Further, as an ex-member of the Intelligence Staff, the writer has had access to information respecting the British secret service which is not generally available, but patriotic motives would alone be sufficient to withhold this information. All that is said with regard to the British methods of counter-espionage, or with regard to the measures adopted by any other Government against German spying, is compiled from information available in the columns of the Press to all who care to read. The book is written in the earnest hope that it may do something toward revealing the nature of the German spy system to incredulous folk, for by opening the eyes of the public to such a definite danger one is a step nearer to the crushing of German militarism. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Author. CHAPTER ONE. A REVIEW OF THE SPY SYSTEM. In all things pertaining to the conduct of war Germany of to-day has copied as far as possible the methods of Napoleon the First. In military strategy, German experts have fallen far behind their model--or rather, they have never approached his methods, because they have never fathomed the secret of his success. Von Clausewitz, the greatest German military writer, planned his "On War" on Napoleonic lines, but left out the greatest factor of Napoleon's work. As he saw the work of the great conqueror, Napoleon made use of accident: in reality, Napoleon made the accident, and this Von Clausewitz could not comprehend. French genius rediscovered the Napoleon strategy, but even unto this day German military methods leave out the idea of making circumstances instead of being limited by them. Thus, in striving to attain the Napoleonic ideal in things military, Germany has failed. But Napoleon established a new branch of military organisation when he codified and arranged a system of espionage, and, in adopting from him this systematisation of what had hitherto been a haphazard business, German builders for a world-empire have gone far beyond their model, so that to-day the German spy system is the most perfect ever organised, not even excepting the system of Venice in its palmy days, where all was written and nothing spoken, nor that of Russia in comparatively modern times.