Spies And Secret Service
Hamil Grant
20 chapters
6 hour read
Selected Chapters
20 chapters
SPIES AND SECRET SERVICE
SPIES AND SECRET SERVICE
Fouché From an engraving after Girardet SPIES AND SECRET SERVICE THE STORY OF ESPIONAGE, ITS MAIN SYSTEMS AND CHIEF EXPONENTS BY HAMIL GRANT LONDON GRANT RICHARDS LTD. ST MARTIN'S STREET LEICESTER SQUARE MDCCCCXV PRINTED BY THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED EDINBURGH...
6 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
I THE ETHOS OF THE SPY
I THE ETHOS OF THE SPY
The worldly philosophy of the current age bears the name of Pragmatism, the principles of which, so far as they are susceptible of being weighed, constitute a more or less modified view of the doctrine that the end justifies the means, a teaching which has become familiar to us through the pages of Nietzsche and Stendhal, and which is based mainly on the idea that might is the proper measure of right. Taking it, then, that pragmatical notions of this sort have become almost an implicit condition
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
II THE SPY THROUGH THE AGES
II THE SPY THROUGH THE AGES
The spy, as we have seen, has been given mention in the Old Testament, Joshua, David and Absalom having employed their services, and most of us remember that passage in Genesis in which his brothers answer Joseph saying: "We are true men, thy servants are not spies." The protracted peregrinations of the Israelites necessarily called for the employment of emissaries who should learn the qualities and dispositions of the many peoples whom they encountered on their way to the Promised Land, and you
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
III LE CARON
III LE CARON
Away back in the later eighties, when Ireland was in the throes of her penultimate fight for the principle of self-government, all true sons of Erin had marked out for their particular obloquy two individuals who have since become notorious—namely, Piggott, the forger, and Major Le Caron, the spy. Those whose memories travel back easily to the famous Times Commission will recollect how offensively both names stunk in the nostrils of all who supported the late Irish leader. Among Nationalists, it
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
IV SCHULMEISTER
IV SCHULMEISTER
Of all modern spies, Karl Schulmeister, Napoleon's chief secret-service agent, appears to have possessed mental and temperamental qualities of so high an order as to justify one's belief that in the business of haute politique he might have played a prominent rôle, had his destiny lain that way. As it was, he played in the Napoleonic drama a part which, although practically unknown even to well-informed students of history, may be said to have contributed an important quota not only to the Corsi
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
V NATHAN HALE
V NATHAN HALE
On studying the career of Nathan Hale, who, with Major André, owes his historicity to the American War of Independence, one is conscious of being in touch with a character at once dangerous and difficult, to quote the words in which an eminent English statesman has described the mystic who is at the same time a practical man. In Hale, as his private correspondence clearly shows, there was every indication that an otherwise reasonable and lovable disposition was supplemented by a deep-running cur
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VI MACK AND THE MOLLY MAGUIRES
VI MACK AND THE MOLLY MAGUIRES
James M'Parlan, a North-of-Ireland man, must be ranked among the most successful spies in modern times and for the good reason that he was mainly instrumental in breaking up one of the most lawless and terrible conspiracies against public order and private liberty which any state has yet been called upon to suppress. Its home was Pennsylvania, its name the "Molly Maguires," and to find a parallel to its iniquitous arts and methods one must go to the Klux Klan, the Corsican Vendetta or the White
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VII MAJOR ANDRÉ
VII MAJOR ANDRÉ
When the psychology of the Spy comes to be expounded by some master thinker, one wonders if he will emphasise the fact that, more often than not, there is that in the pedigree and antecedents of the agent of stealth which clearly suggests a mongrel breed. Was it not Tacitus who wrote of the half-caste races who swarmed the Roman Suburra, describing them in the memorable words: " Despectissima pars servientium "—the most despicable of the slave tribe? It was among this class that Marcus Crassus w
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
VIII BRITISH SECRET SERVICE
VIII BRITISH SECRET SERVICE
Under the euphemism Secret Service, we describe in England our system of espionage. In common with other countries, espionage has always prevailed in England as essential in some degree to most conditions of our political, social, diplomatic and commercial life, all of which are conducted on the most comprehensive and complex lines. The story of England has, however, revealed but little of the spy in any class and, indeed, next to nothing at all when considered in proportion to the vastness of i
30 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
IX FRENCH SECRET SERVICE
IX FRENCH SECRET SERVICE
Napoleon it was who once expressed the view that if not impossible, it was rare to find a Frenchman who could really put his heart into the business of spying, whether military or civil, and it was his custom, as far as possible, to employ in either capacity men of that cosmopolitan or unnational type of which we have spoken. The Emperor's view would hardly seem, however, to fit in with the preconceived notion entertained by most of us. Regaled as we have long been with the fantasies and fiction
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
X GERMAN SECRET SERVICE
X GERMAN SECRET SERVICE
In order properly and fully to understand the nature of the German system of spying, it is essential that we go down to fundamentals. The principles on which it is based may be said to have their roots in the character of the Germans themselves and that character has been largely developed by a special type of ethical education, the lines of which were to a great extent conceived by Frederick the Great as especially applicable to the qualities of his people, and subsequently elaborated into a ki
19 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XI GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—continued
XI GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—continued
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 necessar
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XII GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—continued
XII GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—continued
The German railway system radiates from Berlin, not according to the concessional plans of other countries, but in accordance with the definite warlike designs and conceptions of the military authorities whose ulterior aim is a confederation of all European States governed from Berlin. Thus, the great network of railways is divided into military divisions, the most familiar of which to us are Berlin, Magdeburg, Hanover and Cologne, the first of the strategic lines of attack which is directed lik
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIII GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—continued
XIII GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—continued
The strategic ideas laid down more than two thousand years ago by Polyænus, of whom we have spoken in an earlier chapter, and to whom Napoleon admitted some indebtedness, are evidently rated high among the military authorities of the Berlin military academies. It is therefore not surprising to learn that in accordance with the Greek's teachings every foreign general or superior officer of note who is considered likely ever to play a prominent rôle in European wars, is in each case as well known
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIV GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—continued
XIV GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—continued
The man who now occupies the chair at the headquarters of the Berlin Secret Police is called Steinhauer. For the past two decades he has been one of the most important officials connected with the bureau and was responsible for the commissions given to Turr, Windell, Graves, Lody, Ernst and a host of experts, the majority of whom have engaged in espionage both in France and England and unfortunately remained uncaptured. Steinhauer's contribution to the German system of spying has been connected
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XV GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—concluded
XV GERMAN SECRET SERVICE—concluded
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-espionag
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVI DIPLOMATIC, SOCIAL, CHURCH SPIES
XVI DIPLOMATIC, SOCIAL, CHURCH SPIES
The so-called mystery of the notorious Chevalier d'Eon has long since been proved to have been no mystery at all. The question of his sex was, during his whole life, a matter of fierce dispute and much speculation in many countries. At his death in London, in the year 1810, an English doctor, Courthorpe by name, gave full attestation to the fact that the deceased Chevalier was neither a female nor an hermaphrodite, but a complete man. D'Eon, it is hardly to be disputed, must rank among the great
30 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVII AMERICAN SECRET SERVICE
XVII AMERICAN SECRET SERVICE
It is customary for Americans to declare that they possess no system of espionage in their country, and as a rule this is true of American life under normal conditions. Putting aside the questions of purely detective work and criminal investigation, and in these spheres of police activity America is probably served as well as any other country in the world, we may safely say that there is too much individual or social freedom in the United States to warrant the permanent existence of anything li
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XVIII NAPOLEON, HIS MISTRESS AND—A SPY
XVIII NAPOLEON, HIS MISTRESS AND—A SPY
The authorities for the following story are these:— Correspondence of Napoleon , vol. v.; Memoirs of Bourrienne , vol. ii.; Memoirs of Prince Eugene , vol. i.; Memoirs of the Duchesse d'Abrantés , vol. iii. Except to very minute students of the Napoleonic legend, it is not very well known, nor could the episode be said to rise very much above the commonplace, were it not for the extraordinary personality of the central figure around whom the incidents play. It is simply with a view to showing th
11 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
XIX CONCLUSION—BIBLIOGRAPHY
XIX CONCLUSION—BIBLIOGRAPHY
The bibliography connected with the business of espionage is not, as may be supposed, a very extensive one. Great spies have all written their memoirs, but in no case can these works be regarded as trustworthy records of the actual parts played by their writers in important historic events or episodes, and it is always necessary to go to independent chroniclers in order to arrive at the truth. As regards themselves, they are peculiarly fortunate in that highly placed patrons and collaborators ha
6 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter