To Invade Canada
On the military side, one of von Papen’s brilliant projects was to organize the German reservists in the United States into an army for the invasion of Canada. The plan was to transport men and guns by night from ports of the Great Lakes by means of powerful motor boats and attack defenseless lake cities, the object being to arouse such fear in the Canadians that they would keep their troops for home defense instead of sending them to the aid of England. This, however, was a project from which the craftier Bernstorff recoiled as smacking too much of open violence. Then von Papen proposed a scheme to blow up the Welland Canal as a terrorizing job. The plot was ascribed to “two Irishmen, prominent members of Irish associations, both of whom had fought in the Irish rebellion.”
The spy, Horst von der Goltz, was the active agent in the preliminary steps, such as recruiting men for the job, securing explosives, etc., Papen, in the name of Steffens, supplying the money and giving the necessary instructions. But after being carried forward almost to the point of action the Welland enterprise was, for some unknown reason, suddenly abandoned and the dynamite (three hundred pounds in suitcases), which had been taken to Niagara Falls, was left with an aviator, and Goltz, with his immediate associate, Constance Covani, a private detective, returned to New York. Von Papen was much provoked by the failure of his second plan to terrorize Canada. Goltz was sent on some commission to Germany in October, sailing on a forged passport, got safely to Berlin and, on his return trip in November, was arrested in England, spy fashion. After a protracted imprisonment, Goltz agreed to turn State’s evidence against his fellow conspirators. A number of arrests resulted, and the plots against Canada were fully revealed.
As more and more precise rules for the issue of passports were made by the government the difficulties of the conspirators in making direct communication with Berlin increased correspondingly. It devolved upon von Papen to provide for the supply of passports to meet the needs of couriers and others who could not get passports in their own names.
“The military attaché selected Lieutenant Hans von Wedell, who had already made a trip as courier to Berlin for his friend, Count von Bernstorff. Von Wedell was married to a German baroness. He had been a newspaper reporter in New York, and later a lawyer. He opened an office in Bridge Street, New York, and began to send out emissaries to sailors on interned German liners, and to their friends in Hoboken, directing them to apply for passports. He sent others to the haunts of tramps on the lower East Side, to the Mills Hotel, and other gathering places of the down-and-outs, offering ten, fifteen or twenty dollars to men who would apply for and deliver passports. And he bought them! He spent much time at the Deutscher Verein, and at the Elks’ Club in 43rd Street where he often met his agents to give instructions and receive passports. His bills were paid by Captain von Papen.”