Volume XXXVII No. 3 March 1982 INFORMATION ISSUED BY THE AaooAim OF awmi RBUOBS U OEAT BRITJUN Ronald Stent last peroration (on Govenunent policy in Egypt) he uttered these memorable words: "I speak, I confess, as an Oriental myself. I have oriental blood in my veins. One of the greatest men who ever lived, Christ, was an FROM ISAAC TREBITSCH oriental. I cannot but laugh at the doctrines of the hon. members opposite that orientals must receive treatment in some way different from that given to TO CHAO KUNG other people". The treatment which Trebitsch had received from Weirdest of Wandering Jews his Liberal colleagues left him with an enormous chip on his shoulder. In his first and later repudiated auto­ biography he says that "the personal insults to which I was subjected under the roof of my own Club (the The trite observation that truth is often stranger task is not made any easier by the fact that our hero National Liberal) filled me with a bitter desire for than fiction is certainly an apposite comment on the wrote two autobiographies, one in 1915, the other in revenge. I made up my mind to shake England's dust life of Ignatius Timotheus Trebitsch Lincoln. It is now 1932, in which he contradicts himself continuously. from my feet but not without getting even. I determined impossible to separate one from the other in a career In 1932 he claims that much of what he wrote during to find out important military and naval secrets and which spanned 20 changes of name and three changes the first World War was all lies. to betray them to Germany, and having achieved this of religion. In his earlier opus he says that shortly after he had to quit England for ever, if still alive". But in 1932 he Grandson of a Hungarian Rabbi, Canadian Mis­ started working for Rowntree he was contacted by denied ever having spied for Germany sionary, Anglican curate in Kent, Liberal M.P. for one "D", a "very high personage in British Intel­ Darlington, policy adviser to Kapp during his Putsch, ligence", who told him that a conspiracy was afoot, Double Agent aide-de-camp to Chinese warlords and Buddhist monk led by the King (Edward VII) and Sir Edward Grey in Ceylon and China—has there ever in modern times (the Foreign Secretary) to sell out the Empire to the Trebitsch spent the next four years abroad, mainly been a life as weird and as mysterious? Germans, which they must prevent. Trebitsch agreed in the Ploesti oilfields in Rumania working for a Isaac Trebitsch was bom just over a himdred years to become a secret agent on the side. But a Frenchman* petroleum exploiting consortium. For the first time in ago in the hamlet of Paks on the Danube, just south of asserts that Trebitsch was already recruited whilst in his life he acquired there a modicum of affluence. Budapest, son of a well-to-do shipowner and trader. Canada peddling his new religion to the Jews and that Whilst travelling in South Eastern Europe he seems to He was destined to follow in his grandfather's foot­ it was tlie Secret Service who got him his job as a have continued his work for what he calls "M.0.5". steps but chose instead to be trained as an actor at the curate as a cover. But it is difficult to be certain whether he was at the Royal College of Dramatic Art in Budapest, a training same time also working for Germany. He does say that he kept in touch with Col. Nicolai, head of Section Illb which must have been useful to him in later life. But he AU Over Europe did not go on the stage. He became a journalist and of the "Auskunftsdienst" operatingout of Amsterdam. travelled all over the world. During a visit to London Trebitsch's travels took him all over Europe, par­ When war broke out Trebitsch was back in London, he saw a copy of Rubens' "Descent from the Cross" in ticularly into the Balkans. In 1910 he had an interview working for a short time as censor in Hungarian and a City church; it was there that his interest in Jesus and with the Archduke Franz Ferdinand at the Belvedere Rumanian (now his fourth fluent language) at the in Christianity was first aroused. Palace in Vienna which was subsequently published in Mount Pleasant Sorting Office. In December he seems In 1898 he entered a theological training college in the Daily Chronicle and the Neue Freie Presse. The to be working full time for M.I.6. According to his Hamburg and in the following year he was baptised Archduke pleaded for a new understanding between first autobiography he now disclosed to his superiors and took the names Ignatius Timotheus. In 1902 he England and Austria, leading to a rapprochement that he was a double agent but that his real interests was sent to the Anglican Mission to the Jews in between Britain and Germany. lay with Great Britain. He suggested to them a plan Canada. There he travelled widely preaching the By then Trebitsch had abandoned Rowntree's which really illustrates the folie-de-grandeur which gospel to the Jews. But his restless, ambitious nature survey. He had now set his sights higher. With Rown­ pervades his whole life. He wanted to disclose to his did not have enough scope in Canada. So in 1903 he tree's assistance he was selected as Liberal candidate German contacts a plan which would lure the whole of applied to His Grace of Canterbury personally in such for Darlington and in the famous General Election of the British fleet into the hands of the German Navy persuasive language that he obtained an appointment January 1910 was returned as a member for that and then, after the Germans accepted the plan, dis­ as curate in the parish of Appledore in Kent. constituency, the first mid-European to sit in the close details to the Admiralty so that they could reverse the proceedings. Here was this Hungarian Jew, just 24 years old, Commons (one of his colleagues was Sir Alfred Mond, suddenly transplanted into a small, rural English com- later Lord Melchett; but he had been born here). Not unnaturally "Capt. Kenny, acting Chief of the mimity, where not even his undoubted histrionic Trebitsch had only arrived in England a bare six years Secret Service" did not buy the plan and from that qualities and chameleon-like personality sufficed to before and had only recently been naturalised. English moment, if not before, our ex-M.P. seems to have been niake him popular with either the vicar or with his was only his third acquired language after Hungarian under constant surveillance. He was sent to Rotterdam, parishioners. His wife, Margarete Kalor, daughter of and German, but he is supposed to have already where M.I. had an office and claims that whilst there a German sea-captain, also did not fit into the new spoken it with a distinct Yorkshire accent. he not only provided Sir Douglas Haig (the British set-up. But his curacy lasted for three years, perhaps It was an astonishing achievement but, alas, his C-in-C) with detailed plans of German troop disposi­ the longest unbroken period in his life. parliamentary career did not last very long. His tions but also disclosed secret British information During those years he managed to make the colleagues distrusted him; a Commission of Inquiry to his German paymasters. He also obtained details of acquaintance of Seebohm Rowntree, the chocolate set up to investigate alleged illegal election expenses all German agents operating in the U.K. which, so manufacturer and Quaker social reformer. Rowntree and campaign methods could not find anything dis­ he says, he intended to hand over personally to the eventually engaged him as his personal secretary and honourable, but despite patronage from Lloyd George, First Lord of the Admiralty. But when he came home assigned him to a survey of the relationship between the party disowned him. When as the result of all the in January 1915 he was fobbed off by Churchill's poverty and the systems of land-tenure on the con­ brouhaha over Lloyd George's budget and the conflict Secretary Edward Marsh and told to take his goods to tinent. This began to involve Trebitsch, who had between Lords and Commons the House was dis­ the Director of Naval Intelligence (the famous Capt. hyphenated his family name to the "Lincoln", in solved again at the end of the same year, Trebitsch Hall who later stalked von Rintelen so successfully). Continental travels. It is at that point of his oscillating was not even reselected. By now the authorities had become thoroughly career that mystery for the first time intrudes. From During his eight months as a member he made suspicious of Trebitsch and began to probe into his now on it becomes increasingly difficult to sort chaff four speeches (Hansard refers to him throughout as whole past. Trebitsch became alarmed that the net was from wheat, "Dichtung" from "Wahrheit" and that "Ignatius Lincoln") on a variety of subjects. In his Continued on page 2 Page 2 AJR INFORMATION March 1982 Continued from page 1 THE BENEFIT OF DEEDS OF COVENANTS AND LEGACIES Covenants FROM ISAAC TO CHAO We would very much like more members to pay their subscriptions, or give us additional donations, closing in. When he received a telegram on 27 January earlier. By pure chance he now picked up a London under Deed of Covenant.