GERMANS AMAZED

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 November 1939, Page 6

GERMANS AMAZED

BRITISH SECRET SERVICE ACTIVITIES INCIDENTS DURING GREAT WAR. WIRELESS MESSAGES DECODED. In every war efforts are made by each side to obtain reliable information concerning the enemy’s plans and preparations. states an article in the “Age," Melbourne. The armies and navies have their intelligence services for obtaining news through spies and other sources. In the World War of 1914-18 the Germans unwittingly sup : plied the intelligence service of the British Admiralty with a great deal of secret information about their activities. The Germans were unaware that this information reached the Admiralty. They sent out in code by wireless, and they changed the code every 24 hours with the object of baffling anyone picking up their message. But this precaution proved useless in the case of the British Admiralty, for it had in its service men who had made a life study of unravelling secret ciphers and codes, and they never failed to find the key of every code used by the Germans. The story of the work of this section of the Intelligence Service of the British Admiralty during the World War was told by Mr Hugh Cleland Hoy in a book entitled “Room 40 O.B." which was published in 1932. The author was confidential secretary to the Director of Naval Intelligence from. November, 1916, to December, 1917. Room 40 0.8. was the room in the Admiralty headquarters in London where German messages, picked up oh the wireless,

were decoded. CABLES CUT. After the war broke out in 1914 one of the first things done was to cut the telegraph cables connecting Germany with the outside world. This reduced

Germany to dependence on wireless for communicating urgent matters to her Ambassadors and agents abroad. It would have been possible to have jammed the German wireless messages, but it was decided that it would be wiser to allow German stations to operate without interference, so that their messages could be picked up by the Allies and decoded. “In a quiet wing of the Old Building of the Admiralty a home was found for this most secret of all war work, and there in Room 40 of 40 0.8. (Old Building), as it came to be called. Sir Alfred Ewing and his staff installed themselves,” writes Mr Hoy. “Very few knew of the existence of 40 0.8. Even Cabinet Ministers knew next to nothing of this mysterious department; the high officials of the Admiralty were also in the dark; and the simple name 40 0.8. was adopted to avoid rousing any curiosity about it. But those whose work brought them into contact with the hidden activities of this essentially confidential office were of opinion that 40 0.8. won the war.

EXPERT CRYTOGRAPHERS. “When Sir Alfred Ewing had quietly formed the nucleus of his staff of expert crytographers —a staff that eventually numbered more than 50 —all of them with a knowledge of the German language, his next step was to provide several listening stations along the east coast. From these all intercepted fleet signals and wireless communications were transmitted to the Admiralty. AU transmissions of this sort were made, of course, in. their original code. When the department was properly developed these intercepted messages sometimes reached the remarkable total of about 2000 a day. Not one of them ever completely defeated the code experts. Of course, a large proportion of these messages were of no great importance or value to us. (It was my business io sift the wheat from the chaff; but small in bulk though the wheat was, it often proved to be of the most significant import. “Naturally, the Admiralty was often uneasy lest the Germans should discover that their wireless messages were being intercepted and decoded. The Germans, as a matter of fact, took the limit of precaution against this interference on our part, and at midnight every twenty-four hours they changed their codes. Our chain of listening stations on the east coast knew when to advise 40 0.8. of the alteration of cipher for its was early discovered that the German signal of warning that the new code was to be put into operation consisted of a general signal of “Silence" from the enemy's wireless headquarters. "On one occasion the intercepted messages sent' to Room 40 0.8. included urgent requests from the commanders of German submarines for instructions on how to read the latest elabor-* ate code put into operation. There was much laughter in .Room 40 0.8. over these messages, for the code which baffled the German naval officers for whom it was intended had already been deciphered by the Admiralty experts. GERMANS DECEIVED. It was realised that in course of 1 time the Germans would not fail to suspect that by some means information concerning their plans and instructions to their officials and agents abroad had reached the enemy. Their suspicions were directed in a wrong quarter, mainly by the ingenuity of a young official employed at the French Embassy in Madrid. He went to the German Embassy in that city and offered to sell secret information for a price. He declared that he had no love for France; that his sympathies were entirely with Germany. He told the German Ambassador. Prince Ratibor, that he was employed in the French secret service, and in order to substantiate that claim he imparted a few matters of minor importance with .which lie had been supplied for the purpose by the French secret, service, convincing the ambassador that he was a traitor to his country, and from time to time he gave the ambassador information about German plans which, he said, had reached the French secret service from a reliable source. This information was quite genuine; it was supplied, to him in order to help him in his plan to mislead the Germans. One secret bit of information which lie passed on to the ambassador was that Roger Casement had left Germany in a submarine for Ireland for the purpose of heading an Irish rebellion. Tlie young French official told the ambassador that he believed the secret information which (he Allies were obtaining from Germany came from an officer in a high position nt the German Admiralty. When this interesting theory was communicated to the German Admiralty by Prince Ratibor every effort was made to unmask the traitor who was betraying Ger- i many, but his identity was never discovered.

ROOM 40’S GREATEST SUCCESS. One of the great successes of Room 40 0.8. was the decoding of a secret message from the Foreign Minister in Berlin, Herr Zimmerman, to the German Ambassador at Washington, Count Bernstorff, which was instrumental in bringing the United States into the war. This message was picked up in the ordinary way by the listening stations on the east coast, and sent to the Admiralty with other messages. In Room 40 0.8. it was regarded as an ordinary routine matter, and it was left to await its turn for being decoded. Some difficulty was experienced in discovering the code and deciphering the message. At first only broken sentences were decoded, but from these it became evident that the message was of the greatest importance. Excitement prevailed in Room 40 0.8. as the blanks in the sentences were filled in. In its complete form the message read: “Zimmerman to Bernstorff for Eckhardt: Most secret for your Excellency’s personal information, and to be handed on to the Imperial Minister at Mexico by a safe route. We intend to begin on February 1 unrestricted submarine warfare. We shall endeavour, in spite of this, to keep the United States of America neutral. In the event of this not succeeding we shall make Mexico a proposal of alliance on the following basis: Make war together, make peace together, generous financial. support, and an understanding on our part that Mexico is to reconquer the lost territory in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. "The settlement in detail is left to you. You will inform the President (that is, President Carranza, of Mexico) of the above most secretly as soon as the outbreak of war with the United States is certain, and add the suggestion that he should, on his own initiative, invite Japan to immediate adherence, and at the same time mediate between Japan and ourselves. Please call the President’s attention to the fact that the ruthless employment, of our submarines offers prospects of compelling England in a few months to make peace.” AMERICA NOTIFIED. Admiral Hall, the Director of Naval Intelligence, sent the decoded message immediately to Lord Balfour, First Lord of the Admiralty. The latter communicated it to Mr Walter Page, the American Ambassador in London, and he wirelessed it in code to President Wilson in Washington. At first the American authorities thought the message was a hoax, set afoot by the Allies with the intention of embroiling America with Germany. It seemed incredible that the German Foreign Minister could have broadcast such a confidential message by wireless, even in code. Mr Page was instructed to ask the British Admiralty for a copy of the code message, so that American experts could decipher it. The Admiralty replied that only a few experts could decode the message, and their services were too valuable to permit any of them crossing the Atlantic to explain the code. The Admiralty offered to show the code to any accredited American official, and Mr Edward Bell, of the American Embassy in London, was sent to the Admiralty. He was supplied with the fullest information, and not only deciphered the German message when its code was explained, but a number of other messages that had been intercepted. This satisfied the American Government that the Zimmerman message was genuine , and further proof became available in the fact that Count. Bernstorff. at Washington, was using the same code to communicate with Herr Zimmerman in Berlin. The German message urging the German Minister in Mexico to endeavour to get the President of Mexico to declare war on the United States if the latter declared war on Germany was published in the American Press, with the authority of the American Government, and it created a great sensation throughout the country. Exactly seven weeks after Herr Zimmerman’s message had been decoded in Room 40 0.8. the United States declared war on Germany.