Horst Goltz - My Adventures as a German Secret Service Agent

Now mark the trail of German intrigue. In Mexico City, warmly supporting the Madero Government, but of little real power in the country, was the German Minister, Admiral von Hintze. In normal circumstances, his influence would have been of great value in helping to render secure the position of Madero; but with means of communication disrupted as they were to a large extent, his power was inconceivably smaller than that of the German Consuls, all of whom were well liked and respected by the Mexicans with whom they were in close touch. Apart from their political office, these men represented German business interests in Mexico, particularly in the fields of hardware and banking. In the three northern cities of Parral, Chihuahua and Zacatecas, the German Consuls were hardware merchants. In Torreon the Consul was director of the German bank. As such it would seem that it was to their interests to work for the preservation of a stable government in Mexico. And yet the fact remains that when Orozco first began to show signs of discontent, these men encouraged him with a support that was both moral and financial; and when the general finally turned traitor, it was my old friend, Consul Kueck, who, as President of the Chamber of Commerce of Chihuahua, voted to support him and to recognise Orozco's supremacy in that State!

I leave it to the reader to decide whether it was the Minister or the Consuls who really represented the German Government.

It would be idle to attempt to trace more than in the briefest way Germany's part in the events of the next few years. Always she followed a policy of obstruction and deceit. During the months immediately succeeding the Orozco outbreak, at the very moment that von Hintze was lending his every effort to the preservation of the Madero regime, sending to Berlin reports which over and over again reiterated his belief that Madero could, if given a free hand, restore order in the Republic, the German Consuls were openly fomenting disorder in the north.

They were particularly well equipped to make trouble, by their position in the community and by the character and reputation of the rest of the German population. It may be said with safety that however careless Germany has been about the quality of the men whom she has allowed to emigrate to other countries, her representatives throughout all of Latin- America have been conspicuous for their commercial attainments and for I their social adaptability. This, in a large way, has been responsible for the German commercial success in Central and South America. As bankers they have been honest and obliging in the matter of credit. As merchants they have adapted themselves to the local conditions and to the habits of their customers with notable success. In consequence they have been well liked as individuals and have been of immense value in increasing the prestige of the German Empire. In Mexico they were the only foreigners who were not disliked by either peon or aristocrat; and it is significant to note that during seven years of unrest in that country, Germans alone among peoples of European stock have remained practically unmolested by any party.

Consider of what service this condition was in their campaign. Respected and influential, they were in an excellent position to stimulate whatever anti- American feeling existed in Latin American countries. At the same time, they were equally well situated to encourage the unrest in Mexico that would be the surest guarantee of American intervention and the coalition against the United States which intervention would be certain to provoke. They made the utmost use of their advantage, and they did it without arousing suspicion or rebuke.

After the failure of the short-lived Orozco outbreak, events in Mexico seemed to promise a peaceful solution of all difficulties. Many of Madero's opponents declared a truce, and the irreconcilables were forced to bide their time in apparent harmlessness. In November came the rebellion of Felix Diaz, fathered by a miscellaneous group of conspirators who hoped to find in the nephewsufficient of the characteristics of the great Porfirio to serve their purposes. This venture failed also. Again Madero showed a mistaken leniency in preserving the life of Diaz. He paid for it with his life. Out of this uprising came the coup d'etat of General Huerta made possible by a dual treachery and the murder of the only man who at the time gave promise of eventually solving the Mexican problem.

What share German agents had in that tragic affair I do not know. You may be sure that they took advantage of any opportunity that presented itself to encourage the conspirators in a project that gave such rich promise of aiding them in their purposes. I pass on to the next positive step in their campaign. That was a repetition of their old plan of inserting the Japanese question into the general muddle.

The Japanese question in Mexico is a very real one. I know and the United States Government presumably knows, also that Japan is the only nation which has succeeded in gaining a permanent foothold in Mexico. I know that spies and secret agents in the guise of pedlars, engineers, fishermen, farmers, charcoal-burners, merchants, and even officers in the armies of every Mexican leader have been scattered throughout the country. The number of these latter I have heard estimated at about eight hundred; at any rate it is considerable. There are also about ten thousand Japanese who have no direct connection with Tokio, but who are practically all men of military age, either unmarried or without wives in Mexico most of them belonging to the army or navy reserve. And, like the Germans, the Japanese never lose their connection with the Government in their capacity as private individuals.

Through the great Government-owned steamship line, the Toyo Risen Kaisha, the Japanese Government controls the land for a Japanese coaling station at Manzanillo. At Acapulco a Japanese company holds a land concession on a high hill three miles from the sea. It is difficult to see what legitimate use a fishing company could make of this location. It is, however, an ideal site for a wireless station. In Mexico City an intimate friend of the Japanese Charge d' Affaires owns a fortress-like building in the very heart of the capital. Another Japanese holds, under a ninetynine years' lease, an L-shaped strip of land partly surrounding and completely commanding the waterworks of the capital of Oxichimilco. The land is undeveloped. Both of these Japanese are well supplied with money and have been living in Mexico City for several years. Neither has any visible means of support. And in all of the years of revolution in Mexico no Japanese has been killed except by Villa. He has caused many of them to be executed, but always those that were masquerading as Chinese. Naturally a Government cannot protest in such circumstances.

These facts may or may not be significant. . They serve to lend colour to the convictions of anti-Japanese agitators in the United States, and as such they have been of value to Germany. Accordingly it was suggested to Señor Huerta that an alliance with Japan would be an excellent protective measure for him to take.

Huerta had two reasons for looking with favour upon this proposal. He was very decidedly in the bad graces of Washington, and he was constantly menaced by the presence in Mexico of Felix Diaz, to whom he had agreed to resign the Presidency. Diaz was too popular to be shot, too strong politically to be exiled, and yet he must be removed. Here, thought Huerta, was an opportunity of killing two birds with one stone. He therefore sent Diaz to Japan, ostensibly to thank the Japanese Government for its participation in the Mexican Centennial celebration, three years before, but in reality to begin negotiations for a treaty which should follow the lines of one unsuccessfully promulgated in 1911.