Scotland had an importance in our scheme which many people have made the mistake of under-estimating. To appreciate that importance, let us examine the nature of the German Plan in the event of war. Britain’s strength and weakness lay in her great extent and in the homogeneous nature of her people. In this respect she resembled the Royal and Imperial Empire of Austria-Hungary, with its German, Magyar, Czec, Slav and Jugo-Slav, Italian, Serbian, and Roumanian subjects. Austria-Hungary, however, had this advantage, that whatever views might be held, whatever dissatisfaction and dissensions might exist amongst the peoples, the Empire was organised for control by a certain authority. Britain was not so organised. The English hated the Irish, the Welsh hated the English, the Scotch despised both, and the Irish hated everybody, including themselves. At the outbreak of war the north and south of Ireland were on the brink of civil war, a great strike was pending in Wales (of this more anon), and the Scottish industrial classes, particularly on the Clyde, were in a state of unrest. Outside of the island kingdoms we had an Egypt ripe for rebellion, with the Khedive on our side, we had India seething with sedition, and South Africa organised for revolt under two of the most popular of the Boer Generals in De la Rey and De Wet. Our task was, of course, to drive the wedges of dissension still deeper, and largely my work was specialised in this direction, for now the routine of gathering naval and military information was so smoothly-running that there was nothing for me to do but to sort out the news which came to me and pass it along to the proper quarters. And here I might explain that there were in reality two branches of Investigation. There was my own, which comprehended all the hackwork of espionage and propaganda, and there was the Higher Service with which I was seldom brought into contact. The Higher Service was unpaid but skilfully organised. Its members were practically unknown to one another, though most of them were known to me and watched by my agents. We Germans leave nothing to chance. In Scotland, living not a very long way from Dundee, was one whom for certain reasons I regarded as a good friend of ours and who was known locally as “Mr. Brown from Australia.” He had a cottage in the loveliest part of the Highlands,[4] where he lived for three months in the year, spending his time in fishing one of the little rivers in the neighbourhood. Beyond that he was eccentric and had had a big flag-staff erected before his cottage on which he used to fly the Australian flag, little was known of him. He had few visitors. His cottage was on an inhospitable spur of the hills, which was more often than not wreathed in the low-lying clouds or mists which seem to be a permanent feature of this country.