Simon Ball - Secret History

SECRET HISTORY

SECRET HISTORY

Writing the Rise
of Britains
Intelligence Services

SIMON BALL

McGill-Queens University Press
Montreal & Kingston London Chicago

McGill-Queens University Press 2020

ISBN 978-0-2280-0081-5 (cloth)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0082-2 (paper)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0220-8 (ePDF)

ISBN 978-0-2280-0221-5 (ePUB)

Legal deposit second quarter 2020

Bibliothque nationale du Qubec

Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free
(100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.

Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: Secret history : writing the rise of Britains intelligence services / Simon Ball.

Names: Ball, S. J. (Simon J.), author.

Description: Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190235195 | Canadiana (ebook) 20190235225 | ISBN 9780228000822 (paper) | ISBN 9780228000815 (cloth) | ISBN 9780228002208 (ePDF) | ISBN 9780228002215 (ePUB)

Subjects: LCSH: Intelligence serviceGreat BritainHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC UB251.G7 B35 2020 | DDC 327.1241dc23

To Helen

CONTENTS

1
Oh! What a Lovely War

2
Talking about a Revolution

3
The Locust Has Eaten

4
The Audit of War

5
The History Boys

6
Look Back in Anger

FIGURES

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank the institutions and people who have made Secret History possible.

The research for this book was carried out under United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Research Grant AH/J000175/1: Cultures of Intelligence: Military Intelligence Services in Germany, Great Britain, and the USA (Britain, 19181947). I would like to thank the AHRC, its reviewers, and its officials for this award. Secret History exists as a result of Cultures of Intelligence.

My biggest debt is owed to Alan MacLeod, the AHRC Cultures of Intelligence Research Fellow at the University of Leeds. Alans work is bound up into every page of Secret History. His intellectual influence can be felt particularly strongly in each passage concerning security or signals intelligence.

The AHRC Cultures of Intelligence was formally twinned with Gerda Henkels Stiftung, Kulturen der Intelligence: Ein Forschungsprojekt zur Geschichte der militrischen Nachrichtendientse in Deutschland, Grossbritannien und der USA, 19001947.

The origin of the twinned research project was a question that Snke Neitzel, of the University of Potsdam, and I asked each other years ago: Why were the intelligence cultures of Britain and Germany so different in the era of the two world wars? I would like to thank Snke for being my comrade-in-arms and intellectual interlocutor throughout the gestation and writing of Secret History.

I would also like to thank the other leaders of Kulturen der Intelligence, Philipp Gassert, of the University of Mannheim, and Andreas Gestrich, of the German Historical Institute, London, for being such gracious and stimulating collaborators. The German Historical Institute, under Andreass direction, served as our base of operations. The institute was a formal project partner, supporting the Cultures of Intelligence joint conference that crystallized Secret History. I am particular grateful to Carole Sterckx for being such a wonderful conference organizer.

Many of the concepts that underpin Secret History were developed during the discussion of the research of the Kulturen der Intelligence project team. It was a pleasure to work with Bernard Sassmann (Mannheim), Frederik Mllers (Potsdam), and Michael Rupp (Potsdam).

Peter Jackson gave the brilliant keynote address that launched the GHIL Cultures of Intelligence joint conference. Peter and I were, by then, also running the AHRC International Network, AH/M008711/1: The Practice of International History in the Twenty-First Century (PIH21), with the Chief Historian, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Patrick Salmon. Inevitably, Cultures of Intelligence and PIH21 intertwine in my mind. Patrick and, his deputy Richard Smith, were a support throughout. Peter was a fantastic partner, and brought the full weight of his own research to bear on Secret History. Peter has heavily influenced Secret History, both through discussion and by generously sharing work under development.

At the University of Leeds, I have been fortunate to work with an outstandingly talented cohort of research students investigating intelligence and related fields. My thanks go to Patrick Kiernan, Matthew Lord, Alex Shaw, Luke Daly-Groves, Ben Holt, and Francesca Morphakis for indulging their supervisors enthusiasms. I am grateful to the White Rose College of Arts and Humanities (WROCAH), the AHRC doctoral training partnership of the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield, and York for awarding full PhD scholarships to Alex, Luke, Ben, and Francesca. I am equally grateful to the School of History, University of Leeds, for awarding full PhD scholarships to Patrick and Matthew.

The final-year undergraduates at the University of Leeds taking my Special Subject, Secret Service: The World of British Intelligence, tolerated my working through of ideas and evidence for Secret History in their classroom. I had a good time doing so: I hope they benefited from research-based learning in its purest form.

My colleagues at the University of Leeds have been a constant source of ideas and encouragement. Holger Afflerbach was the provider of much useful insight into the role of Walter Nicolai. Michael Brennan walked me through the intelligence contacts of Eric Ambler. I would like to thank particularly Simon Hall and Will Gould for their support when they were Head of the School of History and its Director of Research, respectively.

The schools willingness to grant me a years leave from teaching while I myself was its Director of Research has been instrumental in completing Secret History.

The Brotherton Library, University of Leeds, purchased an important digital document resource on my behalf, making writing Secret History a much more efficient process than it otherwise would have been. The School of Historys Staff Research Fund and the research support fund of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities, and Cultures for the benefit of the Professor of International History and Politics enabled the purchase of digitized documents and high-resolution images. Such support ultimately derives from the Quality-Related (QR) Research Funding provided to the University of Leeds by Research England.

I am grateful to the trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, Kings College, London, for permission to quote from the diaries of Major-General F.H.N. Davidson.

I was enormously pleased when Richard Baggaley commissioned Secret History for McGill-Queens University Press. I would like to thank the presss anonymous readers for taking such care and time with my work. Their reasoned and helpful reports have greatly improved this book.

The completion of Secret History coincides with the thirtieth anniversary of my first meeting with my wife, Helen. She has been trying to improve me as an historian and a stylist ever since we were students at Cambridge.