Charlevoix county herald., 1920-01-16

coming Involved In Another War
Has System of Code Transmission
Which Can Defy All Experts In the
World.
When Nine. Marie X. de Victorica.
daughter of the Prussian general to
whom Marshal BaZaine handed his
sword in 1870 at the surrender OF
Metz, set out from the Wilhelmstrasse
to conduct an espionage campaign In
America during the recent war, two
silk muffiers were an important part
of her equipment
OF her equipment, not of her ward
robel
For the muffiers were impregnated
with a secret ink chemical, so that
when she saturated them in water and
wrung them o. she obtained the need
ed invisible" fluid for'her code mes
sages to Germany. BY dissOlving in
vinegar iodine tablets manufactured
by British chemists, secret agents In
Berlin set up the necessary reaction
to make the writing visible.
Nine. de Victorica, you perceive.
was an old-fashioned spy, a product
and tool of old-world diplomacy and
duplicity, the New York Times ex-
plains. So-caled invisible ink is one
of the oldest tricks of the trade.
close mouth is one of the personal re-
quirements, too, and however well the
madame may have been provided with
silk mufflers, she was wOefully def
cient In vocal mufflers. She talked too
much, and in consequence of her indis-
Greet Boosting on the steamship which
bore her to this country watch was
set on her which baked most of her
spying and ultimately brought arrest.
Tricks of the Modern Spy. .
The modern spy, as evolved from
the world war, differed as widely from
Nine. de Victorica and her secret ink
as the Woolworth building differs
from the Pyramids, to which time Sc
cret ink probably belongs. He used
q code, to be sure, but it was the kind
of code which would have robbed Ed
gar Allan Poe of picturesque part of
his reputation had it been in use in
his day, for it was transmitted, not by
ink but by electricity, and it was so
ingenious that even the operator send
ing the message could not possibly
decipher it.
That statement is made on the au-
thority of Maj. z. Alexander Powell,
who is entitled to write an imposing
string of letters after his name, but
who uses his military title in signing
his latest book, "The Army Behind
the Army" about to be published by
Charles Scribner's Sons. He takes
casual and somewhat contemptuous
glance at Nine. De Victorica and her
Ink, for he is much more interested in
the unassuming and undisguised mod
ern detective spy, partly because when
he entered the war he was one of the
four officers In the military intelli-
gence division (the army secret serv-
ice) and he cheats the censorship to
the extent Of telling some new facts
about Its work.
Nine. De Victorica, 1t may be said in
passing, was a kinswoman of the kai.
serin, and had received a high educa-
ton in German universities. She
spoke four languages, had worked as
German spy and propaganda in
South America and other countries
and had been thrice married. Her last
husband was a South American, who
died suddenly soon after the marriage.
Her first husband was Prof. Otto Eek
mann of Heidelberg university. Her
German title was the Baroness Maria
Kretschmann. She used various
aliases. among them Mile. Marie de
vessiere, and Frau Maria Kretsch-
mann.
Secret Code Devices.
Perhaps no revelation Major Powell
makes is more interesting than that
about the secret code devices. IL am
not permitting myself to indulge in the
slightest exaggeration," he writes,
"when assert that these devices place
in the hands of the United States
weapons which would render this
country wellnigh invulnerable I'm the
event Of our ever becoming involved in
another war" And later he adds that
"as universal peace is not yet in sight,
even with the aid Of a telescope, and
as this invention would prove of In
calculable benefit to the United States
In the event of our, becoming again In
volved in war. IL Is obviously out Of
the question to discuss the principle
on which 1t is based, much less the de-
tails of its construction and operation.
II is enough to say that this nation is
now the possessor of a system of code
transmission which can defy all the
experts in the world. message sent
by its means being absolutely unde-
cipherable by the inventor himself.
Possibly there is a clue to the secret
I'm Major Powell's description of an
other invention. unsuccessfully tried
out before the successful device was
found by the American Telephone and