DECEIVED BY HIS OWN SPIES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 175, 2 January 1915, Page 7

DECEIVED BY HIS OWN SPIES.

KAISBK NOW DiSTKI'STFUL, A German officer interned with some other prisoners of war in South Ireland haa given to the English officer in charge of the prisoners some information which throws an interesting li«ht on the German view of the results ot their elaborate system of espionage , According to the German officer 'it was fully believed at German headquarters that as soon as the British mobilisation was ordered, the transport workers would strike. This information was conveyed to the German headquarters stab three weeks before the outbreak of the war, and was fully rdied upon. According to the German officer, the information came from a spy who was supposed to be closely in toucli with working organisations in England. This spy wa3 in Berlin when war was declared, and later when his information proved to be false, he was arrested. A similar fate lias overtaken several other spies who haw ividently been manufacturing infornuuion for whHi they were very highly paid. Some or these men, according to the German officer, ha.\ been shot. Most definite and apparently accurate information kept reaching German military headquarters up to the outbreak of the war, concerning the recruiting possibilities in Britain in the event of war. All this information, gleaned from every part pf England., Irclr.ii, Scotland and .Wales, confirmed the German military party in the belief that 400,000 would be the limit of Britain's recruiting power. It was believed that when no voluntary recruits could bo obtained in' Britain, conscription would have to be resorted to, and this would lead to political divisions and break up all chance of present unity, j Such, according to the German officer, was the information which the Kaiser and his military organisers received and believed. A general election, fought on the question of conscription, was to he one of the events which would lead to Britain's downfall somewhere about October or November. No\M, apparently, great distrust of all information received from spies who haw been working in England prevails at German military and naval headquarters, and plana based on such informa- | tion are continually revised or altoI gether altered. j Perhaps the biggest and most unpleasant surprise that awaited the Kaiser and his advisers at the outbreak of the war was the immediate arrest in England! of certain spies, which disclosed the hitherto unsuspected fact to their masters thai the business on which t ; men had been engaged in England was j fully known to the British Government. If there was one thing that the Germans believed more than another, it wa9 that their spies, for the most part, were entirely unsuspected.