Myths and Legends of the Second World War (3 page)

While I was talking to him it grew dark, and there was a sudden peal of thunder like an explosion. He said, quite gravely, ‘A Zepp!' That was the state of mind we were all in. That same night my telephone became agitated; it reported the blowing up of a culvert near Aldershot and of a railway bridge in Kent. I had scarcely repeated the information to the proper authority when the bell rang again to tell me that both reports were the figments of some jumpy Reservist patrol.

At the same time the Yard announced that the effect of the new Aliens Restriction Order (ARO) was to place enemy aliens under ‘certain disabilities' in respect of the possession of firearms, motor vehicles, petroleum, homing pigeons, wireless sets and sundry other articles. Aliens were also subjected to strict registration requirements, and barred from prohibited areas, chiefly coastal and military districts. At the same time the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) made espionage a military offence triable by court-martial, under penalty of death.

Taken together, and read at face value, these various reports, rumours and measures gave the impression of constant and widespread espionage activity by desperate enemy agents. Michael McDonagh, a
Times
journalist, kept a valuable journal throughout this period, published in 1935 as
In London During the Great War
. On August 11th McDonagh recorded the general tenor of the perceived spy peril:

That jade Rumour has begun to flap her wings. London is said to be full of German spies. Popular resentment against German tradesmen, principally bakers, provision dealers, watchmakers, waiters and barbers, has developed in some instances into wrecking their shops. It is said that German purveyors of food are putting slow poison in their commodities. As for barbers, it is said you run the risk of having your throat cut by them instead of your hair.

So deep ran the fear of the alien peril that on August 9th the Home Secretary was obliged to issue a formal statement, promising that:

The public can rest assured that the great majority of Germans remaining in this country are peaceful and innocent persons from whom no danger is to be feared.

Predictably, this appeal to reason fell on deaf ears. Between the 11th and the 18th it was reported that no less a figure than the Mayor of Deal had been arrested on suspicion of espionage, and that the cells at Felixstowe were filled to overflowing with men arrested as spies. At Aldershot a military picket claimed to have arrested two men caught cutting telephone wires, and at Fishguard a pair of ‘well-dressed Germans' was detained after their bags were found to contain bombs and wire cutters. As a result of police activity in London, so it was said, enemy reservists and agents had hastily abandoned stockpiled arms, with the result that quantities of rifles and ammunition had been found ‘in waste spaces and unoccupied houses' across the city. At Mile End a council worker was slightly injured after picking up a brass cylinder containing nitroglycerine. In all likelihood, these weapons had been dumped by their owners for fear of attracting at very least a punitive fine under the Aliens Restriction Order, and were hardly the actions of ruthless saboteurs.

The spy mania was particularly rife in garrison towns such as Colchester and Aldershot. In the latter it was widely rumoured in September 1914 that a German had been caught at the waterworks with a quantity of poison concealed inside his shirt. The spy, it was said, had been the ‘chief hairdresser' in Aldershot for 20 years. Writing to his brother in Canada, a local named Oliver gleefully reported that the man:

Was put up against a wall and shot forthwith … As far as I can make out, some hundreds of spies have been shot at naval and military barracks since the opening of the war, though not a single one of the cases has been in the papers.

In the wake of such reports, anti-German paranoia blossomed quickly to manifest itself in a variety of activities. During the first few days of the war these were for the most part petty: German spa water, previously a favourite at fashionable tables, was spurned in favour of English water from Buxton. In theatrical circles it was seen as treason to use Leichner's greasepaint, previously regarded as the best money could buy. The
London Gazette
began to publish a steady stream of official notices of changes in the surnames of British citizens of German origin, and also of shops and companies. A number of firms also took out conspicuous press advertisements to reassure customers that their shareholders and workers were British through and through. Indeed the grocers Liptons were so nettled by unpatriotic smears instigated by their commercial rival Lyons that they threatened to utter a libel writ. On a different level of commerce, German prostitutes in Piccadilly became ‘Belgian' overnight.

However, the spy mania soon took on a more violent hue. Famously, dachshund dogs (though not apparently Alsatians) were put to sleep or attacked in the streets, a persecution which endured so long that in the years following the war the bloodline had to be replenished with foreign stock. Before long this xenophobia resulted in outbreaks of serious violence. As early as August 9th anti-German disturbances broke out in Peterborough, resulting in a reading of the Riot Act. Two days later McDonagh observed in London:

All I could discover as I walked about town is that in the windows of German provision shops, such delicatessen as sauerkraut and liver-sausage are now labelled ‘Good English Viands' and that Union Jacks are being flown over the doors … But these precautions did not save some of the shops in the East End from being plundered. The delicatessen was carried off and eaten, and no doubt it was enjoyed none the less because of its German origin.

On August 12th
The Times
was able to report that only two bakers and a grocer had been physically attacked in the capital, although this figure is probably an underestimate. Their largely sympathetic correspondent went on to state:

So far the evidence goes to show that the perpetrators of acts of violence have not been Englishmen, but the more lawless of the other foreign elements, between some of whom and the German residents feeling always runs high. At present the Germans themselves are for the most part keeping outwardly serene; but not a few are silently disposing of their businesses at any figure that they can get, and are preparing to disappear.

Reports of German atrocities against Belgian and French civilians began to circulate in earnest during the third week of the war. Like the imagined spy peril, reports of German ‘frightfulness' across the Channel were frequently wildly exaggerated, but nonetheless played a part in fuelling xenophobia in Britain. On October 18th riots broke out in Deptford, where for three nights a mob of 5,000 roamed the streets looting German shops and restaurants, starting fires, and singing patriotic songs. Order was restored only by the intervention of 200 police officers and 350 men of the Army Service Corps. The riots triggered by the sinking of the
Lusitania
in May 1915, and the alleged crucifixion of a Canadian soldier at Ypres, were worse still. Outbreaks of mob violence were not confined to the capital, and in Keighley several pork butchers had their shops attacked and looted. According to one eyewitness the hostile crowd was mostly Irish, and drunk, and had been stirred into action by reports of German atrocities in Belgium.

After the initial spate of factual arrests and seizures in August, the spy mania took on an increasingly fantastical aspect as tall stories were further improved by word-of-mouth, or simply invented. The press also played an enthusiastic part in the myth-making, as this vitriolic comment from
The Times
of August 25th clearly demonstrates:

Many of the Germans still in London are unquestionably agents of the German government, however loose the tie may be… . They had in their possession arms, wireless telegraph apparatus, aeroplane equipment, motor-cars, carrier-pigeons, and other material which might be useful to the belligerent. The weapons seized by the police make an extensive armoury. They are more numerous than had been suspected. There are Mausers, rook rifles (strange weapons to be found in London suburbs), and pistols. Some of the rifles are of an old pattern and were obviously used in the Franco-German War of 1870 …

It has been remarked by the observant that German tradesmens' shops are frequently to be found in close proximity to vulnerable points in the chain of London's communications such as railway bridges … The German barber seems to have little time for sabotage. He is chiefly engaged in removing the ‘Kaiser' moustaches of his compatriots. They cannot, however, part with the evidences of their nationality altogether, for the tell-tale hair of the Teuton will show the world that new Smith is but old Schmidt writ small.

Michael McDonagh records some of the wilder spy legends in circulation in Britain by the end of October, at the same time reflecting a degree of scepticism that was all too rare:

A large section of the public continue to suffer from the first bewildering shock of being at war. Their nerves are still jangling, and they are subject to hallucinations. They would seem to be enveloped in a mysterious darkness, haunted by goblins in the form of desperate German spies … The wildest stories are being circulated by these people of outrages committed by Germans in our midst. Attempts have been made to the destroy the permanent ways of railways and wreck trains! Signalmen in their boxes, and armed sentries at bridges, have been overpowered by bands of Germans who have arrived speedily on the scene and, their foul work done, as speedily vanished! Germans have been caught red-handed on the East Coast, signalling with lights to German submarines. Carrier pigeons have been found in German houses! More damnable still, bombs have been discovered in the trunks of German governesses in English country families! The fact that these things are not recorded in the newspapers does not prove them untrue – at least not to those subject to spy mania.

To this stock of rumour and legend McDonagh might have noted that spies had been busy causing 300 horses to stampede at the camp of the Staffordshire Yeomanry at Bishops Stortford, as well as organising hit-and-run attacks in assorted motor vehicles, and the belief that all ‘Germhuns' employed by water boards and gas, electricity and tramway companies were sleepers patiently awaiting the call to sabotage essential utilities on the eve of invasion. Armed bands were raised, and only later brought under official control as the Volunteer Training Corps, a forerunner of the Home Guard a quarter century later. By the time McDonagh wrote the passage quoted above, the Home Office had issued a statement on September 4th intended to calm the panic and sporadic riots:

Articles and correspondence which have been printed in some of the newspapers show that there are symptoms of uneasiness and even alarm in regard to the presence in London and other parts of the country of large numbers of German and Austrian subjects, and stories have been freely circulated of alleged cases of espionage and outrage …

The military authorities and the Home Office had kept observation for a long time on the operations of such persons in all their ramifications, and a large number who were known to be, or suspected of being, engaged in espionage were, when war became inevitable, immediately arrested in different parts of the country. It is believed that the most active of the foreign agents were caught in this way.

Apart from breaches of the regulations, no actual case of outrage has been brought to the notice of the police or the military. A number of statements have appeared in the press, but when these have been investigated they have proved to be without foundation. For instance a few days ago there appeared in the press a circumstantial report of a midnight attack by two men on a signalman. As a result of enquiry it was found that the signalman was suffering from nervous breakdown and there was no truth in his story. There was no suggestion of any attempt to wreck a train.

There have been reports of attacks on police constables by armed motorcyclists, but in no case was the report substantiated. The stampedes of horses at a Yeomanry camp were attributed to malicious persons, but careful enquiries disclosed not even the slightest ground for suspicion. A few cases of aliens having failed to declare possession of a gun or revolver have been suitably dealt with under the Aliens Restriction Order, but the reports of the discovery of secret arsenals are untrue.

However, official denials of spy favourites such as the bludgeoned signalman and the murderous motorcyclist did little to dampen public interest, or credulity. For as the Commons were told in November, 9,000 Germans and Austrians were by then being held in detention camps, while 120,000 reported cases of suspicious activity had been investigated, and 6,000 properties searched. For many the figures spoke for themselves, so much so that during its first week of publication in 1915, the sensationalist book
German Spies in London
sold an equally impressive 40,000 copies. McDonagh again:

What about the Press Censorship? The Government deny that there is any foundation whatever for the rumours; but then the Government – these people argue – are not going to admit what everyone knows them to be – footlers, blind as bats to what is going on around them. Why, they have even failed to see that tennis courts in country houses occupied by the Germans were really gun platforms.

The myth of secret enemy gun platforms was one of the most widespread and enduring falsehoods prevalent on the Home Front. The rumour first entered into circulation after a war correspondent described how the Germans had utilized secret gun emplacements disguised as tennis courts during their bombardment of Mauberge. In the event of a German invasion of Britain, it was whispered, hidden artillery would be wheeled out, or raised from underground hides, to assist in the destruction of key points within range. The Reverend Andrew Clark, the parish vicar at Great Leighs near Chelmsford, recorded a local rumour from December 1914:

Miss Gold says that in Little Waltham the populace have discovered another German fort: ‘Cranhams' was owned by Herr Wagner, who is now said to be an Austrian. Formerly some called him a Russian, others a Pole. The villagers say that at Cranhams, (a) there is a concrete floor for the emplacement of heavy guns of a fort which would command Chelmsford and the Marconi works there; and (b) there is a store of arms and ammunition.