CLEVER FRENCH SPY

Shannon News, 28 January 1927, Page 2

CLEVER FRENCH SPY

WIDOW WHO FOILED GERMAN. GIVEN THE IRON CROSS. , A gripping tale of espionage and counter espionage has just been revealed in Parjs. A French' woman named Mathildo Lebrun, the widow of a non-commis-sioned officer, managed to get into the German military intelligence service during'the war. As an agent of the French Army in Lorraine—officially designated as "Simonne" —sho crossed "No Man's Land" on the afternoon of Christmas Day, 1914, calmly walked into the German trenches with a small suitcase and a white handkerchief flying on her umbrella, and smiled at her astonished captors. "I have been badly treated by compatriots because I nursed some wounded German soldiers, and I am now trying to get to Brussels," she naively explained. 34 Hours' Grace. The officers were highly suspicious, and questioned her daily for two weeks, being convinced that she was a spy. They discovered "that she ',va s intelligent ,and finally demanded that she should become a German secret service agent, but "Sinvouve" flatly refused. "We will give you 24 hours to reflect, and if you still refuse we will shoot you," they told her. Mdme Lebrun eventually pretended to capitulate when they offered her a big salary. She became agent "R-2" of the Crown Prince's Army, whose headquarters were at Metis, and made 13 trips via Switzerland to Nancy to get military information for her employers. The Crown Prince was so pleased

*■ ' with the information she brought -. back from France —it was supplied by the French intelligence service—- ■ that he bestowed the Iron Cross on her!

'* The French intelligence alway 3 -: gave-her correct information to give 1 the Germans in order to show that ."' she TVas well-informed, but the dispositions were changed at once. In the course of these voyages to

France, when she brought back to ~ l ~" v 2Cancy priceless information about - German military preparations, she trapped more than a dozen danger- [!-""'' ous German spies working in France, t>\ including two extremely dangerous women operating on the Riviera. m\- ' , ' Winning Ways. iff : '-" IJy good fortune she got on to the Ir trail of Fraulein Mar fa I.ebendall, RUd-aughter. of the chief manager of |3. Mannesmann Brothers, and the most §§""tHuigeroua German spy In France at. Kp the.time. The ffirl had been tralnKf.'edln one of the military espionage

schools in Germany, married a Span-

ish officer to hide her nationality, and had settled at Nice before tne war a s a resident spy. Another spy whose undoing Madame Lebrun brought about was Fellcie Pfaadt, a young French woman from Nancy, who had been sent by the Germans to do espionage work on the Riviera even before the war, and who had caused the loss or' a transport with 600 men on board. She associated with military and naval officers at Marseilles, and with drinks and caresses she would often get important information about ships leaving. Believing that Madame Lebrun was a German spy, Pfaadt wrote out a long report about troopships leaving, and thereby sealed her own fate.

"I have a good tip for you," she told Madame Lebrun as the latter said good-bye to her on November 21. "I have found out that Kitchener comes to France every week, and they will pay you any price you demand for that information. You know that Kitchener and Gallicm are the two men we are most afraid of." Pfaadt was arrested a week later, and after that the French military intelligence refused to permit Madame Lebrun to cross the lines again, for fear she would be court-martialled.