The Secrets of the German War Office | Page 9

up on the silhouette study of British warships, for I had to be able to discern and classify them at long range. The different ranking officers of the navies of the world, their uniforms, the personnel of battleships, the systems of flag signals, and codes, were explained to me in detail. I was given large books in which were colored plates of the uniforms and signal flags of every navy in the world. I had to study these until at a glance I could tell the rank and station of the officers and men of the principal navies. The same with the signal flags. I pored over those books night after night into the early hours of the morning. My regular hours for tuition were from ten to twelve in the forenoon and from two until six in the afternoon. But it was impossible to compress all the work into that time. I was anxious to get my first mission, and I presume I did a great deal of cramming.
My study was not all in Berlin. I spent most of my time there at Koenigergratzerstrasse 70 and at the Zeughaus, the great museum of the German General Staff. But there were side trips to the big government works at Kiel and Wilhelmshafen. There I was taught every detail of the mechanics of naval construction and I was not pronounced equipped until I could talk intelligently about every unassembled part of a gun, torpedo tube, or mine.
In the course of my five months' instruction under the various experts of the Prussian Service I had many opportunities to observe the exhaustive thoroughness and the minuteness of detail which the German General Staff possesses. I did not lose the chance of this opportunity. I really did observe and see more than was intended for me to see. Of the amazing amount of labor, time and money that has been spent to gather the information contained in the secret archives of the German General Staff, the marvelous system of war that has been perfected in the German Empire, I shall tell when I consider the secrets of the War Machine.
Naturally, I soon came to know still other things than what they taught me. I began to consider the whole proposition of Secret Service, and before relating my first important mission for Germany I shall tell you some of the general secrets of the System.
There are four systems of Secret Service in Europe, the four leading powers each possessing one. First in systematic efficiency is the German, next comes the Russian, then the French, and English. England has a very efficient service in India and her Asiatic possessions, but has only lately entered the European field. Last but not least comes the International Secret Service Bureau with headquarters in Belgium, a semi-private concern which procures reliable information for anyone who will pay for it. This service is generally entrusted with the procuring of technical details, such as the plans of a new kind of gun or data on a new and minor fortification. Mr. Vance Thompson has also cited special missions like this one that follows.
Not often does the chance come to leave the regular channels of espionage and go forth upon a mission out of the ordinary. That chance came a few years ago to the Russian agents in Brussels. In St. Petersburg the chiefs were desirous of knowing the identity and names of a group of revolutionists who had formed a sort of colony in Montreux, Switzerland. A French woman, known sometimes as Theresa Prevost (the last I heard of her she was in prison) was detailed to the mission. Young and clever was Theresa; likewise the man who was ordered to accompany her, posing as a "brother," Charles Prevost.
The chief of these Russian fugitives, who were down around the lake of Geneva, brewing their dark plans, was known. He was Goluckoffsky, and he had a son twenty-two years of age--an impressionable Russian son. Hence the young and pretty Theresa.
It was decided by her Brussels chiefs that she assume the role of an heiress from Canada. Five thousand francs for preliminary expenses were handed over to her and with Charles, the brother, she descended upon Montreux. If you were there at the time you will recall the social triumph made by the young Canadian heiress. You may even remember that she seemed to be infatuated with the young impressionable son of old Goluckoffsky. The day long they were together. They were going to be married, and Charles Prevost the "brother," stood in the background, chatted amiably with old Goluckoffsky and his friends and smiled.
Then as an heiress should, Theresa and her "brother" invited Goluckoffsky, his family and friends, to a pre-nuptial luncheon. No expense was spared, for the wires had moaned with requests