Military secret

“ It is, nevertheless, very questionable if any information really worth having, in the military sense, ever escapes the record of duly appointed military attachés, whose official existence dates from 1864 and whose admitted business it is to keep themselves professionally posted as to the resources of a possible enemy. ”

“ Information of all kinds is important to an aggressor planning an invasion or estimating a potential enemy's strength and morale; and often a diplomatic secret is worth far more than the choicest blueprint of a carefully guarded military device.
There are persons whom money, social position, political promises or glory cannot interest in following a policy of benefit to a foreign power. ”

“ In all of the great wars of history there have been spies, scouts, emissaries and others still with no very well defined status, who have rendered invaluable service to their governments. A spy is liable to death; aviii scout, if captured, has the rights of a prisoner of war, but an emissary is rather political than military, and is sent to influence secretly the opposition rather than to bring information concerning the movements of troops. ”

“ Almost in every case the man selected must be bi-lingual, while, if he has three languages at his command, so much the better for him—and for his employers. In purely military espionage, that which concerns plans of fortifications, estimates of strength and movements, topographical surveying, ascertaining the character of officers, and the possibility of influencing them either by bribery or blackmail, and general secret-service work likely to be of service to the Great German General Staff, capable and clever men must be selected. ”

“ Armies and fortified places are almost always surprized and taken by means of a secret intelligence, which the enemy keeps up with domestic traitors, acting in conjunction with commissioned spies and delegated hirelings. ”

“ Still, the army is a relatively small factor in American life. There are less than twenty thousand military and naval officers in the United States. Their business is war, but they are the merest handful as compared with the whole country. If there were two or three hundred thousand officers in the United States they might constitute a serious menace to the peace of the country, as they do in those European countries that have a great militarist caste.
Secret diplomacy is a fruitful cause of misunderstanding among nations. ”

“ Gentlemen, we have in operation a secret weapon that, if all goes well, will make any future military undertakings unnecessary and bring about the destruction of our enemies." At the mention of "secret weapon," the entire General Staff, excepting Fyfe, creaked forward in their seats with eager interest. "The secret weapon is an eighteen-year-old boy named Dolliver Wims, recently commissioned a lieutenant in the Army and now in Russian hands." ”

“ To begin with, we had cast aside our uniforms and put on citizen's clothes, and assumed all the penalties that, in military usage, the word spy implies, which is death the world over. Again, our mission was such that concealment was impossible. We were sure to arouse [50] the whole Confederacy and invoke the brutal vengeance of its frenzied leaders in case we did not make good our escape after doing our work. The military spy, in the ordinary line of his duty, is not compelled to expose himself to detection. ”

“ The romance of war in its most thrilling form is exemplified in this narrative of the adventures of “The World’s Greatest Military Spies and Secret Service Agents.” Much has been published upon the subject of espionage, and the memoirs and secret histories of the courts of Europe give us instances of men and women who have gained favor and money, if not honor and glory, by selling back-stairs gossip concerning their fellow creatures ”

“ It's necessary; both Great Britain and Germany have regular men for the purpose of espionage."
"Hanged if I looked upon it from that point of view; but it seems a downright low trick for a fellow to sell naval and military secrets."
"Rather! There I agree with you. There's a vast difference between a spy and an informer. The first is, I might also say, a humanitarian; the second is a traitor. There's no doubt about it, the Germans have the advantage of us in the espionage line. There isn't a Government building, dock, or battery on the east coast but is known to the German Government. ”

“ Again, the comparative ease with which eleventh-hour systems of counter-espionage have proved themselves capable of defeating the elaborate and far-flung organisations of fifty years of German master-spies must have the result of teaching [243] Germany that a military establishment which puts its first trust in its external spy systems as providing the royal road to warlike successes, really admits its own lack of military genius. ”

“ CARL LODY AND SPIES OF THE WORLD’S GREATEST WAR The world’s greatest armed conflict which began with Austria’s declaration of war against Servia on July 28, 1914, and which has since involved most of the important nations of the earth, has produced hundreds, nay, thousands of spies, but the very secrecy which is so necessary to their work has prevented many of them from looming conspicuously in the public eye. ”

“ Twenty officers doing the same along a stretch of front and the jig-saw experts, plus what information they had from spies, were in clover. Editors said: “But these men are officers. They ought to know when they are imparting military secrets.”
Alas, they do not know! It is not to be expected that they should. Their business is to fight; the business of other experts is to safeguard information. For a long time the British army kept correspondents from the front on the principle that the business of a correspondent must be to tell what ought not to be told. ”

“ Science—our friend in the construction of weapons, in tactics, in balloons, in wireless telegraphy—is equally our enemy when we approach the field of Secret Service. Our spies now have a competent knowledge of our preparations and movements, by methods altogether unknown in the days of the Peninsular and Crimean wars. A thousand eyes are watching us, and a thousand ears listen for our faintest footfalls. If these eyes and ears are invisible, that makes the danger all the greater. ”

“ The squadron of men-of-war and transports was collected, the commodore’s flag hoisted, and the expedition sailed with most secret orders, which, as usual, were as well known to the enemy, and everybody in England, as they were to those by whom they were given. It is the characteristic of our nation, that we scorn to take any unfair advantage, or reap any benefit, by keeping our intentions a secret. ”

“ Military men who have penetrated within the zone of operations of the enemy's army, with the intention of collecting information, are not considered as spies if it has been possible to recognize their military character. ”

“ After a pause, he added: “You have the resources of an empire behind you—a well-organized police force, an army of spies, the telegraph system. These things, added to your own skill, should enable you to bring the miscreant to justice, and save the State secret from passing to our enemies.” ”

“ This is no forbidden disclosure of secrets, but a weapon which may perhaps help you to fortify the morale of the people. For this war will not only be decided by force of arms, but by the will to resist of the entire people. ”

“ Each country is casting its net of espionage into the slimy bottom of the others, fishing for their secrets, the treacherous secrets brewing in the oozy depths of diplomacy. And what is their secret service but the nation's underground trade in kidnapping, murder and treachery and all the ugly crimes bred in the depth of rottenness? ”

“ To find where some unsuspecting persons are asleep, and steal upon them, begin to shoot and stab before they can wake to defend themselves, would, in peace, be thought a crime of the most dastardly and ferocious character; but, in war, it is only a surprise, and, if successful, confers the greatest honor upon those who plan and execute it. Are there two sets of morals,—the one for peace, the other for war? "But," the objector may continue, "is not a constant resort to falsehood in a secret expedition peculiarly dishonorable?" ”

“ It is, however, [Pg 150] an established principle, that every possible information should be extracted from spies, without unguardedly opening the mind to them, which too much zeal or anxiety might sometimes lead us into; and it is always wise to employ for the same object, men unknown to each other, so that they cannot concert between them to deceive. Only one spy should be spoken to at a time, and that in the most secret manner. ”

“ When war broke out and the troops arrived on the ground, the buildings were hastily pulled down and there were the emplacements all ready for the guns.
Some years ago a report came to the War Office that a foreign Power was making gun emplacements in a position which had not before been suspected of being of military [pg 16] value, and they were evidently going to use it for strategical purposes.
I was sent to see whether the report was true. Of course, it would not do to go as an officer—suspicions would be aroused, one would be allowed to see nothing, and would probably be arrested as a spy. ”

“ The term " spy " is applied also to those who in time of peace secretly endeavour to obtain information concerning the forces, armaments, fortifications or defences of a country for the purpose of supplying it to another country. Every country has always endeavoured to guard jealously its military and naval secrets, and with this object denies admittance to fortified places or arsenals to those who cannot produce the proper credentials. ”

“ It is well known that the military branch of espionage is as extended as the civil, and the certainty of this destroys confidence, and leaves even the unwilling soldier no resource but to go through his professional duty with as much zeal as though it were his choice. ”

“ In order to prevent espionage during the coming struggle, and to conceal the movement of troops and guns, they ordered the civil populations to be removed from villages close behind their positions, drew cordons of military police across the country, picketed crossroads, and established a network of counter espionage to prevent any leakage of information. ”

“ The average man or woman has only a hazy idea what European Secret Service and Espionage really means and accomplishes. Short stories and novels, written in a background of diplomacy and secret agents, have given the public vague impressions about the world of spies. ”

“ Field spies. Those who act as scouts in disguise to reconnoitre positions and to report moves of the enemy in the field of war. Amongst these are residential spies and officer agents.
All these duties are again subdivided among agents of every grade, from ambassadors and their attachés downwards. Naval and military officers are sent to carry out special investigations by all countries, and paid detectives are stationed in likely centres to gather information. ”

“ Rarely was there any excitement for the industrious government agents, and more rarely was there any glory, for the work had to be kept secret. Trailing, watching, studying, thinking, always putting two and two together and often finding that they made five instead of four; through day and night, through sun and storm, the officers whose duty it was to catch the spy before he could harm America worked steadily on. ”

“ Everybody has heard of the tremendous ramifications of the German military spy system, which had every move of England's army and navy under observation, every gun emplacement mapped out and knew every order given to the army before it reached the subordinate officers. ”

“ Whatever we may think about the exact share of the blame for having brought on the great catastrophe which should be attributed to secret methods and policies, we cannot have any doubts about their influence since the armistice. ”

“ Indeed, such operations may be of more importance in a war with an international terrorist organization than one with conventional armed forces of a nation-state, due to the former’s emphasis on secret operations and surprise attacks against civilians. ”

“ You can't be too suspicious when security is at stake. When everybody who is after a key military job wears a toupee, it is obviously a bald case of espionage.
A job as laboratory technician with the Army Weapons Development Center carried about as much prestige as a bat boy in a World Series. ”

“ But hard facts, shown to us in black and white, shown to us in prosecutions and actual executions of spies, had convinced me—as they must have convinced every Briton unless he were a pro-German or a lunatic—that dastardly secret agents existed even in the most unsuspected quarters, and that the Invisible Hand had been responsible for many a disaster to the British arms on land and at sea. ”

“ Not that there is any system of espionage in the Army, but the man who reaches the rank of colonel is, under the present conditions governing promotion, keen-witted, and in the dissemination of all kinds of news, from matter for legitimate comment to rank scandal, a military unit is about equivalent to a ladies’ sewing meeting. ”

“ Those who refuse shall be conducted south beyond the extreme pickets of this army, and be notified that if found again anywhere within our lines, or at any point in rear, they will be considered spies, and subjected to the extreme rigor of military law. ”

“ Where it is hidden I do not yet know; but it is through this link that, I believe, our next great move will be played. By it I trust we shall run her down, and by doing so obtain information as to the gang, and possibly capture the papers relating to this great European conspiracy, and to her various plots in the Secret Service. ”