[Illustration: Photograph]
A BELGIAN MILITARY OBSERVATION BALLOON
Large numbers of these balloons, which came to be known as sausages,
were used by the Allied armies on all fronts.
The German secret service report from which the above excerpt is taken
states that the maker of the bomb was paid by check No. 146 for $150
drawn on the Riggs National Bank of Washington. A photographic copy of
this check shows that it was payable to Paul Koenig, of the
Hamburg-American Line, and was signed by Captain von Papen. On the
counterfoil is written this memorandum, "For F. J. Busse." Busse
confessed later that he had discussed with Captain von Papen at the
German Club in New York City the plan of damaging the boilers of
munition ships with bombs which resembled lumps of coal.
Free access to Allied ships laden with supplies for Vladivostok would
have been invaluable to the conspirators, and in order to obtain it
Charles C. Crowley, a detective employed by Consul-General Bopp,
resorted to the extraordinary scheme revealed in the following letter to
Madam Bakhmeteff, wife of the Russian Ambassador to the United States:
MME J. BAKHMETEFF, care Imperial Russian Embassy, Newport, R. I.: DEAR
MADAM:--By direction of the Imperial Russian Consul-General of San
Francisco, I beg to submit the following on behalf of several
fruit-growers of the State of California.
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