British Secret Service During the Great War Part 27

In March, 1915, I attended Whitehall, where I in no unmeasured terms stated hard convincing facts and explained the exact position in the north of Europe. I strongly emphasised the vital importance of stopping the unending stream of supplies to Germany and of making a change at the heads of the Legations mentioned. Direct access to Sir Edward Grey was denied me, but an official of some prominence a.s.sured me the essential facts should be conveyed to proper quarters without delay, although the same complaints had previously been made _ad nauseam_.

But facts have proved that no notice whatever of these repeated warnings was taken, and matters went from bad to worse.

On June 21st, 1915, I had returned again to England, and I wrote direct to Sir Edward Grey, at the Foreign Office, a letter, material extracts from which are as follows:

"SIR,

"Being now able to speak without disobedience to orders, I am reporting a serious matter direct to you from whom my recommendation for Government service originates.

"It is exceedingly distasteful having to speak in the semblance of disparagement concerning anyone in His Majesty's service, and I am only anxious to do what I believe to be right and helpful to my country, whilst I am more than anxious to avoid any possibility of seemingly doing the right thing in the wrong way. But it is inconceivable that any Englishman should push forward his false pride, or be permitted to place his personal egoism, before his country's need; more particularly so at the present crisis, when every atom of effort is appealed for.

"---- now being _a centre and a key to so many channels through which vast quant.i.ties of goods_ (as well as information) _daily leak to Germany_, the head of our Legation has become a position of vital importance. Much of the present leakage is indirectly due to the present Minister, in whom England is indeed unfortunate.

"I therefore feel that, knowing how much depends upon even little things, it is my bounden duty to place the plain truth clearly before you. I have often before reported on this, so far as I possibly could, but those whom I could report to were all so fearful of the influences or opinions of the all-too-powerful gentleman in question, that none of them dare utter a syllable concerning his status or his foolish actions--although in secret they sorrowfully admit the serious effects.

"1. Since the commencement of the war ---- has committed a series of indiscretions and mistakes, entailing a natural aftermath of unfortunate and far-reaching consequences.

"2. Since February, 1915, he has stood discredited by the entire ---- nation, and in other parts of Scandinavia.

"3. He is bitterly opposed to the Secret Service and paralyses its activities, although he states that his objections lie against the department and not individuals.

"In conclusion, please understand that I am in no way related to that hopeless individual, 'the man with a grievance,' but, being merely a civilian and having nothing whatever to expect, nor to seek for, beyond my country's ultimate good, I can and dare speak out; whilst the fact that in the course of my duty I went to Kiel Harbour (despite the German compliment of a price on my head), should be sufficient justification of my patriotism and give some weight to my present communication.

"I have the honour to remain,

"Your obedient servant,

"NICHOLAS EVERITT.

"('JIM' of the B.F.S.S.)"

It seems hard to believe, but this letter was pa.s.sed unheeded, not even acknowledged.

A week later, on June 28th, I wrote again, pointing out the importance to the State of my previous communication and emphasising further the danger of letting matters slide.

Both these letters were received at Whitehall or they would have been returned through the Dead Letter Office. What possible reason could there be behind the scenes that ordered and upheld such a creed as _Ruat coelum supprimatur veritas_? Or can it be ascribed to the much-talked-of mysterious Hidden Hand?

My letters pointed only too plainly to the obvious fact that I had information to communicate vital to the welfare of the State, which was much too serious to commit to paper; serious information which subservients in office dared not jeopardise their paid positions by repeating or forwarding; information which affected the prestige of our own King; information which might involve other countries in the war, on one side or the other; information which it was the plain duty of the Foreign Secretary to lose no time in making himself acquainted with. Yet not a finger was lifted in any attempt to investigate or follow up the grave matters which I could have unfolded, relating to the hollowness of the Sham Blockade with its vast leakages, which the Government had taken such pains to conceal, and to other matters equally vital which I foreshadowed in my letter, and which might have made enormous differences to the tide of battle and to the welfare of nations.

No wonder the Press of all England made outcry against the Foreign Office, as and when some of the facts relating to its dilatoriness, its extreme leniency to all things German, and its muddle and inefficiency in attending _in time_ to detail gradually began to become known.

Abroad I had heard the F.O. soundly cursed in many a Consulate and elsewhere. I had, however, hitherto looked upon Sir Edward Grey as a strong man in a very weak Government, a man who deserved the grat.i.tude of all Englishmen and of the whole Empire for great acts of diplomacy; the man who had saved England from war more than once; and the man who had done most to strive for peace when the Germans insisted upon bloodshed. I would have wagered my soul that Sir Edward Grey was the last man in England, when his country was at war, who would have neglected his duty, or who would have pa.s.sed over without action or comment such a communication as I had sent him.

I waited a time before I inquired. Then I heard that Sir Edward Grey was away ill, recuperating his health salmon-fis.h.i.+ng in N.B. But there were others. Upon them perhaps the blame should fall.

The Foreign Office knew of, and had been fully advised, that the so-called Blockade of Germany by our fleet was a hollow sham and a delusion from its announced initiative. It was also fully aware that the leakages to Germany, instead of diminis.h.i.+ng, increased so enormously as to create a scandal which it could hardly hope to hide from the British public. Why, then, were these Ministers abroad allowed to remain in office, where they had been a laughing-stock and were apparently worse than useless? It can only be presumed that they also had been ordered to "wait and see."

Perhaps our Ministers, particularly at the Foreign Office, believed that they could collect, through the medium of our Consulate abroad, practically all the information that it was necessary for our Government to know. In peace times this might have been probable. These self-deluded mortals seemed to have forgotten entirely that we were at war. Furthermore, it must be admitted to our shame that our English Consular Service in some places abroad is the poorest paid and the least looked-after branch of Government service of almost any nation.

Sir George Pragnell, speaking only a few days before his lamentably sudden and untimely end, at the great meeting called by the Lord Mayor of London at the Guildhall on January 31st, 1916, a meeting of the representatives of Trade and Commerce from all parts of the British Empire, said:

"Our business men maintained that our Consular Service should consist of the best educated and the most practical business men we could turn out. Not only should these men be paid high salaries, but I would recommend that they should be paid a commission or bonus on the increase of British Trade in the places they had to look after."

If this sound, practical wisdom had only been propounded and acted upon years ago the benefits that England would have derived therefrom would have been incalculable. But look at the facts regarding the countries where efficient and effective Consular Service was most wanted during the war. In Scandinavia there were gentlemen selected to represent us as British _Vice-Consuls_ who received a _fixed salary of 5 per annum_, in return for which they had to _provide office_, _clerks_, _telephone_, and other incidentals. Although the fees paid to them by virtue of their office and the duties they performed may have amounted to several hundred pounds per annum, they were compelled to hand over the whole of the fruits of their labours to the English Government, which thus made a very handsome profit out of its favours so bestowed. Our Foreign Office apparently considered that the honour of the t.i.tle "British Vice-Consul"

was quite a sufficient recompense for the benefits it demanded in return, the laborious duties which it required should be constantly attended to, and the 20 to 50 or more per annum which their representatives were certain to find themselves out of pocket at the end of each year. Soon after the war commenced one or two members of the service were removed from the largest centres and other men introduced, presumably on a special rate of pay; but in almost all the Vice-Consulates the disgracefully mean and unsatisfactory system above mentioned seemed to have been continued without any attempt at reformation.

Is it to be wondered at that so many Vice-Consuls who are not Englishmen did not feel that strong bond of sympathy either with our Ministers abroad or with our Ministers at home, which those who have no knowledge of the conditions of their appointment or of their service might be led to expect existed between them?

Further light is shown upon this rotten spot in our Governmental diplomacy management abroad by an article ent.i.tled "Sc.r.a.p our Alien Consuls," written by T. B. Donovan and published in a London paper, February 20th, 1916, short extracts from which read as follows:

"Look up in Whitaker's Almanack for 1914 our Consuls in the German Empire before the war--and cease to wonder that we were not better informed. Out of a total of forty old British Consuls more than thirty bear German names! Other nations were not so blind....

Glance through the following astounding list. In Sweden, twenty-four out of thirty-one British Consuls and Vice-Consuls are non-Englishmen; in Norway, twenty-six out of thirty; in Denmark, nineteen out of twenty-six; in Holland and its Colonies, fourteen out of twenty-four; in Switzerland nine out of fourteen--and several of the few Englishmen are stationed at holiday resorts where there is no trade at all.

"And we are astonished that our blockade 'leaks at every seam'!...

"This type of British Consul must be replaced by keen Britishers who have the interests of their country at heart and who are at the same time acquainted with the needs of the districts to which they are appointed. If we could only break with red tape, we could find numerous men, not far beyond the prime of life, but who have retired from an active part in business, who would gladly accept such appointments and place their knowledge at the disposal of their fellows....

"The state of things in our Consular Service is such as no business man would tolerate for a moment."

Turning attention to our diplomacy on the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean and the Near East, those in the Secret Service knew that during the early days of the war at least our Foreign Office had nothing much to congratulate itself upon with regard to its representatives in Italy.

For the first eight months of war an overwhelming volume of supplies and commodities, so sought after and necessary to the Central Powers, was permitted to be poured into and through that country from all sources.

Even the traders of the small northern neutral states became jealous of the fortunes that were being made there. Daily almost they might be heard saying: "Why should I not earn money by sending goods to Germany when ten times the amount that my country supplies is being sent through Italy?"

The tense anxiety, the long weary months of waiting for Italy to join the Entente, are not likely to be forgotten. When at last she was compelled to come in, it was not British cleverness in diplomacy that caused her so to do, but the irresistible will of her own peoples, the men in the streets and in the fields; the popular poems of Signor D'Annunzio, which rushed the Italian Government along, against its will, and as an overwhelming avalanche. The popular quasi-saint-like shade of Garibaldi precipitated matters to a crisis.

"It is interesting as an object lesson in the ironies of fate to compare the fevered enthusiasm of the Sonnino of 1881 for the cultured Germans and Austrians, and his exuberant hatred of France, with the cold logic of the disabused Sonnino of 1915, who suddenly acquired widespread popularity by undoing the work he had so laboriously helped to achieve a quarter of a century before.

European history, ever since Germany began to obtain success in moulding it, has been full of these piquant Penelopean Activities, some of which are fast losing their humorous points in grim tragedy."

Thus wrote Dr. E. J. Dillon in his book of revelations, "From the Triple to the Quadruple Alliance, or Why Italy Went to War." From cover to cover it is full of solid, startling facts concerning the treachery and double-dealing of the Central Powers. It shows how Italy was flattered, cajoled and lured on to the very edge of the precipice of ruin, disaster and disgrace; how she had been gradually hedged in, cut off from friendly relations.h.i.+ps with other countries, and swathed and pinioned by the tentacles of economic plots and scheming which rendered her tributary to and a slave of the latter-day Conquistadores; how for over thirty years she was compelled to play an ignominious and contemptible part as the cat's-paw of Germany; how Prince Bulow, the most distinguished statesman in Germany, also the most resourceful diplomatist, who by his marriage with Princess Camporeale, and the limitless funds at his disposal, wielded extraordinary influence with Italian senators and officials as well as at the Vatican, dominated Italian people from the highest to the lowest; how, in fact, the Kaiser's was the hand that for years guided Italy's destiny. The book is a veritable mine of information of amazing interest at the present time, given in minutest detail, authenticated by facts, date, proof, and argument. But it is extraordinary that in this volume of nearly 100,000 words, written by a man who perhaps, for deep intimate knowledge of foreign politics and the histories of secret Court intrigue, has no equal living, not a word of commendation is devoted to the efforts made by our own British diplomacy or to the parts played by His Britannic Majesty's Ministers and Amba.s.sadors. There is, however, a remote allusion on his last page but one, as follows: "The scope for a complete and permanent betterment of relations is great enough to attract and satisfy the highest diplomatic ambition." This seems to be the one and only reference.

As quoted in other pages of this book, the reader will perhaps gather that Dr. Dillon, who has been brought much in contact with the Diplomatic Service and who has exceptional opportunities of seeing behind the scenes, believes in the old maxims revised; for example: _De vivis nil nisi bonum_.

A brief resume of the material parts of this book which affect the subject matter of the present one shows that on the outbreak of the European war Italy's resolve to remain neutral provoked a campaign of vituperation and calumny in the Turkish Press, whilst Italians in Turkey were arrested without cause, molested by blackmailing police, hampered in their business and even robbed of their property. But Prince von Bulow worked hard to suppress all this and to diffuse an atmosphere of brotherhood around Italians and Turks in Europe.