Evening Star Newspaper, September 8, 1929, Page 95

others like them (o desert. 1If they needed money, a word to some allied secret service usually provided it. Part of the German revolution was hatched in a certain inn in Hamburg, rendezvous for revolutioraries somes of whom were desperate men. It was an underground railway station, whence they smugsled out of Germany and on- to ships for Dcnmark information how plans were progressing, and any brethern who were too closely pursued by the Germans. Allied secret services knew the password admitting to sh:lter, but let their agents use it only if in great danger. So it happened that s:veral owe their lives to a rather long German compound word which, fortunately, they were able to pronounce. On: German-American almost lost his life for the German revolution. For long he led a precarious life in Amsterdam, as an ag:nt for British and Americans. He published under cover of his office a revolutionary propaganda paper. In its columns th: German dsserter in immediate charge poursd forth the vials of his wrath upon his late masters in words that crackled. The Germans tried by every means to find the source whence these germs pene- trated their body politic, They flnally suc- ceaded, IN June, 1918, this evil propaganda paper ap- peared somchow in Germany with an ar- ticle proclaiming in type that screamed the real German losses to that time in great Spring offensives that were to have won the war for Germany, .In three months, the paper said, the G:r- man casualties had been no less than 840,000, The German offensive had failed to win the war, the allies were stronger than ever, Ameri- cans were landing in France 300,000 a month. A picture of looming defeat. This must stop, said the German counter- espionage. Their secret service in Holland must g2t the editor. They did. Oune morning the editor did not come to the office. He had been kidnapsd into Germany. All you can do is hope that his revolution cam: soon enough afterward to save his life. The Amcrican secret service had a chance to start another propaganda n>wspaper, under a rather distinguished editor furnished by what might be called a windfall. That is to say, the editor came from the air. He was Prof. Nicolai —not related to the chif of German espion- age—a well known German pacifist who had escaped from Germany in an airplane with three other revolutionists seeking food and welcome in Denmark. It was as tangled as most secret service mait:rs. The aviators had been told it was the famous Karl Licbnecht they were to aid to escape. When Prof. Nicolai appeared they almost declined to start. The German secrer serviee shadowed them all over Den- mark, and tried by hook or ecrook to scare or kidnap th'-m back into Germany before thev could get in touch with allied agents, especially the rich Americans. The sum men- tion>d was 3,000 marks apiece. At what:ver price, the Germans bribed one of Prof. Nicolai's companions to get them all on a Danish ship that was to be way- laid by a German submarine that would take the rest back to Germany and prison. But before the ship sailed they were interviewed by “an Amcrican journalist” who broached the idea of their all going to the United States as guests of its intelligence service, to which in return they would doubtlsss tell all they knew, Those sturdy revolutionists knew their worth, and, like some college foot ball players, wanted “scholarships and jobs.” The Amori- cans wondered how much they knew, after all, and finally dropped them. Prof. Nicolai, meanwhile, was discussing with the Americans his editing a propaganda news- paper to be delivered to some of his colleagues in Germany by the long distance airplanes he heard th: allies were completing —as indeed, they were, He wrote some pacifist pamphlets for use in Germany, but the German government finally succeeded in getting the Danes to musgzle him, although their efforts to extradite him failed. He predicted the German revolution three —~nths before it began. NDAY THE 8t REVOLUTION and armisticc did not end the secr:t war. Some striking American secr2t service achievements occurred after No- vember 11. What would the new Germany do? Every one ask:d. Was the revolution real, or was it faked, as many Frenchmen feared? Would the republic keep the armistice and make peace, or would it go Bolshevik? If the present government kept power, what would be its policy at the peace conference? Would Germany fight again rather than sign an unsatisfactory treaty? Could she? Was Germany really half-starved, or was that propa- ganda to win sympathy? To win the peace those questions must be answered, and correctly. Some of our best secret service work in Europe was. dons not in war, but in peace, by the Army, whose reports President Wilson and Col. House had to accept. They satisfisd both bet- ter than what British and French told them of conditions in Germany. Thase allied reports forshadowed the con- flict between the peace aims of the allies and of President Wilson that later nearly wreck:d the peace conference and influencad profound- ly even to this day the trend of world events, They showed the allies viewing differently than the American President the new German republie, born in no small measure of his doc- trines, signer of an armistice based upon them. It was almost his godchild, yet the allies be- gan to question its legitimacy. They suspectad trickery. The Americans turned to G-2 in tha gathering diplomatic storm. 12 last shot had hardly re-echoed from the North Sea to Switzerland, when the Amori- can secret service was taking stealthy steps to find the truth about what happened in Ger- many—and a little bit more. The Americans had assisted at the birth of the German re- public, now they helped keep it aliva, D 3 some cight months of armisiice and peace negotiations, Germany remained always a delicate problem, Get rid of the Kaiser, w> had told them in effect, have a 1epublic, and we'll make peace with you. We have no guarrel with th: Ger- man people. Well, the Kaiser had gon», the republic had come, why continue the quarrel? Bul rancers, hatreds and suspicions do not subside so easily, and who knew what might Lappen in Germany overnigit? A slip by the new Socialist Republican gov- ernm:nt might cause either a cauntar-rovo- lution of the old Junker-Militarists, or a Ped revolution joining with Moscow. That danger gcomed 2 real that German reactionaries When German troops turned their guns on their brothers. A German street scen e during the revolution. financed radical troublemaking, taking advan- tage of allied dread of Bolshevism’s westward sweep, hoping to snatch the advantage. SO G-2 waged peace. In addition to the usual “Battle Order section at Third American Army headquarters at Cobl:nz, “a “Political Section” of G-2 was established under a spe- cially qualified officer, Col. Newbold Morris, to get in touch with German political movements. Shortly aft:r the armstice, Maj Gen. George H. Harries w:nt to Berlin with a large staff of American officers as part of an inter-allied prisoner of war commission, to facilitate get- ting prisoners cared for and out of Germany. Some of the attached officers, Gen. Harries was told, “you have nothing to do with, except that they will live with you at the Hotel Ad- lon.” These officers were most carefully chos- en, but were not officers of the secret service, -2-B, however delicate and confidential their mission, which was well known to and wel- comes by the various bureaus of the German government, Busides all the usual agencies, Gen. Pershing desired to have his own means of keeping in touch with th: German situation, and fol- lowing the armistice, established an “Advanced G. H. Q.” at Trier, on the edg: of the German Rhineland. Th's headquarters was first in charge of Brig. Gen. Preston Brown and later of Col. A. L. Conger. . Until this day, little has been said of what important work this headquarters did, of how many army officers and other representatives of the German government came there, eager to give the Americans information and to learn their views, 'O appreciat: the little known and highly interesting role played by the American Army at this period it must be recalled that the republican govirnment of Germany was by no means regarded as firmly established. A large and noisy element dsmanded a Soviet govern- ment and union with Russia, while others openly advocated return of the monarchy. Even in the republican cabinet there were 2 “war party” and a “pcace party” and outside the cabinet plots galore to establish all sorts of dictatorships and “renew the war,” plots scme of which were feared quite as much in Paris as in Berlin. A In that situation full of dynamite, if the srman r:publican government were not help- ed, Germany might become another seething Russia, pacified only by another war. By no P A captured German officer pointing out on a war map position of Germamn artillery in the Meuse-Argonne. means all the allies agreed, but the American peace commission i Paris and the United States Army on the Rhine gave such help as they could. . Most of the leading German officials of Abat day are decad: Ebert, President; Erzberger, chancellor, and Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, foreign minister. But there are still those who know, ard they may some day speak. There are hints of an American officer who a few months after the armistice, on invitation of Field Marshal von Hindenburg, visited him at his headquarters in Kolberg, with startling results. Shorily after the signing of th: peace treaty, it was a common saying in Berlin thas “thsre were two unexplained personalities of the treaty making. One was President Wilson, the oth:r was the American colonel who had s0 much t> do with our affairs.” Naturally’ there were malcontents over the outcome, and when Germany's financial sys- t:m began to totter, a leading Berlin news- paper said editorially that if during the arm- istice period the German government “had sought a rapprochecment with France instead of allowing its policy to be directed by an American colcnel, Germany would now (1920) be a who!l> lot better off.” 44 AMER!CANS have still something to learn of how the peace of Versailles was made—for instance, of one serious ecrisis when the Germans nearly unmade it—expecting President Wil- son’s aid against the allies! Americans have not heard how onz of their countrymen drove day and night to Berlin, and in a dramatic scene made clear the real American position, and cleared a misunder- standing that might easily have spelled dis- aster. When that chapter of inside: is written, it may be entitled “The Unknown Soldier.” Through such confidential work, the Ger- man republic was helped to remain in the saddle. Not a few of its erstwhile opponents came into the fold. Some who hsd'threlt- ened that Germany would join Soviet Russia if the allies tried to impose peace terms be- came silent, some even reversed themselves and spoke openly for Germany signing the treaty. A few Americans who knew why smiled, and worked on. An American- woman agent, “Q” or “Num- ber 8, played a dramatic part in this wn- written drama of the vastest, most complex world problem that ever morfal man tried to solve, This intrepid and attractive lady took = double risk, for she made two trips into uu- occupied Germany on confidential missions for G-2. But she did get back to Coblenz and safety from Berlin, where her double role ‘of newspaper correspondent and secret agent had aroused German suspicions. Not, however, be- fore she had helped foil a monarchist plot to establish a new and even more reaction- ary German empire in East Prussia and Lith- uania, and sent valuable information of all sorts through Gen. Van Deman to President Wilson at the Paris peace conference. Later “Q" did the same perilous work in Russia, but was caught and nearly faced a Bolsheviz firing squad. Now she is out of “the game,” in which she was the foremost American woman spy of the World War. But “Q” was not the only American agent - helping to inform President Wilson what went on in Germany. Shortly after the armistice, G-2 had agents in the Workmen's and Soldier’s Councils, and soon in Berlin. How American spies in Berlin after the armistice bought information with bribes of . butt:r, bacon and candy. How a few bars of chozolate and a German fraulein got “A-1” secret information that reduced the German republic’s army from 1,500,000 men to 100,000. And how four American war correspandents played spy. dodged the censors, made their way into Germany and brought back te Col, ° House information that greatly influenced the 2eace treaty. All these points are revealed in the next Installment of this series to appear in next s‘m.y" sm. 7w vt Lave oy gavs 4%