ON THE GERMAN-SWISS FRONTIER NEAR BASEL (BALE).
ITALIANS RETURNING FROM BELLIGERENT COUNTRIES ON THE DECLARATION OF WAR ARRIVE HUNGRY AND TIRED AT BASEL (BALE).
ON THE GERMAN-SWISS FRONTIER.
INTERNED FRENCH SOLDIERS EMPLOYED IN AGRICULTURAL WORK AT ERIENZ.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/german-agents-in-switzerland-gzcp67nrw?CMP=TNLEmail_118918_1779768
German agents in Switzerland
Mr Grant Duff, the British Minister, has more than once been the object of malicious calumnies, clearly designed to weaken his influence, and therefore that of England
January 24, 1916
On Friday an article was published in The Times on the arrest of two Correspondents of The Times in Switzerland, and on Saturday another, on the subject of the Swiss Etat Major. One of the main objects underlying these articles was to call renewed attention to the way in which the many difficulties which the Swiss Government and people are inevitably called upon to face during the war are increased by the untiring efforts of German agents, high and low, in all parts of the country. Sometimes the ostensible object of the work of these industrious Teutons is to prepare the way for peace - a pax Germanica - as was supposed to be the case with Prince Bulow’s gigantic organization at Lucerne. Sometimes, as in certain Circles in Geneva, it aims at stirring up strife in other countries, such as India, where it is likely to be embarrassing to the cause of the Allies and especially of England. Sometimes, as at Lugano and on the Italian frontier and in one or two of the German Consulates, it moves in more mysterious ways, and the only thing certain about it is that its tendency is inimical and dangerous to England, France, Italy, and Russia, and, incidentally, to everyone who may be presumed to have the interests of those countries at heart.
UNDERGROUND MANOEUVRES.
Naturally, nearly the whole of this work is done below the surface, and, therefore, except in rare instances, it is almost impossible for the Swiss Government to deal with it, however neutrally they may be disposed, and however mischievous and harmful to their own country they may consider it. That they have the wish to suppress it is certain. In January last the then President, M Motta,in the course of a conversation with a special Correspondent of The Times, made use of the following significant phrase: “Whoever violates our neutrality will free us to become the allies of his enemy.” And without doubt the use of Switzerland for much of the propaganda and plotting carried on by these German agents, since it has a tendency to draw the country against its will nearer to the brink of war, is a distinct violation of its neutrality.
Nor is it all underground work. Much of it has been done, especially in the first months of the war, in a certain section of the Swiss Press which is notoriously financed by German money, and even controlled by German editors. One of these newspapers, La Depeche Suisse, published but not written in Geneva, was in October, 1914, suppressed by the Swiss authorities, and the Government at about the same time prohibited the circulation in Switzerland of the notorious Munich weekly, Simplicissimus. It is also significant of the change of feeling which has taken place in the German-speaking cantons that the tone of the German-Swiss newspapers is not nearly so violently pro-German and unfair and hostile to the Allies as it used to be. The proprietors have learnt that their readers are not as much attracted by that particular presentation and distortion of the facts, as they used to be.
BRITISH MINISTER CALUMNIATED
One point which must have been especially troublesome to the Swiss Government is that both in this special section of the German-Swiss Press and in other quarters this German influence has been particularly violent in attacking and inconveniencing the diplomatic representatives of the Allied Powers resident in Berne. Mr Grant Duff, the British Minister, has more than once been the object of malicious calumnies, clearly designed to weaken his influence, and therefore that of England. He was actually publicly accused in a German newspaper of having taken observations of Friedrichshafen from the neutral soil of Romanshorn, and another charge made against him was that he had endeavoured to persuade the President to lease to the British Government for the duration of the war the St Gothard wireless station. In both instances the Swiss Government publicly contradicted these lying absurdities, the German source of which was made perfectly evident. But even in Switzerland itself there have been “incidents,” in which Mr Grant Duff was not the only sufferer, which ought not to have happened to the diplomatic representatives of friendly Powers. On one occasion the motor-cars of the French, Italian, and British Ministers were held up on the public road by a squad of soldiers with fixed bayonets, and on another they were refused admittance to an invitation lecture, which was to have been given in Berne, on the atrocities in Belgium, although they had taken the precaution, before accepting their invitations, to ascertain from the police and from a still higher authority that the delivery of the lecture was officially authorized.
Nor are these the only instances of similar gaffes. There have been others, and it is unfortunate, as has been remarked more than once in the French-Swiss Press, that the victims of them always happen to belong to the same side - the side, that is to say, of the Allies. Perhaps a firmer support of those official victims by the Governments which they represent would have led to their being less frequent. In Switzerland itself these “unfortunate incidents” are popularly attributed, in a large part of the country, to the German influences and militarist tendencies with which, from the Federal Council downwards, the people as a whole are showing signs of being utterly wearied and disgusted.
“We have good will towards all the nations,” said President Motta in the conversation to which I referred above. That is and must be the motto of a united Switzerland. But it is a motto which cannot be truly and effectively carried out unless these under- ground influences of one of the nations-of Germany-are firmly and sternly repressed whenever and wherever they show their ugly heads.
UNDERGROUND MANOEUVRES.
Naturally, nearly the whole of this work is done below the surface, and, therefore, except in rare instances, it is almost impossible for the Swiss Government to deal with it, however neutrally they may be disposed, and however mischievous and harmful to their own country they may consider it. That they have the wish to suppress it is certain. In January last the then President, M Motta,in the course of a conversation with a special Correspondent of The Times, made use of the following significant phrase: “Whoever violates our neutrality will free us to become the allies of his enemy.” And without doubt the use of Switzerland for much of the propaganda and plotting carried on by these German agents, since it has a tendency to draw the country against its will nearer to the brink of war, is a distinct violation of its neutrality.
Nor is it all underground work. Much of it has been done, especially in the first months of the war, in a certain section of the Swiss Press which is notoriously financed by German money, and even controlled by German editors. One of these newspapers, La Depeche Suisse, published but not written in Geneva, was in October, 1914, suppressed by the Swiss authorities, and the Government at about the same time prohibited the circulation in Switzerland of the notorious Munich weekly, Simplicissimus. It is also significant of the change of feeling which has taken place in the German-speaking cantons that the tone of the German-Swiss newspapers is not nearly so violently pro-German and unfair and hostile to the Allies as it used to be. The proprietors have learnt that their readers are not as much attracted by that particular presentation and distortion of the facts, as they used to be.
BRITISH MINISTER CALUMNIATED
One point which must have been especially troublesome to the Swiss Government is that both in this special section of the German-Swiss Press and in other quarters this German influence has been particularly violent in attacking and inconveniencing the diplomatic representatives of the Allied Powers resident in Berne. Mr Grant Duff, the British Minister, has more than once been the object of malicious calumnies, clearly designed to weaken his influence, and therefore that of England. He was actually publicly accused in a German newspaper of having taken observations of Friedrichshafen from the neutral soil of Romanshorn, and another charge made against him was that he had endeavoured to persuade the President to lease to the British Government for the duration of the war the St Gothard wireless station. In both instances the Swiss Government publicly contradicted these lying absurdities, the German source of which was made perfectly evident. But even in Switzerland itself there have been “incidents,” in which Mr Grant Duff was not the only sufferer, which ought not to have happened to the diplomatic representatives of friendly Powers. On one occasion the motor-cars of the French, Italian, and British Ministers were held up on the public road by a squad of soldiers with fixed bayonets, and on another they were refused admittance to an invitation lecture, which was to have been given in Berne, on the atrocities in Belgium, although they had taken the precaution, before accepting their invitations, to ascertain from the police and from a still higher authority that the delivery of the lecture was officially authorized.
Nor are these the only instances of similar gaffes. There have been others, and it is unfortunate, as has been remarked more than once in the French-Swiss Press, that the victims of them always happen to belong to the same side - the side, that is to say, of the Allies. Perhaps a firmer support of those official victims by the Governments which they represent would have led to their being less frequent. In Switzerland itself these “unfortunate incidents” are popularly attributed, in a large part of the country, to the German influences and militarist tendencies with which, from the Federal Council downwards, the people as a whole are showing signs of being utterly wearied and disgusted.
“We have good will towards all the nations,” said President Motta in the conversation to which I referred above. That is and must be the motto of a united Switzerland. But it is a motto which cannot be truly and effectively carried out unless these under- ground influences of one of the nations-of Germany-are firmly and sternly repressed whenever and wherever they show their ugly heads.
