The Story of the Great War, Volume 1: Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers
History
The Story of the Great War, Volume 1: Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers
World War, 1914-1918
The problem of the Intelligence Corps is much like that of putting
the parts of a picture puzzle together. A line from a newspaper in
one part of the world, a line from a newspaper in another taken in
connection with a photograph, an excerpt from a letter found on a
prisoner or a fact got from a prisoner by skillful catechism, might
develop a valuable contributory item. The amount of information
procured by either side about the other was only less amazing to the
outsider than how it was obtained. Again, events revealed amazing
ignorance. Most baffling and most secret of all branches is this,
whose work is both gaining and conserving information, and just as
professional, just as carefully prepared before the war as any
other.
A single instance illustrates how small a fact may be of value to
the enemy. A certain well known "military expert" went out to
British headquarters as a guest of a general. From a tower in the
square of a small town, he watched a certain action. When he wrote
his account of it, it was submitted to the general who was his
friend; and the general carelessly passed one little statement which
no Chief of Intelligence of any army would ever have passed and
probably no correspondent of experience would have had the temerity
to submit to the censor unless he wanted to be responsible for the
death of men who were his hosts and his friends. For the writer
stated that he saw the battle from this tower.
Now the London papers reach Holland at four o'clock in the afternoon
where they are seized promptly by the tentacles of the German
Intelligence Service, which did not need to undertake any "picture
puzzle work" on this occasion. It was plain as day that this tower
must be used as an artillery observation post by the enemy. From
there he could see the fall of shells from his batteries and know
whether they were "on" or not. Out of the blue sky the next morning,
came a German artillery concentration which brought the tower down
like a house of cards, and many British soldiers billeted in the
neighborhood were killed or wounded.
In order to deepen the shroud of mystery over his side which baffles
the enemy, many military men would undoubtedly make the press merely
the herald of official bulletins. The British Admiralty carried out
this system to the letter, as a navy may better than an army, in the
resistance of the German submarine campaign. Thus the "Untersee-boots"
came out from Kiel or Zeebrugge and disappeared in the mists of the
North Sea with no message of how they had been destroyed when they
never returned.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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