TRACKING THE SPY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 249, 30 March 1915, Page 6

TRACKING THE SPY.

CERMAXS BEATEX AT THEIR OWN GAME.

BRITISH INTELLIGENCE DEPARTMENT DOES MOT ADVERTISE.

(Writing i» the London Br.i'y Mai!, Mr I Edward Wright fays: — | The Teutonic sistcrruof espionage is, of course, a wond.yrful thing. The Germans tell us so themselves, and noliody wou'd doubt the word of a Germanilur own Intelligence Department doe? not advertise. It is like our Coventry Ordnance Works, which makes so little noise in the world in comparison with the resounding fame of Kru;>ps. The German spy system was not put into full operation against our stupid, backward country until Lord Fisher began to reorganise our Navy with a view to meeting the threat made by the German Navy Act. Early in IfMJG our Admiralty was secretly building four capital ships of a new type—the Dreadnought and lier swift sisters, the now famous Indomitable, Inflexible and Invincible. Had our preparations gone on without discovery, we should have gained a lead of about fourteen months. But the übiquitous German spy found out what was doing in our yards. As our Intelligence Department was asleep, he was able to obtain many valuable particulars concerning the Indomitable. On the base of tiie knowledge thus obtained the clever German naval architects set to work. They were,, resolved to produce something in the way of battle-cruisers that should make the Indomitab'o and her sisters feeble, limping things in comparison. The Blucher was the result —that old-fashioned armored cruiser with only B',i-in. guns! This was the German Dreadnought! Our ships had eight 12in. guns each, and they were completed a year before their hopelessly poor German imitation.

A SIMPLE TRICK. Xaturally. llii' Hermans wore very angry. By a simple trick our Intelligence Department lin.il caused tliem to lose a vast sum of money and to fall years behind us in the race over naval armaments. For it was in 10(10 that we mounted 12in. guns in the Dreadnought. Xo German capital shin had a gun of similar calibre until the battleship Heligoland was completed in 1011. For when Krupps were thrown on their own resources and on their own genius for invention they were exceedingly slow in producing the gun that the German Xavy vitally needed. For years the firm had spent large sums of money in a campaign of slander against its British and French rivals. This had been done with a view to attracting orders for artillery from the small nations which lacked gun-making plant. Besides the business profit obtained in this wav. the large amount of foreign work skilfnllv directed towards Essen enabled the Krupp plant to be extended so. ns to greatly increase the speed with which Germany could be supplied with cannon in war time. But when all that German intrigue coii'd do had been done and the ordnance experts at Essen were nut on their mettle to meet the challenge of British inventive genius.'the result was ignominious. Our first bat-tle-cruiser of the Dreadnought type, with eicrht 12in. guns was completed in inOS. The Germans never had a battlecruiser with guns of equal calibre until 1014.

EFFICIENTLY OF TflE EXEMY'S ES

PIOXAGE SYSTEM

In connection with this there is another story, nlso illustrative of the wonderful efficiency of the German espionage system and the slackness of our under-paid, under-staffed Intelligence Department. As France has produced a designer of light field artillery, with a genius that no Teuton can distinctly approach, so our country happily contains designers of naval ordnance who throw the learned professors employed by Krupps into hysterical perplexity. What our men have done for years, arid arc still is to make mountings for big naval guns such as the inventors in no other land can equal. The mounting makes the naval gun. It has, easily and quietly, to cushion the shock of the recoiling piece or ordnance as this flings back after the explosion with a force almost as terrific as that at which it hag expelled the shell. The ship itself ia composed of a nicely balanced scaffolding of steel, which is already subject to stresses through tne weight of its arm-or-plate. The earthquake shocks of the recoil of eight to ten great naval guns must be so cushioned by the mounting that no strain is placed on the ship's structure.

It was the problem of devising such a mounting for the l'2in. gun which was utterly beyond the talent of every man in Germany. Only after years of labor and experiment did Krupps manage to get proper recoil chambers for an 11 in. gun. Then at last, either 1 bv long study and costly trials or by the bribery of some British ordnance daughtsman, the problem was solved. Probably the famous German master-spy overcame the difficulty, and at great trouble and expense, obtained a working sketch of the British design. If so, it was just like our Naval Intelligence Department to allow such a thing to happen. For while the happy Germans were hastily designing and building new cupital ships to take the new 12in. Krupp guns, our men at the Coventy Ordnance Works, were Ijusv making 13y 2 !n. guns, with a far longer range and effect than the Germans had ever dreamed of! After this, the German Admiralty lost faith in its wonderful system of espionage. It had become only an instrument on which certain men in Whitehall played alluring tunes that doomed German battleships to destruction before they were even built.

ri'yscoVEßY MADE BY KRUPPS. ;I3ut. the principal cause of this relaxation of interest in our naval affairs on tile part of German spies was a grand discovery made by Krupps. German sqience and German invention had triumphed over every difficnltv. The British as good as'sunk. Onlv a!few of its capital ships were armed V|th tins new lS'/jin. gun. Krupps 'haO! a miracle of a mounting that would take the recoil of a 1 Jin. gun. It was not a matter of design on paper backed by intricate mathematical calculations." A 14in. gun had been made and placed on a mounting of unparalleled strength. Again and again the gun had been fired' and the actual stresses transmitted through the mounting had been measured in the most scientific fashion Everything stood firm.

Having witnessed these exneriments the Ormnn Admiralty, gave Krupps a large order for the manufacture of tho ] im-omparaWc pun, and the most brilliant of Herman naval architects at ' once designed the strongest and speed- i ■est capital snip j„ fh c wori(l , A] , tll(J latest -flerman battloshins and battlecruisers, that now parrv onlv 12in. "uns were really cleaned and constructed to sweep the Xortlj i?ea with the nevr monster Tsnip'p e „„. riut when the first ship was built and gunned and sent out lor its firing test, it was nearly sunk by its own ordnance. The Krupp mounting pave way under the recoil. There was nothing fr, do hut scrap all the 14in ' pur-: and l.nild more of the 12in. ones, i -And before the Annans discovered how ' to mount the ISV.in gun „nr Navv ha<\ ';"" £'".'*. a ton,of high pldstve flflinia'flleiled steel id a distance'' °f —-■ w «l'- the Germans can discover ; what the distance is when the great ! fleet action opens.