Burn, Bomb, Destroy

“A fascinating tale of international intrigue, geopolitics, divided loyalties, and criminal investigations during wartime.” —New York Journal of Books

Many believe that World War I was only fought “over there,” as the popular 1917 song goes, in the trenches and muddy battlefields of Northern France and Belgium—they are wrong.

There was a secret war fought in America; on remote railway bridges and waterways linking the United States and Canada; aboard burning and exploding ships in the Atlantic Ocean; in the smoldering ruins of America’s bombed and burned-out factories, munitions plants, and railway centers; and waged in carefully disguised clandestine workshops where improvised explosive devices and deadly toxins were designed and manufactured. It was irregular warfare on a scale that caught the United States woefully unprepared.

This is the true story of German secret agents engaged in a campaign of subversion and terror on the American homeland before and during World War I.

“Using historical records and other sources ranging from pre-World War I through the twenty-first century, Digby’s book is a compelling narrative about people involved in German-inspired events to keep America out of World War I.” —Over the Front

“An excellent overview of the tangled web of German espionage in the US.” —Roads to the Great War