Nicholas Everitt

“ Amateurism is the curse of the British nation. Their vision of the political situation in the Balkans was roseate and blurred, and their moral maxims were better fitted for use in the Society of Friends than in intercourse with a hard-headed people whose morality begins where self-interest ends. By these methods, which, unhappily, are still in vogue, the diplomacy of Great Britain, France, and Russia lost the key to Constantinople, and contributed unwittingly to deliver over the Serbian people to the tender mercies of the Bulgar and the Teuton. Turkey is still fighting us in Europe and Asia. ”

“ Lest even for a moment a wrong and cruel suspicion rest upon little Denmark—namely, that she is unfriendly towards the Allies and has been 'two-faced' in the many tokens of friendliness and respect she has shown us, I say with conviction that there is not a truer or deeper love for England and the English than exists [Pg 269] to-day in Denmark. These Danes, forefathers of so many of our race, warm still to Britain and the British. Their hearts glow to our successes, yearn to our reverses. Deep down they are for us through and through. ”

“ I have heard it urged that the thought of Secret Service is repugnant to the British heart, wherein are instilled the purest principles of freedom. The argument has sounded strange in my ears when I remembered that London, as somebody has said, is the cesspool of Europe, the shelter of the worst ruffians of every country and clime. America is called the Land of the Free, but she could give England points in the working of the Secret Service, for there there is no stinting of men or money. ”

“ Imagine the feelings of the patient chiefs of the Foreign Secret Service Department. They had silently sat for months watching the efforts of their captured staff hampered at every turn whilst they were persistently building up a sound, practical, useful organisation, which a fool and his folly overturned, like a house of cards, in one day. They had been actually stopped from controlling the movements of their own men, yet they were responsible for their pay and their expenses ”

“ Is it solely the desire to further their chances of advancement, or is it the bold adventuresome activity of the service, the innate longing to take all risks and to bring back personally the information so essential to the successful conduct of war; or is it the feeling and knowledge that only a brave man is ready to go out alone, unobserved and unapplauded, to risk his life for his country's sake? ”

“ The big wheel of life continues to revolve. The B.S.S. Department is but a very minute little wheel which cogs into the larger machinery of State in its own respective corner. As the rim of this very minor wheel comes up from the dark recesses of the working world and the separate cogs become revealed, those in authority who sit watching each and every cog, upon the stamina and reliability of which so much depends, from time to time find one that cannot stand the strain, because it is hurt or damaged, either in body, or in mind, or in fortune. ”

“ No one ever doubted but that we should successfully pull through the war, or that our heroic, unconquerable and magnificent Active Service man would prove victorious in spite of all the mistakes, the clogs on the wheels, and the disastrous blundering of interfering politicians—those Grand Old Muddlers who so persistently blocked their ears to the motto, "It is never too late to mend," and who so obstinately declined to "get a move on" until positively spurred into seemingly reluctant action by the patriotic Northcliffe Press voicing the fierce indignation of the long suffering British nation. ”

“ Cruising in the depths of winter along the vast extent of mud-flats, oozes, shallows, and islands, which guard the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein, is no child's play. It requires bold and hardy navigators; men who are not frightened at the horrors of ice-floes, or of breakers on the bar; who can stand a temperature below zero; who can live on the coarsest of rations; and who can sleep anyhow and anywhere.
The Nordfriesische Inseln tract, lying south of the island of Fano, the natural buffer to the Esbjerg fjord, was a favourite hunting-ground, but it had its drawbacks. ”

“ From the commencement of the war, however, our Fleet was tied up body and soul, shackled in the intricacies of red tape entanglements woven round its keels, guns, and propellers by lawyer politicians who never could leave the management of naval affairs to the Navy, any more than they could leave the management of military affairs to the Army. ”

“ Noble man, working for a noble cause! History will record your efforts, but no pen can adequately record your meritorious deserts. Oh! the pity of it that you, a true genius in the arts of peace and of peaceful diplomacies, did not retire at the outbreak of war in favour of some more martial, bellicose, and iron-fisted statesman, instead of clinging to office during the awful years that followed, when our enemy not only torpedoed all the laws of nations, but outraged every decent feeling of humanity. ”

“ Countless thousands of honest, hard-working British labourers neither knew of, nor recognised, nor even suspected, the traitorous hand which so gently stroked them down the back whilst their ears were being tickled with persuasive suggestions and argumentative reasoning, prompting a greater dissatisfaction the more they were pandered to, and petted, and spoilt, and bribed by the Liberal Government who were the men in power over them. ”

“ It had not forgotten Sir Edward Grey's declaration that "he had no intention of making cotton contraband"; nor Lord Haldane's contention that "it was useless stopping the import of cotton to Germany, because if we did Germany could find a substitute for it."
The nation had been deceived and lulled to sleep before by soft words and gentle assurances. It had been told, "we decline to be bound by judicial niceties." It had been promised "to prevent commodities of any kind from entering or leaving the enemy's country"; "to stick at nothing." ”

“ It is extraordinary but nevertheless true that there are people who entertain doubtful feelings regarding anyone who has undertaken Secret Service work. Some even suggest that such a person, male or female, could only be classified as a spy, a person to be shunned and avoided. What ignorance! What little-mindedness!
When the country had declared war and we knew that the long-anticipated war with Germany had become an established fact, what Englishman, worthy of the name, could rest without dreams of active service? ”

“ The secrecy of the Service is so absolute that no mention of the way their work is accomplished may be made. The cloak of mystery is drawn so completely over the whole department that no matter what sacrifice a member may make for his country's sake, no matter what bravery he may have exhibited in almost every instance alone and unsupported, probably [Pg 73] in an enemy's domain as one man facing a host of his country's enemies, his deeds are unrecorded, unhonoured and unsung. Whilst he is in the Service he is merely a cypher, a unit, an atom. ”

“ Is it not possible that Sir Edward Grey, like the late Lord Kitchener, may not have been his own master? That he in turn may have been held down and dictated to by the one man whose own valuation of his personal services so greatly exceeded the worth put upon them by the nation at large?
It is easy to state in the House of Commons, "I accept entire responsibility," as Mr. Asquith did when the Gallipoli disaster was questioned, but he surely ought then to have been the questioner! ”

“ They are the men who watch the wheels revolving. They collect and hand over results, the fruit garnered in by others working in the twilight which shades their individuality. With the Powers-that-be these men (the gentlemen who sit in chairs) are ever in the official limelight, whilst the reckless, devil-may-care workers over the horizon, the men who carry their life in their hands and who go right into the lion's den to collect facts and data which often mean success or defeat in battles raged elsewhere, or who manipulate and pull the strings on the spot, seem to be ignored and forgotten. ”

“ It is so glaringly defective in its all-British efficiency that a thorough and complete overhaul, with drastic reforms, should be put in hand without further delay.
The British Diplomatic Service is little better. Its highest positions are filled by men appointed (in many instances) by influence and not by merit.
The exaggerated dignity, arrogance, and egotistical self-importance of some ministers abroad is such that the mere mention of trade sets their teeth on edge, the name of money is too vulgar for their personal contemplation ”

“ Nearly every one of those men without exception was in the direct pay of the German Secret Service. It was part of their work to nose into everything, to shadow everyone believed to be foreign to the land they visited, or who showed any sympathy for the enemies of Germany, or antagonism towards their country.
If they desired to or had received a direct order to stop by any means the activities of another, those men rarely came out into the open. They much preferred ways that are dark and tricks that are deep to achieve their desired ends. ”

“ England never seems to have had any real organisation for Secret Service propaganda which can compare in thoroughness with the German effort. It has had no schools of instruction, nor does it send its members to specialise in any particular branch. It is an unwritten rule of the department that a naval or a military officer must be at the head of every branch or sub-division of any importance; and the service of civilians or of those from other professions than the Navy and the Army is neither sought nor welcomed, however capable or however clever the persons available may be. ”

“ It looks to me an odds-on chance that you will all be drowned in the financial vortex beneath. I don't for the life of me see how a poor insignificant journalist like myself can be of any real service to you. So you need not worry about your 100,000 kroner or any other sum. What fragment of weight do you suppose that so great a personage as our Minister would attach to either my words or to my presence—to me, a stranger and an ordinary civilian?"
In a tense, hoarse voice he replied: "You forget you are English, an English journalist, representing the most powerful newspaper in London. ”

“ Detectives and Secret Servant agents glided through the crowd, observing, watching and noting the many strange and familiar faces. Their work meant an added consumption of current on the wires. The vacant stare, the side glance, or the wooden far-away expression of countenance, conveyed much to these men. To them it was always interesting to try and read the working of the brain behind. But I was a traveller and the doings of these night-hawks interested me but little, beyond such casual observation as could be made during a quick passage to the train. ”

“ But these experiences of the ups and downs of life pale and sink into insignificance when compared with the vortex of the rapid, rushing, kaleidoscopic changes, the hair-breadth escapes, the blood-curdling thrills, the risks, the dangers and excitements, which at times are part and parcel of the life of a Secret Service agent. ”

“ The hundreds of thousands of pounds absolutely squandered in surplus rations, billeting, pay, and transport, etc., should have impressed the minds of observers in a manner that this generation is never likely to forget. A business man in each department, with a free hand to economise and arrange its details, in a business-like way, would have saved the country the salaries paid to them ten thousand times over, with a gigantic surplus to spare. ”

“ Those in the Secret Service knew that since the outbreak of war Germans had employed only soldiers and sailors to manage it; and that all their lawyers and civilian politicians had been relegated to a back seat until further notice; furthermore, that only proved ability counted. Patronage, length of service, hereditary and social altitude carried no weight whatsoever at Berlin; whilst the capacity for organisation and thoroughness which Germany exhibited had astonished the world.
Yea, verily, it is a true saying that "Britishers are the greatest muddlers on earth." ”

“ The multitude of German spies, who swarmed like locusts throughout the British Isles, assured themselves that the seditious seeds they had been sowing so energetically during the past years in the receptive and nourishing soil of Radicalism and Socialism, plenteously manured by liberal administrations from the vast financial resources at their disposal, were at last bearing a rich harvest of rare and refreshing fruit. ”