We have emphasised the German Spy System to the extent of devoting five chapters to an exposition of its methods and the principles underlying its origin, development and application. Our object has been mainly to show not only to what extent a nation may become demoralised by allowing a system of espionage to assume the proportions of a constitutional principle, but more especially to indicate how ineffective its operations must ultimately prove when opposed, not necessarily by counter-espionage, but by the ordinary legal safeguards which foreign governments can at all times put into force to neutralise such operations. At the outbreak of the War, for instance, the British authorities were able, by the simple process of internment and registration, to destroy in these islands the bulk of effective German influences on which Berlin had long relied for the consummation of its insane dream of "making Britain a German province." Again, the comparative ease with which eleventh-hour systems of counter-espionage have proved themselves capable of defeating the elaborate and far-flung organisations of fifty years of German master-spies must have the result of teaching Germany that a military establishment which puts its first trust in its external spy systems as providing the royal road to warlike successes, really admits its own lack of military genius. Indeed, it is impossible to read the story of Stieber's exploits and not realise that Stieber, rather than von Moltke, won those strategic successes of 1866 and 1870 which laid the foundations of the modern German Empire. And just as Bismarck has had no successor in the business of German diplomacy, so is it certain that Stieber's mantle has fallen upon no modern exponent of German espionage capable of adding to the original system. We have heard much of the triumphs of the Berlin Secret Service; the results of the War must disclose its total failure, though we may even now confidently predict that the blunders of its present directors have not been less glaring than those of Berlin diplomats. Like everything systematised in Germany, its organisation of espionage was systematised to the point at which independent and original action became impossible, so that when faced with conditions which Stieber had not known and provided for, it at once revealed its impotence and ineptitude, as well as the incapacity of its organisers for attaining practical results.

We propose in this present chapter, which concludes our account of Germany's system, to show how complete is the training of agents for the work of military and naval espionage. The German military spy, it must be premised, is rarely an officer on the active or retired list, but almost always a civilian who has, of course, had military training. Turr and Windell had both been military officers who had practically been cashiered, while Lody had been a minor officer in the German merchant service. The German military agent must know all units of foreign armies at sight and must also be able to memorise the code words by which such units are indicated in the Berlin bureau. In respect of code words, indeed, his memory must, in all military matters, be of a Napoleonic capacity, and when corresponding with his head office as to the work of any particular pattern of gun on which he is instructed to report, it will go badly with him if he fails to quote his code accurately. Since, by the regulations, he is not permitted to carry documents, his task is obviously not an easy one. And so, again, with classes of explosives and types of shell. Furthermore, he must be so intimate with the science of fortification as to be competent to produce a map of any required fortified place, its maximum content and capacity for resistance. No Woolwich cadet of two years' standing is expected to know half as much as your German military spy, while his periodical examinations are conducted on a scale which would be sufficient to make studious officers of the Staff College doubtful as to their ability to "floor" the papers. Any error transmitted in the way of information as to guns, man-capacity of fortresses, new ideas in strategy and tactics, ballistics, plans and military maps, are dealt with in Berlin on the American plan—that is to say, the offender is never given a chance to offend twice. Nor is the art of generalisation, so common in journalism, ever permitted to pass muster at Number Seventy. Particularisation is insisted upon, for Berlin wants facts first, last, always and everywhere. To ensure complete accuracy, the General Staff will employ, if necessary, a dozen spies on the same mission; they operate unknown to each other, their reports are compared and discrepancies mean the sending out of supplementary agents on the same mission, until by a process of exhaustion, and perhaps after several years of observation, the mathematical truth is finally arrived at. In the meantime, perhaps, the structure of any given fortress has been radically or partly altered; still the process goes on, for Berlin's General Staff never sleeps, is eternally vigilant and alert and possesses the only financial stocking in the Empire which knows no end. All this is in accordance with a rule laid down by the Bismarck-Stieber combination—namely, that the German Intelligence Staff shall know as much about any country in Europe as that country's own Intelligence Department could possibly know. In Austria in 1866 and in France in 1870, events proved that it knew far more. In whatever other way a high-class German secret-service man may fail to please the critics, there can be no question as to the degree of sheer intellectual ability required to enable him to reach his position—and retain it.

In regard to Naval espionage, the course of study and the mental discipline exacted are, if anything, more severe. Fundamentally, of course, the system differs but little from that just dealt with, just as the winning of a battle involves the employment of strategy and tactics which are not fundamentally different from those employed in the taking of a fortress, as Napoleon said. The majority of accepted secret-service agents on entering upon their studies in Berlin, Kiel or Wilhelmshafen, rarely know enough about naval matters to be able to distinguish a torpedo from a torpedo-boat destroyer. After a course with the instructors the agent not only distinguishes easily between the large variety of types of torpedoes, submarines, mines, he can also tell by the peculiar whistle it makes whether a torpedo when being discharged is a Whitehead or a Brennan, as the case may be. Then his work in naval dockyards and on coastal defences has practically no limit. Naval construction he must be as fully versed in as the best informed of naval commanders. All sorts of naval war-craft are set before him for the purposes of study, and the candidate for advancement is required, before he passes out with a certificate, to be able to tell at a glance, and from their silhouettes, all known war-craft in existence, big and little. After months of study, a quick learner will be able to say at once the type of any given war-vessel shown him and what its nationality. Add to this a perfectly accurate acquaintance with flag-signals and codes, the different ranking officers of all the navies of the world, the personnel of warships of the heavier classes, the various uniforms, the ability to talk about any or all parts of a gun, a torpedo, a tube, a mine, whether assembled or unassembled, and it will be freely admitted that the German naval spy must be a ready man in the fullest sense of Bacon's term. And yet on another page we have said that German espionage is a doomed failure. We still maintain it, and for the reason that the foregoing studies only result, after all is said, in naval theory. As a maker of theories, your German of all kinds and conditions, is the first man in the world; it is when he comes to their practical application that he fails so badly and disappoints his admirers so painfully. The end of German naval espionage is of course the invasion and conquest of Britain, and until German armies defeat us and our Allies on land and her Navy has beaten us at sea, we may feel justified in holding that both her military and naval systems of espionage are respectively not worth the rentals paid for their dingy offices in Berlin. There is a hoary old tale told about an Englishman, a Frenchman, a German and a certain wonderful crocodile which once made its appearance in Orinico waters and made the nations talk about him. The Englishman decided to start at once for Brazil and hunt the creature out; the Frenchman decided on general principles to carve him out in stone, just as he imagined the new animal to be; but the German went to a zoological museum, thought out the new crocodile from a set of palÆozoic bones, and wrote a theory about him. Your German theorist is still far from having passed away and hardly yet realises that there is a large difference between learning the secrets of our naval forces and defeating them at sea. We recognise that German espionage is a danger—a fact which need not, however, blind us to the certainty that Germany has no more Bismarcks or Stiebers to build up new organisations with which to face the conditions of a new world. Germany has certainly no minister in office to-day who could prophesy so far ahead the course of events as Bismarck prophesied them to an Austrian lady, the Countess Hohenthal, in 1866. We recall the anecdote:

"Tell me, Count," said the Austrian to the famous Chancellor at a dinner-party in Berlin. "I have two homes in Europe, one in Bohemia, the other at Knautheim, near Leipsic. My countrymen are all talking about the possibility of Prussia invading us in the near future, and you might set my mind at rest if you would advise me where to remain for the rest of the year—in Bohemia, or in Saxony?"

"Countess," replied the Chancellor, "if I were you, I should remain in Saxony. It is not on a military route." The lady's Bohemian Castle was not, as it happened, very far from—Sadowa.

As to the financial aspects of the German Spy System, it is a matter of public record that the Reichstag makes a yearly appropriation of about £1,000,000 sterling for the purposes and objects of the Imperial Secret Service. It is obvious, however, that the total expenditure must be far in excess of this sum, since, to use a memorable phrase, "every dirty little lieutenant" who has taken a holiday within the past ten years and has consented to spend his time in England, has done so at the expense of the Secret Service of Berlin. In these cases the young officers are "invited" to inspect the counties through which they travel, and in order to facilitate their movements, they are each supplied with sectional maps which are more perfect in every particular than the cyclists' hand-books with which we are so familiar in these days. There is no lane, bridle-path, road, farmhouse, pot-house, or farrier's which is not clearly marked in these sectional maps. The prospective tourist—who is most frequently a minor departmental official—is handed one or more of them on the understanding that if he can improve upon their topographical value in the smallest particulars, he will benefit to the extent of a hundred marks or so. The result is that official Berlin knows England north, south, east and west, far better than any Englishman knows Berlin, and one may depend upon it that if an army corps were to land anywhere in Britain, its commanders would know the road to London, as well as local facilities and capacities for feeding 40,000 men, far better than the majority of Irishmen know the way to Tipperary or even the civic standing of that much-sung city. The gathering of such minute information involves a costly process. One million sterling yearly must be inadequate to cover the expenditure of 500 registered and salaried officials, with "details" numbering at least 500 more of a more or less fixed status, and twice that number of annual tourist candidates looking for German bank-notes.

Before concluding our examination of the German Spy System, we may hear what an American war-correspondent has to say in regard to the precautions which the General Staff takes in order to preclude the operations of spies inside the German lines. The following incident was communicated to The New York Times by its special correspondent on 1st December 1914:—

"GERMAN GREAT HEADQUARTERS IN FRANCE, Dec. 1.—There is a certain monotony about the scientific murder of the firing line—a routine repetition of artillery duels, alarums, and excursions which can be and are being vividly described by 'war correspondents' from the safe vantage ground of comfortable cafÉs miles away. The real human interest end of this ultra-modern war is to be gleaned from rambling around the operating zone in a thoroughly irresponsible American manner, trusting in Providence and the red American eagle sealed on your emergency passport and a letter from Charles Lesimple, the genial Consul at Cologne, to keep you from being shot.