Born in the village of Westrozebeke in Belgium on October 28th, 1892, Marthe Cnockaert wanted nothing more than to study medicine, but her studies were interrupted by the outbreak of World War I. The green and pleasant lands of her youth and the farm her parents toiled upon were soon torn asunder by the ravages of a war the world had never seen before. Whilst Marthe would indeed become the nurse she always wanted to be, she also became a spy for the Allies. Just how did one nurse take a stand against the Germans, who condemned her to death, end up with The Iron Cross, given to her by those very same people? This is the story of a spy like no other…
The Great War
1914. The prestigious Ghent University. Where Marthe had always wanted to be. But her studies were not to be, broken by the ravages of war. The Austro-Hungarian Empire invaded Serbia, forming the Central Powers that included Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire. Hell raged. Germany invaded France, taking Belgium down in the process. Westrozebeke was razed to the ground by the might of the flame, Marthe’s family home was destroyed – her father accused of shooting at the German troops so they wasted no time in retaliating. Those who survived the massacre at Westrozebeke were shackled in a cellar although mercifully released only a few days later. But where would they go?
They were refugees caught up in the maelstrom. 1,000 villagers were killed. Marthe and her family escaped but they were homeless. Sheltering in the home of a friend, Marthe’s father moved to nearby Roeselare to find work and somewhere for his beleaguered family to live. The family was torn apart as the land had been. Marthe’s brothers had left to fight in the Great War whilst Marthe was left to care for her mother. The heartache was tremendous.
Armed with what she had learnt at Ghent, Marthe managed to find work as a nurse where she treated Belgian and German soldiers in a nearby hospital. She was the best they had. Her training was nearly complete and her multi-language skills were incredible, speaking English, German, French and Flemish. She soon gained the respect of her colleagues. Her efficient and sincerity made her the perfect nurse. For her medical service, the Germans awarded her the Iron Cross.
Soon, however, she was to betray them for the Allied cause…
The Betrayal?
Marthe’s hospital was a devastated abbey converted into a military hospital. Marthe had agreed to staff it whilst her mother left to move to the city of Roeselare. The family was separated; it weighed heavily on Marthe’s mind. She had a skeleton staff. The nuns of the abbey were expelled on suspicion of being spies. Marthe had hundreds of patients and each day she could see what the horror of war was doing, not just to her country but her own people. She felt sympathy for all those caught up in the hell. Her commitment had led her to receiving the Iron Cross from the Germans themselves. But everything changed in 1915.
Allied artillery wiped out what was left of Marthe’s village. And she felt hopeless. All she could do was watch as the Allies took out what the Germans left in ruins. They let the remaining people go and at once, Marthe left for Roeselare to be with her parents. Given her background, she soon found work at the Roeselare German Hospital.
As the months ticked by, Marthe found herself reunited with survivors from her village. And she discovered that many had been recruited by the Anglo-Belgians to spy on the Germans. Do you want to join our resistance, Marthe? It made sense. Marthe’s parents, both in Roeselare, ran a small café frequented by German soldiers and other staff. Marthe was interested. The café was the perfect setup. She would now be a part of an Anglo-Belgian intelligence network in Roeselare. She had stepped over a line many would never dare cross but she was sick and tired of war, constant war, it had to end.
This was not betrayal, no, this was heroism and it was the story of many civilians who decide to take the fight to the Germans for what they had done…
The Café
This was it. Marthe was working in the café as a spy, her life completely different to what it was only a few days prior. She never really thought too much about all this. The Germans took her village. And then gave her their highest award. Marthe, under the codename ‘Laura’, worked alongside two other women, an old vegetable seller named ‘Canteen Ma’, who the Germans adored, and a postal agent known only as Number 63. For the next two years, Marthe was ‘Laura’, deep undercover trying to gather whatever information she could on the soldiers in the café, as a waitress, and at the hospital, as a nurse.
Marthe was working for the Allied forces, gathering important military intelligence that she passed on to other agents in local churches. This was her life now. The dedicated nurse, as before, and the spy in secret. In her two years, she uncovered locations of German ammunition and plans for future attacks. Marthe was in deep.
It was in 1915 when Marthe overheard one interesting conversation. The German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, was planning to visit Roeselare to prepare for an attack on Britain. Nothing came of it but Marthe was there to pass the information on. She slipped pieces of paper with encoded messages to unknown people, some knocking on her window at night. And it worked. During the war, she was instrumental in destroying a telephone line which a local priest was using to spy for the Germans. Marthe often worked 20 hour days. But her dedication as a nurse was the perfect cover. She was friendly with the Germans. They never suspected her. She came to know over 1,000 German troops in her life.
But Marthe was never alone. Her mother often smuggled information across the border that Marthe had passed on to her. There were times when Marthe feared the jig was up. On one dark day, she was grabbed by Otto von Prompt, a man she knew of. She was sure this was the end. He dragged her upstairs to talk in private.
However, to her utter surprise, Otto told Marthe that he trusted her as loyal to the Germans and asked her to work as a German spy to help him wipe out the Belgian resistance. Marthe was in an impossible situation. If she said ‘no’, she would be killed. The Germans knew those loyal to them would always say ‘yes’ and to say ‘no’ was ‘proof’ of guilt. Marthe was terrified. She didn’t want to die. She had no choice.
Against her will, she was forced to become a double agent…
The Secret
Bombs fell that night, bombs fell on the brewery where German soldiers slept. Whilst she had agreed to become a double agent, Otto had let slip that the brewery was home to German soldiers. The bombs fell and Marthe feared the worst. Surely Otto must know. I will be caught at any moment. I must flee.
Desperate to save her life, Marthe, never wanting to be a double agent, pulled to one side one day one of her contacts that she often relayed information to. She told him everything. I need a way out, now! The net was closing in. But she was too valuable to the Allies. She had to stay inside to keep providing the valuable information to the Allies. But Otto was a problem. Did he suspect Marthe? Almost certainly. Had he told anyone? Well, he never would. The next day, Otto was shot dead in his apartment. Marthe had signed his death warrant. She couldn’t get out. It was the next option for the Allies. It weighed heavily on her mind, but the war was cruel and there were no winners.
She had used her Iron Cross to gain favour but the entire ordeal left her rattled. Yet she carried on. In 1916, she uncovered an abandoned sewer tunnel running beneath a German ammunition depot and she was ordered to blow it up. With another agent named Alphonse, Marthe placed dynamite right under the depot. Unfortunately, she dropped her watch. And on it, her initials were engraved…
The depot was not blown up but Marthe, who had been an exemplary agent, had made one fateful mistake. Her cover was blown unlike the depot, which very much wasn’t. She was arrested in the November of 1916 and sentenced to death for espionage.
Yet the very Iron Cross that gave her a window into German intelligence was about to save her life…
A Cross to Bear
Fortunately for Marthe, her Iron Cross came to her rescue. She was tortured and interrogated but refused to give up any secrets. She was a brave, courageous and noble individual. She was just 24. As she had done so much for the German soldiers and civilians, her sentence was reduced to life in Ghent prison looking out upon the city where she learnt her craft…
Her exploits during the war were legendary. So much that when the Germans she helped, who were on the other side of the war she was fighting, found out about her espionage, they vouched for her character. This woman does not deserve death. They were integral to her survival. As a nurse, she was impartial and dedicated, only as a spy did she work against the Germans. Whilst her Iron Cross saved her life, we owe as much to the lives she touched, on both sides.
Marthe did not serve life in prison but she did serve two years, released in 1918 when Armistice was declared. This ended the war and this freed Marthe. She was commended by Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig for her services to the Allied cause and she received many awards. There really can’t be too many people who have an Iron Cross, a British certificate for gallantry from Winston Churchill himself and be a member of the French and Belgian Legions of Honour. Yet Marthe does.
Marthe married John ‘Jock’ McKenna, a British army officer, soon after the war. The couple moved to England to live a quieter life away from the horrors they witnessed and brought about, all to end the insanity of war. Marthe took to writing, too.
In 1932, she published her wonderfully named memoir, ‘I Was a Spy!’ but it was ghost written by her husband. Churchill wrote the foreword for the book. Her memoirs were warmly received and proved popular, with rave reviews. More and more books followed but ‘I Was a Spy!’ remained the most popular, selling some 200,000 copies at the time.
‘I Was a Spy!’ was adapted into a successful movie of the same name in 1933. What followed were more than a dozen spy novels published by Marthe and Jock and they grew old, happy for some time. They did live a quieter life and retired to Manchester in 1940. What a time to move to a northern powerhouse…
It was here they rode out World War II but don’t think the Nazis left her alone. She was listed in ‘The Black Book’, a Nazi list of targets to arrest and exterminate upon their invasion of Britain. They still held a grudge against her.
Although the Nazis never invaded the mainland, even if they had, I fancied her chances…
The Gallant Hero
The couple moved back to Westrozebeke in 1947, Marthe returning home. No more books were written but tragedy struck in 1951 when Marthe and Jock’s marriage broke down. He had met another woman, much younger, and he left his wife of nearly 30 years. Marthe was now all alone. She lived in isolation for another 15 years, the hero of the war wanting to be left alone, a broken woman who died on her own in 1966 at the age of 73. Well done, Jock. Real classy.
Marthe’s story is a fascinating one. She was a Belgian spy for the Allied forces reporting directly to British operatives during World War I, later becoming a novelist, publishing her memoirs and spy novels, many of which are still in print. But Marthe was more than this. She was a nurse and, regardless of who was in her hospital, she cared for them and made them feel comfortable and safe. Whilst still a nurse, sometimes working 20 hour days, she was also a spy. Awarded the Iron Cross by the Germans, she turned on the invaders who destroyed her village and many of those friends and relatives she loved, putting her life on the line as a nurse and as a spy to free the world from the German menace, in whatever way she could. And in the process, receiving awards of gallantry and two Legion of Honour medals.
Nobody is saying Marthe won the war but she helped to defeat the Germans, part of a rich tapestry of people, ordinary civilians, who took up arms and fought back. Marthe was, unquestionably, incredibly brave, not taking a second to think of life as a spy. She wanted to do it. All people who fought back wanted to take something from those who had taken so much from them. It was vengeance. But that anger and that drive is what defeated the Germans. Without the bravery and tenacity of people like Marthe, we wouldn’t be here today.
She wouldn’t want to be idolised, that’s not her legacy. Her legacy is what she believed in: the greater good. That no evil is too great to defeat. That everybody has a part to play in ridding the world of hate and violence. Nobody wins in war. We are only ever freed from the shackles of oppression, often at the cost of mental and physical wellbeing. But it lays the groundwork for the freedom to come, the freedom from the evil so many sacrificed so much to overcome. Marthe’s legacy is not herself. But the valour she displayed.
Marthe Cnockaert was one soldier in an army of millions. Her story should never be forgotten for the important message it gives all people even to this day…
As long as I live, so long do I learn.
Ramakrishna.
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Image: 1) Marthe Cnockaert. Image Credit: http://womenheroesofwwi.blogspot.com/2014/02/martha-cnockaert-belgian-spy.html
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