That Stieber was admitted to the more intimate confidences of Bismarck would seem indicated by the fact that in the year after Sadowa, the chief of police suggested, he tells in his Memoirs, that he should be entrusted with the task of doing in France what he had done in Bohemia. This was in June 1867, when he asked Bismarck for eighteen months' time in which to supply the Chancellor with all the military and regional intelligence of the French frontiers and invasion zones, which it was necessary to possess for a successful campaign. Prussia was then paying some £52,000 a year for the secret-intelligence service, and Bismarck was not slow to perceive that Stieber in his own way was making the path of victory more smooth for von Moltke's commanders. In the month of June the Chancellor had induced King William to confer on his police-minister the order of the Red Eagle, and in the course of the evening which followed the conferring of that decoration Bismarck and Stieber were for long engaged in conversation, the momentous nature of which was soon shown by the departure of Stieber, accompanied by his aides, Zernicki and Kaltenbach, into France with the object of laying down base-lines, as the surveyors put it. Among the various results of that journey was the appointment of over 1000 spies within the invasion zones with "head-centres" at Brussels, Lausanne and Geneva. Another result of this journey, he himself tells, was his handing over to Bismarck some 1650 reports of fixed local spies, in the pay of Prussia, 90 per cent. of them Prussians, which called for (a) the drafting of large bodies of German agriculturists into districts which lay along the possible routes of advancing German armies, and (b) the sending of several thousands of female employees for service in public places as barmaids or cashiers. It was emphasised that these women should be "as pretty as possible." Several hundred retired non-commissioned officers were to be sent to France, where local "fixed spies" guaranteed them employment of a commercial kind. Furthermore in the garrison towns in the eastern departments some fifty young and pretty girls to act as servants in canteens were requisitioned by Stieber, who laid stress on the fact that women of a "high type of morality" would hardly serve his purpose, which was to extract information from drinking soldiers. Several hundred more domestic servants were to be placed among the homes of middle-class people such as doctors, lawyers, merchants. From the year 1867, and in pursuance of Stieber's plans, some 13,000 German spies of the minor order were asked for, itself a sufficiently large body of immigrants, one would imagine, to awaken the suspicions of alert French people. Between that year and 1870, Stieber had added at least 20,000 more, all of them scattered in various kinds of capacities along the routes of intended invasion from Berlin and Belgium to Paris. There was one important interlude, however.
In 1867 an attempt was made on the life of Alexander II. of Russia by a Pole, when that Emperor was paying an important political visit to Napoleon III. Stieber was then in Paris with Bismarck, also attached to the staff of the King of Prussia, who was a participator in this meeting of sovereigns. Information had come to the Prussian minister of police that an attempt was to be made on the life of Alexander. Accordingly Stieber called on Bismarck, imparting to him this important information. Bismarck assured his police-minister that he was already acquainted with the plot to assassinate the Tsar.
"But," added the Chancellor, "we must allow this act to be attempted and for political reasons. Nevertheless, we can assure the safety of the Emperor by having the conspirators shadowed and arrested once they have fired their revolvers. You, Stieber, must have your men on the spot, and when the attempt is made, the assailant's aim must be deflected. The very fact that an attack is made upon the Tsar while in Paris will prevent the arranging of a Franco-Russian alliance which is not just now to the interests of Prussia, and if the would-be assassin is not condemned to death, a period of estrangement must follow between France and Russia and this is just as I would have things to be."
As it fell out, a young Pole actually made the attempt on the next day. Stieber's men had shadowed him all through the night, till the very moment in which he fired at the Tsar, the outrage taking place, but without harmful results to the object of the attack. All had fallen out as Bismarck had foretold, and with the subsequent failure of a Paris jury to convict the youthful Pole, France was prevented, by the estrangement which succeeded, from assuring herself the friendship of an ally whose support might have changed the history of the Franco-German War of 1870. The story is told in detail in Stieber's own Memoirs, and we confess that, having read it several times with care, we are ourselves forced to the conclusion that Bismarck's supposition that a French jury would fail to convict the Pole was based upon something much more tangible than the arts and processes of divination. In other words, the impression left upon the mind is that Bismarck's gold had subsidised the conspirators in the plot as well as the Paris jurymen, in order to bring about a political situation which should not interfere with his plans. Bismarck had already more than once proved himself an expert in preparing his schemes far in advance, as the Danish and Austrian wars had already proved, and as the Franco-German War was even more fully to demonstrate.
When, in due course, and as a result of Bismarck's plan of forcing a fight on the French at the psychological moment, war was declared against France in July 1870, Stieber and his two lieutenants, Zernicki and Kaltenbach, left for the Front with the headquarters staff. His title was Chief of the Active-Service Police and his duties, drawn up by himself, were as follows:—
1. To provide information to the Staff regarding the situation, strength and movements of each of the French armies in the field.
2. To provide all possible details with regard to the age, the disposition and character and the personal and military reputation of each commander, his possible successor in the command and other superior officers. In respect of this provision, it is interesting to learn that part of the report regarding the late General de Gallifet, the cavalry leader and hero of Sedan, was given in approximately the following terms:—"This officer is one who under Napoleon the First would have held the highest rank. A real Frenchman, with his heart in the war and a hater of all things Prussian. A fighter for the initiative, by every instinct, a dangerous adversary and, for us, better dead. Should be watched; has no thought for anything in the present war but the success of the French arms."
3. Reports as to the political dispositions and temper of all districts for twenty miles ahead of the advancing Prussian armies, as well as the capacity of each district for supplying the commissariat.
4. To have available at every point of importance traversed by our armies several persons of intelligence who can give directions as to routes, sources of supplies and so forth. In other words, the purchase of traitors.
5. To arrange that suitable persons shall be in residence at each important point who are willing to accommodate such persons as the Staff may designate.
When questioned by von Roon as to the likelihood of his being able to facilitate their armies' progress by supplying commanders with so much information, Stieber boastfully replied: "All this information is not only ready; it is already printed. Remember, my army has been entrenched in France for nearly two years." It was also at this time that Stieber informed von Roon that his army counted nearly 40,000 persons of both sexes—an army corps, almost. In the first three months of the campaign the chief of police held a position which was as much a puzzle to German generals themselves as to departmental officials connected with the army. Stieber, when Bismarck and the King of Prussia were not present, exercised a power which no general durst override, since his own department was officially independent and in war-time the existence of martial law added to his summary powers. It is not surprising, therefore, to hear that the boastful sleuth displayed a ferocity of disposition to the conquered populations which one always suspects to be part of his base and treacherous character. As an exponent of the arts of terrorism, he must have regaled the heart of the bloodiest of Hohenzollerns. Children, old men and invalids were flogged, spread-eagle fashion, and in the presence of their parents and relatives, with the object of forcing the elders of municipalities to reveal information. Women and girls were violated in the same interests, while summary executions became the order of the police-minister's passing. "Oppose me," he would cry to cowering mayors and magistrates who begged mercy for their townsmen, "and I will hang a hundred of your people." The successful mongrel was clearly in his element in those days; nor did he omit any opportunity of adding to his collection of orders and medals with all of which he was accustomed to adorn his breast on every possible and impossible occasion. Not at all a welcome guest at mess-tables, the spy was nevertheless invited on more than one occasion to dine with Bismarck and his staff. We may easily suppose that the diplomatic corps gave the man the cold shoulder at all times. An official at one of these field banquets having just observed that the German army was invincible, Stieber, on his own record, jumped up brusquely and declared that the speaker should have said that the German armies were invincible. "My army," continued the braggart, "has already preceded your army by six months." Bismarck, who had noted throughout the evening the many slights put upon the spy, thereupon rose from his seat and passed round to Stieber's, when "without a word, but looking straight into my eyes, he held out to me his left hand wide open, which I clasped tightly in both of mine," to quote the Memoirs.
What Bismarck was wont to term "action on the Press" was undertaken also by Stieber during the course of the war of 1870. For this purpose the sleuth had in 1868 requested Bismarck for an appropriation of £15,000 annually, in return for which he promised the Chancellor to make many of the important provincial and other French papers "talk Prussian," as he put it. In a large measure he may be said to have contributed to the modern importance which has grown up around the Press, and by 1870 he declared that he could control the opinions of some eighty-five writers in the French daily and weekly newspapers. He had divided his corps of writers into home and foreign bodies. Writers, for example, who were able to influence the insertion of articles favourable to Prussia and Prussian policies were paid several times the amount which they commonly received for their articles through the ordinary channels of remuneration. These foreign writers were not confined to France, but were active also in Austria, Italy and England. Well-known bankers, business men and the heads of news agencies—many of them German Hebrews—were the instruments through whom Stieber worked. Most of these individuals were able, through acquaintanceship with professional leader-writers and journalists, to procure the insertion into articles of views held by the Prussian Government; such gentry were themselves receiving Prussian Orders and decorations, while their particular private scribes were rewarded in cash. It was by means of Germans occupying high positions in the public life of European countries that in 1864 the world was prepared intellectually for the partition of Denmark, in 1866 for the war with Austria and thenceforth for the federation of the Germanic States under the Ægis of Prussia. It must not be imagined that this propaganda ceased with Prussia's attainment of the headship of the Teutonic Bond. Indeed, it may be said only to have been inaugurated with its early successes under Bismarck, whose control of a venal Press in Vienna, Rome and even London was hardly less effective in its day than that which he exploited and subsidised all over Germany. By 1870 Stieber had, he himself tells, assured himself of a Press in Lyons, Marseilles and Bordeaux, which kept the Prussian view openly and permanently before the inhabitants of those important cities.
There is a naÏvetÉ about Stieber's autobiography which recalls Le Caron. During a memorable evening spent in the company of Bismarck, "the most beautiful of my life," says the spy, conversation turned upon the question of opportunity as the condition of success in life. The Chancellor sought to point the moral of his philosophy in the matter by the following words:—"Just consider, Stieber," he said, "how far and high destiny has led a tramp like yourself who was hated by everybody." That conversation, writes the spy, may become historic; and he rejoices to think of the good fortune which has enabled him to serve Bismarck, "assuredly the greatest of modern men." Again, he is frankness itself when he declares that his aide-de-camp Zernicki represented the elements of courtesy and kindliness, while he himself had no thought for anything but action and results and certainly no time to expend upon formalities. In all his remarks upon his records and successes we inevitably get the true note of the upstart who has achieved the power of making other men fear him. Thus, at Versailles, the police agent, for some minor offence, threatened to "hang ten members of the municipal committee as sure as my name is Stieber," and wrote to his wife recording the fact with much self-glory and glee. His part in the execution of a young gentleman, Monsieur de Raynal, was especially characteristic. This resident of Versailles, who had just recently returned from his honeymoon, had been in the habit of keeping a diary recording the daily occurrences of the German occupation. Stieber could easily have settled the matter with a reprimand. "No," he said, "I must have an example. M. de Raynal is a young man who writes very interesting matter. I am sorry for him, but he will have to face the rifles. If he escapes, I will allow him to go free." When told that the young man had just recently been married, he replied with mock feeling, "That makes my duty all the more painful," and Raynal was accordingly shot. In truth the Prussian sleuth was an ideal type of the official who would "hang the guiltless rather than eat his mutton cold," and though there is no statistical record of the number of lives which he sacrificed in the interests of his policy of terrorism, there can be no doubt that it could only have been expressed in terms of scores.
On his arrival with the headquarters staff and the King of Prussia at Versailles in September 1870, Stieber took up his lodgings at an important hotel belonging to the Duc de Persigny and here he also housed his corps of active-service agents, numbering altogether 120. It is hard to credit the statement, but the authority, M. Paul Lanoir, declares that the police-minister was successful in enlisting the services of some 10,000 persons in Versailles who, in consideration of the payment of one franc daily, agreed to "acclaim with cheers and hurrahs the Prussian monarch and princes whenever they made their excursions into the neighbourhood." Another first-class authority, M. Victor Tissot, seems by his remarks to disprove the statement of Renan to the effect that it is well-nigh impossible to find a traitor among Frenchmen. Tissot assures us that Stieber's work in France was much facilitated by the fact that the Prussian secret service was paying large salaries to important men in French public life, in return for information supplied. The same Paul Lanoir whom we have quoted above also states that Prussian gold has been active in French political life up till within quite recent times. He has met and still knows men, he says, who entered politics without a decent coat to their names who have become as if by magic possessed of splendid mansions, and whose wives, formerly milliners or washerwomen, have now taken to giving receptions on a lavish scale. These politicians would seem to be political only to the extent that they represent a purely personal policy of their own, for, says Lanoir, they continue to "champion the cause of the people," the assumption being that they are paid agents provocateurs in the service of Germany whose duty it is to keep the Republic in a state of such unrest that it must fall an easy prey to an attack from outside. M. Lanoir's statements apply, it is only right to add, to that period of grave unrest in France which succeeded upon the Church crisis and the Moroccan difficulties, and which may be said to have closed by 1911.
It is necessary unfortunately to follow this man Stieber to the close of his career and for the reason that the modern system of espionage in Germany, in regard to both its home and foreign relations, is based wholly on the methods which he laid down after the Franco-German War of 1870. He returned to Berlin a more important man than ever, with several more decorations to add to his already heavily bestarred chest. At this period he possessed a house in the neighbourhood of the Hallesches Thor and was credited with the possession of about 1,000,000 marks or £50,000 sterling. His womenfolk proved a source of some anxiety to him in a social sense, and not even the patronage of the omnipotent Chancellor von Bismarck could induce the exclusive classes of Berlin to look upon them with favour. Prussian vulgarity possesses a brand entirely its own, and the House of Stieber appeared to be afflicted with all its worst symptoms, including the inability to realise that position, even supported by wealth, which owed its existence to a talent for exploiting the basest characteristics of human nature, must ever, except among the most servile and venal, remain isolated and practically ostracised during at least the life of its founders. We are therefore not surprised to learn that in order to maintain some outward semblance of an important rÔle in society for his family, Stieber was forced to resort to a kind of blackmail, in which he threatened persons of high social worth, who consistently refused to meet his relatives, with the revelation of domestic secrets of the most intimate nature. In this way, he effected some progress, though it is also well known that he became instrumental in driving several notable personages permanently back to their country estates. Stieber himself made no secret of his philosophy in such matters. "To hold a certain power over men who are my superiors, is the sweetest power I have known, and accounts in many ways for my success," is a remark attributed to the sleuth. Like many another well-known nouveau riche of modern days, whose rise to vast wealth has served only to emphasise an elemental ineptitude for the wielding of public power, Stieber feared the Theatre as a potential flagellant of his ignoble self, and to this end exercised, through subsidiary agents, a veritable censorship upon the German drama. In order to provide against this possibility of seeing himself burlesqued upon the stage by some rising MoliÈre, he was at great pains to procure the position of censors for members of his personal acquaintance, and even in the literary world his secret influence was always at work. His ambition to possess the "particle of nobility," von, the old Emperor William firmly withstood, nor could the Chancellor move his master to include Stieber in any list promoting the sleuth to Adelstand, as the Germans term the condition of noble rank.
It was perhaps with some remorseful consciousness of the sorry tenor of his whole career that Stieber, about 1875, decided to exercise his talents in a more important branch of high politics than had been possible up to that time. Perhaps, too, it was with his pathetic quest of a patent of nobility in view that the sleuth thought out a plan for the consolidation of imperial Germany, which in his opinion must recommend itself to his omnipotent friend Bismarck. We do not, of course, rely implicitly on all he says in his Memoirs; but there is little doubt that his intimacy with the Chancellor was of the closest kind and that Bismarck encouraged his police-minister's counsels to every possible furtherance of imperial plans. It used credibly to be said that Stieber, who was, of course, a man of good education, especially sought out the historian Mommsen with a view to discussing with that luminary something about the secret of Rome's predominance in the world and of her hold upon her conquests. No records remain of any such conversations if they ever really took place, but we may be sure that if they did take place, Stieber was put in full possession of those principles of "dividing in order to govern"; of the strategic value of roads; of the garrisoning of subject countries by the troops of races mutually antipathetic; of the value of blood-letting in political combinations, to quote a memorable phrase of Napoleon. In any case by the year 1880, Stieber had presented a memorial to Prince Bismarck the political effects arising from which have been seen down to the most recent times and have mainly contributed to the costly militarism of the past generation. The railway systems of Germany were to be developed in the main with regard to their strategic military values, a consideration which had only been partly realised in the earlier construction of lines. In the second place, large appropriations for German Secret Service funds were annually to be set aside with the object of buying, or placing, traitors in every great country in Europe with which the German Empire, in accordance with its plan of dominating the Western World, was likely ever to come into conflict. As will be seen later, no country in Europe became exempt from the operations of German emissaries whether as spies or else as the agents of domestic unrest and revolution and all to the end that the new urbs sacra, Berlin, should be to the modern world all that Rome was to that of antiquity. It is not difficult therefore to understand that the secret-service fund sanctioned by the Reichstag had grown from £52,000 in 1867 to the sum of £800,000 in 1910.
