The British intelligence station in San Francisco during the First World War

Abstract

During World War I, a network of Indian revolutionaries with the logistical aid of Irish nationalists and the financial aid of German agents made efforts to smuggle guns from the United States to India for a revolt against the British Raj. British agents established a forward intelligence station in San Francisco to aid American authorities in halting and prosecuting these violations of US neutrality laws. This article describes these lesser-known activities of British intelligence working with American authorities in San Francisco with the argument that this station was just as active and important as the better-known New York station of British intelligence.

Keywords:

• Andrew Carnegie Ross
• Robert Nathan
• Norman Thwaites
• and Godfrey (George) Denham

During World War I, an improvised station of British intelligence at the San Francisco consulate led a network of agents from Indian Police, Naval Intelligence (NID), the fledgling Security Service (MI5) and Secret Intelligence Service (MI1c, later MI6), as well as dozens of informants, double-agents and private detectives to infiltrate, subvert and expose several Indo–German–Irish conspiracies in North America. This station managed the American investigation of German violations of the US Neutrality Code (1794) and defined the outcome of the San Francisco trials with consequences that rippled across German, Irish and Indian networks. For reasons later explained, accounts of this episode intentionally and unintentionally buried the record of these British operations such that it continues to evade close attention. This episode was no trivial matter as it involved the birth and rapid evolution of British and American intelligence services, modern Indian and Irish nationalism, the Anglo–American alliance, the longest and most expensive trial in American history at the time, and two defendants shot dead in the courtroom.

A short summary of the Indo–German–Irish conspiracies on the West Coast is helpful. The German consulate in the Bay Area illegally coordinated shipments of coal to German warships in the Pacific, attempted to purchase industrial resources in California to aid Germany or at least hinder Britain, and led violent activities that included the bombing of a barge in Seattle as well as bombing attempts in Canada. The largest conspiracy was the attempt to smuggle arms from the United States to India for a revolt against the Raj. In 1915–1916, some shipments were successful through routes that involved the Dutch East Indies, the Philippines, Siam, and Burma. One major shipment aboard the schooner Annie Larsen failed to rendezvous with the steamer Maverick for transport to Calcutta and became the focus of the largest San Francisco neutrality trial. German Embassy Military Attaché Franz von Papen funded the January 1915 Maverick–Annie Larsen arms purchase, which Irish republican Joseph McGarrity completed in New York. These guns were shipped via an Irish–American shipping company to Galveston, Texas, and then by rail to San Diego and the Annie Larsen. ¹ Due to increased attention, the Annie Larsen left too early (departure 8 March 1915, San Diego) for the Maverick (departure 23 April 1915, San Pedro) to rendezvous off the coast of Mexico. The entire mission failed, as American authorities seized the guns when the Annie Larsen returned to America and the Dutch interned the Maverick when it arrived in the East Indies. ² These violations of US neutrality became the legal weapon by which British intelligence shut down the Indo–German–Irish network on the West Coast as well as in Chicago and New York.

The evolution of British intelligence structures is beyond the scope of this paper. ³ Briefly, British intelligence developed independent home and foreign sections after 1909 to better coordinate with Naval Intelligence (NID), Metropolitan Police (Scotland Yard), Indian Police, the Canadian Immigration Office, the Irish Constabulary, and others. The home section or Security Service (MO5g, MI5 after 1916), under Captain Vernon Kell or ‘K,’ went from a dozen personnel to over 800 by the end of the war. The foreign section or Secret Intelligence Service (SIS or MI1c, later MI6 after the war), under Commander Mansfield Smith-Cumming or ‘C,’ also expanded but worked in the shadows of the much larger and better funded NID, MI5, Indian Police, and Scotland Yard. ⁴ The de facto San Francisco intelligence station involved agents and activity from all of these organizations and was the key forward base in the infiltration and destruction of the Indo–German–Irish network. Others have established that cooperation between British intelligence and American authorities was local rather than national before 1917, so this exploration of the San Francisco station correlates with the work of historians who have examined other stations across the US. ⁵

There is room in the historiography of this conspiracy to explore the role of British intelligence. The wartime propaganda machine of the US government, known as the Creel Commission or Committee on Public Information, offered the first history of what they titled a ‘German–Hindu Conspiracy.’ This contained none of the references to British intelligence or Irish nationalists that were all over contemporary accounts in San Francisco. ⁶ Synopses in official British accounts muted British and Irish involvement with the same sensitivities against inflaming or even intriguing the Irish–American population during the World War or subsequent Irish war for independence. ⁷ After the war, several primary accounts from Indian, German, and American participants offered more complex pictures than Creel. ⁸ Giles Brown was the first academic to explore the conspiracy in his 1941 thesis and 1948 article, yet perpetuated the government's version of events and included only scattered references to the Irish and none to British intelligence. ⁹ In the 1960s, Indian historians challenged the criminality of the conspiracy by asserting it as a legitimate means of arming Indian nationalism as part of the 1915 Gadar Rising in Lahore. ¹⁰ In the 1970s, historians explored Anglo–American diplomacy, though not the British intelligence, surrounding the conspiracy and challenged the validity of prosecuting neutrality violations in wartime. Joan Jensen raised awareness that Annette Adams was the first female US Assistant Attorney and later first female US Attorney due to these successful trials. ¹¹ During the last 30 years, historians have explored more of the details with better access to documents. In his 1989 dissertation, Karl Hoover provided the most detailed account of the ships and arms, but gave little attention to the Irish or British. Richard Popplewell broke ground on the British intelligence that monitored the Gadar party in his 1987 article and 1995 book, but largely ignored the Irish network and virtually ended his detailed account of British intelligence on the West Coast with the 1914 murder of agent William Hopkinson. Yet, Popplewell remains foundational since most intelligence historians, such as Richard Spence, ignore San Francisco, with a focus on the New York SIS station. ¹² G. J. A. O'Toole's 1991 book on American intelligence only mentioned the Maverick–Annie Larsen affair with a brief remark that British intelligence may have prevented the rendezvous of the ships. ¹³ In 1994, Peter Hopkirk connected San Francisco to an Indo–German attempt to have the Emir of Afghanistan invade the Raj. ¹⁴ Recent contributions have connected the Irish network in the conspiracy as well as described the post-war Indo–Irish nationalist cooperation. ¹⁵ This article establishes the British intelligence network on the West Coast as being as active as the New York station, with new details on well-known British intelligence agents such as Robert Nathan, Godfrey (George) Denham and Norman Thwaites, as well as more obscure figures such as Andrew Carnegie Ross. This is necessary attention as even the most recent and only authorized history of MI6 bears merely two sentences on the entire episode. ¹⁶

At the beginning of the war, the primary concern of the British consulate in San Francisco was the German use of the West Coast to supply their warships in the Pacific. As part of the early warning system of Naval Intelligence, which employed consuls around the world to monitor shipping, Consul-General Alexander Carnegie Ross monitored private American ships such as the Sacramento and Mazatlan that ran coal from San Francisco out to the SMS Leipzig and the SMS Nürnberg. Ross observed German attempts to purchase California oilfields and mines and also reported on a German supply base and wireless radio station in Mexico. ¹⁷ Conversely, Ross prevented German agents from interfering with ships that were supplying Britain with West Coast resources. Beyond German operations, San Francisco was a major center for Irish and Indian nationalism, which drew the interest of Indian Police, Canadian Immigration, MI5, SIS (MI1c), Scotland Yard and the Foreign Office. Ross monitored the activities of Irish republicans associated with Fenians, Sinn Féin and the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), as well as Indian revolutionaries in the Hindustani Gadar Party headquartered in San Francisco. ¹⁸ This last duty transformed the consulate into an intelligence station to prevent the transportation of guns to India for a revolution against the Raj. The consulate became a conduit of evidence and resources that allowed San Francisco US Attorney John Preston to prosecute the Germans, Irish and Indians under various US criminal and neutrality laws. Yet, American cooperation with the consulate came ironically in the wake of this same US attorney prosecuting this same British consulate for violating American neutrality laws by military recruiting in San Francisco. Authorities minimized public attention in this precarious alliance between the British consulate and the US Justice Department, though not so much to justify the relative silence of historians.

Historian Popplewell claimed that Indian Police lost interest in San Francisco, so monitoring the Gadar Party fell on British consulates to weave ‘a makeshift intelligence network’ in early 1915 with Ross at the top. This may be due to the successful suppression of the Gadar Rising of 1915 in India. Popplewell described the infiltration of Vishnu Das Bagai into the Gadar Party as an informant for the consulate. Since Bagai was a close friend of Gadar leader Ram Chandra when they lived in India, Chandra entrusted him with the finances of the Gadar Party. Popplewell called Bagai ‘perhaps the most esteemed secret agent of the Indian empire.’ ¹⁹ Yet, Ross could only obtain and infiltrate such a high-calibre double agent if he had the full cooperation and interest of Indian Police. Interest in San Francisco was not truly lost. Rather than concluding that this ‘makeshift network’ was a retraction of intelligence, the consulate was actually building itself into a forward station.

Throughout 1915, US Attorney Preston built neutrality cases simultaneously against the British and German consulates in San Francisco for breaking US neutrality laws through British recruiting and the German use of the Sacramento to supply warships. Popplewell offered little on these cases and Hoover explored the Sacramento case without reference to the British intelligence resources moved to the West Coast because of it. Both historians did mention the prosecution of German conspiracies that broke US criminal laws by blowing up a barge in Seattle and conspiring to destroy Canadian rail bridges. ²⁰ While Preston prosecuted those cases, he had little information on the gun-running and only vague connections between the Gadar Party and the German Consulate. ²¹

The real American investigation into Indo–German–Irish activities began in early 1916 when a mysterious informant walked into the US Attorney's office. Preston called Don Rathbun, the Special Agent-in-Charge of the San Francisco office of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI), into his office on 8 February 1916 to meet ‘Alleyne Ireland’, who claimed to be a New York World editorialist. ‘Ireland’ informed Rathbun that he was investigating ‘Hindu Revolutions in India since the commencement of the European War, paying particular attention to the part which representatives of the German Government, or other Germans, may have taken in promoting such revolutions.’ Rathbun reported that ‘Ireland’ offered a ‘considerable amount of data … in exchange for whatever information this office has on the same subject.’ The BOI agent accepted his media credentials, with ‘it being understood that any information furnished him by this office would not be published until such time that its disclosure would not embarrass the Government.’ ²² Rathbun admitted that the BOI had little information, so ‘an exchange of notes would be of advantage to this office.’ ²³ Since the Americans assumed that the Maverick–Annie Larsen guns were for the Mexican Revolution, ‘Ireland’ laid the foundation of the Indo–German–Irish investigation. ²⁴

Historians have not described the ‘Alleyne Ireland’ of the San Francisco BOI reports. He is most likely Norman Thwaites. Historians Spence, Popplewell and Jeffery described Thwaites as a personal secretary to Joseph Pulitzer and a writer for the New York World at the turn of the century. Thwaites served briefly as a captain in the British Army and was hospitalized in London where Wiseman recruited him into the SIS (MI1c) and made him head of the New York station. Thwaites returned to New York in January 1916 and used his former colleagues at the New York World as well as friends within the New York Police Department, the State Department and US military intelligence. ²⁵ Thwaites worked closely with Guy Gaunt, British Naval Attaché in Washington, who likely put Thwaites in contact with Ross in San Francisco, since Popplewell noted that Gaunt worked closely with consulates that were monitoring shipping. ²⁶ By sending ‘Ireland’ to the BOI, Ross established the first working relationship between British intelligence and the US Attorney's Office and BOI on the West Coast. Second only to Wiseman in authority, Thwaites as ‘Ireland’ met with Preston and Rathbun several times in February 1916. By March 1916, Robert Nathan arrived in America to assist Thwaites and Guy Gaunt with their anti-Gadar activities. Nathan was a retired officer of Indian Police and a member of the Security Service (MO5g, later MI5) from November 1914 to February 1916. ²⁷ Nathan specifically left the Security Service and joined Wiseman's SIS (MI1c) mission in America to stop the activities of the Gadar. With connections to George Denham's intelligence wing of Indian Police in Bengal, Nathan had access to information from many investigations in India. ²⁸ Popplewell stated that Nathan established his headquarters in Vancouver in May 1916 and within a month established ties with Ross in San Francisco by taking ‘direct control of the latter's agents’ and ‘Ross from this time on acted as Nathan's deputy.’ ²⁹ The British consulate in San Francisco became its own station as Ross managed the anti-Gadar effort on the West Coast for nearly a year while Nathan worked with Thwaites and Gaunt in New York and Chicago. ³⁰ Nathan only revealed himself fully to the US Attorney and BOI in San Francisco when America entered the war in April 1917. By 1917, other key British agents arrived to assist.

In March 1916, Thwaites as ‘Ireland’ revived the stagnant American investigation of the Indo–German–Irish conspiracies with new information from informer Bagai. Just as Popplewell described Nathan's operations in New York as concealed from the American government but cooperating with local authorities, Thwaites worked incognito. ³¹ Rathbun reported from his BOI office:

Received information from Mr. Ireland last night that a Hindu named Vaishno Das Bagai has an account in the Union Trust Company of San Francisco of approximately $5000 and another account in the Savings Union Bank & Trust of San Francisco of approximately $4000, which moneys are as a matter of fact the property or trust funds of Rham [sic] Chandra, a Hindu who is editor of The Hindustan Gadar, and who is carrying on the work which Har Dyal [sic] formerly carried on in San Francisco.

According to Mr. Ireland's information the above mentioned funds are kept in the name of Bagai so that they cannot be traced into the hands of Chandra, but Bagai procures portions of these funds and turns them over to Chandra whenever the latter wishes. ³²

This revealed the complete picture of Gadar leadership and finances, first under Lala Har Dayal then Ram Chandra. ³³

On 13 April 1916, US Attorney Preston began the Seattle and Canadian bomb trials against the German consulate. ³⁴ The multiple trials of global networks and overlapping evidence from several conspiracies were confusing to both participants and observers. The Sacramento and Bomb trials began as five separate cases and eventually consolidated into two. Due to appendicitis, Preston initially relied on his assistant Annette Adams to begin the trials, much to the displeasure of Ross who valued his quiet personal contact with Preston. ³⁵ Ross used lawyer T. E. K. Cormac and agent A. O'Gorman Munkhouse to carefully monitor the courtroom. Ross forwarded Cormac's reports to the embassy in Washington and the Foreign Office in London. The consulate ordered an official court transcript at 10 cents per page but stopped when the Foreign Office denied payment for the transcript, since it was ‘no longer likely to be of great interest to His Majesty's Government,’ and suggested instead that ‘the best report ordinarily obtainable in the newspaper press will be all that is required.’ ³⁶ The diplomatic disinterest, which did not mean intelligence disinterest, was due to a change in the indictments that withdrew the charge of Germany using San Francisco as a naval base. Diplomatic interest returned when this charge was added back to the indictment during further case consolidation in September 1916. ³⁷ Whitehall authorized a trial transcript and demanded newspaper reports.

By late 1916, Ross sent regular despatches to the US Attorney's office with evidence for the trials, including ‘anonymous letters’ or some marked ‘private and confidential.’ An example of this evidence was a memo book that the British took from an Indian prisoner, which Preston used in trial and then returned to the consulate in January 1917. ³⁸ By February 1917, this exchange was so regular that the US Attorney sent requests for specific information on German activities and Gadar members, including names of the Indians aboard the Maverick. BOI Agent-in-Charge Don Rathbun also received ‘complimentary reports’ from the Mundell International Detective Agency. ³⁹ This flow of information became controversial when German Consul-General Franz Bopp made a comment to the court and newspapers that Mundell's detectives, who he claimed the British consulate retained, produced all of the evidence against him. Ross immediately denied this to Ambassador Spring-Rice: ‘I never employed either of the Agencies mentioned, or any other Agency, or any other person to obtain evidence against Mr. Bopp or his co-defendants.’ ⁴⁰ Either Ross did not want to embarrass British officials and lied in hopes of drawing little further attention, or he valued his duties to British intelligence above his duties to the Foreign Office. Historian Hoover referenced the Mundell agency but without its British connections, and Popplewell never mentioned the Mundell agency despite describing British use of the Pinkerton detective agency in monitoring Indian and Irish operatives on the East Coast. ⁴¹ The tactic was never unique or isolated.

During jury selection in the Bomb trial in December 1916, lead defense counsel Theodore Roche further claimed that the British consulate instigated the trial and provided evidence via Mundell detectives. Ross again denied the claim and consoled his superiors with the fact that Preston repeatedly denied the claim in court. ⁴² Ross sent Munkhouse to court on 5 December 1916 to observe Roche making more assertions that the British consulate was behind the investigation and asking jury candidates about their personal ties with Ross. US Attorney Preston objected to the line of questioning, which drew the demand from Roche: ‘Do you deny Consul Ross paid detectives to carry out investigations?’ Preston denied it once more. ⁴³ Circuit Judge William Hunt overruled Preston's objection and allowed Roche to question 99 jury candidates as to their relationship with Ross. ⁴⁴ Munkhouse immediately alarmed Ross who relayed the fact to the embassy. The Foreign Office became very interested in the Bomb trial given that the jury was selected entirely in the context of their relationship with the British consulate. The Ambassador ordered Ross to send a copy of Munkhouse's reports and newspaper clippings directly to the Foreign Office, who ‘want all the information they can get.’ ⁴⁵ In January 1917, the Foreign Office increased funding to the San Francisco consulate to help Ross report on the end of the Bomb trial and monitor the activities of dozens of Germans, Indians and Irish. ⁴⁶ By 1917, the San Francisco intelligence station was managing evidence for these trials. This was prior to Nathan's leadership once America declared war. No historical accounts give credit to Ross.

Court documents exposed Ross when Mundell detectives testified about a Dutch conspirator named ‘Koolbergen.’ Defense counsel Roche cross-examined Mundell detective Otto Orr: ‘Is it not true that this whole thing is a ‘frame-up’ by the British Consul, Carnegie Ross?’ Munkhouse told Ross that there was no objection from the judge or Preston: ‘It seems to me very wrong that Counsel [Roche] should have been allowed to ask such an unwarranted question.’ ⁴⁷ According to Indian historian Kalyan Kumar Banerjee who studied the court transcript, Preston actually rebuked Roche for the question and admitted: ‘If you want an admission that Mundell is employed by the British Government, I am perfectly willing to say that it is my understanding that it is true.’ ⁴⁸ Ross even sent a clipping without comment to the embassy and Foreign Office from the San Francisco Examiner, titled ‘Plot Laid to Ross at Trial of Bopp.’ Orr admitted that ‘Koolbergen’ came to Mundell with the bomb in a thermos and after they looked at it, Orr followed ‘Koolbergen’ to the German consulate. Orr responded to whether ‘Koolbergen’ knew of his tail: ‘I suppose he knew I was following him.’ Roche told the court that the incident was a set-up to draw American authorities into the case and that it amounted to entrapment. Roche pushed Orr: ‘And you knew, didn't you, that when you were following him it was because Van Koolbergen was going to the Consulate as the result of an understanding between Mundell and the man who had retained his services?’ ⁴⁹ Orr claimed he did not know the client by name, but by then the Bay Area knew it was the British consulate. The depths of this collusion shocked even the defense when William Mundell took the stand on 19 December 1916. Munkhouse reported to Ross that Mundell ‘took the wind out of Roche's sails when he testified to having taken the Koolbergen bomb to the US Officer Moffitt also that he had been employed off and on by the British Consulate.’ ⁵⁰ Mundell described his agency monitoring the German consulate and its military attaché, Wilhelm von Brincken, for six months prior to the bombing incident. ⁵¹ A news clipping that Ross sent to the embassy and Foreign Office documented Mundell's testimony of how ‘Koolbergen’ went to Mundell's office on 18 August 1915 with the bomb, after which Mundell called ‘US Secret Service Chief Harry M. Moffitt’ to come to Mundell's office to see the bomb. ⁵² Double-agent ‘Koolbergen,’ Mundell's agency, and even American authorities at the local level had foreknowledge of the bomb conspiracy. This fits the British intelligence strategy since the 1880s of using infiltrators or informers as agents provocateur to undermine Irish organizations and their activities. ⁵³

The use of Mundell detectives was neither small nor isolated. In March 1917, BOI Agent-in-Charge Don Rathbun responded to an alarmed BOI Director Bruce Bielaski who heard rumors that Gadar leader Ram Chandra fled the country through Mexico. Instead of dispatching his own few agents, Rathbun phoned William Mundell and then reported to Bielaski: ‘Ram Chandra was in S.F. at midnight last night, Mundell Detective Agency acting for unknown clients has had this man under surveillance twenty four hours a day.’ ⁵⁴ A relieved Bielaski asked for more communication on Ram Chandra's movements. By this point, even the public knew that the British consulate was the client of the Mundell agency and soon even Rathbun dropped the façade. ⁵⁵ Mundell detectives shadowed conspirators to meeting places such as the Palace Hotel or even the offices of the San Francisco Examiner. Mundell sent reports to Rathbun who rewrote them into BOI reports that Preston transformed into notes on witnesses for trial. ⁵⁶ The Justice Department laundered British intelligence into law enforcement records for use in court, yet none of this has made it into intelligence, diplomatic or legal histories.

By this time, the British opened higher channels to provide American authorities in Washington with the essence of the Maverick–Annie Larsen gun-running affair as well as the global context of what these conspiracies were doing in India. Just after Thwaites and Nathan visited Washington, Assistant Attorney General Charles Warren sent Preston an array of reports, witness statements and memoranda prepared by Indian Police from their own conspiracy trials in Lahore, India. Warren's summary of the papers confirmed that the national US government finally understood San Francisco to be one of the major centers of a large and complicated set of conspiracies that had the goal of revolution in India:

Since the Lahore trials, further information has come to hand which shows that a world wide organization exists, the center of which is in Berlin (where Har Dial [sic] is now living) … It appears that some Irishmen are employed as agents … and money appears to be provided through the German Consuls … for the purpose of sending parties to India and arming them … The agent in the [Maverick] case was Jebsen, an ex-naval officer of the German Navy … The general director appears to be Har Dial [sic] in Berlin, and Ram Chand [sic] in San Francisco, but the German diplomatic and consular officers are said to be cognizant of the plans and to provide the necessary funds. ⁵⁷

The Lahore papers discussed the failure of the Maverick and Annie Larsen, but the success of a shipment of guns to Burma by the Henry S. became the focus of a Chicago neutrality trial. Warren gave Preston little room:

You are requested to give this matter your careful consideration, and to set on foot whatever investigations seem to you warranted in the premises with a view to checking any further similar operations by Ram Chand[ra] and those associated with him. ⁵⁸

Warren even suggested looking into California statutes and handing the case over to state prosecutors if no federal violations existed.

At the beginning of 1917, British intelligence injected more energy into the American investigation by sending another key informant to Preston in a manner similar to Norman Thwaites as ‘Alleyne Ireland’ in 1916. In February 1917, Preston forwarded to Rathbun a memo from Consul-General Ross that read: ‘I can get all the details re[garding] shipments of arms which were shipped at New York.’ ⁵⁹ The BOI agent immediately visited Ross at the British consulate, who told him that a ‘Charles Lamb’ from a San Francisco engineering firm was the informant. Ross explained to Rathbun:

Lamb is of Irish descent, speaks German, French, and Spanish and … [an] ancient [Gaelic] dialect. He also claims to be in the confidence of Ram Chandra and Hindus associated with him and that Ram Chandra disclosed to him the plans of the Indian Revolutionaries to ship 50,000 rifles a month to India. ⁶⁰

On 6 February 1917, Ross sent ‘Charles Lamb’ (Robert Nathan) to visit Rathbun at the BOI nearly one year to the day after he sent ‘Alleyne Ireland’ (Thwaites). ‘Lamb’ introduced himself as a former superintendent of a penal colony in the Philippines, who ‘was born in Ireland, educated in Spain’ and travelled extensively in Asia and Mexico with the ability to speak several languages, including German and ‘some of the Indian dialects.’ ‘Lamb’ told Rathbun that he moved to San Francisco but kept his British citizenship. ⁶¹ Rathbun asked ‘Lamb’ why an Irishman would approach the British consulate to work against the interests of many Irish. ‘Lamb’ said his friendliness with Ross was due to Ross’ friendship ‘with Sir Roger Casement who was recently executed in England on account of his part in the Irish Uprising,’ and that Ross was ‘a schoolmate of Casement's and spoke well of him in his recent trouble.’ ⁶² This was a red herring when considering the logic of an Irishman aiding the British against the Irish simply because the local British consul was the classmate of an Irish hero. The name of ‘Charles Lamb’ disappeared in BOI records and Preston's notes exactly when British agent ‘J. S. Hale’ (Robert Nathan) appeared as America declared war.

Like ‘Ireland’ (Thwaites), informant ‘Lamb’ or later agent ‘Hale’ (Nathan) revealed the triadic leadership of the Indians, Irish and Germans in the Maverick–Annie Larsen conspiracy. He described the importance of Larry de Lacey, an Irish Republican Brotherhood leader on the West Coast with direct ties to Irish leaders John Devoy, Joseph McGarrity (who made the arms purchases), and even Eamon de Valéra in New York. ⁶³ ‘Lamb’ revealed current Indo–German–Irish plans to get guns to India via Siam inside boilers and hollow teak logs that were towed routinely upriver without suspicion. ‘Lamb’ claimed he (more likely Indian infiltrators) regularly attended conferences between Ram Chandra, Larry De Lacey and German agents. ⁶⁴ He reported, ‘The entire [Gadar] movement is so co-related and connected with the German and Irish question that it cannot be considered separately and apart … Ram Chandra is the Indian brain; and De Lacey is the Irish brain.’ ⁶⁵ The Indians and Irish were to make no moves without the Germans. ⁶⁶ In further meetings with BOI Agent-in-Charge Rathbun, ‘Lamb’ discussed additional arms shipments organized in New York in the same manner as the Maverick–Annie Larsen affair. ‘Lamb’ reported that the American authorities discovered these subsequent shipments due to what the conspirators thought was ‘blundering.’ He then commented: ‘So they think.’ ⁶⁷ ‘Lamb’ revealed that De Lacey constructed plans with both the Gadar and Irish to send two hundred of their followers to Mexico if the US declared war on Germany. These routes and contacts later proved to be useful when arresting some of the conspirators as they attempted to flee to Mexico. Through all of this information, British intelligence conveyed to American authorities the inner workings and contingencies of the Indo–German–Irish network.

Many of the initial arrests for the Maverick–Annie Larsen gun-running case took place as America entered the war. The BOI arrested Ram Chandra and 16 members of the Gadar on 7 April 1917, the day after Congress declared war. ⁶⁸ BOI agents stormed the 436 Hill Street headquarters of the Gadar Party and their old press on Valencia Street. ⁶⁹ They hunted down many more over the following weeks. British agents provided detailed information and descriptions of the conspirators to aid the arrests. ‘Hale’ (Nathan) compiled information for the BOI on Bhagwan Singh, considered by most Gadar members as second in command after Ram Chandra. ⁷⁰ The BOI arrested Bhagwan Singh on 18 April 1917 while trying to cross the border into Mexico at Naco, Arizona. Since ‘Lamb’ (Nathan) claimed (more likely using a Gadar infiltrator) to have assisted De Lacey with the escape plans of Indian, Irish and German agents into Mexico in the event that America went to war, it should not be a surprise that American authorities were at the right location to apprehend Bhagwan Singh with the help of ‘Hale’ (Nathan). Preston moved over 100 indictments for the Maverick–Annie Larsen case through a grand jury, though many of the accused accepted Preston's invitation to become witnesses.

Despite Nathan's cover as first ‘Lamb’ then ‘Hale’ with most, Nathan revealed himself to the US Attorney and BOI Special Agent-in-Charge by handing the former a 19 April 1917 letter from the Assistant Attorney General marked ‘personal and confidential.’ Preston's superior ordered his office and the BOI to regard the British operatives as virtual members of the Justice Department since they had been ‘investigating the Hindu activities in this country for nearly a year.’ Warren described Nathan's authority:

Nathan has been deputed, as a representative of the British interests, to assist us by placing at our disposal information in the possession of British authorities … He is in communication with the British Government in regard to the dispatch of witnesses, documents, etc., to this country which may be of assistance in the prosecution of the case.

Warren wove the identities:

Through him much valuable information, which has already been transmitted to you as being furnished by a confidential informant, has been obtained. He now presents this letter from the Department and it is desired that you give him your utmost confidence in all matters and consult with him in the prosecution of this and subsequent cases.

Robert Nathan, as a former barrister, became a phantom district attorney (continuing the public cover as ‘Hale’) to assist in what the Assistant Attorney General described as ‘a vigorous prosecution of all violations of our neutrality laws.’ ⁷¹ The diplomatic collusion alone led historians Don Dignan and Joan Jensen to question whether a government can truly prosecute a neutrality trial in a time of war. ⁷² Their assessment is strengthened if we consider the level of intelligence and legal collusion done in secrecy. The Assistant Attorney General ordered Preston to conceal Nathan and his ‘confidential investigations of Hindu activities’ (thus, the continued use of ‘Hale’ by Rathbun's BOI agents in their reports and Preston's assistant attorneys in their trial notes). Warren said it was:

… absolutely essential that his [Nathan's] wishes in regard to the time and methods of communication with him be observed and that as few people as possible know of his existence in your office … [it is] extremely important, as his life and probably that of several others depends upon absolute secrecy. ⁷³

By June 1917 and largely through the work of Nathan, Preston reported to Washington a ‘general synopsis’ of the gun-running conspiracy including a list of ‘evidence against each proposed defendant.’ ⁷⁴

The subsequent arrival of George Denham and Alexander Marr to aid Preston and Rathbun with the Maverick–Annie Larsen case displayed the importance of San Francisco as a forward intelligence base. Denham was chief of Indian Police intelligence in Bengal and Alexander Marr, who once served with Indian Police, was currently a member of MI5, though strangely the India Office paid Marr's salary in America rather than MI5. Historian Popplewell made these assignments known but with few details as to their actual investigation. ⁷⁵ Spence, who offered details on Nathan and Thwaites in the New York SIS station, made no mention of Denham and Marr in San Francisco, Chicago, or even New York where they directly aided Thwaites. Historian Banerjee came closest to the Anglo–American intimacy when finding that one of the Gadar leaders, Taraknath Das, complained as Denham accompanied American police as they searched his apartment without a warrant. ⁷⁶ Historians need to consider that the BOI records are full of British contributions to the investigation. For instance, Denham took a team of British agents from San Francisco to Chicago and New York and personally interrogated many of the conspirators including agents of the German consulates. ⁷⁷ Though never mentioned in histories, British agent ‘Hale’ went to New York and assisted Denham in interrogating C. K. Chakravarty, the key defendant-turned-witness (accused-turned-approver) in a later New York trial who provided information for the San Francisco investigation. The BOI transferred Agent E. M. Blanford from Los Angeles to San Francisco to assist Denham and ‘Hale’ specifically. Blanford followed Denham and ‘Hale’ to New York and admitted in his own report that he sat and did paperwork as the two British agents conducted the interrogation. ⁷⁸

While Popplewell and Banerjee briefly mentioned Denham's aid to US Attorneys in New York and Chicago during their neutrality and sabotage cases, the San Francisco work of Denham and ‘Hale’ remains unnoticed. Denham went to the immigration office at Angel Island ‘to search their records for the arrivals and departures of certain Hindus.’ ⁷⁹ With a list of conspirator names from British sources in one hand and American immigration records in his other, Denham produced a detailed report of the movements of dozens of conspirators that US Attorney Preston used in the Maverick–Annie Larsen trial in San Francisco. During the summer of 1917, BOI agent Blanford reviewed seized documents with Denham to catalog evidence. ⁸⁰ Blanford also accompanied Denham across the Bay to confirm the handwriting records of several Indian defendants at the University of California, the Berkeley Post Office, and the Berkeley branch of the Oakland Bank of Savings, as a team of BOI and British agents went through academic records, post office records, and safe deposit boxes. ⁸¹ At the same time, ‘Hale’ and/or his infiltrators sent Indian letters from the Gadar headquarters to the BOI to have them copied, translated, and sent back without detection. This information led ‘Hale’ on several occasions to request that Denham and the BOI pick up certain Indians for interrogation. ⁸² BOI agent Blanford also used ‘Hale’ to verify information on the Maverick with British sources in Asia, while also investigating safe deposit boxes that the Gadar had across the Bay Area.

For all of the British assistance, they made one request for secrecy on the names of the Indian witnesses who they sent to San Francisco from India. Despite this request, the names made their way into the newspapers and caused a diplomatic row. ⁸³ The Justice Department sent a letter to Secretary of State Robert Lansing informing him that the neutrality case in Chicago, involving a subsequent Henry S. affair of gun smuggling into Siam and Burma, already disclosed many of the witness names of the Maverick–Annie Larsen affair. The Justice Department forwarded a message to the British:

Criminal trials in the courts of this country are and must be public, and newspapers, so long as they do not infringe upon the Federal criminal law, or publish anything in contempt of court, cannot be restrained by this Department in any way from publishing such matters as they deem wise. ⁸⁴

Despite this condescending statement to the British, the Attorney General requested that Preston make an informal deal with the San Francisco newspapers. Preston refused to do this, restating that the Chicago case had already publicized many names, insisting upon the publicity of trials, and ultimately declaring that the newspapers would not live up to such a deal. Preston did not have the benefit of the Sedition Act (1918) of the following year to stop public attention.

The British were furious with the snub given the much larger list of witnesses and informants in the San Francisco trial than the Chicago and New York cases. They did not want key informants they hauled over to America rendered useless for future operations in India. SIS (MI1c) agent Robert Nathan responded by pulling at least one key informant (name unknown) and withholding some evidence. Preston made a deal with Nathan to use ‘the photographic data in their [British] possession, provided I will promise not to reveal the source from which it was obtained.’ Preston regretted the loss of the key informant: ‘I think it was a serious blow to our case not to have had the benefit of the testimony of this witness,’ and ‘I am hoping that the case will end properly as to most of the defendants anyway.’ ⁸⁵ Just before trial, Preston sent one last request to Washington for this witness: ‘Conviction of Hindu case certain if British informant testified. See no sufficient reason why he should not. Please take up question with British Government immediately and try to have witness returned to this jurisdiction.’ Assistant Attorney General Warren responded that he had taken the matter to the British embassy in Washington only to find that Nathan and Denham were ‘acting as direct representatives of the home government,’ and had all authority over the matter. ⁸⁶ Warren told Preston that these agents have the ‘full power’ to provide the informant and if the case were to fail then ‘full responsibility for such failure must rest upon the Englishmen, and not upon this Department.’ Warren ordered Preston to relay to Nathan: ‘While this Government recognizes that there may be some reasons why they desire to keep their informant off the witness stand, we believe that the results to be obtained from his taking the stand will be of such greater importance to both the English Government and to this Government, that all minor questions should give way.’ ⁸⁷ British agents did not consider this key informant's future use a minor question. Preston informed Warren that the Indian informant left the United States. ⁸⁸

The Maverick–Annie Larsen trial began on 20 November 1917 and did not end until 24 April 1918, becoming America's longest and most expensive trial at the time. Sensationalism began immediately with rumors of plans to kill some of the witnesses. ⁸⁹ Daily reports on the trial were in all of the Bay Area newspapers. Preston relied upon the British agents even in the courtroom. Many of the trial notes and reports on defense arguments include a heavy use of British spelling as ‘Hale’ (Nathan was a barrister) sat next to Preston for the entire trial and even arranged for a large map on the courtroom wall that documented the movement of guns and ships. ⁹⁰ After the trial, Preston acknowledged to the Attorney General his debt to these agents:

The success of the case, especially so far as the Hindu defendants were concerned, was very largely, if not entirely, due to the very able and exhaustive investigations that were conducted by the British agents … I have never seen more full, complete, accurate, and intelligent reports than were produced by these Agents. They stood at my elbow during the entire trial, and whenever any point of information was desired, it was forthcoming immediately. ⁹¹

There is no better comment about the Anglo–American alliance against this Indo–German–Irish network. One by one, Preston brought forward British witnesses from India to testify, while various informants and infiltrators within the Indian, German and Irish camps provided evidence.

On the final day of the trial, 24 April 1918, Preston finished his closing argument and submitted the case to the jury. The judge ordered a five-minute recess and the jury left the room. A deputy clerk later reported: ‘The room was still packed with defendants and attorneys and spectators and newspaper men. [Ram Chandra] was standing with his back to the rear of the room and talking with his attorney.’ Ram Singh, who believed that Ram Chandra betrayed the Gadar, ‘came across the room and … holding the revolver not more than two or three feet from Ram Chandra's back fired one bullet.’ One of the US Marshals ‘shot over the heads of the attorneys standing in front of him’ and killed Ram Singh. Military guards from Alcatraz, who were guarding some of the defendants, sealed off the courtroom, searched everyone, and then cleared the room ‘except [for] the defendants, the US Marshals, military guards, and two British Secret Service men and the two dead defendants.’ ⁹² These two agents were likely Nathan and Denham with the former as legal aid to Preston and the latter as guard to the Indian witnesses. With the courtroom reoccupied, the judge and jury returned. After final instructions, the judge released the jury for deliberation just minutes after the shootings. After months of testimony, the jury made their decision in only 10 hours and returned a verdict just before midnight that same day. ⁹³ The jury foreman read a verdict of guilty for 30 of the defendants, including all of the major leaders and agents of the German consulate and Gadar Party. ⁹⁴ The Justice Department filed the charge to the San Francisco jury, which was a summary of the facts against the conspirators, in its entirety in the New York trial (United States v. Chakravarty, Smedly, et al.) as the Americans seemingly shut down the Indo–German–Irish network around the country. ⁹⁵ Yet, the Indo–Irish nationalist cooperation and networks would survive the war and transform with global socialist movements into further episodes involving the FBI and British intelligence.

In conclusion, American authorities mistook the Maverick–Annie Larsen affair as simply another gun smuggling operation in the Mexican Revolution until British intelligence unlocked the Indo–German–Irish investigation. British agents, with their own consulate prosecuted for its own violations of neutrality in San Francisco less than two years prior, led the neutrality investigation and trial against the German consulate. This has remained buried due to the wartime propaganda and other efforts to mute the role of British intelligence in America. Yet, Bay Area newspapers reported the British involvement, even claiming that Britain sent nearly two hundred agents and police officers to San Francisco. ⁹⁶ US Attorney Preston did not underestimate British assistance in his communication with the Attorney General: ‘The British Agents have worked very hard in putting the evidence in accessible form, and I have every reason … to believe that the case will result favorably [for us] as to all important defendants.’ ⁹⁷ It is clear from such a statement that history has largely ignored or underestimated British involvement within these conspiracies, investigations and trials. More attention needs to be paid to the BOI records and court documents of the US Attorney's office. The history of this episode needs further blending of intelligence, diplomatic, military, and legal history to see the importance of this Indo–German–Irish network and the British intelligence station in San Francisco. Part of the silence around this episode was intentional. Rather than a real public and legal concern over America's neutrality, the trial was Britain's imperial war with Indian and Irish nationalism as well as its national war with Germany, fought in the courtrooms of San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. Coverage outside of the Bay Area downplayed British and Irish involvement and news of America's mobilization and deployment into the war simply eclipsed it. Official propaganda history of the affair diminished or removed Irish and British references as the government struggled to keep its ‘hyphenated Americans’ in the war effort. By 1918, the Sedition Act was in force to aid the American government in this silence. Yet, why did the silence extend to Britain? Historian Popplewell concluded that British reports ‘underplayed’ the seriousness of the entire affair due to their fears of encouraging the Indian independence movement. In fact, he claimed that this continued silence was part of the British success: ‘That the British were successful in keeping the revolutionary threat quiet is shown by the lack of attention paid to the Indian revolutionary movement today.’ ⁹⁸ Popplewell believed that the perceived isolation and failure of the militant Gadar in India aided the rise of Gandhi's movement of nonviolence after the war. In the 1920s, silence on this affair remained useful during Ireland's struggle for independence, despite the reality of Gadarites marching in St. Patrick's Day parades across America to the applause of Irish-Americans, Irish leader Eamon de Valéra visiting the Gadar headquarters in San Francisco, and Irish troops mutinying in India to the praise of the Gadar in India and America. ⁹⁹ It was always globally connected and reported in America and abroad at least in nationalist publications, but much sensitivity and silence remained in the mainstream press. Additionally, there are unintentional reasons for muted interest in these British intelligence operations, including the diminishing of British intelligence itself. MI5 and SIS (MI1c) had huge budgetary and personnel cuts as the latter struggled for its own existence in continuous scrambles and reforms after the war. In 1921, SIS nearly lost its Irish mission and therefore scores of operatives in Ireland and America were in jeopardy. Additionally, the BOI came under J. Edgar Hoover in 1924, who wanted no part of British operations in the United States as he evolved the FBI. MI5 experienced some limited cooperation from Hoover's FBI, so it was not in British interests to strain this relationship by documenting how the British from various intelligence agencies managed American investigators during the war. Finally, much of the focus after World War I shifted from the threats of nationalism to the threats of socialism and communism. British and American authorities became obsessed with Marxist global networks after the war with the pursuit of the Communist International and the Industrial Workers of the World, so interest in the global networks of nationalism as well as British countermeasures fell into the shadows. Historian Gordon Thomas found that MI6 leader Kell remarked that communism was a greater threat and more primary concern than nationalism despite the continued terrorism on the latter's behalf. ¹⁰⁰ Yet, these Marxist networks involved the very same Irish and Indian revolutionaries with the Soviets merely replacing the Germans as the global financers of this great game that extended through the next world war. ¹⁰¹ With these enemies at the Golden Gate, the Indo–German–Irish Conspiracy and the British counter-measures of its San Francisco station demonstrate that there was much more of a continuum and global structure in nationalism, revolution, law and intelligence during the twentieth century, which continue to offer lessons for us in the twenty-first century.

Notes

1. See Karl Hoover, ‘The German–Hindu Conspiracy in California, 1913–1918,’ (PhD diss., University of California – Santa Barbara, 1989), 198, 208, for the arms purchase and shipping details of Joseph McGarrity. See Peter de Rosa, Irish Rebels: The Irish Rising of 1916 (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1990), 21, 24, for connections between Joe McGarrity, Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB) leader John Devoy in New York, and McGarrity's former roommate Sir Roger Casement who recommended McGarrity for the job. See Franz von Papen, Memoirs, trans. Brian Connell (London: André Deutsch, 1952), 35, 40, for his own description of the purchase. Note: The German consulate in San Francisco used its Irish agents Charles Crowley and Margaret Cornell as well as IRB operative Lawrence (Larry) de Lacey to transfer and allocate necessary funds in California for the conspiracy.

2. F. C. Isemonger and J. Slattery, An Account of the Ghadr Conspiracy, 1913–1915 (Lahore: Superintendent Government Printing – Punjab, 1919), 136–7. This Indian Police intelligence report contains a synopsis of the Maverick–Annie Larsen gun-running affair. The ships failed to rendezvous at Socorro Island off Mexico and authorities seized the Annie Larsen with her guns at Hoquiam, Washington, with the Maverick seized in Batavia, Dutch East Indies.

3. See the introduction in The Security Service: First World War Historical Reports and Other Papers, November 1997, Security Service, KV1, The National Archives, Public Records Office (TNA, PRO), London, for the evolution of British intelligence. The names of Security Service (MO5g or later MI5) personnel are available in the Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members, December 1919, KV1/59, TNA, PRO. There are no public records for the Secret Intelligence Service (MI1c or later MI6) for this period except KV3/1 and KV3/2, which deal with the espionage laws of other countries and invisible ink respectively. See Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service (New York: Free Press, 2000), xiii–xiv; John Fisher, Gentleman Spies: Intelligence Agents in the British Empire and Beyond (Thrupp, UK: Sutton Publishing, 2002), 7–12; or Keith Jeffery, The Secret History of MI6: 1909–1949 (New York: Penguin Press, 2010), 3–62. The last of these references is the only authorized history of MI6.

4. Gordon Thomas, Secret Wars: One Hundred Years of British Intelligence (New York: Thomas Dune Books/St Martin's Press, 2009), 80–1; Stephen Twigge, British Intelligence: Secrets, Spies and Sources (Kew, London: TNA–PRO, 2008); Nigel West, MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations, 1909–1945 (New York: Random House, 1983), 4–7; Nigel West, MI5: British Security Service Operations, 1909–1945 (New York: Stein and Day, 1981), 33–41.

5. G. J. A. O'Toole, Honorable Treachery: A History of US Intelligence, Espionage and Covert Action from the American Revolution to the CIA (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1991), 253–4.

6. Earl E. Sperry, German Plots and Intrigues in the United States During the Period of Our Neutrality, Red, White and Blue Series No. 10 (Washington, DC: Committee on Public Information, 1918), 55–8. This pamphlet is in the George Creel Collection, Archives of the Hoover Institution of War and Revolution, Stanford University.

7. Isemonger and Slattery, Ghadr Conspiracy, 136–7.

8. Count Johann von Bernstorff, My Three Years in America (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1920); Lala Har Dayal, Forty-four Months in Germany and Turkey (London: P. S. King and Son, 1920); Robert Lansing, War Memoirs of Secretary of State Robert Lansing (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1935); Franz von Papen, Memoirs (London: André Deutsch, 1952); Manabendra Nath Roy, M. N. Roy's Memoirs (Bombay: Allied Publishers, 1964); Darisi Chenchiah, ‘History of the Freedom Movement in India: The Gadar Movement, 1913–1918,’ 1956, Gadar Party Collection, South–Southeast Asia Library, University of California – Berkeley; Gobin Behari Lal, ‘The Gadar at U. C. Berkeley,’ 1973, Gadar Party Collection, South–Southeast Asia Library, University of California – Berkeley.

9. Giles T. Brown, ‘The Hindu Conspiracy and the Neutrality of the United States, 1914–1917,’ (PhD diss., University of California – Santa Barbara, 1941); Giles T. Brown, ‘The Hindu Conspiracy, 1914–1917,’ Pacific Historical Review 17, no. 3 (August 1948): 299–310.

10. A. C. Bose, ‘Efforts of the Indian Revolutionaries at Securing German Arms across the Seas During World War I,’ The Calcutta Review (January 1962): 33–43; Kushwant Singh and Satindra Singh, Ghadar 1915: India's First Armed Revolution (New Delhi: R & K Publishing House, 1966); Kalyan Kumar Banerjee, Indian Freedom Movement Revolutionaries in America (Calcutta: JIJNASA, 1969).

11. Don K. Dignan, ‘The Hindu Conspiracy in Anglo–American Relations During World War I,’ Pacific Historical Review 40, no. 1 (February 1971): 57–77; Joan Jensen, ‘The “Hindu Conspiracy”: A Reassessment,’ Pacific Historical Review 48, no. 1 (February 1979): 65–83; Joan Jensen, ‘Annette Abbott Adams,’ Pacific Historical Review 35, no. 2 (May 1966): 185–201.

12. Hoover, ‘German–Hindu Conspiracy in California’; Richard Popplewell, ‘The Surveillance of Indian “Seditionists” in North America, 1905–1915,’ Intelligence and International Relations, 1900–1945, ed. Christopher Andrew and Jeremy Noakes (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1987): 49–75. See Richard Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence: British Intelligence and the Defence of the Indian Empire, 1904–1924 (London: F. Case, 1995), 151–70, 237–49, for William Hopkinson as well as British cooperation with the New York Police Department; see Richard B. Spence, ‘Englishmen in New York: The SIS American Station, 1915–21,’ Intelligence and National Security 19, no. 3 (Autumn 2004): 511–37, for a detailed account of the New York SIS station.

13. O'Toole, Honorable Treachery, 230–32. O'Toole later stated (p. 244) that German intelligence had separate, autonomous stations in New York, San Francisco, and Mexico with the comment: ‘German intelligence did not put all its American eggs in one basket. Neither did British intelligence.’ Yet he offered no description of the British stations beyond New York.

14. Peter Hopkirk, Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire (New York: Kodansha International, 1994).

15. Matthew E. Plowman, ‘Sinn Féin and the Gadar Party in the Indo–German Conspiracy of the First World War,’ in Ireland and India: Colonies, Culture, and Empire, eds. Todhg Foley and Maureen O'Connor (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006), 233–43; Matthew E. Plowman, ‘Irish Republicans and the Indo–German Conspiracy of World War I,’ New Hibernia Review 7, no. 3 (Autumn 2003): 80–105; Michael Silvestri, ‘‘315 Million of India with Ireland to the Last’: Irish and Indian Nationalists in North America,’ in Ireland and India: Colonies, Culture, and Empire, eds. Todhg Foley and Maureen O'Connor (Dublin: Irish Academic Press, 2006), 244–55.

16. Jeffery, Secret History of MI6, 113; also note: Harry Ferguson, Operation Kronstadt (New York: Overlook Press, 2008), 57, has Robert Nathan moving from Indian Police to MI6 in New York ‘tracking Indian nationalists who were working with Germans’ to operations in Russia without any mention of San Francisco.

17. See Consulate Despatch No. 351, Consul-General A. Carnegie Ross to Foreign Office (FO), 16 December 1916, Register of Correspondence, San Francisco Consulate, 1916–1917, Foreign Office, FO 600/6, TNA, PRO, London, for references to coaling ships and California oilfields; see Paul G. Halpern, A Naval History of World War I (London: University College London, 1994), 80, for a description of the SMS Leipzig’s operations near San Francisco; see West, MI6: British Secret Intelligence Service Operations, 8, for consuls acting as NID's ‘human radar chain,’ which was heavily reinforced during the summer of 1914. West provided Norway as an example with one British consul at the beginning of 1914 then 33 consuls and 25 vice-consuls by the end of the year.

18. See Plowman, ‘Sinn Féin and the Gadar Party,’ 233–43, for a discussion of the Irish and Indian organizations that were involved.

19. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 246–7; Popplewell, ‘Surveillance of Indian “Seditionists,”’ 71.

20. Note: In the Seattle and Canadian Bomb conspiracies, the Sacramento conspiracy, and the Maverick–Annie Larsen conspiracy, Preston targeted the German consulate including Vice-Consul Eckart von Schack, Military Attaché Wilhelm von Brincken, and its Irish agents Charles Crowley and Margaret Cornell. Consul-General Franz Bopp was prosecuted despite being out of the country during most of the conspiracies. Yet, Bopp was most publicly associated with the neutrality cases that were informally known as the ‘Bopp Trials’ due to his rank.

21. Memorandum, US Attorney John W. Preston to Attorney General Thomas Gregory, 27 December 1915, San Francisco, 1–2, Box No. 1, Neutrality Case Files ‘The German–Hindu Conspiracy, 1913–1920,’ US Attorney Records, California Northern District – Southern Division – San Francisco, Record Group (RG) 118, National Archives – Pacific Sierra Region (NA–SPR), San Bruno, California: ‘We have a reasonable hope of being able to connect … the German Consulate … with the financing, or attempt to finance, through certain Hindus, a revolution in India … This matter does not seem to me to belong to my district, but I enclose you herewith what I discovered in connection with the same … in a hazy state at the present time … If it is possible, I will make further investigation of the Maverick matter.’

22. Special Agent-in-Charge Don S. Rathbun, Bureau of Investigation (BOI) Report ‘In re: US v. Crowley et al., Neutrality Investigation,’ 9 February 1916, San Francisco, 1, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR. J. Edgar Hoover changed the name of the Bureau of Investigation (BOI) to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 1932.

23. Rathbun, BOI Report, 9 February 1916, 1: ‘Further investigation along this line will be made but there are no leads in the possession of Agent … and there are no known informants through whom reliable information on this subject could be secured.’

24. See Hoover, ‘German–Hindu Conspiracy in California,’ 147, for the American assumption that the guns were for Mexican revolutionaries; see Alleyne Ireland, Joseph Pulitzer: Reminiscences of a Secretary (New York: M. Kennerly, 1914), 10–11, republished in 1920 as An Adventure with a Genius: Recollections of Joseph Pulitzer, for connections between Alleyne Ireland and Pulitzer and the latter's connections with the Milner Round Table groups, founded around 1909, that laid the foundations of the later Royal Institute of International Affairs and the Council on Foreign Relations after the war.

25. Spence, ‘Englishmen in New York,’ 515; Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 241; Jeffery, Secret History of MI6, 111.

26. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 237.

27. Seniority List and Register, fo. 4, KV1/59, TNA, PRO.

28. See Isemonger and Slattery, Ghadr Conspiracy, for the complete Indian Police intelligence that Robert Nathan had access through ‘George’ Denham, director of Indian Police intelligence. Denham later worked personally with Nathan in San Francisco. See Fisher, Gentleman Spies, 16–17, and Spence, ‘Englishmen in New York,’ 517–8, for the work of Nathan and Thwaites against the Gadar in America; see Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 87, for a report covering the Calcutta Bomb Plot in February 1914 that included references to Har Dayal in San Francisco.

29. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 248.

30. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 249. Nathan and Thwaites were in New York from late 1916 until March 1917 working with NYPD in interrogations and investigation.

31. See Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 249, for description of Wiseman, Thwaites, and Nathan in New York. It was not until March 1917, just weeks before the US entry into war, that Wiseman sent Thwaites and Nathan to the State Department to discuss openly the investigations and conspiracies.

32. Special Agent-in-Charge Don S. Rathbun, BOI Report ‘In re: US v. Crowley et al., Neutrality Investigation,’ 14 March 1916, San Francisco, 1, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR.

33. See Hopkirk, Like Hidden Fire for Lala Har Dayal's role in the Indo–German Conspiracy in Persia and Afghanistan. Note: US authorities deported Lala Har Dayal, the founder of the Gadar in San Francisco, at the beginning of the war. Ram Chandra took over the Gadar headquarters at 436 Hill Street and its press at 1324 Valencia Street. The Gadar later established a new headquarters and another press at 5 Wood Street.

34. Consulate Despatch No. 170, Consul-General A. Carnegie Ross to Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, 14 April 1916, San Francisco, 24, ‘San Francisco Enemy Prosecutions Nos. 21–91 and Seaman's Act Nos. 1–49, 1916,’ Foreign Office, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO, London. Note: Bopp, Schack and Brincken as well as their Irish agents Crowley and Cornell entered pleas of not guilty on 13 April 1916 in the Bomb cases. Agents of Crowley and Cornell, Louis J. Smith and a Dutchman named ‘Koolbergen,’ were British informants. Smith became a state witness and ‘Koolbergen’ was allegedly but unlikely serving time in Canada and did not appear in court.

35. See Consulate Despatch No. 152A, Consul-General A. Carnegie Ross to Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, 6 April 1916, San Francisco, 21, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO, for Ross’ displeasure with Assistant US Attorney Annette Adams’ ‘small calibre and limited experience’ as well as a San Francisco Examiner clipping that stated she would ‘be pitted against some of the brightest and most experienced minds of the San Francisco bar.’ Note: Adams later became the first female justice on the California Supreme Court; also note that at this point Trial Case Nos. 5843, 5866, 5867, 5870 and 5885 consolidated into three trials: The Seattle and Canadian Bomb Cases (No. 5843 and No. 5866/5867) and the Sacramento Case (No. 5870/5885) with the latter trial delayed repeatedly.

36. Foreign Office Despatch No. 83, FO to Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, 2 June 1916, London, 39, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO. Spring-Rice forwarded this to Ross on 28 June 1916.

37. Foreign Office Despatch No. 160, FO to Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, 1 October 1916, London, 53, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO: ‘The course and result of the trial in these cases will be of great interest to His Majesty's Government owing to the light which they may throw on the question how far the United States Government have fulfilled the obligations of their neutrality. It is important in this connection that [the Foreign Office] receive a sufficient record of proceedings.’ Note: After September 1916, the Seattle and Canadian Bomb Cases consolidated into one trial (No. 5866/5867) and the Sacramento Case (No. 5870/5885) still further delayed.

38. See Register of Correspondence, FO 600/6, TNA, PRO, for multiple entries on the exchange of information between Ross and Preston involving ‘anonymous letters’ and evidence. Ross received information from a ‘Mrs M. Armstrong’ regarding Gadar member Santokh Singh as well as direct reports from informants Kartor Singh and Vaishno Das Bagai who were likely the sources of the ‘anonymous letters.’ Note: Ross returned the memo book to the police chief of Victoria, British Columbia, after Preston finished with it.

39. See Special Agent-in-Charge Don Rathbun, BOI Report ‘In Re: US v. Crowley et al, Neutrality Matter,’ 9 March 1916, San Francisco, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR, for example of a ‘complimentary report’ in which Otto Orr (Mundell Investigator No. 30) commented: ‘I believe this janitor would testify against Crowley.’

40. See Consulate Despatch No. 511, Consul-General A. Carnegie Ross to Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, 1 November 1916, San Francisco, 72, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO, for his denial and see p. 73 for enclosed clipping from 1 November 1916 San Francisco Examiner that contained Bopp's allegation.

41. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 149.

42. Ross to Spring-Rice, 5 December 1916, 86.

43. See clipping ‘11 Jurors in the Box for Bopp Trial,’ San Francisco Examiner, 5 December 1916, 120, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO, for the quotations of Roche and Preston.

44. ‘Judge Hunt to Hear Bopp Case,’ San Francisco Examiner, 11 November 1916, 83, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO. The consolidated cases were heard by Judge William Hunt of the Circuit Court of Appeals since District Judges Dooling and Van Fleet had full dockets. Dooling heard the initial motions and arguments of the Bomb and Sacramento cases in 1916, while Van Fleet oversaw the much larger Maverick–Annie Larsen case from November 1917 to April 1918.

45. Embassy Despatch No. 90, Ambassador Sir Cecil Spring-Rice to Consul-General A. Carnegie Ross, 16 December 1916, Washington, DC, 125, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO.

46. Register of Correspondence, FO to Consul-General A. Carnegie Ross, 17 January 1917, FO600/6, TNA, PRO.

47. See A. O'Gorman Munkhouse, Report on 18 December 1916 Proceedings, 153, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO, for testimony of Otto Orr (Mundell Investigator No. 30).

48. Banerjee, Indian Freedom Movement, 79.

49. ‘Plot Laid to Ross at Trial of Bopp,’ San Francisco Examiner, 19 December 1916, 183, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO.

50. A. O'Gorman Munkhouse, Report on 19 December 1916 Proceedings, 155, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO.

51. ‘Bopp Moves for Dismissal,’ San Francisco Call, 19 December 1916, 180, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO. Preston asked Mundell how closely Brincken was followed. Mundell's response: ‘As closely as possible.’ Preston: ‘You had a pretty good corps of operatives on that work?’ Mundell: ‘Yes, but we had an elusive subject.’

52. ‘Ross Hired Sleuths to Trail Bopp,’ San Francisco Bulletin, 19 December 1916, 181, FO 115/2138, TNA, PRO.

53. See Owen McGee, The IRB: The Irish Republican Brotherhood from the Land League to Sinn Féin (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2005), for history of British agents provocateur in the IRB and Clan na Gael; see West, ‘William Melville,’ in History Dictionary of British Intelligence, 351, for Parliament's 1917 disapproval of the tactic in the UK; see Thomas, Secret Wars, 81, for agents provocateur operating in MI5 as late as 1916. MI6 had no restrictions.

54. Special Agent-in-Charge Don S. Rathbun, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 31 March 1917, San Francisco, Box No. 8, RG 118, NA–PSR.

55. Special Agent-in-Charge Don S. Rathbun, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 27 September 1917, San Francisco, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR. Rathbun dropped the façade while investigating Gadar activities in Fresno: ‘Communicated with British Secret Service Agent [Robert] Nathan and with Mundell and arranged for a representative who has been engaged on this investigation to go to Fresno and meet Deputy [US] Marshal Shannon and assist him.’

56. US Attorney John W. Preston, Notes on Witnesses ‘In the Case of Latendorff: Detectives (A) and (B),’ nd, San Francisco, 1, Box No. 16, RG 118.

57. Memorandum with Enclosures, Assistant Attorney General Charles Warren to US Attorney John W. Preston, 13 May 1916, Washington, DC, 3, Box No. 7, RG 118, NA–PSR. Also see Isemonger and Slattery, Ghadr Conspiracy, for the Indian Police intelligence used in the Lahore trials. Note: Frederick Jebsen was also the owner of the Sacramento and Mazatlan that provided coal to German warships in the Pacific.

58. Warren to Preston, 13 May 1916, 3.

59. Special Agent-in-Charge Don S. Rathbun, BOI Report ‘German Neutrality Matters,’ 5 February 1917, San Francisco, 2, Box No. 1, RG 118, NA–PSR.

60. Rathbun, BOI Report, 5 February 1917, 2.

61. Special Agent-in-Charge Don S. Rathbun, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 8 February 1917, San Francisco, 2, Box No. 8, RG 118, NA–PSR.

62. Rathbun, BOI Report, 8 February 1917, 3. Note: The British hanged Sir Roger Casement for recruiting Irish POWs in Germany and landing with his ‘Irish Brigade’ in Ireland via a German submarine for the Easter Rising of 1916. The Gadar recruited Indian POWs from the same camps near Hamburg, Germany.

63. Rathbun, BOI Report, 8 February 1917, 3. Also see Plowman, ‘Sinn Féin and the Gadar Party,’ 237–40, for discussion of Larry De Lacey and John Devoy in Sinn Féin and the IRB. Eamon de Valéra was the IRB-recognized leader of Ireland's outlawed assembly.

64. Rathbun, BOI Report, 8 February 1917, 6.

65. Statement by Charles Lamb, BOI Report ‘The Indian or Ghadr Movement,’ 13 February 1917, San Francisco, 1–2, Box No. 8, RG 118, NA–PSR.

66. See Preston, Notes on Witnesses ‘Latendorff Detectives,’ 1, for Mundell agents observing German Consulate Military Attaché Wilhelm von Brincken and his assistant Charles Latendorff in meetings with Larry de Lacey and Ram Chandra; see Lamb Statement, BOI Report, 13 February 1917, 2, for quotations, including: ‘The Indians [were] to make no move whatever without consulting De Lacey and De Lacey would make no move without consulting Kuno Meyer.’ There is little evidence to identify the mastermind ‘Kuno Meyer.’ The granddaughters of Brincken have dismissed the idea of their grandfather in unsolicited correspondence with the author in 2004–2005. Schack had little involvement beyond finances. Other possibilities include consulate personnel or agents Charles Latendorff, Henry Kauffman, Frank Schulenburg, or Bernard Manning; Ernst Sekunna was Franz von Papen's liaison officer to the Indians on the East Coast; or there is the unlikely German spymaster Kurt Jahnke. ‘Meyer’ might also simply be the cover for an agent provocateur of the British who funnelled information to ‘Lamb/Hale.’ The real Kuno Meyer, a controversial German scholar of Celtic studies and supporter of Clan na Gael, was in San Francisco in 1915–1916 but was in a train accident that was well-documented in Bay Area newspapers.

67. Lamb Statement, BOI Report, 13 February 1917, 1.

68. Brown, ‘The Hindu Conspiracy,’ 308.

69. See Agent E. M. Blanford, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 23 August 1917, San Francisco, 4, Box No. 7, RG 118, NA–PSR; and Agent A. Allen, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 9 April 1917, San Francisco, 1, Box No. 7, RG 118, NA–PSR, for reports on the raids. No mention was made of the new press at 5 Wood Street. The BOI reported that they raided 1364 Valencia Street not 1324 Valencia where the old press was located. This was likely a clerical error on the part of the BOI rather than the storming of the wrong location.

70. Agent E. M. Blanford, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries: Bhagwan Singh,’ 4 September 1917, San Francisco, 3, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR.

71. Letter, Charles Warren to John W. Preston, 19 April 1917, Washington DC, Box No. 4, RG 118, NA–PSR. The fact that this was a personal letter and not an official memorandum demonstrated the intention of avoiding the public record and letting Nathan introduce himself in person.

72. Dignan, ‘Hindu Conspiracy in Anglo–American Relations,’ 57–77; Jensen, ‘Hindu Conspiracy: A Reassessment,’ 65–83. Both argue that the US Government handled this neutrality trial as a war trial.

73. Warren to Preston, 19 April 1917.

74. Memorandum, US Attorney John W. Preston to Attorney General Thomas Gregory, 8 June 1917, San Francisco, Box No. 2, RG 118, NA–PSR.

75. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 250–1.

76. See Banerjee, Indian Freedom Movement, 79, for information on Denham as the head of British intelligence in India and accompanying an American police raid on the apartment of Taraknath Das without a warrant.

77. See Agent E. M. Blanford, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 10 December 1917, San Francisco, 2–3, Box No. 8, RG 118, NA–PSR, for Denham working with Blanford and US Army intelligence officers to interrogate Frank Schulenburg, an accomplice of Charles Crowley whom police arrested in San Jose. See Agent J. Kropidlowski, BOI Report ‘Ernest Euphrat, German and Hindu Activities,’ New York, 10 October 1917, 5, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR, for Denham's interrogation of Euphrat in New York.

78. Agent E. M. Blanford, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 16 November 1917, San Francisco, 2, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR.

79. Agent E. M. Blanford, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 23 August 1917, San Francisco, 5, Box No. 7, RG 118, NA–PSR.

80. Agent E. M. Blanford, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 1 September 1917, San Francisco, 3, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR.

81. Agent E. M. Blanford, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 12 September 1917, San Francisco, 2, Box No. 20, RG 118, NA–PSR.

82. Agent E. M. Blanford, BOI Report ‘Indian Revolutionaries,’ 8 August 1917, San Francisco, 4, Box No. 7, RG 118, NA–PSR.

83. Memorandum with Enclosure, Secretary of State Robert Lansing to Attorney General Thomas Gregory, 23 October 1917, State Department, Washington, DC, Box No. 2, RG 118, NA–PSR. Note: The British sent the request from India to the US Justice Department via the US State Department.

84. ‘Note to Secretary of State Robert Lansing (Document No. 9-10-3-386),’ 22 October 1917, Justice Department, Washington, DC, copy as enclosure in memorandum, US Attorney John W. Preston to Attorney General Thomas Gregory, 1 November 1917, San Francisco, Box No. 2, RG 118, NA–PSR.

85. Preston to Gregory, 1 November 1917, 1.

86. See Memorandum, Assistant Attorney General Charles Warren to US Attorney John W. Preston, 10 November 1917, Washington DC, 1, Box No. 2, RG 118, NA–PSR, for the copy of Preston's telegram, and pp. 2–3 for Warren's response.

87. Warren to Preston, 10 November 1917, 2–3.

88. Memorandum, US Attorney John W. Preston to Attorney General Thomas Gregory, 17 November 1917, San Francisco, 1, Box No. 2, RG 118, NA–PSR. Preston did seem more hopeful: ‘I believe we may be able to succeed anyway … From the way the case looks now, I believe we will be able to convict nearly all of the essential defendants.’

89. Memorandum, Officer in Charge (Balboa Court Building) to John W. Preston, 19 November 1917, San Francisco, Box No. 1, RG 118, NA–PSR.

90. See US Attorney John W. Preston, ‘Trial Notes on Defence Attorney George McGowan's Statements in Record,’ nd, San Francisco, 1–3, Box No. 4, RG 118, NA–PSR, for notes containing several examples of British spelling when referencing pp. 6589–604 of the trial transcript.

91. Memorandum, Special Assistant to the Attorney General for War Work John W. Preston to Attorney General Thomas Gregory, 6 August 1918, San Francisco, 1–2, Box No. 3, RG 118, NA–PSR. Emphasis in the original. Note Preston's new position after the trial; Assistant US Attorney Annette Adams became a full US Attorney.

92. See Historical Society of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, ‘The “Hindu Conspiracy” Case,’ The Historical Reporter 9, no. 1 (Summer 1996): 7, for the quotations as well as Deputy Clerk Carl Calbreath's primary account of the courtroom shooting. Note: Authorities housed some of the defendants at Alcatraz during the trial.

93. Historical Society, ‘The “Hindu Conspiracy” Case,’ 7.

94. See Verdict for Case No. 6133, 24 April 1917, Annette A. Adams Papers, Executive Office for United States Attorneys, US Justice Department, Washington DC, Released to author by Freedom of Information Act (FOIA/PA Unit), 3 April 1998, Request No. 98–896, with its attached clipping ‘All But 1 Guilty in Hindu Plot,’ San Francisco Examiner, 24 April 1917. The immediately deceased Ram Chandra and Ram Singh had their names crossed-out in the verdict, and John Craig was the only defendant to be found not guilty despite outfitting the ships. Nine had their cases dismissed, three pleaded guilty, and one was adjudged insane and committed to a state hospital.

95. Charge to the Jury in the San Francisco Trial, US v. Bopp et al. (Case No. 6133), as filed in US v. Chakravarty, Smedly, et al., US Attorney Records, New York Southern District, Record Group 21, National Archives – Northeast Region, New York.

96. See ‘$3 Million Is Cost of Prosecuting Hindoo Case,’ San Francisco Chronicle, 22 April 1918, clipping found loose in RG 118, NA–PSR, for claim of 200 British agents in San Francisco. This is not beyond the realm of possibility when including witnesses, guards, the Mundell detectives, and other staff at the consulate during the trial.

97. Memorandum, US Attorney John W. Preston to Attorney General Thomas Gregory, nd, San Francisco, 4, Box No. 2, RG 118, NA–PSR. The date and some pages of the memo are missing, but was found with other papers dated November 1917.

98. Popplewell, Intelligence and Imperial Defence, 4–5.

99. See Plowman, ‘Irish Republicans and the Indo–German Conspiracy,’ 101–4, for a discussion of these events.

100. Thomas, Secret Wars, 84.

101. Roy, Memoirs, 292. Roy visited Berlin in 1922 where members of the Berlin–India Committee had ‘transferred their hope’ from Germany to the Soviet Union with the Indian nationalists calling themselves ‘communists.’