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Captain Bernard Frederick Trench (17 July 1880 – 10 October 1967) was a British soldier and famous spy who was caught and convicted by the German authorities just a few years before World War I. In 1913 he was released as a present to Ernest Augustus the Duke of Brunswick when Augustus married the German Kaiser's daughter, Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia.

Background

Trench was a descendant of Lord Ashtown and of Archbishop Trench.

Career

Trench was commissioned a second lieutenant in the Royal Marine Light Infantry on 1 January 1899, and promoted to lieutenant on 1 January 1900.

Captain Trench was arrested and went to trial with another man, Lieutenant Vivian R. Brandon R.N., who had been arrested a few days earlier. Trench had other accomplices on his mission to scout out information about the military installations on the island of Borkum but was the only person arrested from his spy ring. He was an agent of the spymaster and future first director of what would become the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), also known as MI6, Mansfield Smith-Cumming. Trench's codename was COUNTERSCRAP.

Trench and Brandon's trial took place at the Leipzig Supreme Court in the so-called Great Court of the Reichsgericht on 22 December 1910. Convicted of espionage they were both sentenced to a term of four years.

During his imprisonment, Trench hanged himself from the ceiling by his neck but survived. In letters, he claimed that he did not intend to commit suicide or escape. Trench's letters, however, condemned Captain Lux, a French officer who escaped from the fortress during Trench's imprisonment. Trench complained that the lax security at the fort was possible because of a promise from the prisoners not to attempt to break out.

Captain Trench and another British subject caught spying, Captain Bertrand Stewart, were pardoned and released by the German Kaiser as a present to Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick when Augustus married the Kaiser's daughter, Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia. (They married on 24 May 1913).

He fought in the Second World War and married Mary Audrey Taylor, daughter of Reverend Robert Fetzer Taylor, on 8 September 1943.

Notes

1. ^ The New York Times 1910
2. ^ Emmerson 2013, p. 13
3. ^ GlobalSecurity.org 2014
4. "No. 27170". The London Gazette. 2 March 1900. p. 1433.
5. Reader 1991, p. 70
6. ^ West 2006, p. 37
7. ^ The West Australian 1912
8. thepeerage.com 2004

References

• Emmerson, Charles (2013). 1913: The World before the Great War (2013 ed.). Random House. ISBN 9781448137329. - Total pages: 544
• GlobalSecurity.org (2014). "Borkum". GlobalSecurity.org. Retrieved 22 September 2014.
• Reader, W. J. (1991). At Duty's Call: A Study in Obsolete Patriotism (1991 ed.). Manchester University Press. ISBN 9780719024092. - Total pages: 160
• The New York Times (22 December 1910). "Britons Admit Spying.; Trial of Capt. Trench and Lieut. Brandon Is Begun In Germany" (PDF). The New York Times. Retrieved 22 September 2014.
• The West Australian (19 January 1912). "Captain Trench's Case". The West Australian. Perth, WA. Retrieved 22 September 2014.
• West, Nigel (2006). Historical Dictionary of International Intelligence (2006 ed.). Scarecrow Press. ISBN 9780810864931. - Total pages: 360
• thepeerage.com (7 February 2004). "Person Page - 3352". thepeerage.com. Retrieved 26 September 2014.

• Royal Marines personnel of World War I
• Royal Marines personnel of World War II
• 1880 births
• 1967 deaths
• British spies
• 20th-century spies
• People convicted of spying
• Incarcerated spies
• British people imprisoned in Germany
• British people imprisoned abroad
• Recipients of German royal pardons
• Royal Marines officers
• 19th-century Royal Marines personnel