by Henry Landau
Three battalions were created with centres at Liège, Namur, and Charleroi. Each battalion was divided into companies, each company into platoons. Thus the Namur sector became Battalion II, with companies at Marche, Namur, and Chimay; and the Marche company had its platoons at Marche, Arlon, and Luxembourg; the Namur and Chimay companies were similarly divided up into platoons. Each unit covered the area designated by its name.
Each fourth platoon in a company occupied itself exclusively with collecting the reports from the three other platoons, and depositing them at a ‘letter box’ allocated to the company. Each battalion also had a special unit, some of whose members collected the reports at the company ‘letter boxes’ and deposited them at the battalion ‘letter box’, while a special member carried the reports from this ‘letter box’ to the headquarters’ ‘letter box’ in Liège. In Liège there were three ‘letter boxes’, one for each battalion. These ‘letter boxes’, and the couriers serving them, were kept as completely isolated as possible. They knew nothing about the service except their own particular duties; it was forbidden them to try and discover the identity of any member of the service.
Each battalion had a secretariat where the reports picked up at the battalion ‘letter box’ were typed out, after they had been scrutinised by the battalion commander. At Liège, the reports from the three battalions were examined and criticised by Dewé and Chauvin, and were then passed on to the headquarters’ secretariat, where they were prepared for transmission to Holland.
A special courier carried the reports from the headquarters’ secretariat to the frontier ‘letter box’. Here the duties of the War Office service commenced. It was up to it to pick up the reports at this ‘letter box’ and convey them across the frontier into Holland. The role of frontier ‘letter box’ was the most dangerous in the organisation, and so not only the agent occupying it, but everyone coming into contact with him, was especially isolated. The typing of the reports served a twofold purpose: it diminished the bulk, and it removed the evidence which handwriting would have supplied, if the reports were seized.
GHQ consisted of the two chiefs, a supreme council of eight members, a chaplain, a counter-espionage section, a section to deal with finances, a courier section, the secretariat already mentioned, a section to attend to the hiding of compromised agents, and to make arrangements for their escape across the frontier into Holland, and, finally, a section to study all new extensions, and, if approved by the supreme council, to carry them into effect.
All members were required to take one of the following oaths of allegiance:
(i) I declare that I have engaged myself as a soldier in the military observation corps of the Allies until the end of the war.
I swear before God to respect this engagement; to accomplish conscientiously the duties which are entrusted to me; to obey my superior officers; not to reveal to anyone whomsoever, without formal permission, anything concerning the service, not even if this should entail for me or mine the penalty of death; not to join any other espionage service, nor to undertake any work extraneous to the service, which might either cause an inquiry or my arrest by the Germans.
(ii) The same oath of allegiance as above, but instead of the phrase ‘to accomplish conscientiously the duties which are entrusted to me’, it was allowed to substitute the following: ‘to accomplish conscientiously the duties which I have undertaken, or shall undertake in the future’.
To each was given a lead identity disc, with his name, date, and place of birth, and matriculation number engraved on it. This disc was to be buried immediately, and was not to be disinterred until after the war.
In addition to the reorganisation already mentioned, the militarisation and the oath of allegiance had other far-reaching effects. Hitherto, being civilians, Dewé and Chauvin had been forced to discuss all projects with agents before they would carry them out. This not only involved loss of time, but it forced them to disclose details of organisation, which should have been kept secret. Now a subordinate agent could be ordered to do what was required.
The oath of allegiance also put a stop, once and for all, to agents involving themselves in such subsidiary duties as the distribution of letters from Belgian soldiers at the Front; the circulation of La Libre Belgique, and other clandestine publications; and the assisting of Belgians of military age to escape across the frontier. These extraneous activities not only often led to the arrest of agents, but invariably compromised the whole espionage organisation to which they belonged.
The militarisation also eased the minds of the many Belgians of military age enrolled in the ‘White Lady’. These men, recruited from the most patriotic elements of the population, wanted to be sure that neither the Belgian authorities nor the public would criticise them after the war for not having crossed the frontier to join the Belgian Army. Finally, the fear of a postwar military court martial acted as an additional deterrent to those who were arrested. Betrayal was the principal source of information of the German Secret Police – German third-degree methods, and the use of stool-pigeons in the prisons taxed the loyalty of the prisoners to the limit of their endurance.
Not satisfied with the increased security which the militarisation had brought them, Dewé and Chauvin employed all their ingenuity and organising ability to consolidate the service, and to protect it still further against the German Secret Police.
All members of the ‘White Lady’ were instructed to use false names both in their reports, and in contacting other members of the service. Dewé became in turn van den Bosch, Gauthier, and Muraille; Chauvin assumed successively the names of Beaumont, Valdor, Granito, Bouchon, and Dumont; while Neujean was known as Petit.
To prevent discovery and arrest, the greatest ingenuity was employed in choosing and fitting out each of the two headquarters. The main one was a perfect rabbit warren. It had five exits – one into the front street; one into a back garden, from which access could be gained to a side street, by way of an alley; one to the roof through a skylight; and finally two, one on each floor, leading through very ordinary looking wall closets into the adjoining house, where an apparently harmless old couple lived, who, as far as their neighbours were concerned, never held any communication with the inmates of the house next door. At the reserve headquarters, in addition to several exits, there was a blind room without windows, which was specially useful on occasions when the council met late at night – the curfew laws, in operation in the occupied territories, required all lights to be extinguished by a certain hour. The ‘White Lady’ also had three houses in Liège which were used as hiding places for compromised agents.
The arrest of their colleague Father Des Onays, and the danger to which both of them had been exposed in their contact with frontier couriers, had taught Dewé and Chauvin a lesson. They now systematically removed all connecting links between themselves and their frontier posts. Frontier ‘letter boxes’ and couriers who knew their identity were retired, and new ones were recruited through suitable intermediaries. In doing this, they knew that they would still be exposed to many dangers, some unforeseen, others which they would have to face in the everyday execution of their duties; but, as chiefs of the ‘White Lady’, they realised that it was their duty not to incur unnecessary risks. On the other hand, they never shrank from undertaking a mission, however dangerous it might be, if they considered that they themselves were the best fitted to carry it out.
As a final precaution, the names and addresses of the three battalion ‘letter boxes’ were sent through to me in Holland in code permitting me to make direct contact with the battalions in the event of the ‘White Lady’ headquarters being seized.
Notwithstanding all these precautionary measures, and in spite of the guiding genius of Dewé and Chauvin, the ‘White Lady’ found itself engaged in a life and death struggle with the German Secret Police during the next eighteen months.
CHAPTER 7
THE HIRSON PLATOON
THE EXPERIENCES AND adventures of the Hirson P
latoon were representative of the thirty-eight platoons of the ‘White Lady’. True, each kept watch over different areas, but their problems, their duties, their spy technique, and, finally, the dangers they encountered were the same. I have chosen to tell about this particular platoon, not because it provided more thrilling adventures than the others, but merely because, being one of the last units to be formed, its story can be told within the space of a single chapter.
It was towards the end of August 1917, after we had been in touch with the ‘White Lady’ about a month, that we received word of a young French refugee who was in hiding at the house of one of their agents in Liège. On the plea that they had given him important verbal information to communicate to us about their organisation, they requested that we make arrangements for his passage into Holland.
We were not very enthusiastic. We had already placed several frontier passages at the disposal of the ‘White Lady’. We had provided them with a dictionary code which they could safely use. And we were anxious to abolish their system of sending delegates across the border into Holland. They were exposed to the danger of being caught, and the even greater danger – strange as it may seem – that they would divulge details of our organisation to the other Allied secret services, whose prying curiosity was as likely to attract the attention of the German Secret Police as any slip on the part of our agents. The ‘White Lady’ insisted, however; and so we sent in Charles Willekens, our most trusted frontier guide, to fetch him.
I was attracted to Edmond Amiable as soon as I saw him – a young man of about twenty, of medium height, trimly athletic, his frank eyes blazing with enthusiasm. In a few words, he gave me his story. He had intended entering the priesthood, and had already completed part of his novitiate when he felt the urge to escape from occupied territory in order to join the army and serve his country. He told of the difficulties in had encountered in making his way to Liège from Hirson, across the Franco-Belgian border. In Liège, through a Jesuit priest, he had come into contact with the ‘White Lady’. I found in reality that he knew practically nothing about the existing organisation of the ‘White Lady’, but that the two chiefs, under the assumed names of Gauthier and Dumont, had discussed very thoroughly with him some of the problems which the militarisation involved, and on which they wanted my advice.
As I sat and listened to this young patriot, who had come from the very area the Allied secret service had in vain been trying to penetrate during the last two years, I conceived the idea of persuading him to return. It was the height of my ambition to establish a train-watching post on the Hirson–Mézières line, that important artery which ran parallel to the German battlefront, which increased in importance as the rumours of a big German offensive grew thicker. In occupied France, too, we would be tapping not only rest areas, but also regions used by the Germans for the massing of troops.
With the control of the Hirson–Mézières line giving us the transference of divisions from one sector of the Front to another, and with itinerant agents reporting troop concentrations in the different areas, we would be able to locate sectors chosen for attack, and would thus be in a position to supply information of vital importance to the Allies. Before our contact with the ‘White Lady’, we had urged our other organisations in the interior to penetrate into France, but the strict surveillance there, especially along the Franco-Belgian border, had checkmated all their efforts.
The finding of stationary agents was not difficult; the problem was the transmission of the reports. In Belgium, the ordinary activities of business and of life continued even in the presence of the Germans; in occupied France, trade and industry had been completely crippled, a great part of the civilian population had been deported, and those who remained had to obtain special permits to travel even 2 or 3 miles.
When I broached the subject to Amiable, he immediately consented. He insisted, however, that I get permission from his French authorities, so that on his return he could satisfy his father, a veteran of the Franco-German War, who had encouraged him to escape. General Bucabeille, the French military attaché at The Hague, readily complied with our wishes. He interviewed his young compatriot and returned him to us with an official blessing for the success of the undertaking.
As much as I should have preferred getting Amiable to start an independent service, with separate couriers right through to me in Holland, I knew this was impossible. In order to block off the area immediately behind their front line, the Germans had posted a cordon of sentries along the Franco-Belgian border, and were maintaining almost as strict surveillance there as they were along the Belgian–Dutch frontier. To penetrate this barrier, I knew it would require an organisation on the spot. I decided, therefore, to return Amiable unreservedly to the ‘White Lady’, and leave it to them to mount this new service in conjunction with their own.
Calling him No. A. 91, we placed him once again in the hands of our frontier guide, the trusted and undaunted Charles Willekens, and returned him to the address in Liège where we had picked him up.
Dewé and Chauvin threw themselves enthusiastically into the creation of this new service. For some time they had envisaged the formation of a company in the Chimay area, and Hirson would fit admirably into it as one of its four platoons.
Since not only the mounting of the Hirson Platoon, but that of a whole company was involved, Chauvin decided to accompany A. 91 on his mission.
On 29 August 1917, Chauvin and A. 91 arrived at battalion headquarters in Namur. There Abbé Philippot, the Commander of the Second Battalion, to which the Chimay company was to be attached after formation, gave them a letter of introduction to Ghislain Hanotier, a friend of his, whom he knew he could trust.
Two days later, A. 91 and Chauvin, who had carefully hidden his identity under the name of Dumont, arrived in Chimay. While A. 91 left for Macon, a village some 2 miles from the Franco-Belgian border, Dumont went off to find Hanotier. This man, who had already served for two years in an old espionage service (the service Biscops, which eventually had lost contact with Holland), received Dumont with open arms. With his aid, Dumont in addition to a ‘letter box’ for Chimay, soon recruited two couriers – one between Chimay and the French frontier, the other between Chimay and the battalion ‘letter box’ in Namur.
In the meantime, A. 91, after several fruitless endeavours to find a guide to take Dumont and himself across the frontier, eventually addressed himself to Anatole Gobeaux, a man whom he had known since boyhood. Gobeaux, who between teaching in the Macon village school found time to run a sabot syndicate, belonged to one of those old families of Sambre-et-Meuse, whose patriotism and sense of honour are traditional. Brave, and determined, he had been a leader in every patriotic activity in the village from the first days of the occupation. It is not surprising, then, that when A. 91 told him that he was looking for someone to aid him in his mission, he replied: ‘This someone is going to be me, Edmond. I am not going to allow anyone to deprive me of the honour of serving my country.’
I leave it to Gobeaux to tell of A. 91’s, and Dumont’s adventures at the frontier:
I could not help but be impressed by Dumont, who had now joined A. 91. His generosity and greatness of soul won my heart immediately. I was astounded at the calm manner with which, in a few words and without bravado, he outlined their plans.
Their objective was to reach Trélon, 7 kilometres distant, where A. 91’s father lived. The distance was not great, but there was no necessity to stress the dangers they would have to encounter. A. 91 knew them only too well. The area was thickly wooded and in it were hidden innumerable German sentries, and Secret Police, aided by well-trained police dogs. If one were challenged, one had to halt, present one’s permit to cross the frontier – granted only on exceptional occasions – and, finally, allow oneself to be rigorously searched. An attempt at escape meant almost certain death in the form of a sentry’s bullet.
The Germans had good reason to guard this area. At Trélon was the Château de Merode, where the Ka
iser often took up his quarters, and which was also the headquarters of one of the German armies. In addition, only 15 kilometres away, was Hirson, the centre pivot of the whole railway network immediately behind the German front; and there too was their general railway headquarters.
A way of crossing the frontier immediately suggested itself to me: ‘X’, the director of a small glass factory, just across the frontier, had a group permit which allowed him to take across the frontier daily twenty-five workmen, who lived in Belgium. All that was necessary was for my two friends to disguise themselves as workmen and join the group. But ‘X”s patriotism, which he continually vaunted, was only a façade – he made us lose three valuable days by first of all consenting, and then showing the white feather.
One sole means now remained to me, and that was to entrust them to a friend of mine, Moreau, who lived at Baives, just across the frontier, and who slipped over occasionally to purchase necessities for his family. As luck would have it, Moreau put in an appearance the next day, and, as I had foreseen, he not only gladly agreed to act as their guide, but allowed himself to be enrolled in the ‘White Lady’ as their trans-frontier courier between Baives and Macon.
