The Codebreakers: The True Story of the Secret Intelligence Team That Changed the Course of the First World War (42 page)

This security coup gave birth to one of the most effective and influential espionage operations ever launched. Rather than leave the captured spies to rot in jail, the newly formed XX Committee decided they’d be far more useful as double agents. Strachey’s discoveries meant that the British could exploit the
Abwehr
’s codes and ciphers to send disinformation, transmitted by the double agents, directly to the Germans. It became known as the Double-Cross system.

The fake messages went to the Nazi embassies in Lisbon and Madrid, and then on to Berlin via an Enigma machine, a type used solely by the
Abwehr
, the Gestapo and the SS. This meant that the only way the British could confirm whether Berlin actually believed the information supplied by the double agents was by breaking into this version of Enigma.

Enter Dilly Knox. Illicit Services Knox (ISK) was established, and Dilly set about identifying a route into the machine’s ciphers, a process he described with a typically obtuse analogy: ‘If two cows are crossing the road there must be a point when there is only one and that’s what we must find.’

On 8 December 1941, Dilly succeeded. From then on, the
Abwehr
Enigma was an open book. The Double-Cross system was the central plank of the Allies’ deception campaigns before both the Sicily landings and, more importantly, D-Day. Strachey and Dilly’s work helped convince the Nazis that the invasion would occur at Calais, not in Normandy. Had they known the truth, things could have turned out very differently.

Not long after his
Abwehr
breakthrough, Dilly’s cancer returned with a vengeance. He was dying. He returned home but refused to give up work; his Bletchley colleagues were regular visitors. As the end approached, he was awarded the Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG). Too sick to go to the palace to collect it, he had the palace come to him. His son Oliver remembered how Dilly ‘insisted on dressing and sat, shivering, in front of the large log fire, as he awaited the arrival of the Palace emissary. His clothes were now far too big for him, his eyes were sunk in a grey face, but he managed.’ On 27 February 1943, Dilly passed away, aged 58.

A few weeks earlier, Strachey had suffered a major heart attack. While recuperating in hospital, he received the Companion of the British Empire (CBE). Unable to return to Bletchley, he was forced to retire. His benevolent disposition was sorely tested by the passing years, as old age strengthened its grip. He was often depressed, and drank heavily. In 1958, he contracted pernicious anaemia, thanks to his consumption of four bottles of whisky a week. Enfeebled, he went into a nursing home, dying on 14 May 1960. He was 86 years old. Of all the First World War codebreakers, Strachey had served the longest.

The performance of the codebreakers in the two world wars clearly demonstrated their indispensability. Equally it showed the importance of developing technology that enabled them to reach their full potential. The accumulated impact of the codebreakers’ work changed the course of both conflicts. The achievements of the rest of the intelligence community pale by comparison.

The interception/transmission and decoding of information remained crucial for maintaining parity during the Cold War as the surveillance state grew in size – the Americans created the National Security Agency (NSA), while in the UK, GC&CS became GCHQ. The techniques used by these agencies evolved ever greater complexity, sophistication and reach: electronic bugging, spy satellites and finally the computer gave them unprecedented power in their ability to spy on friend and foe alike.

However, nowadays the technologies that were previously the monopoly of the state are available to us all. Though the surveillance capabilities of governments are awesome, anybody armed with encryption and decryption skills can return the favour.

The First World War was the crucial foundation point of the surveillance society we live in today. Our current information age rests entirely on coding: from software engineers to shadowy organisations operating out of nondescript buildings in China, from the bedroom hackers to the criminal networks the basic DNA of it all consists of encrypting and decrypting codes.

The crossword puzzle fanatics, linguists, academics, radio hams and inventors who laboured to find a way to end the terrible human tragedy that was the First World War and stop Europe from drowning in its own blood could never have anticipated where their work might lead. The thought that they were the progenitors of the surveillance society, and that their heirs would either be working at the Pentagon pinpointing suspect individuals from space, or breaking into it from their booths in internet cafés, would have seemed ridiculous, like something out of an H. G. Wells novel, and would no doubt have sent shivers down their spines.

Nevertheless, their contribution deserves to be remembered and honoured, not only because they have been largely ignored or written out of history, but also because by revisiting them we can gain a better understanding of the Great War that shaped so much of the twentieth century and still casts its shadow today.

The page references in this index correspond to the printed edition from which this ebook was created. To find a specific word or phrase from the index, please use the search feature of your ebook reader.

CHURCHILL ARCHIVE, CAMBRIDGE (CA)

Clarke Papers

Denniston Papers

Hall Papers

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM, LONDON

Clauson Papers

Dawnay papers

NATIONAL ARCHIVE, KEW (NA)

NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF CANADA

THE US NATIONAL ARCHIVES AND RECORDS ADMINISTRATION

(in order of appearance)

p4: Winston Churchill:
The World Crisis Vol 1 (1923)

p10: A.W. Ewing:
The Life of Sir Alfred Ewing
(1939)

p11: Hall, Papers 3/1 (CA) or William James:
The Eyes of the Navy – A Biographical Study of Admiral Sir Reginald Hall
(1955)

p12: Clarke Papers 3 (CA)

p13: J.H. Burton (eds):
The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page Vol 3
(1922–1925)

p14: David Ramsey:
‘Blinker Hall’ Spymaster – The Man who Brought America into World War 1
(2009)

Hall, Papers 3/1 (CA) or D. Ramsey

W. James

Sir Guy Gaunt:
The Yield of the Years – A Story of Adventure Afloat and Ashore
(1940)

p15: David Stafford:
Churchill & Secret Service
(1997)

p17: Denniston Papers 1/2 (CA) or R. Denniston:
Thirty Secret years – A.G. Denniston’s Work in Signals Intelligence 1914–1944
(2007)

p18: Denniston Papers 1/3 (CA) or R. Denniston

p19: W. Churchill

p21: Robert K. Massie:
Castles of Steel – Britain, Germany and the Winning of the Great War at Sea
(2008)

W. Churchill

p22: W. Churchill

p25: R. Denniston

p26: Hall Papers 3/1 (CA)

p27: Penelope Fitzgerald:
The Knox Brothers
(2002)

p29: W. Churchill

p30: R. Denniston

Clarke Papers 3 (CA) or Patrick Beesley:
Room 40 – British Naval Intelligence 1914–1918
(1984)

p35: Mark Ellis: ‘German-Americans in World War 1’ from
Enemy Images in American History
, eds. Ragnhild Fiebig-von Hase, Ursula Lehmkuhl (1997)

Historical money value calculation made on
www.usinflationcalculator.com

Captain Henry Landau,
The Enemy Within
(1937). This was the account of the money given after the war by Germany’s US paymaster, Dr. Heinrich Albert

For the full proclamation, see ‘President Wilson Proclaims Our Strict Neutrality’,
New York Times
, 5 August 1914

pp35–6: Ron Chernow:
The House of Morgan
(1990)

Ibid. Indeed, when Morgan learned that German investors planned to purchase Bethlehem Steel, they marshaled voting shares to block it. The grateful British exempted the House of Morgan from mail censorship, and allowed them to use an in-house code for transatlantic communication

p36: Population numbers come from
www.census.gov/population/estimates/nation/popclockest.txt

www.loc.gov/rr/european/imde/germchro.html

pp37–8:
New York Times
, 1 May 1915

‘Why
Lusitania
Plans Show Gun Outlines’,
New York Times
, 19 June 1915

pp39–40: P. Gannon

p44:
The Daily Chronicle
, 8 May 1915

Tacoma Times
, 7 May 1915

El Paso Herald
, 8 May 1915 Ibid

p45: Ibid

‘No Need to Fight if Right’,
New York Times
, 11 May 1915

‘“I’m not here!” cries Count Bernstorff’,
New York Times
, 9 May 1915

pp45–6: James W. Gerard:
My Four Years in Germany
(1917) p 173

Ibid

pp47–50: Malcolm Hay:
Wounded and Taken Prisoner – by an Exchanged Prisoner
(1916)

p51: Alice Ivy Hay:
Valiant for Truth – Malcolm Hay of Seaton
(1971)

p52: Malcolm Hay:
Notes on Cryptography
in A.I. Hay

p54: R. Wilson (eds):
Frances Partridge – Diaries 1939–1972
(2001)

p55: B. Strachey:
Remarkable Relations – The Story of the Pearsall Smith Family
(1980)

p56: B. Caine:
Bombay to Bloomsbury – A Biography of the Strachey Family
(2005)

p61: Henry Landau

p63: Population figures for New York City come from
1915 Almanac and book of Facts
, (1914) London comes in second, though a footnote indicates ‘metropolitan London’ is the world’s largest city with 7.2 million people. Another note indicates China is left out altogether, as their figures are ‘untrustworthy’

pp63–4: Walter Laidlaw: ‘Rate of New York City’s Growth’,
New York Times
, 26 June 1915

‘Water Frontage Around New York’,
New York Times
, 3 April, 1910

Ric Burns and James Sanders, with Lisa Ades:
New York: An Illustrated History
(2003)

p64: For a wonderfully entertaining account of von der Goltz’s activities in Paris, and the international fallout, see both Captain Horst von der Goltz:
My Adventures as a German Secret Service Agent
(1918) and Barbara Tuchman:
The Zimmerman Telegram
(1985)

Count (Johann von) Bernstorff:
My Three Years in America
, (1920) and Captain Horst von der Goltz:
My Adventures as a Secret Agent
(1918)

p65–6: Von der Goltz

Chad Millman:
The Detonators
(2006)

p66: Henry Landau

pp67–8: For a full account of the hapless Horn’s adventure, see French Strother:
Fighting Germany’s Spies
(1918). Horn was sentenced to 18 months in a federal penitentiary in Atlanta for transporting explosives, then extradited to Canada in 1919 and sentenced to another 10 years. He was judged insane in 1921 and deported to Germany

Von Bernstorff

pp67–70: Henry Landau

Richard Spence:
Secret Agent 666
(2008)

‘Keeping Posted: The Voskas’,
Saturday Evening Post
, 4 May, 1940

Thomas A. Reppetto:
Battle Ground New York
(2012)

p71: Franz von Rintelen:
The Dark Invader
(1936)

Nigel West:
Historical Dictionary of World War 1 Intelligence.
It states von Rintelen was born in Frankfurt an der Oder in August 1878

p72: Henry Landau

pp74–7: Von Rintelen

p76: James D. Livingston:
Arsenic and Clam Chowder: Murder in Gilded Age New York
(2010) Scheele’s prominence as a European-educated scientist saw him appear as an expert witness in New York criminal trials as early as 1896

H. Landau

p76: Inspector Thomas J. Tunney and Paul Merrick Hollister:
Throttled! The Detection of the German and Anarchist Bomb Plotters
(1919)

Von Rintelen

p77: Cigar bomb number comes from H. Landau

p78: For Gaunt’s own take on the war (to be taken with a grain of salt) see his
The Yield of the Years: A Story of Adventure Afloat and Ashore
(1940)

Von Rintelen

pp79–80: R. Spence

New York Times
, 7 July 1915

pp80–2: Von Rintelen

p83: ‘Man Who Revealed German Plan in First War Leaves Secret Service’,
Milwaukee Journal
, 20 July 1942

p84: Richard Spence makes the argument that the British were behind it all, with the help of none other than Aleister Crowley Albert Dawson was a brave and daring filmmaker, who shot some of the war’s most compelling footage. When the US joined the Allied cause, he was commissioned a captain in the US Signal Corps in charge of its military photographic laboratory. See ‘Shooting the Great War: Albert Dawson and the American Correspondent Film Company, 1914–1918’ in Ron van Dopperen and Cooper C. Graham.

p85: Von Bernstorff

p90: T.J. Tunney

p92: Ibid

pp94–7: Keith Jeffrey:
The History of the Secret Intelligence Service 1909–1949
(2011)

Richard Spence: ‘Englishmen in New York: The SIS American Station, 1915–21’ in
Intelligence and National Security, 19:3.

Joseph Pulitzer:
Reminiscences of a Secretary, Alleyne Ireland
(1914)

‘Bringing Together English Speaking Peoples’ in
English Speaking World
September 1919, p15.

‘Norman Thwaites Wounded’,
New York Times
, 10 November, 1914

Christopher Andrew:
The Defence of the Realm: the Authorized History of MI5
(2010)