Strange Intelligence: Memoirs of Naval Secret Service by Hector C. Bywater, H. C. Ferraby Read Free Book Online

careers at the dictates of patriotism.
    Of recent years a number of books have appeared in which intelligence work is held up to derision.
    Several of the authors are literary men who for some obscure reason were appointed to the secret service during the war. The original intention, no doubt, was to make use of their abilities for propaganda purposes, but under the topsy-turvy conditions then prevailing they eventually found themselves engaged in pseudo-intelligence work, principally in the Near East. As the proceedings in which they took part were futile and often farcical, it is not surprising that they should have formed a low opinion of all secret service activities and caricatured them in their subsequent writings.
    Thus, Mr Compton Mackenzie, in his First Athenian Memories , casts doubt on the value of any intelligence work exceptthat conducted by an army in the field. But as Mr Mackenzie’s experiences, so far as he has recorded them, were confined to Greece – where the conflicting policies of the Allied powers, coupled with the ill-controlled activities of their secret agents, brought about a situation that was at once Gilbertian and tragic – his sweeping condemnation of all secret service is based on inadequate knowledge.
    Mr Mackenzie, in common with several other authors, obviously knows little of what this service accomplished by less theatrical methods before and during the war.
    Sir Basil Thomson, in his book The Allied Secret Service in Greece , is also contemptuous of the secret agent and his work. True, he is magnanimous enough to admit that ‘intelligence officers are as necessary to governments as they are to banks and business houses, and as long as they are under efficient and wise control they are no more dangerous to a state than a daily newspaper is dangerous to a household.’
    But Sir Basil, like Mr Mackenzie, though with less excuse, is particularising on the opera bouffe antics of certain so-called intelligence agents in Greece, in which country the wartime atmosphere seems to have had a devastating effect on the mental balance and judgement of rulers, statesmen, diplomats, and lesser functionaries, irrespective of nationality.
    Whatever the blunders and futilities of its political counterpart may have been, there is no doubt that the British naval intelligence service played an indispensable part in the winning of the war. Not only was it a prime factor in the defeat of the U-boat campaign, but by penetrating Germany’s naval secrets before and after the outbreak of war it guaranteed us against surprises, which, if unsuspected, might have been sprung upon us withdisastrous results. We can assert without fear of contradiction that had the admiralty acted without delay on the information supplied by British agents in central Europe from 1910 onward, we should have achieved a greater measure of success in the war at sea, and especially at the Battle of Jutland. This point will be elaborated in due course.
    Throughout the pre-war period now under review our intelligence work abroad was handicapped by shortage of funds. Had more money been available it is certain that better results would have been attained. The marvel is that so much was done with such exiguous means.
    In very exceptional circumstances our agents would, no doubt, have received adequate financial hacking, but in the course of their routine work they were expected to keep within the narrowest limits of expenditure. It follows, therefore, that bribery was but rarely resorted to as a means of procuring information. Nearly every valuable item of news had to be excavated by personal effort and at personal risk.
    Thanks to the technical knowledge possessed by our agents, in striking contrast to those employed by Germany, they seldom wasted time, and never money, in pursuing a false trail. It is difficult for anyone who is conversant with the work done by these men between the autumn of 1910 and August 1914, to read with patience the