British Secret Service During the Great War

by Nicholas Everitt

This book is not published with the sole idea of increment to its builder; it presumes to venture beyond.

When old machinery is continued in use year after year with no thought for wear and tear, no effort to repair defective parts, and no attempt to modernise or keep pace with the times, a smash usually follows.

The British Consular Service is a concrete example of such short-sighted folly. It is so glaringly defective in its all-British efficiency that a thorough and complete overhaul, with drastic reforms, should be put in hand without further delay.

The British Diplomatic Service is little better. Its highest positions are filled by men appointed (in many instances) by influence and not by merit.

The exaggerated dignity, arrogance, and egotistical self-importance of some ministers abroad is such that the mere mention of trade sets their teeth on edge, the name of money is too vulgar for their personal contemplation; while if any matter arises in which their authority or actions are questioned they tender their resignations like sulky, petulant children spoilt beyond measure by misguided parents.

Attached to each Chancellery abroad should be a business or commercial expert, paid a fair and reasonable salary, who should make a study of British trade interests and who should control the whole consular service in the country to which he is attached. He should make it his special business to see that every consul is a born Englishman and that each is paid a salary commensurate with his position and duties.

Secret Service (if it is to be continued) should be a fully authorised and recognised department having a real business minister at its head with absolute control of its organisation, work, and finances. Service men would naturally be appointed for each separate service department, whilst civilians should be utilised in useful spheres. Such a reorganisation would do much to stop the friction which arises when military, naval, air-service, and other interests overlap, clash, or are required to work in double harness. The pitiable jealousies with which Whitehall is saturated have to be seen to be believed. Among the rank and file this canker-worm has no existence. The affection of one arm of the service for another is overwhelming, but the higher one investigates upward in rank and officialdom, the more deep-seated are the roots of the pernicious evil found to be.

At home our politicians have ever been much too interfering. Our Government has for all too long been overridden by a multitude of lawyers who have pushed aside the more efficient business man, while they interfere with, and attempt to control, colossal matters which they do not and could not properly be expected to understand, and which ought to have been left entirely to experts whose lives had been devoted to the attainment of efficiency therein.

That the Navy should have been deliberately prevented from making our so-called blockade really effective throughout the war is as unjustifiable as it has been exasperating to the British Public, whilst it has been detrimental to the interests of the Empire. More than half the nation believe that had this matter been treated with a firm, courageous hand, the war would have been over in eighteen months at least. Almost the entire nation believed that the war would continue to drag its disastrous weary course until the Blockade was made really effective.

Part of this book is devoted to this most important issue.