Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1916-01-07
SWARMS WITH SPIES
BALTIC Ports Crowded With
Agents Of Many Nations.
Heroes, Too, Smugalers, Exchange
Gamblers and Fugitives Are There
Many Women in Thronos
of Secret Workers.

StockhOlm.-Justn now the Baltic is
the sea of adventure. Normally it is
a dull, insipid sea. After war be-
gan the Baltic woke up a little, but
it's liveliness was limited by Grand
Admiral Tirpitz's command of the sea-
Now about ten British submarines,
backed by some Russian submarines.
have awakened the ordinarily quiet
waters. All Baltic ports are nests Of
espionage, adventure, patriotic hero
ism and roguery, chiefly the last
named.
Stockholm ignores the war, but it
is full of Russian and German jobbers
who gamble in exchange. Copenhagen
is the chief center of German espion-
age. The saloons and fourth-rate no.
tells are thronged with German agents.
Libau, since Won Hindenburg cap
tured it last summer, is the headquar-
tiers of German motorboat corps
which does scouting in Riga gulf.
Hernosand, Oxelosund and other
small Swedish eastern ports are the
homes of scores of marooned German
merchant captains whose ships have
been torpedoed or bottled up.
The liveliest places are Haparanda
and Tornea, frontier townlets on the
Tornea Elf river, which divides
Sweden from Russian Finland These
townlets, 80 miles from the Arctic
circle, are crowded with spies, con-
traband smugglers and fugitive pris.
oners. The Russian gendarme Colonel
Abassoff discovered two German spies
in Tornea recently. With six gen.
darmes he pursued the suspects to
Karungi, further up the river, and be-
sieged them in a house. After two
hc.r battle the two Germans and
four Russians lay dead.
In coming here from Copenhagen,
via Malmo, one has to cross the
sound, the entrance gate of the British
submarines. The sound is an inter-
national waterway, but it is also ter
ritorial. being less than three miles
across at the narrowest point. The
Swedes own the east side and the
Danes the west. The other entrances,
the Great and Little Belt, which are
entirely owned by Denmark, were
mined against submarines in October,
1914.
Danes and Swedes could not agree
about mining the sound. The Swedes
regret this, for the submarines have
disturbed the halcyon calm of the Bal.
tic and injured Sweden's trade with
Germany.
After England had got at least four
submarines through, Germany mined
the sound. Mines were planted in a
big triangular patch in the south and
German patrol boats were set to watch
it, At least two English submarines
have got between or under the mines
and more may come any day.
From the Malmo steamer could be
seen Germany's tremendous meas
ures against submarines. South of
the mine field, on the horizon, is
forest Of masts and tunnels belong.
ing to the big 1otilla of cruisers, gun
boats, armed trawlers and motor pa
troll boats. Their business is to watch
for and destroy submarines that get
past the mines. Ahead of the flotilla
flew hydroplane. The Malmo steam
er captain said that when he had
sailed boat south few days before
he had counted about fifty German
craft of different kinds all on the look.
out. From the sound down to the
broad water between Sweden and
Rugen island every mile of sea has a
small German warship on the watch.
At Copenhagen the police brought