Anonymous. My Secret Service: By The Man Who Dined with The Kaiser

New York: George H. Doran Company, 1916. — 235 p.What would happen if a man went undercover into enemy territory during World War One?
One man ventured to find out. The book’s unnamed narrator, a Daily Mail journalist, begins his journey posing as a steel worker in Essen, before being ‘dismissed with ignominy’ and moving on to Constantinople. The journalist, who at the beginning of the book, proclaims ‘I am not a spy’, undertakes a covert journey through the Balkans, Turkey and Asia Minor, detailing the state and effect of the German presence. In Turkey, he gains an audience with the leader of the Ottoman Empire, Enver Pasha. He is also fortunate enough to dine with the Emperor of Germany in Nish, lending this claim on fame to the front cover of his book. ‘The man who dined with the Kaiser’ travels back through hostile lands with a renewed sense of haste and fear, anxious to bring his story back to the British Press, but his return journey is not entirely smooth. The purpose of his journey and this work is not merely entertainment, and the author is at pains to stress the fact of German economic and military strength. He does not hide his sympathy for the British, but continually criticises the dangerous British habit of underestimating the German adversary. He warns that, ‘Germany is to this century what Napoleon was to last, a menace to individual and national independence.’ My Secret Service is the fascinating account of one journalist’s intrepid journey into enemy territory during the first years of World War I. Anonymously written in 1916, the story is captivating. Contemporary readers would have found it illuminating, and the modern reader can expect much in the way of historical insight.