The Secrets of the German War Office by Armgaard Karl Graves

Author:Armgaard Karl Graves [Graves, Armgaard Karl]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781473318496
Google: q3q4oAEACAAJ
Publisher: Read Books
Published: 2014-07-10T03:05:31+00:00

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MY MISSION AND BETRAYAL IN ENGLAND

During 1911 my diplomatic missions piled one upon the other. Of recent years it was the most tempestuous in European cabinets. The drama that began with my mission to Monte Carlo and developed through the swift climaxes of the Moroccan affair, the secret conference between Germany, Austria and England in the Taunus, that rushed on through the intrigues that preceded the Balkan War, had now lulled, gathering its forces perhaps for the final catastrophe, the general war of all the Powers, which may come this year--or next. To be sure the terms that the English, German and Austrian ministers had agreed upon in the Black Forest were now awaiting ratification by their respective governments. Bear this in mind--"were waiting ratification"--for it explains the mission that I was called upon to undertake on November 18, 1911.

I received the usual summons to report at the Wilhelmstrasse. Instead of being brought before Count von Wedel, I was taken over to Koenigergratzerstrasse 70, to the German Admiralty Intelligence Department. Here I met my old Chief Captain Tappken, head of the naval branch of the Intelligence Department. The Captain briefly informed me that it had been deemed advisable to send me to England--unwelcome news, this, as you will see. In the usual curt yet polite manner of German officers, the Captain introduced me to three naval experts. One was a construction officer, another in the signaling department, the third, an expert on explosives and mines. One at a time they took me in hand, grooming me in the intricacies of their respective fields. It was like a rehearsal in the grooming I had received years ago when taken into the Service and trained for months. I sat for hours over diagrams with a naval officer on each side. They brought me before charts that were as big as the wall of the room. These charts gave the exact dimensions and type of every vessel in the British navy. Not only that, I was made to study the silhouettes of all the new and different types of English warships--why you will see.

Obviously this special training was significant. Part of my mission to England was to watch the preparations and maneuvers of British warships at the naval bases on the Scottish coast.

As you may surmise, the situation between England and Germany was peculiar. The secret treaty of the Black Forest was awaiting ratification by the heads of the two governments. Of course the mass of subjects--indeed not ten men in each country--knew aught of what had transpired near Schlangenbad. Politicians had worked up a war scare to such pitch that the people of the two nations were ready to rush into conflict. Only a spark was needed to fire the situation. Realizing that under the menace of existing conditions, the unforeseen might happen, the Kaiser was not lessening his secret diplomatic intrigues; rather he was increasing them. It is a fact that even though two nations have a secret treaty, they each remain suspicious of the other.

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