GERMAN WAR CIPHERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 January 1919, Page 3

GERMAN WAR CIPHERS.

A TRIUMPH OF HUN INGEXUT'f The fascinating story of German v/ar ciphers and how they were discovered is told for tiie first time by Melville Davisson Post in the October Pearsons Magazine. Before the present war opened (lie German General Staff had calculated everything, and they had plans to meet the conditions that would immediately arise. They knew that on the day England declared war all their usual means of communication with the world bevojd the Central Powers would be at once cit off. England would control the iea. >*o mailboais could go out from Hamburg. The cables wpuld be cut. Every means of communication would be mider allied surveil'fiii.-e.

But, if r.iMj not the policy of the German General Staff to abandon communication ,vlils the nulside worll Their plan was to use tne meaiu; of communication controlled by the AlHej for their own pin pose. England could carry tie mails and control the cables. German ingenuity would be able to make use of them as thoroughly as though they were •jadcr l.er v own flag. How amazingly well \Vilhellp3irasse wa3 abb to cany on; this policy reads like the imaginative creations o? ro«\ane«>. Adhering to the bceve principle that the message should beav no evidence of a secret meaning on its face, and tlia't it should conform in every Respect to the unsual trade or form m every respect to the usual trade or personal communication, tii': problem bsfor? ths German experts presented no great; difficulty The new war code was quickiy eiaboratnd It is said that tir; Oerniaa ships, at the time v:ai' declared, v;e?<? turned back by persona! messages addressed to some passenger. One of the great hips of the Hamburg-Amerika line that raced into an American port is said to have been advised of the declaration,of | war by the following radiograph, adI dressed to a prominent financier on the I ship and signed by an attorney: "Comjpetitora entered suit to-day."