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SPIES IN UNIFORM This page intentionally left blank Spies in Uniform British Military and Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War MATTHEW S. SELIGMANN 1 3 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Auckland Cape Town Dar es Salaam Hong Kong Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Nairobi New Delhi Shanghai Taipei Toronto With offices in Argentina Austria Brazil Chile Czech Republic France Greece Guatemala Hungary Italy Japan Poland Portugal Singapore South Korea Switzerland Thailand Turkey Ukraine Vietnam Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Matthew S. Seligmann 2006 The moral rights of the author have been asserted Database right Oxford University Press (maker) First published 2006 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose the same condition on any acquirer British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Data available Typeset by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India Printed in Great Britain on acid-free paper by Biddles Ltd., King’s Lynn, Norfolk ISBN 0–19–926150–4 978–0–19–926150–5 13579108642 This book is dedicated to my family: Maja and David Seligmann, Cherry Chang, and Alex Li Seligmann This page intentionally left blank Preface While writing this book I have received assistance from several individuals and institutions and I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge this. For their encouragement and advice, I am grateful to professors John Röhl, David Stevenson, Robin Higham, and Tony Morris. For their willingness to answer my seemingly endless enquiries, I thank William Frame at the British Library, Jenny Wraight and Ian MacKenzie at the Admiralty Library, Matthew Sheldon at the Royal Navy Museum, Kate Tildesley at the Naval Historical Branch, George Malcolmson at the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Mitch Yockelson at the National Archives at College Park, Nick Mays at the News International Archive, and Pamela Clark at the Royal Archives. I am also indebted to Lord Monro of Langholm, who was kind enough to grant me access to the papers of Sir John Spencer Ewart; to John and Maureen Russell, who supplied me with the unpublished autobiography of the Hon. Alexander ‘Alick’ Russell; to Rose Willis, who sent me copies of Alick Russell’s South African journals; and to the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum for allowing access to the papers of Henry Wilson, Vernon Kell, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and Philip Dumas. I am grateful to Mr Tim Dumas for permission to publish extracts from the diary of Admiral Philip Dumas; to Mrs Pam Arnold- Forster for permission to quote from the diaries of H. O. Arnold-Forster; and Mrs Virginia Knowles for permission to cite several letters by her grandfather, Sir Walford Selby. Material from the Royal Archives is reproduced by permission of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; extracts from the Milner papers are used by permission of the Warden and Fellows of New College, Oxford; excerpts from the Slade, Oliver, Domville, and Richmond papers are incorporated courtesy of the National Maritime Museum; and passages from the correspondence of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst are reproduced by permission of the Syndics of Cambridge University Library. For permission to cite materials from the papers of Field Marshal the First Earl Haig, I would like to thank the present Earl Haig and the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland. For permission to use the James Edmonds papers, I am grateful to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military archives, King’s College London. Crown copyright material in the National Archives and elsewhere is reproduced by permission of the Keeper of Her Majesty’s Stationery Office. While every reasonable effort was undertaken to obtain copyright permission for all the original sources used in this book, inevitably in some cases the copyright holder could not be contacted. If notified, the publisher will be happy to amend the acknowledgements in any future edition. This monograph was supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. M.S. This page intentionally left blank Contents Abbreviations x Map xii Introduction 1 1. Court and Social: The Role of the Service Attaché 30 2. Spies in Uniform: British Service Attachés as Intelligence-Gatherers 75 3. Men and Machines: Service Attachés as Procurers of Information on Personnel and Materiel 117 4. Harbingers of the German Menace: The Service Attachés’ Perspective on Germany 159 5. Taking Centre Stage: The Influence of the Service Attachés on the British Government 214 Conclusion 261 Bibliography 264 Index 269 Abbreviations BD G. P. Gooch and Harold Temperley, British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914, 11 vols. (London, 1926–38). DDF Minist`ere des Affaires Etrangères, Documents diplomatiques Français 41 vols. (Paris, 1929–59). FDSF Arthur J. Marder, From the Dreadnought to Scapa Flow (Oxford, 1961). GP J. Lepsius et al., Die Grosse Politik der Europäischen Kabinette, 1871–1914, 40 vols. (Berlin, 1922–7). This page intentionally left blank Map of British and German North Sea Bases —1914 Source: Arthur Marder, From Dreadnought to Scapa Flow, (1961); by permission of Oxford University Press. This page intentionally left blank Introduction THE DIPLOMATIC AND STRATEGIC BACKGROUND: THE REALIGNMENT OF BRITISH FOREIGN, DEFENCE, AND INTELLIGENCE POLICY Although there is some debate as to exactly when and why it occurred, during the first years of the twentieth century Britain radically re-orientated its foreign policy. Whereas in the previous two decades British statesmen had regarded France and Russia as their most dangerous global rivals and had looked to Germany as a pos- sible collaborator in containing the Franco-Russian menace, they now viewed Germany as the source of danger and it was to France and then Russia that they turned to help contain the German threat. This new threat perception transformed British defence policy. While previ- ously the principal determinant of British naval planning had been the need to defeat the combined Franco-Russian fleets, countering the German navy now became the paramount concern. Fleet dispositions were altered accordingly. Slowly at first, but with gathering momentum, British naval forces were pulled back from distant waters and stationed in and around the North Sea. Simultaneously, plans were drawn up for a possible maritime conflict with Germany. In a similar vein, the army’s previous plans for a possible deployment on the north-west frontier of India to defend against an incursion by the Russians switched to contingency arrangements for operations in continental Europe alongside the forces of France. Once again, the foe envisaged was Germany.¹ This radical re-orientation of Britain’s defence policy produced a comparable realignment of the country’s intelligence needs. When the expected enemies had been France and Russia, the priority had naturally been the acquisition of data about the capabilities and intentions of these two nations. Now that Germany was considered Britain’s most likely future protagonist, detailed information was required on this country instead. Accordingly, the British General Staff sought intelligence on the organization of the German army, the nature of German mili- tary strategy, the tactical precepts behind German fighting methods, the levels of training of German soldiers, the specifications and performance levels of German equipment and a host of other sensitive matters. In a comparable fashion, the Admiralty desired intelligence on the aims of German naval policy, the strategic ¹ John Gooch, The Plans of War: The General Staff and British Military Strategy c.1900–1916 (London, 1974), 180–1. 2 Introduction thinking of Germany’s naval planners, the tactical training of her officers and crews, the design and construction details of her warships and the technical developments of the German fleet. Both the General Staff and the Admiralty also wanted as much information as possible on the German leadership’s desire, pre- paredness, and ability to wage war, particularly a war against Britain. Of course, desiring information and acquiring it are not the same thing. In order to obtain such detailed and sensitive material, the War Office and Admiralty required access to a range of high-quality sources from within the Reich. What channels of information on Germany did they have at their disposal? MILITARY INTELLIGENCE SOURCES Very few examples of the raw intelligence received by the War Office survive today and even references to such items are scarce. However, historians know a great deal about the manner in which British military intelligence obtained their informa- tion because, very helpfully, in a series of lectures given to prospective general staff officers between 1907 and 1909, several senior figures in the organization described, albeit in general terms, their methods and sources.² Also, in 1907 the War Office printed and distributed a memorandum entitled ‘Notes with regard to the Collection of Intelligence in Peace Time’, which, as its title suggests, out- lined, in some detail, the recommended methods for gathering information.³ Fortunately, copies of this print still exist, as do versions of the above-mentioned staff lectures.

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