William Beaver - Under Every Leaf: How Britain Played the Greater Game from Afghanistan to Africa

Dated July 1882, this simple tactical map for both military and naval forces was probably completed by May as part of the IDs preparation for the Egyptian expeditionary force. Although strategic and boundary maps made up the regular output of the ID mapping room, Alexandria is an early example of the up-to-date tactical maps regularly produced by the ID from the mid-1870s for deploying forces. National Archives

F or originally suggesting the study of British intelligence in the scramble for Africa I am grateful to Dr Colin Newbury of Linacre College, Oxford. The subject grew in many different directions and the number of people to which I am indebted is correspondingly large, indeed, more than I can name. My debt to them all is real and deep. I am particularly grateful to those whom I have dedicated this work. Likewise the staff of the then Public Record Office (now National Archives), especially Mr M. D. Lea, Ms Veronica Graham-Green and the redoubtable ladies who patiently provided me with an endless stream of dusty tomes from their subterranean mine and rejoiced, no doubt with relief, when we eventually stumbled upon the right seam. In my gratitude I gladly include the helpful staffs of the National Army Museum, Royal Commonwealth Library, English Heritage, the London Metropolitan Archives, Rhodes House of the Bodleian Library, the Royal United Services Institution, and the British Museum.

Justly deserving of inadequate thanks, too, are Dr D. W. King, OBE, FLA and Mr C. A. Potts, ALA and the hard-pressed staff of the Ministry of Defence Library (Central and Army). Despite severe organisational pressures at the time, of which I was then only dimly aware, they welcomed me, lent me an office overlooking Horse Guards and gave me free rein of what was then a most remarkable collection.

Likewise, my thanks go to Ms L. E. Forbes, ALA and Ms Clarice Bates of the Oriental Library, University of Durham, who cheerfully gave me every possible assistance with the Sudan Archive as did the Duchess of Devonshire, Major T. S. Wragg, MBE, TD and Mr Peter Day with the Hartington Collection at Chatsworth House. In Oxford, Mr J. Wing and the staff of Christ Church Library opened the Salisbury Collection to me without let or hindrance and in an act of remarkable generosity Mr J. Browning of Maggs Bros withdrew a collection of diaries from sale until I could examine them.

So, too, the early historians of the Intelligence Corps of the British Army deserve my gratitude: Colonel Brian Parritt, MBE, Lieutenant Colonel W. W. Leary, BEM, Major Jock Haswell and Mr H. A. Hunter who greeted me as a colleague and guest on several occasions. Colonels J. E. South and E. E. Peel, RE and the staff of the Royal Engineer Library kindly admitted me to their mess and most important library as did Major R. G. StG Bartelot, RA and the Royal Artillery Museum.

Without the material assistance of the trustees of the Beit Foundation through the award of the Beit Senior Scholarship in the university, progress on this work would have been much affected. I am grateful to them and for the very real help from the Sudanese scholar Professor Richard Hill, General Sir James Marshall-Cornwall, CBE, DSO, Kenneth and Lynn Cunningham, David and Grizelda Vermont, Richard and Tam Frost, Sir Ronald Wingate, CB, CMG, CIE, OBE and the many descendants of the men I studied whom I plagued for papers or information about their forebears.

In bringing this work to publication I am grateful for the encouragement of Lord Hennessy of Nympsfield, FBA; and of Michael Smith, the acknowledged doyen of later British intelligence history, and Sean Magee of Biteback Publishing, who from the first has given the author the most wise and valued encouragement. He and the dynamic Biteback team have been a delight to work with. My long-suffering family I also mention with thanks and end with the standard yet heart-felt declaration that whilst praise belongs to the named and unnamed above, any opprobrium for the inevitable errors and omissions I reserve for myself alone.

William Beaver

Wolfson College, Oxford