Secret Warriors

by Taylor Downing

World War I is often viewed as a war fought by armies of millions living and fighting in trenches, aided by brutal machinery that cost the lives of many. But behind all of this an intellectual war was also being fought between engineers, chemists, code-breakers, physicists, doctors, mathematicians, and intelligence gatherers. This hidden war was to make a positive and lasting contribution to how war was conducted on land, at sea, and in the air, and most importantly, life at home. Secret Warriors provides an invaluable and fresh history of the World War I, profiling a number of the key incidents and figures which lead to great leaps forward for the twentieth century. Told in a lively and colorful narrative style, Secret Warriors reveals the unknown side of this tragic conflict.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Science, Military History, World War I, Military Fiction, Espionage

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Dimitri · Rating 3 out of 5]

A brisk but thematic summary of the scientific dimension of the British war effort. A lot of this will be familiar ground for buffs, since you can't write about Jutland without bringing up Room 40 or about the Somme without referencing the movie and the first ironclads. Yes, it expands beyond technological developments into the propaganda effort by various media.

By devoting a book to a subject that is usually limited to a few context phrases before the battle starts, Downing has the luxury of paying more attention to the individuals behind the tools, who know their share of quirky geniuses and luggerheads with a sceptical military establishment.

The best factoid concerned extra-sensitive mikes to record cannon fire, pooling the results into an audio circle in the midst of which the gun stood, marked for counter-battery fire.

[Julian Douglass · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing book that really explains the inventions and the new technologies that helped make WWI and all subsequent war more deadly and more modern. Mr. Downing meticulously spells out the processes in which each of the 5 themes were created, who were the main actors in helping get them introduced to the theater of war, and what were the effects of each new technology. I personally loved how he would connect concepts and techniques that were used 100 years ago to how some of the technologies are used today. I also love reading about the primitive forms of, say car or airplanes, and how much more danger and upkeep there was back then compared to how many of these machines are used today. Love the book, and can be a great resource into discovering the early history of war technologies and how they have shaped modern warfare ever since.

[William DuFour · Rating 5 out of 5]

An entertaining and enlightening book with knowledge of the war that is either forgotten or unknown. Highly readable.

[A.L. Lester · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this as research for my post-WW1 work, looking for references to Trench Code. It didn't have much in it about that, but it's an absolutely fascinating look at the behind-the-scenes skullduggery of the First World War. I found the bits about propaganda most interesting.

[Thinzar · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very interesting book on World War 1 as it's written about the background scientists and strategists instead of front liners or war heroes. It has covered all fields involved, including medical, psychological, scientific, communication and information fields.

[Phil · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve never really known why there are not more well-written histories of World War 1. Other than Barbara Tuchman and John Eisenhower, I am not familiar with any historians dealing with this war to end all wars.

So, when a book comes along on the subject I am always anxious to read it. This one is a very fine book indeed and covers all the areas of the war that science played an important part.

The books starts with a very ingenious move by the British. War has just been declared between Germany and Britain. Trawlers are sent out at that very night into the ocean. On the ships are undersea cable repairmen. By the next morning they have pulled up every German communication cable and severed it. Germany woke cut off from the rest of the world. They would now have to use other methods of communicating with the world and the other methods always had the potential of someone listening in.

The British military saw no need for scientists to get involved with strategy and execution of the war. Haldane, the head of the intelligence services and Churchill, Lord Admiral of the Navy thought otherwise. A committee was set up by the Royal Society of distinguished scientists to provide information and spur innovation.

Every area is touched by this committee from aerospace (took it out of the hands of amateurs and put the experimentation into the hands of the scientists at the universities), medicine, code breaking, propaganda, weapon manufacturing and designing, wound treatment, mental health treatment and espionage.

Two of the chapters I found especially disturbing was on the use of poisonous gases and the treatment of shell-shocked patients.

At the beginning of the war the use of poisonous gas delivered by artillery was outlawed. Both Germany and Britain had signed the agreement. Germany first used it and got by the law by not using artillery to deliver but rather just open containers with the wind blowing in the right direction. Both Britain and France did not take the high ground but rather retaliated with their own version of the gases. Soon the agreement on the gases was completely ignored. The gases became more and more deadly. By the end of the 114 different gases had been invented and used.

Death and injury from the gases was terrible. If a soldier did not die from inhaling the gas, he would often have his lungs scorched or eyes blinded or the stomach ulcerated. When the Americans came into the war they brought with them their own mixtures to the party.

Interestingly during the last week of the war a young German soldier was hit with a poisonous gas attack. Most of the men in his unit died from it. He, however, did not but had to live through a long period of rehabilitation. His name was Adolf Hitler who in the second world war never authorized or allowed the use of chemical warfare.

The treatment of men with shell-shock went from the very few doctors who really tried to help them to those who only response with electric shock treatment, demeaning the soldier or threatening to have them court martial and shot (several were).

The only positive thing to come out of working and studying shell-shock was a neuroscience came into being & methods of treatment began to be experimented with.

The code breaking was extremely successful save for one problem. Churchill only allowed about four people to see the captured messages. Everything had to wait until one of the four saw it and pronounced what action to take. This slowed everything down and because of it opportunity after opportunity was lost.

The propaganda section was especially fascinating as the use of psychological warfare came into being. Millions of leaflets were dropped from planes behind enemy lines describing the failure of the German army to meet its goals as well as descriptions of its defeats and offering soldiers amnesty if they defected. They did by the thousands.

The greatest success was with the Austrian-Hungarian coalition. The leaflets promises citizens of the coalition countries, Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia that if they withdrew from the coalition, Britain and France would recognize them as independent countries. The coalition collapsed almost overnight.

After the war all the scientific advances that had been made brought about the birth of the large chemical companies, pharmaceutical companies, airlines, giant ammunition and tank factories and medical facilities and techniques.

The world was not only changed by the hundreds of thousands that died in WWI but also by the scientific advances that came from it. By the time of the late 1930’s the world was ready and prepared for Act II.

[Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This work is about how the Great War/World War One was a different military conflict than the wars that came before it since it was a war in which the world entered a new age with modern warfare. I think the author presented his case quite persuasively with his focus being primarily on the British then German and French developments in the Western front. I enjoyed this work in audio book format and found that the work overall was informative and interesting. It was also read in such a way that helped the listeners endure over thirteen hours of materials without any problem.


I do not want to take anything away from what is good about the book (and it is very good) but I do think the title of the book is somewhat misleading: When one read of “secret warriors” one usually think of commandos, special operators and elite fighting units but this isn’t the focus of the book. Nor did I felt the subtitle was fully accurate since the book was not primarily about spies and codebreakers although the book discusses them. With such a subtitle I was rather disappointed to find the short length of the discussion about spies and code breakers. Instead the book talked a lot more about pilots, industrialists and inventors. What the book focuses on is excellent and well-researched in its content but another title might be more appropriate to capture the aspect of what the book is about perhaps with something on the line of modernity and total warfare.

Like many people I know less about World War One than other military conflicts. So there is a lot one will learn through this work. For instance I learned quite a bit about the evolution of military aviation during this time and how the French was one of the leaders in military aviation in the beginning of the war. As the war progressed England also started to develop and improve on their military aviation in a military industrial competition against the Germans. Here the book discusses the use of planes beyond dogfights but also the development of photo reconnaissance and work in helping artillery against the enemy. During World War One pilots were often seen romantically in a war that lacked knights in shining armor and romantic cavalry charge of previous conflicts. Aces were the modern knights so to speak but all this comes with a heavy price: The average life expectancy of British Royal Air Corps pilots in 1917 for instance was two weeks. The chapter on chemical weapons must not be missed along with the discussion of the gas masks, machine guns and grenades, weapons and tools of warfare which has their origin or modernization during World War One.

The book also discussed other aspects of the war that one might not think of immediately with the topic of a modern war. The book’s discussion about medical care for the troops was quite insightful and challenged my assumption that military medicine during World War One was just as primitive as that of the 1800s. In fact medical care for the injured has come a long way and statistically more lives were saved through medical intervention and care than in other conflict before it. In addition one out of every ten battlefield deaths among British soldiers were due to disease which was a dramatic decrease compared to past British conflict such as the Boer War. The book’s discussion of innovators and planned improvement in medical care puts a human touch that balances some of the more brutal chapters in the book. I especially found the discussion about plastic surgery and the treatment of “shell shock” to have been fascinating and intriguing. This work also discussed the topic of propaganda, censorship, recruitment, film and the growing importance and realization of the need to mobilize the home front.

Overall very informative work that I believe others will enjoy also.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and well detailed book on all the things that go into a successful war effort - during a time of great advancements in science and propaganda techniques.

[Hans · Rating 5 out of 5]

The First World War would see so much suffering and useless loss of life that it is easily forgotten that in a lot of fields significant progress was made because of this war. Progress that would see use, unfortunately, in the Second World War, but also in everyday life.

Aircraft are a prominent part of this. Up to and early in the First World War, aircraft were strange contraptions, hard to manoeuver , underpowered. At the end of the war, large four-engined bombers would be flying around, which would next be turned into passenger planes. Aircraft engines had increased in horsepower and so made flying safer. The use of radio would make great strides and would enter the homes of many. Film had been an attraction, but was turned into an industry, in part because of the propaganda use that had been made of it. A world had turned from horsedrawn cart to vehicles powered by the internal combustion engine.

Soldiers would come out of the trenches, badly disfigured or mentally chattered. Plastic surgery, blood transfusion, medicine, and more had seen a growth that would hardly likely have been made without this war. Understanding the mental state of mankind had become a science.

In this book Downing describes in a well written and easy to read way how the world changed due to the First World War. How the military became aware of the use of science in warfare. But because of this the world itself benefited too.

Now let me state clearly here that I in no way applaud the First World War (or any war), but that war is a motor that drives science and makes progress leap forward instead of with a snail's pace. Sadly this is a true fact.

[Paular Bear · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall this book was very informative, but it wasn't exactly what I was hoping it would be. I had hoped for an unbiased review of the science and advancements due to WWI, and that wasn't exactly what I got. This was all from the point of view of the British advancements, with small comments about how French, US, and German advancements affected Britain. I had also wanted to see how the developments we made in WWI went on to affect society after the war; while there were some items that were followed up on, such as plastic surgery (which I found very interesting) and code breaking that would become pivotal in WWII, there wasn't really a lot of other information to share how it changed society long term. Thirdly and maybe most importantly I had hoped for a more scientific approach and a less political approach. Every section includes the British's lack of funding & confidence in the sciences, and how select individuals made or delayed pushing the sciences forward, such as the oppositions of Douglas Haig vs the support of Winston Churchill. This was an important aspect and I think dedicating a chapter to this would have been more effective than repeating the same arguments with every new chapter. Ultimately it was an interesting read that satisfied many of my curiosities especially about aviation and some medical advances, I am happy I found this book at the library.

[Kevin Findley · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 and a half really, but you can't do that here. This was really two books, with the first three parts being exactly what the title indicates. Aviators, Code-Breakers, and Engineers were VERY well-written and read smoothly as a single book.

Parts Four and Five, Doctors and Propagandists, almost felt tacked on. The 'feel' was very different and I would even guess they were to be a follow-up work. The two sections were well-written, but just didn't fit.

The epilogue, The First Boffins was an excellent wrap-up to the book however and I found myself racing through to the last page. Downing completed the book with a very extensive Who's Who, detailed Notes, Bibliography, and Index.

If you love WWI, Spies, or anything at all related to those subjects, you should put this book on your To Read List.

Find it! Read It!

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent review of some dramatic changes due to WWI. The war was probably the start of the U.S.'s military industrial complex due to the rapid equipping of an Army that grew exponentially in the timespan of a few years. Additionally thought the discussion of the Allies' medical triage system was interesting as it's fairly similar today. Was also frightening to hear again about the casualty counts during some of WWIs battles (tens of thousands of casualties in a single day!). One fact that I was not aware of was that Hitler was a gas attack casualty during his service in WWI - I wonder if that is why Germany did not use such weapons during WWII? Overall, the book is a great review of the significant advances in the 1910s in the areas of medicine, aviation, armored vehicles, communication/code breaking, etc.

[Russell Atkinson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a history of the technological advances in Britain during World War I. As such the title is misleading. Although there is a chapter on code-breaking (a brief and unsophisticated treatment), virtually all of the rest of the book is about scientific and engineering advances. There's nothing about spies other than a few anecdotes about successful disinformation.

The book is not badly written, but the author makes the typical historian's mistake of spending way too much time and space on the biographies of the inventors and not enough on the technology, i.e. the actual subject matter. Since I am more interested in the spycraft and cryptology, I was quite disappointed in this book.

[Becca · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is full of facts and data from World War one, and gives you just enough that you want to research each subject even more. It is broken into different parts that cover the different aspects of the war. The book is focused on information from Britain in a way that seems to be propaganda style. Enough that it made me question why I haven't looked into books about the German advancements (as they generally were advanced in their engineering). Overall if you wanted a starting point about the World War 1 science, this is not a bad place to do so.

[Chad Rexin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting book showing how many inventions that were invented during world war I, and greatly improved upon like the ability of the first air forces, artillery and artillery ranging and detection. A sad, but good thing coming out of the war was the many surgical advances necessitated by the horrors of war. Even things like propaganda was improved and utilized during the war. Today we just cannot fathom the scale of the war where some days it was reported that over 50,000 soldiers died in a single day.

[Eva Seyler · Rating 5 out of 5]

I LOVED this book. It was well-written, never dull, and discussed aspects of wartime that haven’t been addressed much in my reading thus far (propaganda, spies, the science that went into both destruction and preservation of life, codebreakers) as well as a section on aviation.

[Rick Westenkirchner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read, about the scientific breakthroughs that came about during WW I, and what lengths scientists were willing to go to better their nations in a time of war.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting review of progress of technologies made during WW1; airplane engines to psychology.

[Christopher Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed summary of the role UK science and scientists played in the discovery of new technology, as well as applying existing technology, to the war, emphasizing the rush to understand and develop such while locked in the powerful struggles of World War I. The author explains the largely volunteer nature of the effort: various scientists and experts stepping up to help using their academic knowledge and training, often working relentlessly to convince the government that science had a crucial role to play in affecting the outcome of the war.

The new aviation technology and its impact on the war: learning to not only fly the new planes but fight with them, training pilots, mastering dogfighting, and repairing and resupplying units in the field. Reconnaissance was a key feature and an early example of combined arms in the new technological age; also allowed for parallel advancements in camera technology and film development.

The war recognized the pioneering age of electronic signals and codebreaking, of disguising your side’s communications while also working to break the other’s code to learn potentially valuable real-time intelligence. The author details the constantly shifting effort as one side pulled ahead with a new code, only to have the other side slowly erode the gap between receiving the encrypted signal and deciphering it through determined efforts.

Engineers and chemists applied technical innovation and advanced mathematics to tracking field artillery from distance, while developing poisonous chemicals to use against the enemy and designing the gear to protect the soldiers from the effects of the enemy’s gas attacks. The juxtaposition is striking between recognizing the horrors of subjecting soldiers to gas attack—and the need to protect them with gas masks and proper clothing—while also developing such weapons to use against the enemy.

Treating the wounded involved not simply using modern medical and surgical practices but improving the time it took to receive treatment, placing more and larger field treatment centers and hospitals closer to the front. The widespread recognition of “shell shock” led to the understanding that mental stability was just as important as physical readiness in an effective combat soldier. This led to the spread of dedicated mental health professionals and treatment centers for the afflicted, both at the front and back home, reducing the stigma often associated with mental illness.

Propaganda fought the war of words at home and abroad, demonizing the enemy while telling heroic tales of the home forces, relying not only on traditional print media (often directly controlled by the government) but new technologies in film production and distribution. The author points out that this was nothing new in terms of state-controlled information, especially in wartime, but more people reached meant a stronger impact and level of control.

[Todd Stockslager · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review Title : The British Greatest Generation behind the lines

Not every soldier carries a rifle, and not every battle is won on the front lines. Taylor Downing tells the story about these behind the lines British heroes from World War I. He sets out to correct the focus, then and now a century later, on the men in the trenches on the Western front.

Downing organizes the history into aviation engineering, intelligence and cryptography, chemical and ballistics engineering, physical and mental medicine, and propaganda. This organization helps focus what could have been an unmanageable flow of information and gives Downing the opportunity to show how the British wartime government felt its a way to best utilizing these still new or modernizing scientific disciplines.

He also briefly extends the stories of some of the key participants into the post war years to counteract the perceptions that the British military regressed to pre war levels of competence and innovation, and shows how some of the inventions first deployed in the first war were perfected and became difference makers in the second. At the end of the book Downing provides thumbnail biographies of the "Who's Who" of the key characters and the many who lived and remained productive and engaged in their career pursuits up to and through World War II proves his point. These thumbnails along with the footnotes and bibliography give interested readers many leads to continue deeper research and reading.

Even with good organization of the material there is a lot of ground to cover so Downing's coverage is necessarily high level, but this narrative approach keeps the account moving quickly and keeps the lay reader's interest engaged. While the early history of aviation leading up to the war has been relatively well covered, the accounts of Room 40, the code breakers who would lead directly to Bletchley Park and the better known team that would break the Enigma code in World War II, and the heartbreaking attempts to treat "shell shock" with early psychological therapy are fresh, new, and well told.

The one disappointment for me was the focus only on the British story, which was not apparent from the title or subtitle. Certainly Downing does a great job with that story, but a fascinating if much larger effort (and book) would be to extend the account to all the combatant nations of the war and compare and contrast how each used these secret warriors to fight the war on the home front.

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 3 out of 5]

The British Army and Navy were deeply conservative institutions going into the First World War. Much of their technology and strategies were firmly rooted in the nineteenth century. The political realm and universities were not much different, with science and engineering held in relative disdain. Over the course of the war the thinking and tactics of the establishment were altered by a range of scientists, medics, journalists and writers who sought to aid Britain in its pursuit of victory.

In Secret Warriors, Taylor Downing provides an expansive overview of how technologies and attitudes were reshaped, focusing on five main areas - aviation, code-breaking, engineering and chemistry, medicine, and propaganda - and their key actors. While covering so much ground provides a broad overview, it inevitably sacrifices depth for breadth. As such, while the book is often fascinating it is also quite sketchy at times. And it is very much focused on Britain, largely ignoring developments elsewhere, except for cursory nods every now and then. Further, the book could have done with a bit more wider contextualisation as to the institutional and cultural changes taking place in British society, and a conclusion that sought to more fully make sense of how the ‘secret warriors’ made a difference and their legacy. Instead, the conclusion is quite piecemeal, focusing mostly on the careers of three scientists, and makes a tentative argument about how the changes wrought fed into the Second World War. Overall, a useful book if you’re interested in a broad brush overview of scientific breakthroughs in the First World War.

[Alger Smythe-Hopkins · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay, look again at the title and tell me how this title maps to this beginner's guide to early twentieth century technology.

The premise, I believe, is that these were the key innovations that made WWI unlike any war that came before and they were closely held national secrets. I wanted a book on the intelligence services of the war and got a refresher in the history of the British aviation industry instead.

Okay so the title is misleading, I would put that down to the editor and enjoy the book...except this isn't an enjoyable technology history either. It is a long dry meander through the museum of the makers of forgotten machines. Downing has the very bad habit (for a historian of technology) of being more interested in the men than their machines: a ratio of fifteen parts biographic detail to one part discussion of their innovative contribution is about par. Also, Downing expects us to recognize a goodly number of these boffins and feel as warmly about them as he does (but this does not stop him from proceeding with the biography anyway).

There are points of interest buried in this thick mound of biographic factoids, but they are disconnected and appear accidental. Dry as dust and poorly planned.

[Charlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for research for something I'm working on. This book covers a broad range of aspects, from code-breaking (nice intro to the doings in Rm 40) to the chemistry behind gas attacks, as well as medical and psychological (shell shock, etc) advances made during WWI. A chapter on the use of photography during the war for areal reconnaissance and propaganda (in news reels) was particularly interesting .

[Jess B · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book, but I couldn't finish it. It is an interesting subject, but is really poorly written. There are a lot of interesting details with no evidence given (for example, one person's hesitancy to use the abbreviation "WC" in regards to his work), as well as a lot of emotional, over-the-top language. If you aren't looking for solid, detailed history work and want to read something more casual, then this book wouldn't be so bad. The author also sometimes uses British terminology ("lorries" instead of "trucks") that could easily have been edited (I can't find anything about the book being first published in the UK, so I'm puzzled how this happened).

[Ron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Taylor Downing does a nice job of summarizing how scientists, code breakers, and medical personnel influenced the British war effort in WW I. He provides chapters on technological progress in aeronautical vehicles, cryptography, development of tanks and other weapons followed by chapters on medical services (physical and mental), and finishes with a chapter on propaganda. He also develops a claim that success in WW II was only possible due to scientists and others who had developed the technology in WW I. Read and decide if you agree with this proposition.

[Kirsty Holloway · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book provides the reader with a unique insight into the challenges of the first world war. Taylor as carefully considered and comprehensively researched all of the issues that came with fighting a modern war.

In order to be able to win the war the allied generals had to accept the help of civilians. These civilians provided them with knowledge of medical advances, intelligence gathering developments and the need for propaganda during the fighting.

This is truly a fascinating read.

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting. Not especially scintillating writing, but the fascinating stuff comes through--the aviators, scientists, codebreakers, doctors, propaganda masters operating behind the scenes as all parts of life were brought into WWI. Only minimal info on other countries like France and the US--almost all the stories centered on Britain. Which is OK, it was interesting and while I knew some of this, I did not know that, for example, Reuters sent out British-prepared propaganda stories.

[Roy Szweda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging account even if you thought you knew a lot about the Great War and lead up to WW2. Covers key areas of who did what and how with firsthand accounts and bios of all the key people. Quite an eye opener on things like chemical warfare, propaganda and spies. It all started here.... the 20th century would never be the same. Shall be looking for other books by this author who provides readable, accessible accounts of the things that matter.

[Mark Mortensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found the book to be more about scientists and inventors behind the Great War frontlines than the subtitle: “The Spies, Scientists, and Code Breakers of World War I”. Furthermore much of the British author’s book pertained to British secret warriors. Still, for someone who enjoys WWI research I appreciated the information.

[Amy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basic overview of the topics of airplanes, code-breaking, scientific advancement, and propaganda during World War II. Worth reading for the overview, though I have read better books in early flight (which covered from the Wright Brothers to WWI).