MI5 in the Great War

by Nigel West

  He told Orsbach that he was writing by the same post to ‘Hector’ of Rotterdam and he bade Orsbach tell his parents to go and enlist the help of one Laarsen, at an address given vaguely but indicating the naval spy centre at Antwerp. Rotheudt wrote again on 10 and 30 September (on which date he also wrote to Stanaway) and on 12 November he expressed his astonishment at having received no reply to his letter of the 13 August. The reply came at last in December, when another 20 francs was sent.

  Summing up the facts it is clear that Mrs Stanaway, knowing that Rotheudt had been condemned as a spy, aided and abetted in passing forged documents to his friends in Holland. She received money from Meisner-Denis, just about the time when she forwarded 20 francs to Rotheudt, and either she herself or someone writing in Flemish but posting via Mrs Stanaway told Rotheudt falsely that she had suppressed his April letters. The chaplain’s letter to her was either dictated by Rotheudt in his indignation, or else written as the result of action taken by the prison authorities. For at some date not mentioned they discovered Pierre Rotheudt’s illicit correspondence and re-opened his case. It may be that the Germans wished to wash their hands of Rotheudt and either bribed Mrs Stanaway to deceive Rotheudt or used her as an unconscious tool.

  At the end of September, even while a fresh investigation into Rotheudt’s case was in progress, he had found means to continue and extend his illicit correspondence, giving in the letters of August to October proof that he expected from the Admiralstab-Zweigstelle at Antwerp help to secure either a revision of his case or his escape from prison. These letters, which also furnish presumptive evidence against the Orsbach family, came to knowledge only at the end of January 1917, in connection with the investigation into the case of Mrs Albertine Stanaway.

  It was Stanaway’s correspondence with Meisner-Denis in July and August 1916, that brought her to the notice of the bureau. By 18 July the writer had been identified and steps taken to keep her in view. Subsequently it was established that she had written and posted the letter signed ‘Valravens’ at the Charing Cross Hotel on 9 August, that it was a copy was not known until much later. It was also known that Stanaway was remarkably intimate with the Hebdens, and Commandant Mage wrote that she had kept up communications with Rotheudt through an illicit channel. Afterwards he supplied information as to Rotheudt’s connection with Mrs Hebden, ‘Hector’ and van Melle.

  Van Melle was said to be in touch with a German spy named Walter Yzenberg and with the head of the German Kriminalpolizei at Rotterdam; he had photographed refugees from Belgium and had handed the photographs to the German police.

  Then the bureau went further back in their enquiries, they identified ‘Williams’ and procured the original police documents referring to him and caused him to be looked up. He was then and had been for some months living in France. It was thought too late to put a check upon the addresses of Winterberg, ‘Hector’ and van Melle.

  It was decided to arrest Mrs Stanaway and a Special Branch detective inspector was sent down to help the local police in the search of her rooms. At the same time, Tinsley was asked to have Meisner-Denis, at 53 Rokin in Amsterdam, carefully watched in connection with the cases of Stanaway and George Bacon. Mrs Stanaway was arrested on 9 December. A number of Rotheudt’s letters were found in her rooms as well as a copy of Lieutenant Michiel’s letter to Dumont about the trial of Rotheudt and Valravens letter to herself. Mrs Stanaway, when interrogated, lied about her knowledge of the charge on which Rotheudt was convicted and also as to her communication with him in prison, she denied having received money from Meisner-Denis but gave what seems to be a true account of Valraven’s letter. She admitted having written to van Melle and Madame Orsbach in order to keep Rotheudt in touch with his friends.

  A check was placed on Mrs Hebden’s address and a specimen of her handwriting obtained. On 2 January 1917, a circular was issued that Mrs Hebden was not to be allowed to leave the United Kingdom. Mrs Stanaway was interrogated again on 28 December. Her account of her relations with Rotheudt and Dumont were substantially true, she was however unable to explain why she had copied Michiel’s letter to Dumont, but denied that it was for the purpose of sending it abroad. She stated that she had destroyed the original.

  The police meanwhile verified her history. Albertine Regnier, French, had come to Folkestone from Liverpool in December 1911 and was employed as a dressmaker by Messrs Gordon Bros, at 16 and 18 Cheriton Place. Soon after she married Frederick Stanaway, ship’s steward, who in September 1914 joined the Kent Cyclists Corps and was sent to India.

  She made the acquaintance of Pierre Rotheudt in September 1914 and when he returned in January 1915, he went to her house for three nights (1 to 3 February) afterwards bringing her to London and introducing her to his friends. Three other men, all Belgian soldiers, were devoted to Mrs Stanaway. The French authorities were informed of the correspondence between Stanaway and Rotheudt and their attention was drawn to those four persons on French soil, e.g. Valravens, Williams, Geens, and Janssens, who were intimately connected either with Rotheudt or Stanaway.

  Copies of documents relating to Rotheudt’s trial were procured from the Belgian authorities but upon the whole these documents tended to prove Mrs Stanaway’s innocence in July 1915. In spite of all efforts the only charge which could be formulated against Mrs Stanaway was that of communicating with Meisner-Denis on three occasions, but Meisner-Denis cleverly avoided supplying proof of his connection with the German Secret Service, and the Orsbach family declared that the money sent by van Melle came from Rotheudt’s parents in Antwerp. Then the family produced first the letters which Rotheudt had written to them in September 1915 and afterwards Rudolphe Orsbach’s written statement that he had connived in Rotheudt’s scheme for procuring his liberation, together with the letters and original draft which Rotheudt had sent via Stanaway in April and her covering letter dated 29 April 1916. With these were sent photographs of Pierre Rotheudt’s receipts for money advanced him by ‘Hector’. Rotheudt was thrown to the wolves.

  On 31 January 1917, A. M. van Melle wrote to Stanaway enclosing a letter from Rotheudt’s parents, this letter was censored by the Dutch but not by the English censor. The bureau however, discarded the Belgian evidence against van Melle: it was impossible to prove that van Melle’s remittances emanated from an enemy agent, although as shown above there is some doubt as to the remittance of 28 July mentioned in Mrs Stanaway’s letter of 11 August. There is a report that the post office check on Stanaway had failed completely and coupling this with the fact that Rotheudt explicitly mentioned receiving Belgian notes, it seems probable that all money transactions passed in notes and not in money orders. As the case against Stanaway rested solely upon three letters, in themselves innocent, although addressed to Meisner-Denis, Sir Archibald Bodkin advised against prosecution but suggested that Mrs Stanaway should be interned. Accordingly an order was obtained under DRR 14B on the grounds of her association with the spy Rotheudt and of her correspondence with another German agent.

  A second case which arose out of the check on Meisner-Denis was for some time thought to be connected with Mrs Stanaway. This was the case of George Vaux Bacon, an American journalist and correspondent of the Central Press Association of New York City who landed at Liverpool and came to London on 5 September. On 20 September 1916 Bacon wrote to Meisner-Denis announcing his approaching journey to Holland on business for the Central Press Association and for the discussion of Louis Joseph Vance’s new photoplay. The letter was intercepted by the censor on 29 September and dealt with by Major Carter on 9 October. Owing to this delay Major Carter did not forward the letter, a circumstance that had big consequences. It was ascertained that Bacon had gone to Holland on or about 22 September.

  Richard Tinsley was then set to work in Holland, and after having been asked for information about Meisner-Denis, was asked for details with regard to Bacon. His agent approached Bacon somewhat clumsily and Bacon, who knew that Meisner-Denis had not received his letter of 20 September, su
spected that the British authorities were on his tracks. He admitted knowing Meisner-Denis, but made no further statement and avoided further contact with the agent.

  Orders had been issued that Bacon was to be searched on his return, but not alarmed. Bacon arrived in England on 2 November, but nothing suspicious was found on him nor did the interrogation yield much. But he told the officer at the port that Mauritz Hyman, a Dutch Jew, had been trying to get information from him at Amsterdam.

  Tinsley, meanwhile, had reported Bacon’s departure and that he had been seen off by Mr Peter J. Cribben and an American journalist, Rutledge Rutherford. He added that Cribben believed that their mail was held up in England.

  At this stage a fresh informant comes into the picture. A metal merchant named Frederick George Graff had been placed on the British Black List, and had suffered monetary loss in consequence. In order to get his name removed from the Black List, he gave Tinsley information about his mission to a branch which the Antwerp Admiralty Zweigstelle had established in America with which it maintained communication through messengers. These men carried instructions in secret writing on what appeared to be blank sheets of paper. Graff produced two such sheets which he was to deliver to A. A. Sander, 876 East 15th Street, Brooklyn, and the War Film Office, 115 Nassau Street, New York. He was told on the way out to make observations on the south and south-east coast of England, and on the way back to stop in the country and procure the answers to two lists of questions. One of these ran: ‘Where is the English end of a submarine cable from Alexandrowski on the White Sea?’

  Graff carried a bottle of secret ink, shoe-laces and a cashmere sock impregnated with the same. The ink was made by steeping a piece of the material in an ordinary glassful of lukewarm water previously boiled. The secret instructions carried by Graff are dated 14 October 1916. By 23 November the sheets had been developed and the message photographed and translated. The instructions make mention of two kinds of secret ink. The first was a method of acknowledging receipt of the instructions by cablegram addressed to Philip in Copenhagen. The second was a duplicate of the instructions which was to be carried over by Symonds at the end of the month; two other carriers, Stieg and Baer, the latter of whom was returning to England; and a financial agent named ‘Pas’.

  The secret instructions also refer to an ‘affair with David’ which had gone wrong (it is interesting to note that the British Censor had stopped a cablegram from ‘Davis War Film, 150 Nassauer Street’ to Arthur Philipson, Skideregade 51, Copenhagen, on 2 September). The instructions mention payments which are to be made to Mrs Ruil and directing that all ‘Charlie’s’ letters are to be addressed to Ruil, 47 Pieber Bothstraat, The Hague, and no other address used. Both were found afterwards to be identical with Rutherford.

  Upon this information a search of cablegrams was made; at first only the intercepted message to Philipson was discovered, subsequently a wire to Gaston Blom on 17 December 1916 at the Hotel Bristol in Copenhagen, acknowledging receipt of a report was investigated; eventually a message dated 22 November 1916 to Kankratz in Hamburg, from Dr Wilberlaurer of Patterson, New Jersey, announcing the arrest of ‘Robert’ and adding ‘Charles and everything fine’ was unearthed and explained. A search of radiograms fell through owing to the labour and expense involved. The War Film Company, Stieg, Symonds and Baer were signalled to the ports, and instructions issued to hold up Baer. Home Office Warrants were taken cut for A. A. Sander and Rutl, and Tinsley was asked to identify Rutl, while a similar request was sent to New York with regard to Davis and Sander.

  On 1 December 1916 a circular was issued to the ports and to the capitals of Europe that New York had become a spy centre and that particular attention should be paid to neutrals or persons who journeyed to the United Kingdom from the United States by indirect routes. Bacon, meanwhile, was being watched in England. He had on 3 November deposited a draft for £200 with the American Express Company, he spent some days in Worcestershire and then returned to town, where he went to the Coburg Court Hotel, Bayswater. On 21 November an article which Bacon posted to Virgil V. McNutt of the Central Press Association, New York, was stopped by the Press Censor, and the same day a letter from Bacon to Rutledge Rutherford mentioning Pete Cribben was submitted. It seemed harmless and the bureau sent it on, but decided to have Bacon interviewed at Scotland Yard and frightened out of the country. Meanwhile Bacon had given the police the slip and had gone to Ireland on 25 November. He visited Dublin, Cork, Killarney and Belfast, and on 8 December returned to London via Dublin. On his return he found a letter from the assistant commissioner, Basil Thomson, inviting him to call at Scotland Yard, which he did on 9 December. He admitted his connection with Meisner-Denis and was detained pending further search.

  About this time the bureau received through an intercepted letter and an informant, further information of the utmost importance. Kuno Meyer wrote on 23 November to Schiemann of Berlin announcing the arrival of the Deutschland in America and mentioning that reports satisfactory in the highest degree had been received from three sources in Ireland. The informant had arrived in England on 2 December. Early in November he had been approached in New York by A. A. Sander, had acquainted British agents with the fact, and at their bidding had carried on. On the 11 December he came to Scotland Yard and gave an account of his engagement and of the instructions he had received. The informant’s story bore out what was already known through Graff and added many other particulars. The newest German method consisted in despatching American journalists to work in couples, one to collect information in England and forward it in secret writing to the other, who was sent to Holland to supply the accommodation address and to forward German instructions to the spy in England. The informant’s correspondent was to be Charles B. Hastings of the Maas Hotel in Rotterdam. If communication was cut between him and Hastings, the informant was to report at once to the German consul at The Hague and say: ‘I am from Wilhelm, Admiralty staff Antwerp’. If anything happened to Hastings, [XXXXXX] was to write in duplicate to the Meisner-Denis address.

  Presumably, the latter course was to be taken if [XXXXX] was unable to leave the country. [XXXXX]’s secret ink was a gonorrhea mixture packed in a tin and impregnated in a black sock. [XXXXX] and Hastings had to agree upon a code the name ‘Joe Brady’ or ‘Brady’ signified a journey to Holland. In a letter from Hastings, this name was a summons to [XXXXX] to come to Holland; in a letter from [XXXXX] it would mean that he was going over to Holland. [XXXXX]’s revelations were afterwards confirmed by Charles Hastings who added the information that the word ‘Gertie’ occurring in a letter would mean that it was a spy communication.

  Charles Hastings, a disreputable American journalist, was in May and June engaged in publicity work for the Germans in New York, and in almost daily contact with Albert Sander. In August, Sander told him about the new secret ink which was despatched from Germany in small phials used for salvassen and costly drugs. On 13 November Sander enlisted Hastings to come over to Europe as a German agent and he sailed on 22 November, touched at Falmouth where some examination of his effects took place, and landed at Rotterdam on 9 December. Hastings’ mission was to register at the Haas Hotel in Rotterdam where he was to receive and forward letters addressed to him there by [XXXXXXX]. On landing, he was to deposit his credentials, a sheet of ‘Old Hampshire Vellum’ bearing a communication in secret ink, with the German consul, and ask to be put in touch with Wilhelm of the Admiralty staff in Antwerp. Alfred Schultze interviewed Hastings at Rotterdam on 13 December and introduced him to Wilhelm Duell. Both men seem to have expected Hastings to return to America by the next boat, but Sander had given him the option of returning at once or getting touch with English journalists in Holland, and he chose the second course. Schultze then sent him to Amsterdam where he acted under the orders of Duell, who lived on the Rokin, nearly opposite Meisner-Denis, and lent his rooms to Schultze for interviewing German agents. Hastings stated that Duell called to fetch letters sent by [XXXXX] but that reports supplied by
Hastings himself were posted to Schultze under cover to consul Cremer. On the other hand, Richard Tinsley reported that German agents collected Hastings’ correspondence at the Haas Hotel in Rotterdam, and let him have only what they chose; and that Rutherford was at one time impersonating Hastings at the Haas Hotel, and Tinsley’s reports are confirmed by Hastings’ admission that after a time Duell ceased to call for letters.

  Meanwhile, the enquiry with regard to George Bacon was proceeding upon the usual lines. The police found a trunk belonging to him deposited with the American Express Company and a letter addressed to him from Rutledge Rutherford at the same place. Among Bacon’s possessions there were other letters from Rutherford, a packet of ball-pointed pens, a bottle of Argyrol and a pair of black socks impregnated with that solution. There was also a pocket-book with the addresses of Meisner-Denis and van der Kolk in thick pencil. Van der Kolk had been known as a spy address since 25 September 1915. In Ireland, Bacon had met a Sinn Feiner at Cork and a sympathiser with victims of the Rebellion at Belfast. He had also made friends with various officers and persons of another class. Besides mentioning Hastings, [XXXXX] had stated that an American journalist, whose name began with R – it might be Rutherford – had been in England for some time. Since 11 November Rutherford had been known to the bureau as a friend of Bacon. Another suspect was Peter J. Cribben, said to be the American representative of a shipping firm. Bacon stated that he was arranging for the import into Holland of certain cargoes of foodstuffs from America, and, on behalf of Cribben, Bacon had offered an invalided British officer £2,000 a year to handle the stuff at Dover.