The Intelligencers

Excerpt:

. . .  Captain Ironside who had taken an Army interpretership in German and had learnt both Cape Dutch and Africaans was therefore tasked to assume the identity of a German-loving Boer and get himself enrolled in the German Army. This he did and thereafter suffered all the mental agonies of spy. On one occasion he nearly revealed himself when he was struck in the face by a German officer because his oxen were misbehaving — a severe test for the six foot four inch Highlander. After two years of espionage work Ironside told the Germans that he wished to return to his family and so impressed had they been with his services that they presented him with the German Military Service Medal. Another souvenir he brought back was a silver thaler, worth a few shillings, which had been given by another officer as a tip to the "humble German Soldier". Ironside wore it for years on a chain round his neck.

Richard Meinertzhagen, the famous intelligencer whose exploits during the First World War have been told so well by T. E. Lawrence in his book 'The Seven Pillars of Wisdom', was also carrying out espionage trips at this time. Meinertzhagen as a young officer in the Royal Fusiliers was asked to go to the Crimea to discover the details of a new fort being built by the Russians. At one point on the tour he had left the road to get a good view of his target when he was spotted and two soldiers came running forward to arrest him. Meinertzhagen however, had planned for this crisis:

"Luckily I knew what to do. I rapidly unloosed my trousers and had the satisfaction of squatting down for at least three minutes in full view of the fort, whilst the soldiers appearing to understand my embarrassment, and I suppose appreciating the fact that I was an ignorant foreigner, watched from a respectful distance." But this type of spy work which was co-ordinated by MO 3 and then MO 5 was not really approved of by the General Staff and in 1909 when the subject of espionage was reviewed officially, General Spencer Ewart, who had replaced General Grierson as Director of Operations, asked that the system be changed. In this year the deterioration in Britain's relations with Berlin and the discovery that Germany was establishing a spy network in England, caused the Government to set up a sub-committee of the Committee of Imperial Defence to consider what improvements could be made in the counter-intelligence system of the United Kingdom. The Committee soon discovered that the laws dealing with espionage were inadequate and that a co-ordinated system to deal with foreign espionage was non-existent. They did not however, confine themselves solely to questions of counterintelligence, but also looked into Britain's own secret service activities. Colonel J. E. Edmonds who was head of MO 5 (later the official historian of the First World War) explained that "he was in charge of the section of the General Staff employed on secret service", and it was this direct link between the General Staff and espionage activities which was strongly deplored by General Ewart, Ewart explained the system adopted by other countries, and showed that any correspondence between Military Attaches and Secret Service Agents was not carried on direct, but through some intermediary. The General Staff were thus protected against being detected in any dealings with spies.

"We have no machinery of this kind" General Ewart continued, "but it could no doubt be organised. We require information regarding espionage in this country so that we may keep suspicious aliens under observation, and be able to lay our hands on them in time of need. We also want to be in touch with foreigners with a view to ascertaining if there are any stores of foreign arms or explosives in this country." As a result of their deliberations the sub-Committee concluded: "That the best method both of acquiring information of what is being done by foreign agents in this country and of procuring information from abroad, would be obtained by means of a Secret Service Bureau which should be separate from any of the Departments, but should at the same time be in close touch with the Admiralty, War Office and Home Office. This Bureau would deal both with counter-espionage, and serve as an intermediary between the Admiralty and the War Office on the one hand, and agents that we employ in foreign countries on the other ... the subcommittee consider that the organising of this Bureau should be entrusted to the Director of Military Operations in co-operation with the Admiralty and the Commissioner of Police, and that it should be undertaken without delay."

The Committee of Imperial Defence approved the recommendations and at the next meeting of the sub-committee it was decided, after some discussion, that the most junior man in the room should form the new bureau. It was to be called the Special Intelligence Bureau, would be part of MO 5 and be responsible to the Director of Operations. Captain Vernon Kell, South Staffordshire Regiment was the "most junior officer" and on 23 August 1909 he took possession of a tiny office on the first floor of the War Office and began work. For a year he was alone, with no records, no clerk and hardly any furniture. The story of his success is, however, the story of the present Security Service - MI5. In 1914 Kell was able to round up every single German spy in Britain, less one, and thirty years later when he retired as Director of MI 5, he had seen the organisation grow from one office with limited access to the Director of Military Operations, to the principal Service concerned with maintaining British security, an autonomous department directly answerable to the Prime Minister.

But the sub-committee of 1909 did not feel that there was any pressing need to create a bureau to control their own British spies. And it was not until 1912 that the Special Intelligence Section (later MI 6) was formed to co-ordinate the activities of British agents overseas. Commander Mansfield Smith Gumming RN was given the task of raising this section and although a sailor he was also part of the Directorate of Military Operations.

This combination of all aspects of intelligence and all military planning into one department meant that the Director himself could become a very influential person in Whitehall - a fact that was soon realised by General Henry Wilson who succeeded General Ewart in 1910. Henry Wilson had served in the French Section of the Intelligence Division as a major in 1897, first under General Chapman and then under General Ardagh, but had left early - according to his Biographer - "because he was offered an appointment of Brigade Major". (In the Ministry of Defence Library copy of this Memoir there is a typewritten piece of paper stuck to the first page. It is signed by J. E. Edmonds (the Historian) and reads as follows "Wilson was not tempted away from the Intelligence Division by the offer of a Brigade-majorship. As we all knew at the time he was 'fired out' by the Director of Military Intelligence General Sir John Ardagh for 'being below the standard of education desirable in a staff officer".)

But whatever Wilson's academic qualifications there is no doubt that he foresaw that war with Germany was inevitable and also that Britain and France would be Allies. He kept two large scale roller maps on the wall opposite his desk, one showed the lines of communication on the Franco-Belgian-German frontier, the other the German-Austro-Hungarian-Russian Frontier. These maps he would frequently use to point out the dangerous situation in Europe. He made a personal reconnaissance of the Franco-Belgium area allotted to the British Expeditionary Force and insisted that the Handbook on the German Army was continually reviewed and kept up to date. German Field Service Regulations were translated and given a wide issue, as were handbooks on roads and billeting facilities in Northern France and Belgium.

At one stage in 1911 Wilson asked his two intelligence assistants Count Gleichen (ADMO 2) and Colonel Money (ADMO 3) to work out, without consulting each other, when and where the first collision would occur if Germany went to war with France. Using the known capacity of the German railways and roads and an 'acquired' German mobilisation plan the two Branches decided quite independently that the first big clash would probably occur on the fourteenth day after mobilisation near Montmedy. "Very odd" mused Henry Wilson "the French General Staff have also calculated that the first big battle will be on the fourteenth day of mobilisation about Montmedy." "This was a wonderful coincidence" Count Gleichen has written - "But we were all three wrong, a surprise Corps enabled the Germans to make that huge turning movement north of the Meuse which, had it not been for the little B.E.F. in the way would have rolled up the French left and maybe altered the history of the World."

The title of the "planning years" well describes this period. It had to be planning, as the Government would allow no actual expansion. What a frustrating period it must have been for Service Commanders: "Wherever I look, to China, India, Egypt, South Africa, Morocco and to Europe, everything is restless and unsettled and everyone except ourselves is getting ready for war," wrote General Wilson in his diary on 25 November 1913. "This frightens me. Our territorials are falling down - witness the Deputations of County Associations who are going to Asquith tomorrow; our regulars are falling down - witness our recruiting returns; our Special Reserve is a thing 'poor rire'. And we are doing nothing." Yet in spite of the activities of those idealistic members of Government who imposed the cold dead hand of pacifism on service reforms, the Army and Navy did manage to prepare for the coming war. The success of the Japanese against the Russians, the Balkan Wars, the Dreyfus espionage scandal in France and above all the growing militancy of Germany, all provided a strong stimulus . . .