  Secrecy is, of course, the most important consideration in the German plots in this country. When Bernstorff wished to arrange with Berlin to give Bolo Pasha ten million francs to betray his country, he naturally did not write out his messages in plain English for every wireless station on both sides of the Atlantic to read them as they went through the air. He did, to be sure, write the messages in English, and they looked plain enough—and innocent enough—but they meant something very different from what they seemed to mean. And when it got down to the actual transfer of the money, another German agent in New York signed the messages, which likewise were not what they seemed. Those messages were in code. (They are reproduced and explained in this chapter.) Now code should not be confused with cipher. When some Hindus in New York, subsidized by Berlin, wished to write their plans to some other Hindus in San Francisco, concerning their Those messages were in cipher. To any one but an expert, many code messages look simple and harmless, and cipher messages usually look unintelligible and suspicious. Yet, oddly enough, the cipher messages are by far the easier to make out. Indeed, unless you have a copy of the code, code messages can almost never be translated, whereas a straight cipher message can almost invariably be unraveled by an expert, if you give him enough time and material. Hence, by people who know the subject (and nobody had mastered it so thoroughly as the Germans), codes are used for secrecy, and ciphers are used simply as an added precaution and to delay the unraveling of a message if, by any chance, the enemy has gotten possession of a copy of the code. German plot messages, therefore, are usually written out first in plain German, then coded, and the code then put into cipher. Such messages are called enciphered code. For an enemy to get them to make sense, he has first to decipher them, and then decode them. Any expert can decipher them—in time. Decoding them is a very different matter. Before taking up some of the German code and cipher messages that have been translated, with dramatic results, it will be well to discuss codes and ciphers in general. A code is an arrangement by which two people agree, when exchanging messages, always to substitute certain words or symbols for the real words of the message. Thus, they might agree on these substitutions:
With such a code, a German spy in New York could cable a seemingly harmless message to a friend in Holland, such as: “The market price is 110.” That would mean, of course: “A French ship sailed from New York to-day for Marseilles.” Whereas a very slight change in wording: “The market quotation is 110¾.” would mean: “A French ship sailed from Boston to-day for Bordeaux.” CODE MESSAGE TRANSMITTING MONEY TO SIR ROGER CASEMENT In English it reads: “Embassy. 307–16, New York, April 10, 1916. Mr. John Devoy has paid in $500 here with the request that they be transmitted telegraphically to Sir Roger Casement. You are respectfully requested to proceed accordingly and to charge the amount to the Military Information Bureau. Receipt enclosed.” Messages of that sort could be exchanged daily between a broker in Wall Street and a broker in Amsterdam, and, by the addition of a few more words, could be infinitely varied Ciphers, however, have almost always been resorted to when secrecy was desired. This sounds like a contradiction. But people who are not experts use them because they think they are more secret, since they look so. And experts use them when they are concerned only with temporary secrecy. They use them, then, because cipher messages can be written and translated (by one’s correspondent) without any equipment, like a code book, and much more rapidly than code. Thus, if a general in the field wishes to send a message ordering a colonel to advance in two hours, he sends it in cipher, because it would take the enemy more than two hours to decipher the message even if he intercepted it immediately, and because after A cipher is the substitution of some symbol for a letter of the alphabet. The substituted symbol may be another letter—as writing e when you mean a. Or it may be a figure—as using 42 when you mean m. Or it may be an arbitrary sign—as * to mean c. In cipher, then, every word is spelled out, but the word Washington might be spelled x=?½?!^:°B if you had agreed that
That is called a substitution cipher, because some other letter or symbol is arbitrarily substituted for every letter. But another kind is called a transposition cipher, because in this the letters of the alphabet are simply transposed by agreement—the simplest and most obvious example being to reverse the alphabet, so that z stands for a and y for b, etc. Such a transposition cipher would read:
and Washington would be spelled dzhsrmtglm. A letter from John Devoy, an Irish-American, exposing his hand in a plot with the Germans to foment revolution in Ireland Perhaps the cleverest transposition cipher ever devised—it is so good that the British Army uses it in the field and, moreover, has published text books about it—is the very simple “Playfair” cipher. First a square is drawn, divided into fifths each way. This arrangement gives twenty-five spaces, to contain the letters of the alphabet—I and J being Next a “key word” is chosen—and herein lie the cleverness and the simplicity of this cipher, because every time the key word is changed, the whole pattern of the alphabet is changed. Suppose the key word is Gardenia. It is now spelled out in the squares: The second A is left out, as there must not, of course, be duplicates on the keyboard. Now the rest of the alphabet is written into the squares in their regular sequence: That is the complete keyboard. The method for using it is this: The message is written out in plain text; for example: DESTROY BRIDGE AT ONCE (Only capital letters are commonly used in cipher work.) This message is now divided DE ST RO YB RI DG EA TO NC EX (The X is added to complete the group and is called a null.) These groups of twos are now ciphered from the keyboard into other groups of twos, by the following method: Where two joined letters of the original message appear in the same horizontal row on the keyboard, the next letter to the right is substituted for each. Thus, the first two letters of our message are DE. They occur in the same horizontal row on our keyboard. Consequently, for D we write E, and for E we go “on around the world” to the right, or back to the other end of the row, and write G for E. This gives us DE enciphered as EG. Where two joined letters of the original message appear in the same vertical row on the keyboard, the next letter below is substituted for each. Where two joined letters of the original message appear neither in the same horizontal nor the same vertical row on the keyboard, we imagine a rectangle with the two letters at the opposite corners, and in each case substitute the letter found on the keyboard at the other corner of the same horizontal row. R D E and for R we substitute E, and for O we substitute L. Substituting our whole message by this system, it reads: Original DE ST RO YB RI DG EA TO NC EX As telegraph operators are accustomed to send these gibberish messages in groups of five letters (so that they can check errors, knowing that when only four appear in a group, for example, something has been left out) these enciphered groups of twos are now combined into groups of fives, so that the finished cipher reads: EGTUE LXCAB EAGRU MIFRZ The foregoing looks extremely complicated, but the truth is that anybody, after half an hour’s practice, can put a message into this kind of cipher (“Playfair” cipher) almost as fast as he can print the straight English of it in capital letters. And unless the person who reads Another ingenious cipher is called the “Chess Board.” First, a sheet of paper is ruled into squares exactly like a chess board—that is, a square divided into eighths each way. This arrangement gives, of course, sixty-four small squares. Then, by agreement between the people who intend to use this cipher, sixteen of these squares are agreed upon and are cut out of the sheet with a knife. Suppose, for example, this pattern is chosen: and the squares showing in white are cut out. Next, another sheet of paper is ruled into a chess board, of exactly the same size as the first. The perforated sheet is now laid on top of the second sheet, so that the squares on the one exactly cover the squares on the other. Now, with a pen or pencil, the plain text of the secret message is printed on the under sheet by writing through the perforations of the upper sheet, only one letter being written in each square. This, of course, Suppose the complete message is to be: “Authorize payment ten million dollars to buy copper for shipment to Germany.” Then the lower sheet, after we have written through the perforations, will look like this: The perforated sheet is now turned to the right through one fourth of a complete revolution, so that the top of it is at the right side of the lower sheet and so that the two chess boards again “match up.” This operation exposes, through the perforations, a new set of sixteen open squares on the lower sheet. The writing of the message is continued, and the lower sheet now looks like this (left): Again the perforated sheet is turned to the right, and sixteen more letters are written. Once more, and the whole sixty-four squares are utilized, looking like the last cut on the previous page. These letters are now put upright, like this. They are now read from left to right and from the first line down, like ordinary reading matter. They are then grouped into fives for telegraphic transmission, and an X added at the end to make an even five-group there. Thus the message, as transmitted, reads: SADUL RRYAL TOHOF TRLNO IRNEI When this message is received, it can, of course, be quickly deciphered by printing it out on a chess board and placing over it a sheet perforated according to the prearranged pattern. This survey of codes and ciphers does not more than scratch the surface of the subject, nor more than suggest the almost infinite variations that are possible—in ciphers especially. It simply gives a groundwork for an understanding of the German secret messages now to be described. EXTRACTS FROM A GERMAN CODE EXPERT’S BLOTTER Showing the use of capital letters in the actual work of enciphering a message, and the combined use of cipher and code Among the most interesting of these secret messages is the series of wireless telegrams by means of which the German money was paid to Bolo Pasha for the purchase of the Paris Journal—one of the principal episodes in the treasonable intrigue for which Bolo was recently executed by a French firing squad. These messages were in English, and meant exactly what they said, except for the proper names and the figures, which were code. To decode them, it was necessary only to make the following substitutions: William Foxley = Foreign Office and to all other figures add three ciphers to arrive at the real amount. For example, one of these messages read: “Paid Charles Gledhill five hundred dollars through Fred Hooven.” This meant: “Paid Count Bernstorff five hundred thousand dollars through Guaranty Trust Company.” BOLO’S HANDWRITING A letter written in New York to his bankers in transactions for the purchase of the Paris Journal, with German money, the crime for which he was shot The story of these messages is briefly this: Marie Paul Bolo started life as a barber, became an adventurer and, in the service of the Khedive of Egypt, received the title of Pasha for a financial service which he rendered him. Returning to France as Bolo Pasha, he married two wealthy women and lived in grand style on their money. He became an intimate of Charles Humbert, another adventurer, who achieved political power by questionable methods and became a member of the French Senate. In the meantime, the Khedive had been deposed by the British on account of his pro-Turkish (and hence pro-German) activities after the Great War began. Abbas Hilmi joined the colony of ex-rulers in Switzerland, and there became a part of the German system of intrigue. He received money from the Germans and, after he had deducted his “squeeze” (which sometimes amounted to half the total), he paid over the rest to Bolo, to be used by Bolo, Humbert, and ex-Premier Caillaux in an effort to restore Caillaux to power and then to further the propaganda for an early and hence inconclusive peace. A TALE TOLD IN CABLEGRAMS Code messages in the Bolo Pasha case, explained in the accompanying pages Either this method of supplying the French traitors with funds became too dangerous, or the Germans preferred to keep their gold and wished to use their credit in the United States to get American gold for this purpose. In any event, Through Pavenstedt, as messenger, Bolo also got in touch with Bernstorff, and arranged the details of the plan by which Bolo was to receive 10 million francs from the German Government. He was to use this money to buy the Paris Journal, which would then be edited by Senator Humbert, who agreed to change its editorial policy to favour an immediate peace. As the Journal is one of the most powerful dailies in France, with a circulation among more than a million and a half readers, the sinister possibilities of this scheme are readily seen. MR. A. BRUCE BIELASKI Who, as Chief of the Bureau of Investigation of the Department of Justice, organized and managed the Government agents who unraveled the German plots and captured the plotters Bernstorff committed the financial details to Hugo Schmidt. He, in turn, asked Berlin by wireless for suitable credits in American banking The Journal was actually bought by Bolo and Humbert, but before they could do much damage with it, they were arrested, and Bolo has already been executed. THE COHALAN-IRISH REVOLUTION MESSAGE Above is the code message from Von Papen’s office in New York to Bernstorff, transmitting a message from Justice Cohalan, of the Supreme Court of New York, advising the Germans upon the best means to make Sir Roger Casement’s revolution in Ireland a success. On page 155 is the message written out and coded for transmission. In English it reads as follows: “No. 335—16 very secret New York, April 17, 1916. Judge Cohalan requests the transmission the following remarks: ‘The Revolution in Ireland can only be successful if supported from Germany. Otherwise, England will be able to suppress it, even though it be only after hard struggles. Therefore, help is necessary. This should consist primarily of aËrial attacks in England and a diversion of the fleet simultaneously with Irish revolution. Then, if possible, a landing of troops, arms, and ammunition in Ireland, and possibly some officers from Zeppelins. This would enable the Irish ports to be closed against England and the establishment of stations for submarines on the Irish coast, and the cutting off of the supply of food for England. The success of the revolution may therefore decide the war.’ He asks that a telegram to this effect be sent to Berlin. 5132 8167 0230 To His Excellency Count von Bernstorff, Imperial Ambassador, Washington, D. C.” The Hindus in this country, who were plotting with the Germans the revolution that should destroy the British rule in India, used two systems for their secret messages. The first was this substitution cipher:
The message, “Leave San Francisco” would be written, in this cipher, as follows: 25 15 11 41 15 35 11 27 16 34 11 27 13 22 35 13 31 by giving each letter of the message the number to the left of it, combined with the number above it. The other system used by the Hindus was a book code. They agreed upon a small English dictionary of a certain edition, and wrote from it messages that were also groups of numbers, after this fashion: 625–2–11 27–1–36 45–2–20 and so on. The first figure in each group was the number of the page on which the word would be found, the second figure gave the column, and the third figure was the number of the word in the column, counting from the top of the page. But perhaps the most dramatic of all the intercepted messages (except the Luxburg and Zimmerman notes, of which the story cannot yet be told) were those which revealed the part played by well-known Irish-American leaders in the ill-fated Casement revolution in Ireland. The story of the Casement expedition is too familiar to need to be retold. And comment upon the political morals of Justice Cohalan and John Devoy becomes superfluous in the light of these messages. American citizens |
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