A DARING WOMAN SPY

Shannon News, 18 January 1927, Page 1

A DARING WOMAN SPY

VALIANT DEEDS FOR ALLIES. SECRET MESSAGES CONVEYED. WORK BEHIND GERMAN LINES. A wiry little woman, with a glorious head of chestnut hair and large dominating eyes, probably did as much for British soldiers as anyone in the Great War. Her name was Louise de Bettignies. Her vivid experiences as the woman who organised the British Intelligence Service behind the German lines on the northern sector of the British Western Front, are now revealed. Her story, as told in a book just published, is amazingly dramatic, even in the tense atmosphere of war. A fund for a statue to her memory in her native town of Lille has been opened. She was first "found" by English officers in Folkestone, during the great rush of refugees in August, 1914, and her personality, knowledge and linguistic abilities —she could speak English, French, German and Italian —convinced the British Secret Service authorities that she was just the right woman to organise intelligence on the other side. From the first day, when she got back via Holland, she proved her worth, says Antoine Redier, her biographer. With the aid of 'picked informers she collected two kinds of information—movements of troops and enemy plans. During April, 1918, through her agency was learned the exact number and contents of trains of wounded sent back by Germans from Mount Kemmel, and it was of great value to Marshal Foch. A Doubter Convinced. Each evening, while the train passed, two French eyes were glued to the window of a certain little brick house, near the railway line. In the room adjoining, well-curtained so that the light could not be seen from outside, a woman or child made a stroke on paper each time the observer at the window tapped the floor. Twice a week her informers came to Lille to report to the busy little woman—battery positions, munition supplies, officers' remarks —all of which was sent off by this master woman spy. It was written on thin sheets of Japanese paper by the most skilful caligrapher with fine mapping pens and Chinese ink. these manuscripts could only be read through a magnifying glass. By the nd of the war it had been reduced to a fine art, a nd 3000 words could be written on a surface no larger than an eyeglass. A striking illustration of her success was the proof she gave one of her friends that she delivered the most important documents in person to England. The doubter wrote these words at the bototm of the report she was to take to Folkestone: "If Alice* (her war name) delivers tnls report in person to an officer of the British Army, I pray him to give me an incontestable proof of same, by sending orders that the new German depot of munitions just installed near the Tourcong station, at the spot indicated on the plan attached, be bombarded between midnight and one o'clock in the morning." Forty-eight hours after a terrific explosion shook the station. "Well, do you believe me now ?" asked "Alice" on her return. She planned the whole counntry into sections, took a duplicate through Belgium and Holland iO the Erittish, who from that day coiiM be shown the exact position of any buttery by means of two figures only. Various Disguises Mopleil. Her adventures were innumerable. One befell her outside Horzeaux, where the Germans had installed a detective post, among the agents of which was a woman called "La Gran, ouille" (The Frog). This German agent terrorised the local women by her searching methods. La Grcnouille, instead of opening "Alice's" handbag, where there was sufficient evidence to warrant a death sentence, took her sausage from a provision box and sliced it into wafers in vain. "Alice" had a right-hand confederate in a girl named "Charlotte," and they resorted to all sorts of disguises and aliases. They passed as cheese merchants and milk distributors. "Alice' became a teacher, a dressmaker, a sewing maid, and Charlotte sold lace and food. At first secret messages were concealed in a handbag, or the heel of a shoe, or a tablet of chocolate. Later they resorted to other devices, putting them into lighted candles in cart lanterns, into their corsets and skirt hems. | Her journeys across the frontier were most audacious. She returned j one day from Holland with 50 little | balloons, afterwards used in favour-j able winds to advise the British of her next departure or safe return. One day she even brought back some meliniate, a high explosive, similar to lyddite. "Alice" never forgot that she was a "Bettignies"—a family of the higher nobility with a coat of arms, and she persisted in wearing a little gold

medal and a signet ring engraved with the family arms. Condemned to Death. "I know I will be caught one day," she told Charlotte, who is still alive, and whose reminiscences have proved of great value to the author, "but I shall have served." Like Carl Lody,. who worked as a spy in England for the German service, she was willing to die for her country. The methods of crossing frontiers she adopted showed amazing pluck. She wore white cloth and kept well in the searchlights to avoid making shadows. At night she swam a canal, and on a certain route, through a wood thickly sown with electric mines, she narrowly escaped death. She spread her network of spies more and more, but, as the author points out, "Our Allies for good reasons are not yet able to give any publicity to the documents that testify to Louise de Bettignies's activities, and the extent to which they helped the English." It could not go on for ever. First Charlotte was arrested, and then, almost by chance it seems, "Alice" was caught, put on trial and condemned to death. Von Biasing- reprieved her, but she languished 111 prison till death cut short ings following an operation. When the British entered Cologne they found the freshly-made grave of the girl who, under the name of "Alice," had so valiantly served them. They decorated it with flowers.