The First Word - Essay Example

Introduction

The First Word war not only involved the use of ammunition on the battlefields but also encompassed a huge-scale war where intelligence services were deployed. In Britain, MI5 with the police's help at the commencement of the World War I, held nearly all German intelligence undercover agents. No agent would pass on possibly essential intelligence from the British empire. Archives from German show that about a hundred and twenty spies were in the First World War sent to Britain. Some spies were seen as reconnaissance agents i.e., only able to share what they observed when at British ports, while others broke communication with case officers.

Good protective security and the deterrent measures of the executions of seized agents made it hard for Germany to train more emissaries in Britain or even carry out sabotage activities (Andrew, 2017). Britain's central sources of power prior and after WWII was the British intelligence officers. However, the underlying foundations of these powers are now in jeopardy today. This paper agrees with Hiley's position that although the counter-intelligence of British was successful, it constrained civil liberties

Thesis Statement: In as much as there was a success in the British counter-intelligence in the war era, the deprivation of civil liberties was wrong

To start with, Hiley argues that the success of the British counter-intelligence was attained at terrible, obnoxious manner. Besides weighing on people's liberties, the massive allocation of resources to the keys agencies is equally wanting. Britain intelligence services GCHQ specialized in signals intelligence, MI6, that focuses on foreign intelligence, and MI5, which doses domestic security intelligence has been touted as spending enormous resources before and after the war. Declassified documents show that years before World War II, agencies such as British spies were like luxury vehicles (Walton, 2019). MI6 and MI5 were formed in 1909, and as the war erupted in 1914, there were immense spending resources for both. Andrew (2017) explains that, for example, MI5, with only seventeen staffs, including its office caretaker, was apportioned huge money to oversee its operations. Similarly, a declassified MI5 in-house account reveals that during the war, the counterespionage section of the agency had only two officers. This again is a reason to agree with Hiley that British counterintelligence success was undoubtedly achieved at horrible and debatable ways. For instance, the two officers had the answerabilities for the entire Commonwealth and British Empire. Further, MI6 and MI5 did not even have the name of military intelligence service of German, the Abwehr (Walton, 2019).

British intelligence services had unpreceded conquests against the Axis. These accomplishments happened when British splintered infamous Enigma cipher machine of Germany, giving them superior intelligence than what other states had enjoyed at the time. Nonetheless, this success come at the cost of civil liberties, as British government's was focused on arraying successful response management to win the global perceptions of its capabilities. According to Andrew (2017) Whitehall practiced an appearance of dominant intelligence shrewdness by selectively announcing wartime secrets and successes. By so doing, it managed to apprehend German investigators in UK and turning them into double proxies. British intelligences ran and aggressively controlled espionage system of German in Britain.

Again, as Hiley suggest British spooks in the Cold War managed to further burnish their image. Technicalities abilities of GCHQ were superb, and overseas territories exhibited valuable for collecting signals for British effectively. British carried off counterintelligence coups and great espionage. The involvement of civil authorities and being accorded equally responsibility for intelligence roles, particularly the work of the British services, interfered with the freedom of the people. This is tandem with Hiley assertion that the success was attained at an appalling and even undesirable manner (Hiley, 1986). With formation of a secret Service Bureau for instance in 1909, with a view of facilitating intelligence, it shows the British preparedness to deal with German spies in such a way that the outcome would be successful while at the same, observing high level of proficiency. The Secret Service Bureau was actually divided into two to take care of oversea and domestic intelligence needs. It is worth noting that the Secret Service initially had little means prior the war but eventually managed to report successes in the shipbuilding in Germany the main target.

Germany recruitment strategy of spies was small and operating in unreceptive terrain. With such a simple strategy, it begs the question why counter intelligence had to be such costly, complicatedly, and complex as envisaged by Hiley. More so, German moles acted mostly in seclusion because they were unable to depend on sophisticated and vast network of proxies on a consistent and quick transmission system (Hiley, 1985). In essence, the apprehension of infiltrators was the results of British intelligence and the fact that the nemesis worked on its soil before the war.

In any case, even when the war subsided, British government would still enforce strict measures further curtailing civil liberties and denying freedom to the masses even as it tried to protecting the country from the enemy. Britain even adopted the Defense of the Realm Act in 1914 giving the government emergency powers to overturn freedom of movement, communication, and association during WWI. This was a daring and resolute effort to ensure that even as the war arose, civil liberties and citizens' independences were reduced or interfered with at the guise of protecting the country. Through this Act, the British government was conferred strange emergency powers that grew in austerity all through the war period. Walton (2019) points out that public rejoinder was subdued particularly in Ireland where martial law was instituted.

Likewise, the Act became an extensive statutory tool for wartime economic, social, and industrial control. The Act was indeed a charter defining subversion and justifying reserve powers for the government. One of the most contentious feature of the legislation was affording the government greater control and says over munitions creation thus overriding the earlier Munitions of War clause. The government was quick to enforce the law amidst dissenting views from 1917. It neither exercised moderation nor caution, but went on applying it to the fullest intimidating potential. The law was a censure over those who felt the government was not right in its foreign policy. Opponents of the laws argued that it should have targeted pro-war-propaganda rather than gaging civil liberties and masses at large.

In the Great War, fundamental principles of UK's constitution were whittled down, attacked and to some extent reduced to meagre bits of their former outcome. Trial by jury, liberty of the people, the responsibility of the parliament, open law courts the freedom of media, freedom of expression, are some of the constitutional principles that were gradually reduced. Also, an almost waning legislature, with a drained role, was allowed to extend its being so as to give impression of rule of law. The Act mirrored military autocracy in Britain giving the forces leeway to rule by verdict and removing their involvement from direct legislature control. Walton (2019) notes that the lengthier the war was protracted, the more punitively the government and military in their counter intelligence exercised these uncalled for penal powers.

Conclusion

This paper supports Hiley's arguments that counter-intelligence success of British was realized or attained at awful, conceivably even intolerable, cost in civil freedoms. While counter intelligence and government quick response to German spies' activities were inevitable in the wake of First Worll War, the conducts of government's agencies are questionable. The British forces successfully eliminated German proxies through execution thus limiting any possibility of Germany attacking Britain. Technicalities capabilities of GCHQ were excellent, and abroad spaces demonstrated valuable for pulling together signals for British commendably. British carried off counterintelligence coups and great espionage. All the same, this came at the expense of people's freedom to speech, movement, assembly etc. Correspondingly, the government pushed for the passage of and Act, that rendered the parliament meaningless further giving power to the military to engage in activities without accountability.