British Secret Service During the Great War

by Nicholas Everitt

Members of the Secret Service knew all along that the War Office and the Admiralty were like oil and water, because they would not or could not mix.[5] If one required anything of importance from the War Office it might have blighted the hopes of success to have blurted out that one came from, or was a member of, the Admiralty, and vice versâ. These two mighty departments never seemed to work in harmonious unity. Hence, whenever Jim had business at the War Office he advisedly concealed that he had any interest in the Admiralty; and whenever he was at the Admiralty he denied all connection with the War Office. It saved so much friction and avoided so much unnecessary formality, trouble, and delay.

That this friction was bad for the country, detrimental to the shortening of the war, and most expensive to the taxpayer, goes without saying; but perhaps the fault lay with our system, which permits so many men over sixty years of age to remain in, or to be suddenly placed into positions of such terrible responsibility and such colossal and continual accumulation of work; men who hitherto had had a slack time and who perhaps had hardly ever been contradicted or denied in their lives; men who constantly demonstrated to those around them that their dignity and self-importance must be admitted and put before almost every other consideration; men who ought to have taken honorary positions and not for a single hour kept from the chair of office more efficient and younger officers; men who knew only the old routine, who were long past their prime, and who were consistent upholders of the greatest curse that ever cursed our island Kingdom—the Red-tapeism of the Circumlocution Office.

Volumes could be filled with examples of the pernicious results arising because this country has not adopted modern and up-to-date methods. Volumes could be written to prove the reckless waste and extravagance that has been allowed to run wild and caused by our not providing for a department having a Minister of Conservation and Economy. Volumes could be written to prove that if jealousies could be stamped out, false dignity crushed, and red-tapeism abolished, our nation would rise far above the heads of all other nations in the world, and our taxpayers' burdens, both now and in the future, would be materially reduced.

Although thousands of examples could be given it is submitted that for a book of this description an example from two or three departments should be sufficient to illustrate the argument.

From the Admiralty.

Some time in the autumn of 1915, two fields were acquired by the Admiralty at Bacton, on the Norfolk coast, for use as an aviation ground. In order to give a sufficiently large unbroken and even surface for aeroplanes, it was deemed necessary to level a hedge-bank of considerable length, dividing the fields in question.

Within a few miles of these fields were stationed a thousand soldiers, who were chafing at and weary with the monotony of their daily routine, an unvaried one for over a year. The majority of these men would have welcomed the acceptance of such a task as this. But follow the events which happened, and it is proved convincingly that some silly, ridiculous reason prevented any approach, by those who sit in Chairs at the Admiralty to those who sit in Chairs at the War Office, to utilise this unemployed labour, or to save the nation's pocket in so simple a matter.

The expenditure of money seemed to be of no consideration whatsoever, although the House of Commons was at this particular period shrieking for economy in others, which they were quite unwilling to commence themselves; whilst the Prime Minister (Mr. Asquith) addressed a great economy speech to the massed delegates representing 4,000,000 organised workers at Westminster on December 1st, 1915. So a contract was offered and entered into with a civilian to do the work. Owing to Lord Derby's scare-scheme system of recruiting instead of National Service (which ought to have been enforced immediately after the Boer War, as pressed by Lord Roberts and others), the unlucky contractor lost most of his young men and was quite unable to get more than a very few old men who were past the age of strenuous labour. His job progressed so slowly that the Admiralty realised the work might not be finished for months and months to come if permitted to continue on the then present line.

What was it that prevented the Admiralty, on this second occasion of necessity, from approaching the War Office, or even one of the officers in command of the thousands and thousands of troops stationed in Norfolk, a few of whom could and would gladly have completed the work in a few hours without a penny extra expense to the country?