32's which had been built before the war in the Krupp factories, not for Germany for that would have occasioned additional armaments on the part of France but by Austria, who could increase her strength without suspicion. The city, always martial in appearance, had changed less than one would have expected. There, too, the restaurants were fi
lled; in particular the Piccadilly, which had been rechristened the Fatherland, and was enjoying an exceptional popularity in consequence. One was wise to go early if he wished to secure a table there; and that fortunate person could see the dining-room filled with happy crowds, eating and drinking, and applauding vociferously when "Die Wacht am Rhein "or some other patriotic air was played. I had returned to Germany for two purposes: to fight, and to bring full details of conditions in Mexico and the United States to the War Office. One of my first official visits was paid to the Foreign Office, where I found everyone busy with routine matters and very little concerned about the success or failure of the German propaganda in Italy an attitude in marked contrast to that of the General Staff. There the first question asked of me related to conditions in Italy. This indifference of the Foreign Office would seem, in the light of after events, to indicate a false security on the Ministry's part; but in reality the facts are otherwise. Germany had never expected Italy to enter the war on the side of the Central Powers; she did hope that her former ally would remain neutral, and at that time was doing her utmost to keep her so, both by propaganda and by assuring her of a supply of coal and other commodities, for which Italy had formerly depended upon England, and which Germany now hoped to secure for her from America. But even at the time of my visit the indications of Italy's future course were fairly clear and the Foreign Office was accepting its failure with as good grace as it could.
My Adventures as a German Secret Service Agent Page 11
