Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A rare ‘Belgian Agent’ group of four awarded to Madame Charlotte Lints-Stassart

Belgium, Kingdom, Order of Leopold II, Officer’s badge, gilt and enamel, French motto, with rosette on riband; Commemorative Medal for he Great War 1914-18, bronze; Allied Victory Medal 1914-19, bronze; Great Britain, British War Medal 1914-20 (C. Lints-Stassart) mounted court-style, the Belgian Victory Medal with abrasions to higher relief parts, and suspension ‘ball’ somewhat out of shape, otherwise very fine and better, rare to unit (4) £300-£400

Charlotte Lints-Stassart served as a Belgian Agent for British Military Intelligence during the Great War, her name being included on the British War Medal roll signed by Lieutenant-Colonel Edmund Wallinger, head of British Military Intelligence, dated 7 August 1919. Her address is given as 26 Rue en Bois, Liege.

‘Armour Against Fate’ by Michael Occleshaw gives the following information:
‘There were, of course, many other organisations which, while successful to a lesser degree, nevertheless ran the same risks and penalties. Drake tells us that the number of Agents employed by G.H.Q. alone was ‘roughly 6,000’, of whom 98 lost their lives: 91 were executed, 4 died in prison, 2 were shot, and one was electrocuted trying to cross the Dutch-Belgian frontier. A further 644 were imprisoned for sentences totalling 700 years (the time actually served amounted to 175 years), and 10 were deported. Major Wallinger, however, told Colonel Kirke that the total number of G.H.Q. Agents in the occupied territories was 5,500, of whom 1,200 were imprisoned, serving an average of 14 months, and 200 were shot or died in prison (though in a later letter he gave a total shot or dying in prison as 120).
The reason for the disparity between the two men’s figures almost certainly resides in a question of terminology; a question of what was precisely meant by the words ‘Agent’ and ‘Spy’. An Agent is an individual directly employed by an Intelligence Service sent into a foreign country to obtain information. A Spy is an individual who served in the enemy’s own ranks and, more often than not, is recruited by the Agent ... the numbers employed both directly and indirectly by the British Intelligence Services was one that the Germans simply could not contain, much less control. Every sort of person was employed, ranging ‘from abbes, high officials of the Gendarmerie, a Marchioness of some 60 years of age, big industrialists and prominent barristers, down to seamstresses, poachers, smugglers, bargemen and railway officials ... ’