Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-03-23
Who Was Fraulein Doktor, Blond Arch Spy?

Continued from Eleventh. Page
about the ships, and also, as exactly as pos
sible, the place where they meet the warships.
Believe me- if it is handled in the proper
way one can learn enough in the cafe! 1t is
visited only by Englishmen, Norwegians and
Danes. She is on good footing with these
men and can be of the greatest use TO us.
When the English gentlemen have too much
they talk like anything.
81 feel very uneasy. Yesterday morning
thought l saw the Spaniard who gave evil
dence in the Mississippi affair at Washington
white House, about what happened the
night of June IL, 1912. 1t cannot be true,
as he died on that terrible night. don't
like to be laughed at, at STEELE /. cannot
forget it. though. as the Spaniard looked at
me in such sharp way. have an loea
that am being Swallowed. H. =.
"Plesae burn this letter at once"
Poor dark eyes" Perhaps they were not
seeing things, and the owner really was being
Swallowed Certainly her letters were being
intercepted and the parts quoted here snow
not only the methods of the woman spy, but
the semi-hysterical state that some say,
makes her so often useless to her employers.
Like for instance, Bella Donna. The Amer1-
can secret service in Switzerland fooled her,
not so long after the capture of the Master
Here is the story
One of GIGS best stunts, also one of the
biggest practical jokes one army ever
played upon another, was the Alsace ruse.
BY tricks almost Machiavellian, the Germans
were warned of a big American attack In
Alsace to reach the Rhine, when really we
were preparing to attack some distance away.
at ST. Mihiel, and, later even farther away,
in the Meuse-Argonne. Maj. Gen. Omar
Bundy, commanding the 9Th Corps, and his
chief of staff, Brig. Gen. Briant H. Wells,
were sent with staff officers to Belfort, In
French Alsace where they openly established
headquarters and drafted plans for the fake
attack while parties from seven American
divisions reconnoitered French trenches.
Then came a stroke of genius. Col. Conger
wrote Gen. Pershing letter outlining the
fake Alsace attack plan, and saying all that
was needed now was the commander-in-c hiets
o. k. He made carbon copy OF the letter.
Then he threw the crumpled carbon paper
into the wastebasket of his hotel room IN
spy-infested Belfort and went out When he
returned soon afterward the carbon was gone.
The Germans prepared to evacuate Mulhouse,
our objective" moved more troops to AlSace
and made other arrangements showing that
they expected an attack there-an attack that
never came.
CO. handled the Alsace Ruse according to a
law of secret service originated long before
Fraulein Doktor was heard of; whenever pos
sible, keep secret from each of your own agents
what the others are doing To this day, some
Americans who participated think they alone,
or almost alone, were in the secret. Actually,
a number were, Americans and French. There
was, for instance, Capt. A., who after re-
serving billets for Gen. Bundys staff picked
up" in fairly rapid succession, half-dozen of
the more gregarious young ladies of Belfort and
bought each in turn drinks enough to justify
the righteousness with which, in excellent
French and Germans he boosted of the great
American attack that was being prepared.
RELFoRT was less than 20 miles from the
frontier of Switzerland, that great SWITCH
board of the German secret service, whence
news would flash to great headquarters at Spa
and to Berlin In Berne was even better
place to sow the seeds of false information, and
the chief of the American secret service there
was so reminded. The Americans" he in
formed, "are going to make big attack in
Alsace. The German secret service may be in
tereSted to hear about it. See that they do"
He must do that, the American chief re-
f1ected, without disclosing the identities of any
of his men whom the German did not know
already. But he knew that they had spotted
two or three Americans doing some intelligence
work" No harm in using them in the ruse; in
fact, it would distract attention. So few days
later the German chief in Switzerland began
to get reports.
* and Y, suspected American agents" was
their purport "are going to all the libraries and
book stores in Berne, searching for informa-
ton about Alsace. They ask for data about
geography, topography, railroads roads. They
want to buy books or maps, and offer good
prices to overcome the book sellers objection to
violating the Swiss neutrality regulations"
Geography, topography, railroads, roads!
Just what invading army must know about.
The German chief handed those reports to his
best code expert Get them into Germany i'm
mediately!" he ordered. Then he called in
some agents, among them the heroine of this