Spies in Uniform: British Military and Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War by Matthew S. Seligmann

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


In the febrile atmosphere of the years leading up to the First World War, British service attaches had to walk a narrow path between their role as accredited diplomats and their more or less overt intelligence commitment to the War Office or Admiralty.
Seligmann's study is structured around five questions specifically about Germany: where does intelligence fit into attaches' role profile? How did they gather that intelligence? How did they report what they learnt? Did Germany have the capacity and intention to attack Britain? Did their reports influence British policy? I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say his answer to the last two questions is 'Yes'.
The scholarship is remarkable considering that so many of the sources have been 'weeded' out of existence. Even better, the result is readable - Seligmann is clearly not one of those academics who gain status from obscurantism. My main whinge is the price. I managed to find a second hand copy and even that, for about 280 pages with no illustrations, was eye-watering.



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