Horst Goltz - My Adventures as a German Secret Service Agent

Señor Diaz started for Japan but he never arrived there. Somehow the State Department at Washington got news of the proposed treaty how, only the German agents know and Señor Diaz's course was diverted.

Meanwhile, in spite of the strained relations between Huerta and Washington, Germany was aiding the Mexican President with money and supplies. In the north, Consuls Kueck of Chihuahua, Sommer of Durango, Müller of Hermosillo, and Weber of Juarez were exhibiting the same interest in the Huertista troops that they had formerly displayed towards Orozco. Kueck, as I happened to learn later, had financed Salvator Mercado, the general who had so obligingly tried to have me shot; and at the same time he was assiduously spreading reports of unrest in Mexico, and even attempted to bribe some Germans to leave the country, upon the plea that their lives were in danger.

When I raided the German Consulate at Chihuahua, I found striking documentary proof of his activities in this direction. There were letters there proving that he had paid to various Germans sums ranging as high as fifty dollars a month, upon condition that they should remain outside of Mexico. These letters, in many cases, showed plainly that this was done in order to make it seem that the unrest was endangering the lives of foreign inhabitants, in spite of which several of the recipients complained that their absence from Mexico was causing them considerable financial loss, and showed an evident desire to brave whatever dangers there might be if they could secure the permission of Consul Kueck.

During the year and more that Huerta held power, Germany followed the same tactics, I need not mention the attempt to supply Huerta with munitions after the United States had declared an embargo upon them; or that it has been generally admitted that the real purpose of the seizure of Vera Cruz by United States marines was to prevent the German steamer Ypiranga from delivering her cargo of arms to the Mexicans. That is but one instance of the way in which ^German policy worked a policy which, as I have indicated, was opposed to the true interests of Mexico, and has been solely directed against the United States. Up to the very outbreak of the war it continued. After Villa's breach with Carranza, emissaries of Consul Kueck approached the former with offers of assistance. Strangely enough, he rejected them, principally because he hates the Germans for the assistance they gave his old enemy, Orozco. Villa had, moreover, a personal grudge against Kueck. When General Mercado was defeated at Ojinaga, papers were found in his effects that implicated the Consul in a conspiracy against the Constitutionalists, although at the time Kueck professed friendship for Villa and was secretly doing all he could to increase the friction that existed between the general and Mercado. Villa had sworn vengeance against the double-dealer; and Kueck, in alarm, fled into the United States.

With the outbreak of the Great War the situation changed in one important particular. Heretofore, German activities had been part of a plan of attack upon the prestige of the United States. Now they became necessary as a measure of defence. Before two months had passed it became evident to the German Government that the United States must be forced into a war with Mexico in order to prevent the shipment of munitions to Europe.

So began the last stage of the German intrigue in Mexico an intrigue which still continues. As a preliminary step, Germany had organised her own citizens in that country into a well-drilled military unit a little matter which Captain von Papen had attended to during the spring of 1914. One can read much between the lines of the report sent to the Imperial Chancellor by Admiral von Hintze, commenting upon the work of Captain von Papen in this direction. The admiral says in part:

"He showed especial industry in organising the Germany colony for purposes of self-defence, and out of this shy and factious material, unwilling to undertake any military activity, he obtained what there was to be got."

Von Hintze significantly recommends that the captain should be decorated with the fourth class of the Order of the Red Eagle.

As related in Chapter IX., I left Germany in October of 1914 with a detailed plan of campaign for the "American front," as Dr. Albert once put it. My final instructions were simple and explicit.

"There must be constant uprisings in Mexico," I was told in effect. "Villa, Carranza, must be reached. Zapata must continue his maraudings. It does not matter in the least how you produce these results. Merely produce them. All Consuls have been instructed to furnish you with whatever sums you need and they will not ask you any questions."

Rather complete, was it not? I left with every intention of carrying the instructions out and in a little over a week was made hors de combat. It was then that von Rintelen, who had already planned to come over to the United States in order to inaugurate a vast blockade-running system, undertook to add my undertaking to his own responsibilities.

What von Rintelen did is well known, so I shall only summarise it here. His first act was an attempted restitution of General Huerta, which he knew was the most certain method of causing intervention. Into this enterprise both Boy-Ed and von Papen were impressed, and the three men set about the task of making arrangements with former Huertistas for a new uprising to be financed by German money. They sent agents to Barcelona to persuade the former Dictator to enter into the scheme; and finally, when the General was on his way to America, they attempted to arrange it so that he should arrive safely in New York and ultimately in Mexico. It was a plan remarkably well conceived and well executed. It would have succeeded but for one thing. General Huerta was captured by the United States authorities at the very moment that he tried to cross from Texas into Mexico!

But the indomitable von Rintelen was not discouraged. He had but one purpose to make trouble and he made it with a will. He sent money to Villa, and then, like the philanthropist in Chesterton's play, supported the other side by aiding Carranza, financing Zapata and starting two other revolutions in Mexico. Meanwhile anti- American feeling continued to be stirred up, German papers in Mexico presented the Fatherland's case as eloquently as they did elsewhere, and to a far more appreciative audience. Carranza was encouraged in his rather unfriendly attitude towards Washington. In a word, no step was neglected which would embarrass the Wilson Administration and make peace between the two countries less certain or more difficult to maintain.

Need I complete the story? Is it necessary to tell how, after the recall of von Papen and Boy-Ed and the escape of von Rintelen, Mexico continued to be used as the catspaw of the German plotters? Everyone knows the events of the last few months; of the concentration of German reservists in various parts of Mexico; of the bitter attacks made upon the United States by pro-German newspapers; and of the reports, greatly exaggerating German activities in Mexico, which have been circulated with the direct intention of provoking still more ill-feeling between the two countries by leading Americans to believe that Mexico is honeycombed with German conspiracies.

These activities have not applied to Mexico alone. It is significant that twice in February of 1917 the Venezuelan Government has declined to approve of the request of President Wilson that other neutral nations should join him in breaking diplomatic relations with Germany as a protest against submarine warfare, and that many Venezuelan papers have stated that this refusal is due to the representations of resident Germans, who are many and influential. These are, of course, legitimate activities, but they are in every case attended by a threat. Revolutions are easily begun in Latin America, and the obstinate Government can always be brought to a reasonable viewpoint by the example of recent uprisings or revolutions, financed by Germany, in Costa Rica, Peru and Cuba. Within a very recent time rumours were afloat in Venezuela that Germany had assisted General Cipriano Castro in the revolutionary movement that he had been organising in Porto Rico. It was reported that there were on the Colombian frontier many disaffected persons who would gladly join Castro if he landed in Colombia and marched on Caracas, as he did successfully in 1890.