Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1888-04-20
+, OFFICIAL SPIES.
PR
an EUROPE THEIR BUSINESS IS CON-
SIDERED A SCIENCE.

IN EUROPE THEIR BUSINESS is con-
SIDERED A SCIENCE.
Turkeys Military Attaches at the Princi-
Z; pal Courts-England's Intelligence De-
! overwhelmingly Marvelously Sys-
| tematic Organization.
{ Of late years in Europe spying has been
elevated into a science. 1t goes on all the
time. The utmost and sincere friendship OF
one nation for another does not prevent IL
from setting in a note book, learning and
coming by rote all about its friends mill
tary strength and weakness and favorite pro-
jects and general inclinations, thus acting on
the principle treat friend as if he may
some day become an enemy" In the various
capitals of Europe there are regular bureaus
devoted to the classification of information
obtained by spies and to the direction of the
movements and aims of such agents. Even
Turkey has such department. 1t is stu
ated in the Seraskierate, and is closely ada
cent to the lofty apartments allotted to the
council of war, that unhappy body which
ten years ago was largely responsible for
lettering the freedom of general officers in
the field and for the result of the campaigns
both in Europe and in Asia. Turkey has
military attaches at the principal courts
They are rather faineant gentlemen, as
rule, but some of them are really smart and
jealous officers. They are supposed to mix
freely in general, and especially military
society; to keep their eyes and ears open,
and to get hold, by fair means or foul, of all
official secrets relating to military affairs.
In England the intelligence department is
of quite modern growth. When it was in
vented it was put under the quartermaster
general. Last year it was transferred to the
division of the adjutant general, which seems
to be its proper place. The office used to be
facing the war Office in Pail Mall, but it is
now. on the other side of st. James park, IN
one of the quaint old wainscoted mansions
of Queen Anne's Gate. Here are slfted and
sorted and registered and docketed and alb
stracted the piles of information which ar
rive through the foreign office from military
attaches in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, st. Peters
burg, Constantinople and Rome, as well as
from the host of civilian representatives and
officials whom Great Britain has lying
abroad, to use the double barreled phrase of
Sir William Temple. Every one Of these is
responsible for sending home whatever mill
tary or naval information he can pick up
about certain countries. and this information
is duly forwarded to the intelligence depart
ment, where it is either rejected OF pieced in
with other morsels, very much as puzzle
map is pieced together, until it makes
whole. The system of cross indexing in the
department is apparently perfect, and any
point required for reference can be found
literally instantly.
But the best organized intelligence depart
ment in the world is, if not on the banks of
the Spree, at least on the banks of one of the
canals connected with that petty river. The
staff quarters of the German army occupy
fine block of buildings between the Branden-
burg gate at the end of the Inter den Linden
and the Hanover Railway station, and in this
block, built and paid for out of the French
indemnity, the intelligence department has
great suite of offices which are marvel of
sytematic arrangement. Here are to be
found not only all the information that
money and zeal can obtain about the military
forces of the world, and about the terrains on
which conflicts are likely to occur, but plans
perfected down to the last detail for utilizing
the gigantic forces of the empire in whatever
part of the world they can ever come to be
handled.
France or Russia, or Austria or Scandinavia,
but for invading Belgium and Holland and
even insular England What they are pre-
cisely very, very few people know. They
have been drafted in the first instance as ex-
ercises in military staff work; they have then
been revised by high authority, touched up
by the highest authority, and, being from
time to time amended as information is re-
ceived, remain ready to the hands of those
who may at any time be called upon to exc
cute the task which their trainers had in
view 1t is all but certain that these plans
include schemes for the invasion of the
United States, but this fact need give no one
any uneaSinesS, as there are doubtless to be
found in the same corridors plans equally
exact in every particular for the invasion of
China, Brazil, Italy, Portugal, Hindostan,
Australia or Persia.
The French are believed to have developed
an intelligence department which fairly ri
walls that of Berlin. In 1870 they had the spy
mania very acutely. 1t was not easy for any
man of blonde aspect to travel in France,
however remotely from the theatre of war,
without being arrested as an "Espion
Prusse." Now the French are spending
more money and more labor than any other
country in acquiring just the sort of infornla-
ton that the spies supply. The Germans are
working much more cheaply, and, besides,
they have long ago got all the information
they want, except about the new Lebel rifle
and its cartridges. Even Of the latter they
know nearly all they need, for it is ascer-
tanned that the explosive in these cartridges
will not stand prolonged storage and trans
port, danger some time ago pointed out as
likely to attend any "smokeless' powder.
But any student of military matters must
doubt whether the French will be able to
make as much use of the information they
acquire as the Germans do, or the English.
France used to have the, in professional
sense, best educated officers in the world.
But that is no longer the case. Indeed, it is
not saying too much to express the belief that
the French staff are virtually uneducated in
the science of war. The blunders made in
the recent partial mobilization werc of just
the same sort as those made in 1S70.-New
York Times.