Bertrand Stewart

Bertrand Stewart (December 1872 – 12 September 1914) worked as a solicitor in London and was also a military officer in the Queen's Own West Kent Yeomanry, he fought in the Second Boer War and the First World War. In between the two wars he volunteered to spy on German naval actions. He was famously arrested in Germany on 2 August 1911 and sentenced to four years in prison. Stewart and another British spy, Captain Trench, were pardoned and released by the German Kaiser as a present to Ernest Augustus the Duke of Brunswick when Augustus married the Kaiser's daughter, Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia. He died fighting off a German attack near the River Vesle during the Battle of the Marne.

Early life

Stewart went to school at Eton (Durnford's House). He then went up to Christ Church, Oxford, leaving in 1892. He was admitted as a solicitor in 1897 and joined the firm of Markby, Stewart & Co., of Coleman Street, London.

Military career and spycraft When the Boer War started, Bertrand joined the West Kent as a private. He fought in British operations at Cape Colony, Orange River Colony, and the Transvaal. Stewart was tried by the Supreme Court of the Empire at Leipzig on 31 January 1912. After four days, he was found guilty and sentenced to three-and-a-half years in the Glatz Fortress.

When the Great War started, he was quickly given a position in the Intelligence Department on the Staff of Major General Allenby. During the Battle of the Marne, in the opening months of the war, his unit was facing fierce German attacks when he grabbed a rifle and went to help the men at the front lines. He was found dead by a future author and member of the same unit, Frederick Coleman, near the River Vesle.