Reconnaissance Report...
The original caption to this image states that we are witnessing “British soldiers executing a spy” in France, circa 1915. (Mirrorpix)
fascination. One story was that she had been naked under her coat as she stood facing the firing squad and at the moment before the members of the Zouave regiment were about to fire, she exposed herself. Another is that the Zouaves had been bribed to put blanks in their rifles and she had been allowed to escape, carried off by her, much-younger, lover.
SPIES OF THE FIRSTWORLD WAR
Under Cover For King and Kaiser James Morton
Publisher: The National Archives ISBN: 978-1-905615-46-9 Format: Hardback, 240 pages, illustrated Hardback RRP: £20.00
Britain at War Bookstore Price: £14.50
Spying on an enemy, or a perceived enemy, is as ancient as warfare itself but it was only in the twentieth century that it was put on an official basis. In the United Kingdom,M.I.5 was established in 1909 andM.I.6 two years later. As spying was not deemed an honourable engagement in Edwardian England, their existence as espionage and counter- espionage organisations was not declared publically.M.I.5, for example, was set up at 64 Victoria Street, London under the cover of being a detective agency run by a former Scotland Yard officer known as “Tricky Dicky”.
Before the outbreak of war in 1914, invasion fever, and with it spy scares, filled the British newspapers and were the subject of many novels. One such book, Erskine Childers’ The Riddle of the Sands, in which two men on a sailing holiday uncover a German plot to invade Britain, created such an impact that it led to the establishment of the Committee of Imperial Defence. In February 1909, the magazineWeekly News offered a reward of £10 to anyone who provided information on German spies.
AUGUST 2010
“Have you seen a spy?” it asked. “You may have had adventures with them, you may have seen photographs, charts and plans they are preparing.” Unsurprisingly many people had indeed met spies and demanded their tenner!
When war eventually came, both sides in the conflict had developed their espionage networks around Europe. The Germans had one of their Secret Service headquarters in Antwerp, Belgium. Here one of Germany’s best known spies was established – Fräulein Doktors. Controlling a large numbers of agents including some in Paris, Fräulein Doktors was described as “a woman with nerves of steel, a cold, logical engine for amind, well controlled sensuality, a fascinating body and demoniac eyes”.
The most famous of the Kaiser’s spies was unquestionablyMata Hari, though there is considerable doubt whether or not she was anything other than an exotic grande horizontale with a vivid imagination. Her machinations, real or imaginary, led to her trial and execution by the French. Even in death she continued to be a subject of
IfMata Hari stirred men’s loins, it was Edith Cavell that moved their hearts. A simple, middle-aged English woman who whilst running the École Infirmière Diplomier, a nurses’ training school in Brussels, found herself thrust into the war when the place was converted into a hospital.When Belgium was overrun by the Germans she helped hide and evacuate British soldiers and refugees, as well as distributing the resistance paper La Libre Belgique. Eventually she was arrested by the Germans and, in one of history’s worst-ever public relations exercises, shot in October 1915.
Another Allied female spy who was executed by the Germans was Belgian-born Gabrielle Petit. She was recruited by ErnestWallinger of the British GHQ in France and sent into Belgium to report on enemy troop movements. She was captured and executed by the Germans in 1916, though this caused nothing like the outrage which greeted the news of Cavell’s killing.
Britain also executed spies in the FirstWorldWar, but only men. The first of these was Carl Hans Lody, a junior Lieutenant in the German naval reserve. He was sent to England almost immediately after the outbreak of war to spy on the Royal Navy and the Naval Dockyards. He lasted barely five weeks before being captured. He met his end in the Tower of London, the first man to be executed there for 150 years.
JamesMorton’s book is full of the kind of stories described above which makes for an absorbing and informative read.
• Reviewed by John Grehan 95
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