But if the Foreign Office were indifferent to the attitude of Italy, it was intensely interested in that of Turkey, which had not yet entered the war. It seemed to me as if Mannesmann and Company, a house whose interests in the Orient are probably more extensive than those of any other German company, seemed almost to have taken possession of the Colonial Office, so many of its employees were in evidence there; and I had an extended conference with Bergswerkdirektor Steinmann, who had formerly been in charge of the Asia Minor interests of this company. Mexico, of course, was the principal topic of our conversation, but many times he spoke of Turkey and of the small doubt that existed as to her future course of action.
Next door to the Foreign Office, every corner of which was a-hum with busy clerks and officials, stood the house to which I had been taken from Gross Lichterfelde so many years before "Samuel Meyer's Bude." It was very quiet and empty to outward appearance; and yet from within that silent, deserted house, I think it safe to say, the destiny of Europe was being directed. It was there that the Kaiser spent his days when he was in Berlin. And it was there that the Imperial Chancellor had his office and determined more than any man, except the Kaiser, the policies of the Empire.
One entered the house, going directly into a large room that was occupied no longer by the round-faced man of my cadet days, but by Assessor Horstman, the head of the Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office. Upstairs was the private office of the Emperor, and, to the rear of that, the Nachrichten Bureau a newspaper propaganda and intelligence office, directed by the Kaiser and under the charge of Legation-Secretary Weber.
I visited the Turkish Legation, at the suggestion of Herr Steinmann, and discussed at length and very seriously with the Ambassador the attitude of Italy and its effect upon Turkey's possible entry into the war. He assured me that the only thing necessary to make Turkey take part in the conflict was a guarantee that Germany jvas capable of handling the Italian situation, and that whatever Italy might do would not affect Turkish interests.
But it was with the General Staff that my chief business was. At the outbreak of hostilities this the "War Office "so-called had become two organisations. One, devoted to the actual supervision of the forces in the field, had its headquarters in Charleville, France, far behind the battle front; the other branch remained in the dingy old building on the Koenig's Platz, in which it had always been quartered. It is here that the army department of "Intelligence," officially known as Abteilung III. B, is located, and it was to this department that I had been assigned.
Von Papen had, of course, communicated to Berlin an account of our various activities, and there was little that I could add to the information the department possessed about conditions in the United States. Mexico seemed rather the chief point of interest, and Major Kohnemann, to whom I spoke, asked innumerable questions about the attitude of Villa towards both the United States and Germany; what I thought of his chances of ultimate success, and whether I believed that he, if he succeeded, would be more friendly to Germany than Carranza was at the time. After an hour of such discussion, which more closely resembled a cross-examination, he suddenly rose.
"Your information is of great interest, Captain von der Goltz," he said. "I shall ask you to return here at five o'clock this evening. Wear your heaviest underclothing. You are going to see the Emperor."
I started. Prussian officers do not joke as a rule, but for the life of me I could not see any sane connection between his last two remarks. The major must have noticed my perplexity, for he smiled as he continued:
"You are going to travel by Zeppelin," he explained. "It will be very cold."
That night I drove by motor to a point on the outskirts of the city, where a Zeppelin was moored. It was one of those which had formerly been fitted up for passenger service, and was now used when quick transportation of a small number of men was necessary. There were several officers of the General Staff whose immediate presence at Coblenz, where the Emperor had stationed himself, was needed; and since speed was essential we were to travel in this way.
The miles lying between Berlin and Coblenz seemed but so many rods to me, as I sat in the saloon of the great airship, resting and talking to my fellow-passengers. One would have thought that we had been travelling but a few moments when suddenly there loomed below us in the moonlight the twin fortresses of Ehrenbreitstein and Coblenz, each built upon a high plateau. Between them, in the valley, the lights of the city shone dimly; in the centre of the town was the Schloss, where the Emperor awaited us.
But I did not see the Emperor that night. Instead, I was shown to a room in the castle a room lighted by candle and there my attendant bade me good night.
At half-past three I was awakened by a knock at the door. "Please dress," said a voice. "His Majesty wishes to see you at four o'clock."
It was still dark when at four o'clock I entered that room on the ground floor of the castle where the Emperor of Emperors worked and ate and slept. In the dim light I saw him, bent over a table on which was piled correspondence of all kinds. He did not seem to have heard me enter the room, and as he continued to work, signing paper after paper with great rapidity, I looked down and noticed that, in my haste to appear before him on time, I had dressed completely save for one thing. I was in my stocking feet.
I coughed to announce my presence. He looked up then, and I saw that he wore a Litewka, that undress military jacket which is used by soldiers for stable duty, and which German officers wear sometimes in their homes. But the face that met mine startled me almost out of my composure; for it was more like the countenance of Pancho Villa than that of Wilhelm Hohenzollern. That face, as a rule so majestic in its expression, was drawn and lined; his hair was disarranged and showed numerous bald patches* which it ordinarily covered. And his moustache for so many years the target of friend and foe which was always pointed so arrogantly upwards, drooped down and gave him a dispirited look which I had never seen him wear before.
In a word, it was an extremely nervous and not a stolid Teutonic person who sat before me in that room. And it was not an assertive, but merely a very tired human being who finally addressed me.
"I am sorry to have been obliged to call you at this hour," he said, "but I am very busy, and it is important that I should see you."
And then, instead of ordering me to report to him, instead of commanding me to tell him those things which I had been sent to tell him, this autocrat, this so-called man of iron, spoke to me as one man to another, almost as a friend speaks to a friend.
I do not remember all that we spoke of in that half-hour the three years that have passed have brought me too much of experience for me to recall clearly more than the general tenor of our conversation. It is his manner that I remember most vividly, and the general impression of the scene. For as I stood before him then, it suddenly seemed to me that he spoke and looked as a man will who is confronted by a problem that for the moment has staggered him not because of its immensity, but because he sees now that he has always misunderstood it.
Here, I thought, is a man accustomed to facing all issues with grand words and a show of arrogance; and now at a time when oratory is of no avail, he finds himself still indomitable, perhaps, but a trifle lost, a trifle baffled, when he contemplates the work before him. For Wilhelm II. had laboured for years to prevent, or if that were impossible, to come victoriously through, the crisis which he knew must some day develop, and which he himself had at last precipitated. He had striven constantly to entrench Germany in a position that would command the world; and had sought to concentrate, so far as may be, the trouble spots of the world into one or two, to the end that Germany, when the time came, might extinguish them at a blow. But the time had come, and he knew that, despite his efforts, there were not two, but many issues that must be faced, and each one separately. He had striven with a sort of perverted altruism to prepare the world for those things which he believed to be right and which, therefore, must prevail. And now after long years of preparati
on, of diplomatic intrigue with its record of nations bribed, threatened, or cajoled into submission or alliance, he was faced with a condition which gave the lie to his expectations, and he knew that "failure "must be written across the years. Russia and Japan were for the moment lost; Italy was making ready to cut itself loose from that alliance which had been so insecurely founded upon mistrust. And in America who could tell? And yet for all that I read weariness and bewilderment in his every tone, I could find in him no trace of hesitation or uncertainty. Instead, I knew that running through every fibre of the man there was an unquestioning assurance of victory a victory that must come!
While I stood there imagining these things, he spoke of our aims in Europe and in America and of the things that must be done to bring them to success. He bade me tell him the various details of our affairs in Mexico and the United States; and he, like Kohnemann, was chiefly interested in Mexico. It was, in fact, almost suspicious, his interest was so great; and I could explain it only in one way that he viewed Mexico as the ultimate battlefield of Japan and the United States in the next great struggle the struggle for the mastery of the Pacific. For just as Belgium has been the battlefield of Europe, so must Mexico be the battleground of America in that war which the future seems to be preparing.
I remember wondering, as he spoke of what might come to pass, at the tremendous familiarity he displayed with the points of view of the peoples and Governments of both Americas. I had thought myself well acquainted with conditions in both continents; but here was a man separated by thousands of miles from the peoples of whom he talked, whose knowledge was, nevertheless, more correct, as I saw it, than that of anyone Dernburg not excepted whom I had met.
It was then, I think, that he told me what Germany wished of me, outlining briefly those things which he thought I could do best.
"You can serve us," he said, "in Turkey or in America. In the one you will have an opportunity to fight as thousands of your countrymen are fighting. In the other, you will have chosen a task that is not so pleasant, perhaps, and not less dangerous, but which will always be regarded honourably by your Emperor, because it is work that must be done. Which do you choose?
I hesitated a moment.
"It shall be as your Majesty wishes," I said finally.
He looked at me closely before he spoke again. "It is America, then."
And then, as I bowed in acquiescence, he spoke once more for the last time so far as my ears are concerned.
"I must be ready by 7; my train leaves at 7.10. I may never see you again, but I shall always know that you have done your duty. Good-bye!"
And so I left him--this man who is a menace to his people, not because he is vicious or from any criminal intent; not, I believe, because his personal ambitions are such that his country must bleed to satisfy them; but merely because his mind is the outcome of a system and an education so divorced from fact that he could not see the evil of his own position if it were explained to him.
For in spite of his remarkable grasp of the facts of Empire, the deeper human realities have passed him by. For years he has had a private clipping bureau for his own information; but he does not know that he has never seen any but the clippings that the Junkers--those who stood to gain by the success of his present course--have wished him to see. He does not know that he has been shut out from many chapters of the world's real history; or that this insidious censorship has kept from him those things which, I am sure, had he known in the days when his intellect was susceptible to the influence of fact, would have made him a man instead of an Emperor.
Here was a man who honestly believed that he was doing what was best for his people, but so hopelessly warped by his training and so closely surrounded by satellites that even had the truth borne wings it could not have reached him.
To me it seems that the menace of the Hohenzollerns lies in this: not that they are worse than other men, not that they mean ill to the world, but that time and experience have left them unaroused by what others know as progress. They stand in the pathway of the world to-day, believing themselves right and regarding themselves as victims of an oppressive rivalry. They do not know that their viewpoint is as tragically perverted as that of the fox which, feeling that it must live, steals the farmer's hens. But, like the farmer, the world knows only that it is injured; and just as the farmer realises that he must rid himself of the fox, so the world knows, to-day, and says that the Hohenzollerns must go!
CHAPTER IX
MY ARREST AND CONFESSION
In England, and how I reached there I am arrested and imprisoned for fifteen months What von Papen's baggage contained. I make a sworn statement.
BACK in Berlin I sought out Major Kohnemann, and together we spent many days in planning my future course of action. It was a war council in effect, for the object towards which we aimed was nothing less than the crippling of the United States by a campaign of terrorism and conspiracy. It was not pleasant work that I was to do, but I knew, as every informed German did, that it was necessary. Therefore I accepted it.
What would you have? Germany was in the war to conquer or be conquered. America, the source of supply for the Allies, stood in the way. Knowing these things, we set about the task of preventing America from aiding our enemies by using whatever means we could. We did not feel either compunction or hostility. It was war diplomatic rather than military, but war none the less.
I do not intend to go into the details of our plans at the present moment. Enough to say that after a brief visit to both the Eastern and Western fronts I left Germany for England en route to America with a programme which, in ruthlessness or efficiency, left nothing to be desired.
But before going to England it was necessary that I should take every possible precaution against exposure there. My passport might be sufficient identification, but I knew that since the arrest of Carl Lody and other German spies in England the British authorities were examining passports t with a great deal more care than they had formerly exercised. Accordingly, one morning, Mr. Bridgeman Taylor presented himself at the American Embassy for financial aid with which to leave Germany. There was good reason for this. To ask a Consulate or Embassy to vise a passport when that is not necessary may easily seem suspicious. But the applicant for aid receives not only additional identification in the form of a record of his movements, but also secures an advantage in that his passport bears an endorsement of his appeal for assistance, in my case signed with the name of the Ambassador. At The Hague I again applied for help from the United States Relief Commission. I amused myself on this occasion by making two drafts: one for $15 on Mr. John F. Ryan of Buffalo, N.Y., and one for $30 on "Mr. Papen "of New York City.
I was fairly secure, then, I thought. If suspicion did fall upon me it would be simple to prove that I had submitted my passport to a number of American officials, and had consequently satisfied them of my good faith as well as that the passport had not been issued to someone other than myself, as in the case of Lody.
As a final step I took care to divide my personal papers into two groups: those which were perfectly harmless, such as my Mexican commission and leave of absence, and those which would tend to establish my identity as a German agent. These I deposited in two separate safe deposit vaults in Rotterdam, taking care to remember in which each group was placed and that done, with a feeling of personal security, and even a certain amount of zest for the adventure, I boarded a Channel steamer for England.
I was absolutely safe, I felt. In my confidence I went about very freely, ignoring the fact that England was at the moment in the throes of a spy scare, and even so well recommended a German-American as Mr. Bridgeman Taylor was not likely to escape scrutiny.
And yet, I believe that I should not have been caught at all if I had not stopped one day in front of the Horse Guards and joined the crowd that was watching guard mount. Why I did it it is impossible for me to say. There was no military advantage to be gained; that is certain. And I had seen guard mount often enough to f
ind no element of novelty in it. Whim, I suppose, drew me there; and as luck would have it, it drew me into a particularly congested portion of the crowd. And then chance played another card by causing a small boy to step on my foot. I lost my temper and abused the lad roundly for his carelessness so roundly, in fact, that a man standing in front of me turned and looked into my face.
I recognised him at once as an agent of the Ilussian Government, whom I had once been instrumental in exposing as a spy in Germany. I saw him look at me closely for a moment, and I could tell by his expression, although he said no word, that he had recognised me also. Thrusting a penny into the boy's hand I made haste to get out of the crowd as quickly as I could.
Here was a pleasant situation, I thought, as I made my way very quietly to my hotel. I could not doubt that the Russian would report me but what then? His word against mine would not convict me of anything, but it might lead to an inconvenient period of detention. I sat down to consider the situation.
After all, I decided, the situation was serious but not absolutely hopeless. Unquestionably 1 should be reported to the police; unquestionably a careful investigation would result in the discovery that there was no Bridgeman H. Taylor at the address in El Paso which I had given to the Relief Commission at The Hague. For the rest, my accent would prove only that I was of German blood; not that I was a German subject.
My Adventures as a German Secret Service Agent Page 12
