Pre-World War I British Intelligence - Report Example

Pre-World War I British Intelligence Introduction Generally considered by scholars as the ‘second oldest profession’ in the world, espionage or intelligence has caught the attention of historians and other academics for several centuries. Various intelligence divisions were formed throughout the Boer War (1899-1901), like the Corps of Scouts and Rimington’s Tigers, and, because of this, there appeared a clear necessity to examine and interpret the information gathered.1 Britain is regarded as one of the first creators of espionage and intelligence. The beginning of the modern Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) can be traced back to the latter part of the 15th century. There were already individuals assigned to information gathering for the government of Her Majesty during the 15th century.2 According to historical records, Sir Thomas Cromwell supervised undercover agents in Europe for Henry VIII. Moreover, Sir Francis Walsingham acquired skill in espionage, including keeping a web of fifty undercover agents overseas while working as Elisabeth I’s personal secretary.3 However, this essay argues that the history of British intelligence is not as simple as it may seem; the emergence of British intelligence prior to World War I is characterized by complex and interrelated events like the Napoleonic Wars, the French Revolution, and the Parliamentary acts during the 18th century. Moreover, British intelligence has evolved in terms of structure, composition, and purpose (e.g. to prevent civil wars) over the years. Therefore, this essay discusses the factors that led to the establishment of British Intelligence before the First World War. Establishing British Intelligence For centuries, the British navy has been regarded as one of the world’s most powerful military units, which explains why Britain relied mainly on the Naval Intelligence Division (NID) to collect information or intelligence until 1909. The British ‘Secret Service’ was formed in 1909 as a response to the danger posed by the naval and military expansion of Germany, and numerous years of increasing anxiety and alarm at the thought of German secret agents all over Britain.4 Hence, the initial SIS mission was to collect confidential information about the military devices and plans of Germany. In early 1909, a NID assignment to take pictures of a German military port backfired and two leaders were caught.5 The failed intelligence attempt pushed the Royal Navy to make new decisions and carry out new measures with regard to its capability to gather intelligence, and finally to reach a decision that they should form an independent, restructured agency that would be devoted to collecting military intelligence.6 The British SIS was established in October 1909 as the Secret Service Bureau’s foreign sector. At that point, the Bureau was separated into an army sector and a naval sector. The naval sector was assigned to foreign surveillance whereas the army sector was assigned to counterintelligence within the UK.7 The army sector was converted into MI5 whereas the naval sector was transformed into MI6. It was proclaimed that the newly founded MI6, “which must at the same time be in close touch with the Admiralty, the War Office and the Home Office”8, was given three tasks9: (1) it served as a screen between the Admiralty, the War Office and foreign spies who may have information that they wish to sell to the Government;10 (2) it had to send agents to various parts of Great Britain, keep in touch with the country police with a view to ascertaining the nature and scope of the espionage that is being carried on by foreign agents; and finally,11 (3) it had to act as an intermediate agent between the Admiralty, the War Office and a permanent foreign agent who should be established abroad, with the view of obtaining information in foreign countries.12 Since the Royal Navy’s Naval Intelligence Division carried the first British intelligence collection, British officials claimed that a naval commander would be the correct individual to lead the preliminary Secret Intelligence Service. Hence, on the 1st of October 1909, Royal Navy Chief G. Mansfield Smith-Cumming was appointed as the first head official of the organization.13 Chief Mansfield Smith Cumming was an unknown naval official who had been effectively withdrawn from the current list because of continuous sea sickness and had devoted years trying out the most effective techniques of running boom defense for the port of Southampton.14 His headquarters was the hub for British intelligence activities on Germany. Several of the practices of Cumming have become established procedures of British intelligence. For instance, Cumming “initialed papers that crossed his desk in green ink”.15 Such practice is still carried out by British intelligence officials today. Moreover, Cumming habitually “dropped the ‘Smith’ and used the abbreviation of Chief ‘C’ as a code name”.16 This is the pseudonym or moniker assigned to every undercover chief who has come after him. The new command centers of the Secret Service Bureau was built in another group of offices located in Victoria Street, hidden and protected by a private detective organization supervised by a previous official. The Secret Service Bureau, and the later SIS, was still widely unrecognized by the British government for eight decades.17 However, this fact does not disprove the knowledge that the British had valued and relied on military intelligence for centuries. The UK has been in existence as an undivided nation since the 10th century. It took shape after the unification of England and Wales and it was ordained in 1284 under the Statute of Rhuddlan. In the 18th century, the nation fulfilled a highly valuable part.18 The Industrial revolution headed by Britain revolutionized the nation and powered the expanding British Empire. Britain was engaged in colonial activities during this period.19 There were only a handful of professional secret agents prior to the First World War because British intelligence activities before the 20th century, similar to that of numerous other European countries, were unsystematic and erratic.20 European rulers made use of diplomatic bases to collect intelligence from the early medieval period and prior to that, but overseas funded emissary systems were not common until the latter part of the medieval period and continued to be unreliable. Intelligence systems thrived most in times of foreign wars and civil wars, arising due to military emergencies, yet emissaries and moles were merely short-term workers of Britain and its adversaries.21 Militaries requiring surveillance or scouting in the field in the latter part of the medieval period created a system of scout-emissaries led by a scoutmaster. These martial scout-emissaries usually acquired information on the opponent from unpaid spies, yet the amount of intelligence was hard to examine and employ promptly.22 Eventually, the Tudors built a number of exceptional intelligence systems during times of war, most particularly under Sir Francis Walsingham, the spymaster of Elizabeth I.23 However, the presence of these agencies fluctuated along with supposed dangers and threats abroad and in the UK. Indeed, intelligence activities were not standardized at all until the 17th century when Oliver Cromwell spent state resources to build a huge web of informants and secret agents.24 The attention of the government in small and stable intelligence agencies became widely known only in the 17th century as states consolidated, centralized, and formed new governmental machinery. Almost all European countries started to create ‘black chambers’ for the analysis of usual and coded mail and information, and several political officials also started to standardize their use of diplomatic emissaries.25 From the permanent usage of diplomatic emissaries and intelligentsia members like Daniel Defoe, Aphra Behn, and Samuel Pepys, to the use of salaried detectives, governments attempted to protect their foreign and domestic policy interests.26 The attention given by European nations to formal intelligence was originally revealed in Britain through two related traditions: the use of compensated informants and the inspection of the Royal Mail. Since the 17th century, the Royal Mail was received and read by a ‘secret man’ with the purpose of obtaining information concerning mutinous or subversive plans or operations before resealing and mailing.27 The office even produced fake wax seals to hide signs of tampering.28 From a single ‘secret man’ the process eventually involved two structured agencies that by the 18th century regularly scrutinized domestic and foreign messages even in peaceful times. The secret investigation of the post office also involved decoding of messages and basic code analysis.29 Workers were employed for this job, and one professional mathematician and decoder, Dr. John Wallis served as a temporary cryptographer for the government for three decades (1640-1670).30 This mail surveillance, which was eventually called ‘secret office’, was a vital intelligence practice in the 17th century and has stayed alive until now, particularly in times of conflict and war.31 However, the true factors that led to the establishment of British intelligence before World War I appears to have been the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution. With the escalation of subversive movement in the American colonies in the latter half of the 18th century and particularly in France, the British government made a decision to stop domestic rebellion and support the re-establishment of French monarchy.32 The threat of war and war itself contributed much to the development of intelligence agencies, establishing guidelines or examples for subsequent generations of British intelligence to resort to these mechanisms when war loomed once more in 1899, 1914, and 1939.33 A succession of parliamentary legislations in the 18th century resulted in civil investigation and the establishment of a foreign intelligence agency by 1790.34 Three particular parliamentary decisions were vital to the establishment of intelligence agencies in Britain and set a precedent for subsequent generations of political leaders who endorsed the same regulations during the First World War. The first of these three important parliamentary decisions was the Police Act of 1792 which facilitated the formation of ‘stipendiary magistrates’ to break into political meetings and to provide information about rebellious plans.35 These undercover police agents, whose task was primarily to preclude revolution, were selected from the urban intelligentsia and appointed under the King. Their job required keeping civil law and order, visiting pubs known to hold debates, and listening or eavesdropping at political meetings.36 The second crucial Parliamentary decision was the postponement of Habeas Corpus Act in 1793 which took away the right of the King’s subjects to be exempted from unlawful imprisonment.37 In January 1793, King Louis XVI had been assassinated, transferring the control of France wholly to the republicans and waging war against Britain. Heightening the fears of British leaders that revolutionary movements could expand all over the English Channel, Prime Minister William Pitt informed the House of Commons about the capture of popular British republicans.38 He added to his report an appeal for action to end the “total subversion of the Constitution, the annihilation of Parliament, and the destruction of the King himself.”39 Soon after Pitt’s announcement, the law postponing habeas corpus was ratified, allowing the unlawful imprisonment of suspects and reinforcing an important assault against the Constitution. The ratification of the Alien Act on the 8th of January 1793 was the third Parliamentary move in creating a basic intelligence structure in times of war. Inspired by the same French law, the system requiring the registration of non-nationals, immigrants, or foreigners was unfamiliar to Britain but immediately became appropriate during wartime.40 Under the requirements of the Alien Act, every foreign guest or inhabitant had to formally register at a harbor or police agency, and all rights to habeas corpus for foreigners were suspended.41 The formation of civil magistrates, postponement of fundamental rights to habeas corpus, and compulsory registration of foreign visitors and residents brought in a new age in Britain. The capability of the government to regulate and monitor its people and the postponement of civil rights became important instruments for the developing intelligence agencies of the latter part of the 18th century, reemerging in subsequent wars or conflicts.42 Even though numerous political leaders feared the effect of this law on constitutional protection and individual rights, they were more troubled about the damaging consequences of a potential revolution, occasionally expressing their doubts. Other parliamentary laws placed emphasis on the risk from dissidents particularly, like the 1795 Seditious Meetings Bill and the laws of 1799 and 1800 prohibiting particular labor and political groups.43 The ratification of these parliamentary laws and the continuous tradition of scrutinizing mail in the Secret Office are traditions of the British intelligence in their early phases. Besides governmental acts at home, the government defended its objectives, motives, and interests overseas by forming a web of informants and messengers in Switzerland, France, and Britain and in other continental countries. The purposes underlying the informant web were to weaken revolutionary sentiments and to advocate royalist campaigns.44 Commanding officer of the British army the Duke of Wellington expanded network by rewarding informants and sending out disguised soldiers for surveillance and scouting during the Peninsular Wars.45 Numerous scholars have emphasized how the operational aspects of the British and European army structure were basically transformed by the Napoleonic wars, yet the domain of intelligence was also changed from 1793 to 1813, or, during the continental warfare. 46 In 1815, the Congress of Vienna signaled the demise of the wartime state, and government reconnaissance slowly diminished. Many governmental security agencies kept on using informers but concentrated rather on the more important and urgent domestic danger of anti-industrial activities.47 Nevertheless, as the century advanced, the machinery of state surveillance and intelligence were abolished or restructured, not to be re-established until the First World War. Intelligence activities had very much deteriorated by the 1850s that in the beginning of the Crimean War intelligence suffered a number of very bad errors.48 The intelligence errors can be attributed to the state being uninformed of the value of intelligence as well as the incompetence of the armed forces.49 The Indian Mutiny-Rebellion and the Crimean War, which are generally portrayed as scars on British military history, resulted in a quick restructuring of intelligence. The conflict spurred the development of the Topographical and Statistical Department (T&S), which was an intelligence agency formed in 1855 amidst the Crimean War and tasked to gather statistics and maps about foreign countries.50 Furthermore, in 1877, the first official Criminal Investigation Department (CID) for local law enforcement was established. In 1887, the London Metropolitan Police was founded. The British Admiralty, influenced by the Army, created in 1883 the Foreign Intelligence Committee (FIC) and, in 1886, the bigger Naval Intelligence Department was founded.51 These Victorian intelligence organizations were limited and small. Besides reforms in Victorian intelligence, the British government began to streamline the Army and to resolve the issues that had surfaced during the wars of the 1850s. A group of agencies and working groups examined the issues and presented proposals for reform.52 Intelligence was thoroughly examined, as did military activities and procedures; the public reputation and recruitment of the entire army were restructured.53 The British army was eventually reformed into a dignified group indispensable to the defense of the British nation. Conclusions The establishment of British intelligence before the First World War was influenced by numerous interlocking factors. The British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) was established in 1909 to collect confidential information about the military devices and plans of Germany. Basically, British intelligence thrived most in times of foreign wars and civil wars. Moreover, governments attempted to protect their foreign and domestic policy interests through networks of informants and spies. But the true factors that led to the establishment of British intelligence before World War I appears to have been the Napoleonic Wars and the French Revolution. The three major parliamentary acts—the Police Act of 1792, the postponement of Habeas Corpus in 1793, and the Alien Act of 1793—were all leading factors that led to the establishment of British intelligence prior to World War I. Works Cited Aldrich, Richard, Rory Cormac, & Michael Goodman. Spying on the World: The Declassified Documents of the Joint Intelligence Committee, 1936-2013. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014. Print. Brunt, Rodney. “An indexing needle in an intelligence haystack: Methodological approaches in exploring the documentation of British military intelligence,” Journal of Librarianship and Information Science 39.2 (2007): 92-98. Print. Charters, David, Marc Milner, & J. Brent Wilson. Military History and the Military Profession. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 1992. Print. Clout, Hugh & Cyril Gosme. “The Naval Intelligence Handbooks: A Monument in Geographical Writing,” Progress in Human Geography 27.2 (2003): 153-173. Print. Cormac, Rory. Confronting the Colonies: British Intelligence and Counterinsurgency. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2014. Print. Davies, Philip. MI6 and the Machinery of Spying: Structure and Process in Britain’s Secret Intelligence. UK: Routledge, 2004. Print. Dockrill, Michael & David French. Strategy & Intelligence: British Policy During the First World War. UK: A&C Black, 1996. Print. Dover, Robert & Michael Goodman. Learning from the Secret Past: Cases in British Intelligence History. UK: Georgetown University Press, 2011. Print. Dover, Robert et al. Routledge Companion to Intelligence Studies. UK: Routledge, 2013. Print. Dylan, Huw. “Modern conditions demand integration and professionalism: The transition from Joint Intelligence Bureau to Defense Intelligence Staff and the long march to centralization in British military intelligence,” Public Policy and Administration 28.2 (2013): 161-177. Print. Ferris, John. Intelligence and Strategy: Selected Essays. UK: Routledge, 2007. Print. Harris, Stephen. British Military Intelligence in the Crimean War, 1854-1856. UK: Psychology Press, 1999. Print. Jackson, Peter & Jennifer Siegel. Intelligence and Statecraft: The Use and Limits of Intelligence in International Society. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2005. Print. Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. In Spies We Trust: The Story of Western Intelligence. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2013. Print. Johnson, Loch. Strategic Intelligence. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006. Print. McMahon, Paul. British Spies and Irish Rebels: British Intelligence and Ireland, 1916-1945. UK: Boydell Press, 2008. Print. Moran, Christopher & Christopher Murphy. Intelligence Studies in Britain and the US: Historiography Since 1945. UK: Edinburgh University Press, 2013. Print. Proctor, Tammy. Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War. New York: NYU Press, 2006. Print. Vilasi, Antonella. The History of MI6: The Intelligence and Espionage Agency of the British Government. New York: AuthorHouse, 2013. Print. Winter, P.R.J. “Churchill, British Intelligence, and the German Opposition Question,” War in History 14.1 (2007): 109-112. Print. Read More