The Secret of the German war Office

by Armgaard Karl Graves, Edward Lyell Fox

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Genres: History

286 pages, Hardcover

Published August 23, 2015

Reviews

[Thomas Schulte]

I really enjoyed reading this, but find the most exciting parts hard to believe. Most of the book is the autobiographical details of a gentleman spy plying his craft in exotic, urbane locales. All that is well and good enough, but a pre-WW I secret Black Forest meeting with German military leads, Austrians, and British leaders including Churchill and Haldane (British Secretary of State for War) agreeing to support or allow Russia pushed out of Europe at the cost of the Slavs and Antwerp going to Germany! Well, then again Haldane was pushed out of the government for German sympathies and apparently the author's report is substantatiated by the documented Haldane Mission. It seems the more I read, the more interesting and complex pre-WW I Europe was.

However, the exiting relation at the end of super Zeppelin "X 15" machines hidden in secret bases and filled with exotic, nonflammable gases which can reach perilous heights and go over a 1000 kilometers with heavy bomb loads all strains credulity and at least on the Web I haven't found any source for these superweapons beyond the author.

Still, the feeling that Armgaard wasn't Zelig and imagined more than he experienced is overwhelming. Characters like lady spy Olga Bruder feel like they could have been inspired by the Maugham Somerset Maugham story "Miss King", a story collected in Collected Short Stories: Volume 3 of 4 where Maugham disclaims in the preface, "The works of an agent in the Intelligence Department is on the whole monotonous. A lot of it is uncommonly useless. The material it offers for short stories is scrappy and pointless; the author has himself to make it coherent, dramatic, and probable. That is what I have tried to do in this particular series."

Maybe Armgaard's intelligence work was similarly blah and he just meant to make it coherent and dramatic if not probable.

[Greg Leatherman]

Although there are a lot of serious questions over whether "Graves" (not his real name) was the "master spy" he claimed to be, this book is useful as an overview of the attitudes that led Germany into WWI.

For example, Graves accurately predicts that the first nation Germany will attack will be Belgium-- with France and its colonial empire as their ultimate aim. He also predicted that the invasion would be precipitated by the death of Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph. Instead, it was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the presumed heir of the emperor (close enough for hand grenades, as they say). Although less startling in retrospect, he also predicted the use of zeppelins as bombers.

As this book was first published in Jan 1914, Graves clearly had some predictive insight, but he gets other points quite wrong (e.g., he says Britain and Germany would never go to war against each other). In some places, his views suggest he read Friedrich von Bernhardi's "Germany and The Next War" in German before publishing his own work.

Either way, this book, its sequel, and its mysterious author are fascinating enigmas.

Without speculating over who Graves really worked for, I suspect the only way to uncover who Graves was would be a FOIA-based inquiry. Anyways, a historian should attempt to write a biography of Graves, as the little research I've done suggests he was quite an interesting, if dubious character.

[Arjen Koomen]

This book is divided into two parts. One covering the life of the author during his practicalities in spycraft in multiple countries like Russia and England. Using his famous ‘strawberry’-technique which was also picked up by the FBI. The author’s life sounds plausible while some parts feel made up. Furthermore it was interesting that this spy used the same identity multiple times and how easily he defected to the British. The second part of the book is about power dynamics and international relations in Europe before WWI. The author sketches a near similar prediction about the conditions for war. Noting Russia’s clamor for power in the Balkan and in Scandinavia, and Germany’s build up of armaments. Only a spark was needed to ignite the explosive vat that is called Europe. All in all a good read, but important to stay skeptical

[Diane]

a very interesting read about a real-life german spy prior to WWI. a shame the book didn't go on to cover the author's life prior to his becoming a spy and post his being turned into a double agent!