British Secret Service During the Great War Part 30

"The newspapers are daily blackened with great display advertis.e.m.e.nts offering goods for sale. I have before me as I write a whole sheaf of such advertis.e.m.e.nts, offering anything, from American lard to potash and oil and cocoa and coffee. And not one of these advertis.e.m.e.nts has a name or an address to it; nothing but a telephone number. One or two of these I tracked down, only to find as vendors simple, kindly souls, such as old shopwomen, caretakers, porters, shop-girls, and the rest waiting for an offer for their goods. _Per contra_, as the book-keepers say, there are advertis.e.m.e.nts from those wanting goods, and these are often more outspoken.

"Some of these nameless advertis.e.m.e.nts treat of great quant.i.ties.

'Ten thousand kilos fat, with permit to export; 20,000 kilos salted half-pigs; 50,000 kilos salt meat'; and much more says one advertis.e.m.e.nt alone. And the good soul answering to your inquiry may prove a simple little typewriting girl--one of Copenhagen's new traders to the _n_th degree.

"The machinery that has been established by Great Britain in Denmark for preventing imported foodstuffs from reaching our enemy might be very admirable--if only it worked.

"There has been little or no enforcement of the trading laws imposed upon Danish traders by Great Britain. We have supplied them with goods and have allowed them to help themselves to goods from all the ends of the earth upon set conditions--namely, that those goods should not go to Germany, our enemy. They go to Germany, nevertheless, and _they go because we have no one in Denmark who sees to it that they shall not go_. Great Britain, in short, lacks a watchful policeman in Denmark. Great Britain also lacks a live sergeant at home to see to it that her Denmark policeman does not sleep on his beat. _The British Foreign Office_ is the sergeant I mean; _the British Legation at Copenhagen_, or its commercial department, is the policeman. _Theirs is the duty. And both have failed us._

"Take the written declarations made by traders that goods supplied to them by or through us shall not go to Germany. Without control and enforcement they are perfectly useless. I myself found traders who told me point-blank that they would consider such agreements as this not morally binding upon them. 'Your Navy seizes our s.h.i.+ps,'

said one, 'and your Foreign Office releases them only on condition that the goods they contain shall be subject to your own conditions. I sign those conditions, but they are exacted from me by force, and I don't consider them as worth a snap of the fingers.

If you put a pistol to my head and said, "Sign that cheque," I'd sign it, but I'd telephone to the bank the minute you'd gone and stop payment. And I'll do the same thing with your British import agreements.' These agreements are perhaps 'backed' by a money penalty. The banks undertake this guarantee part of the business.

For a modest 3 per cent. or so they will put up your money guarantee against your goods ever reaching Germany and contravening the agreement clause. And when the goods go on to Sweden the Swedish banks relieve the Danish banks of their obligations. And when the goods go on from Sweden to Germany, who relieves the Swedish banks? I have it on the word of a man I believe to be thoroughly honest and well informed that the North German Bank of Hamburg alone has taken over from Swedish banks of late in one transaction as much as 78,000 worth of guarantees--that the goods will not reach Germany! _Was ever there such a comedy? A German bank guaranteeing that much-needed goods will not reach Germany!_

"The Germans are not 'let down' by their diplomacy in Copenhagen. A constant weight is poised carefully and with a silken brutality over little Denmark's head and von Ranzau smiles and a.s.sures Denmark he is really preserving her from his powerful master. And he gets his way, of course. The little matter of a permit for export? Well, perhaps it can be managed for you, Baron--_especially as the British watchman is asleep just now_!

"So the great game goes on. If Denmark has goods that cannot obtain a permit for direct export to Germany they can go _via_ Sweden.

_Vice versa_, if Sweden has goods about which our active British Legation there is too curious, send them to Denmark and re-export them. That is simple. And I have seen for myself at Denmark's port of Copenhagen Swedish goods (casks of American oil) which had been refused permits for s.h.i.+pment direct from Sweden to Germany, being loaded into the steamer _Heinrich Hugo Stinnes_, of Hamburg, for s.h.i.+pment to Hamburg. Also, on the quay at Malmo (Sweden) I have seen goods for which Denmark had refused a direct export permit being loaded into nameless lighters for s.h.i.+pment to German Lubeck.

"Thus agreements, promises, guarantees, and prohibitions--_the whole commercial code that Great Britain has devised for regulating imports into Denmark and for checking their re-export to Germany_ (and, incidentally, for displaying to us at home) _are so much meaningless pantomime_. They have become so simply because the honester traders of Denmark, and the dishonest parasites of all nations who work under them and through them, have found that there is no supervision, no punishment, no judge to answer. _Our watchmen, both in London and in Copenhagen, have slept._"

On January 13th, 1916, Lord Sydenham in the House of Lords raised the question of "Feeding the Germans," and in his speech stated that in cocoa alone our exports for August-July, 1913-14, were 6,138 tons as against 32,083 tons for 1914-15. For the sixteen months preceding the war our exports were 8,883 tons, as against 33,357 tons during the first sixteen months of the war.

Lord Lansdowne, following, admitted that "_there was an enormous balance unaccounted for which it was reasonable to suppose found its way to enemy countries_."

The following are the exports of cocoa to the countries named in the years 1913, 1914, and up to December 30th, 1915:

COCOA EXPORTS

In lbs. to 1913. 1914. 1915.

(to Dec. 30.) Holland 2,205,282 12,203,463 9,298,805 Denmark 50,782 1,853,948 10,615,873 Scandinavia 343,573 3,079,904 14,606,309

A leading article in the _Daily Mail_ of January 14th, 1916, stated:

"The strength of the greatest Navy in the world is being paralysed by administrative feebleness and diplomatic weakness. Had our sea power been used, as the sailors would have used it, from the opening of the war, it is possible that Germany would before now have collapsed. The mightiest weapon in our a.r.s.enal has been blunted because our politicians imagined they could wage what Napoleon called 'rosewater war,' and were more eager to please everybody than to hurt the enemy, and because our diplomatists are remiss.

"On December 29th the _Neue Freie Presse_,[20] a leading Austrian newspaper, published for the benefit of the people of Vienna an advertis.e.m.e.nt offering provisions from Holland. A list of the articles which could be supplied at moderate prices followed. It included cocoa, chocolate, potatoes, flour, sausages, sides of bacon, b.u.t.ter, coffee, tea, sardines, oranges, lemons and figs.

"_And yet Mr. Runciman tells us that the Germans are on the verge of starvation!_

"The cure for this state of affairs is to infuse greater energy and insight into our diplomacy and to free the Navy from its paper fetters. Much of the mischief is due to the want of capable advisers at the British Legations in the neutral capitals and of energy and vigilance on the part of the Foreign Office at home. The Germans have been quick to realise the importance of stationing active agents at the vital posts.

"_The present system of setting diplomatists who have lived all their life in a world of formality to deal with the sharpest business men in Europe in a matter where huge profits are at stake is an immense blunder which may have the most serious consequences._

"Our very gentleness with Denmark is being quoted in that country to prove that we are not likely to win the war. This is undoubted and dangerous fact."

On January 14th, 1916, the Special Commissioner in a further article, headed, "The Sham Blockade: British tyres on German Cars," explained in detail the tricks used by unscrupulous foreigners and others to acquire stocks of rubber motor-tyres for German use. He complained, with reason, that the broken promises, broken guarantees, and reckless manner in which permits to trade were granted seemed to be almost entirely the fault of the British Foreign Office representatives at the British Legation. He concludes with the following paragraph:

"Is this soft-heartedness towards commercial shortcomings and laxity characteristic of our British control in Copenhagen? On the evidence that I have I honestly believe it to be so. But is this att.i.tude solely the individual att.i.tude of Britain's representatives in Copenhagen or is it merely a reflex of the Foreign Office att.i.tude at home?

"I think the true answer is that the Copenhagen Legation att.i.tude is a reflex of our Foreign Office att.i.tude. But _if London is mild, Copenhagen is puny_; if London is a lamb, Copenhagen is a sucking dove."

On January 13th, 1916, the following paragraph appeared in the _Globe_:

"We cannot disregard the startling and amazing figures collected in Denmark by the Special Commissioner sent out by the _Daily Mail_.

"Of course, all these commodities are consigned to Danish purchasers, under guarantees that they are not intended for the enemy. What purposes these guarantees serve except to hold harmless the vessels in which the articles are conveyed we are at a loss to understand.

"No sane person will believe that the Danish people have suddenly developed such a pa.s.sion for pork that they must increase their consumption by 1,300 per cent., or that every man, woman and child in Denmark requires the daily bath in cocoa with which the 23,000 tons they now import would appear to be intended to provide them.

_The only possible inference from these figures is that we are being deluded, and are feeding Germany_ in our own despite."

The _Pall Mall Gazette_ of January 18th, 1916, said:

"Revelations like these can only be described as heart-breaking to the men and women who have given their sons and brothers and husbands to the end that Germany may be brought to her knees. Now they find that some malign spell has paralysed the Navy's arm so that, instead of Germany's foreign supplies being cut off, they are in some vital respects more abundant than ever."

The _Quarterly Review_, January, 1916, contains a powerful article on "The Danish Agreement." It suggests how _some blight has been at work in our Foreign Office for years steadily undermining our mastery of the sea_. One paragraph bears particularly on the present point:

"No informed man doubts that the winter of 1916-17 must weaken to a marked degree, through lack of food, Germany's armed resistance, always a.s.suming that she is not supplied through neutral countries.

The existence of England depends on her victory over Germany. Her victory over Germany depends on the cutting off of neutral supplies. Therefore the existence of England depends on the cutting off of neutral supplies. But _when_, in August, 1914, _the Cabinet and, above all, the Foreign Office, were confronted by this great possibility of stratagem every psychological force was set in motion against its adoption_."

A telegram from Was.h.i.+ngton, U.S.A., on January 17th, 1916, to the _Morning Post_, set out the exports permitted to be poured into neutral countries in spite of all the efforts and protests of our Navy by our all-too-benevolent Foreign Office, and in face of Mr. Asquith's pledges to the House of Commons in March and in November, 1915, when he emphasised to loud cheering that _he would stick at nothing to prevent commodities of any kind reaching or leaving Germany. That there was no form of economic pressure to which he did not consider we were ent.i.tled to win the war_.

EXPORTS TO NEUTRAL COUNTRIES

1913. 1915.

To Bushels. Bushels.

WHEAT Holland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark 19,000,000 50,000,000 MAIZE Denmark 4,750,000 10,950,000 Holland 6,900,000 11,600,000 Other neutrals 2,100,000 6,400,000 ---------- ---------- 13,750,000 28,950,000 ========== ==========

Barrels. Barrels.

WHEAT Holland 708,000 1,500,000 FLOUR Other neutrals 709,000 3,800,000 1,417,000 5,100,000

lbs. lbs.

BACON Holland 3,900,000 9,000,000 Other neutrals 27,000,000 82,500,000 ---------- ---------- 30,900,000 91,500,000 ========== ========== 1914 1915 BOOTS Neutrals 462,000 pairs 4,800,000 pairs COTTON Neutrals 53,000 bales 1,100,000 bales

MOTOR-} CARS &} Neutrals 260,000 4,000,000 PARTS }