This is the true inside story of the invasion of England in 1911 by the Germans, and why it failed.I got my data from Baron von Gottlieb, at the time military attach?of the German Government with the Russian army in the second Russian-Japanese War, when Russia drove Japan out of Manchuria, and reduced her to a third-rate power.He told me of his part in the invasion as we sat, after the bombardment of Tokio, on the ramparts of the Emperor's palace, watching the walls of the paper houses below us glowing and smoking like the ashes of a prairie fire.
Two years before, at the time of the invasion, von Gottlieb had been Carl Schultz, the head-waiter at the East Cliff Hotel at Cromer, and a spy.
The other end of the story came to me through Lester Ford, the London correspondent of the New York Republic.They gave me permission to tell it in any fashion I pleased, and it is here set down for the first time.
In telling the story, my conscience is not in the least disturbed, for I have yet to find any one who will believe it.
What led directly to the invasion was that some week-end guest of the East Cliff Hotel left a copy of "The Riddle of the Sands" in the coffee-room, where von Gottlieb found it;and the fact that Ford attended the Shakespeare Ball.Had neither of these events taken place, the German flag might now be flying over Buckingham Palace.And, then again, it might not.
As every German knows, "The Riddle of the Sands" is a novel written by a very clever Englishman in which is disclosed a plan for the invasion of his country.According to this plan an army of infantry was to be embarked in lighters, towed by shallow-draft, sea-going tugs, and despatched simultaneously from the seven rivers that form the Frisian Isles.From there they were to be convoyed by battle-ships two hundred and forty miles through the North Sea, and thrown upon the coast of Norfolk somewhere between the Wash and Mundesley.The fact that this coast is low-lying and bordered by sand flats which at low water are dry, that England maintains no North Sea squadron, and that her nearest naval base is at Chatham, seem to point to it as the spot best adapted for such a raid.
What von Gottlieb thought was evidenced by the fact that as soon as he read the book he mailed it to the German Ambassador in London, and under separate cover sent him a letter.In this he said: "I suggest your Excellency bring this book to the notice of a certain royal personage, and of the Strategy Board.General Bolivar said, 'When you want arms, take them from the enemy.' Does not this also follow when you want ideas?"What the Strategy Board thought of the plan is a matter of history.This was in 1910.A year later, during the coronation week, Lester Ford went to Clarkson's to rent a monk's robe in which to appear at the Shakespeare Ball, and while the assistant departed in search of the robe, Ford was left alone in a small room hung with full-length mirrors and shelves, and packed with the uniforms that Clarkson rents for Covent Garden balls and ******* theatricals.While waiting, Ford gratified a long, secretly cherished desire to behold himself as a military man, by trying on all the uniforms on the lower shelves; and as a result, when the assistant returned, instead of finding a young American in English clothes and a high hat, he was confronted by a German officer in a spiked helmet fighting a duel with himself in the mirror.The assistant retreated precipitately, and Ford, conscious that he appeared ridiculous, tried to turn the tables by saying, " Does a German uniform always affect a Territorial like that?"The assistant laughed good-naturedly.
"It did give me quite a turn," he said."It's this talk of invasion, I fancy.But for a fact, sir, if I was a Coast Guard, and you came along the beach dressed like that, I'd take a shot at you, just on the chance, anyway.""And, quite right, too!" said Ford.
He was wondering when the invasion did come whether he would stick at his post in London and dutifully forward the news to his paper, or play truant and as a war correspondent watch the news in the ******.So the words of Mr.Clarkson's assistant did not sink in.But a few weeks later young Major Bellew recalled them.Bellew was giving a dinner on the terrace of the Savoy Restaurant.His guests were his nephew, young Herbert, who was only five years younger than his uncle, and Herbert's friend Birrell, an Irishman, both in their third term at the university.After five years' service in India, Bellew had spent the last "Eights" week at Oxford, and was complaining bitterly that since his day the undergraduate had deteriorated.He had found him serious, given to study, far too well behaved.Instead of Jorrocks, he read Galsworthy; instead of "wines" he found pleasure in debating clubs where he discussed socialism.Ragging, practical jokes, ingenious hoaxes, that once were wont to set England in a roar, were a lost art.His undergraduate guests combated these charges fiercely.His criticisms they declared unjust and without intelligence.
"You're talking rot!" said his dutiful nephew."Take Phil here, for example.I've roomed with him three years and I can testify that he has never opened a book.He never heard of Galsworthy until you spoke of him.And you can see for yourself his table manners are quite as bad as yours!""Worse!" assented Birrell loyally.