The Defence of the Realm

by Christopher Andrew

  80 The case of Lieutenant Siegfried Helm is an example of a private intelligence-gathering initiative by a German army officer (see below, pp. 32–3). The Nachrichten-Abteilung agent Paul Brodtmann, though not working for military intelligence, submitted several reports to the German military attaché in London (see above, p. 18).

  81 Memorandum re Formation of a S.S. Bureau [minutes of meeting on 26 Aug. 1909, approved by Sir Charles Hardinge, PUS at the Foreign Office, on 14 Sept. 1909], TNA WO 106/6292.

  82 ‘Conclusions of the Sub-Committee requested to consider how a secret service bureau could be established in Great Britain’, 28 April 1909, TNA WO 106/6292.

  83 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, chs 1, 2, IWM.

  84 Ibid., p. 110.

  85 Kell’s record of service notes that he was ‘Engaged by Col. Edmonds’ as from 1 October 1909. Edmonds confirms his role in his Unpublished Memoirs, ch. 19, p. 7, ch. 20, p. 5; LHC Edmonds MSS III/4–5.

  86 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 38.

  87 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, IWM.

  88 No such evidence of contact with Kell was discovered by the best and most recent biographers of Le Queux, Patrick and Baister. Nor has any evidence come to light in Security Service files.

  89 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, IWM.

  90 Andrew, Secret Service, p. 123.

  91 Judd, Quest for C, ch. 1. For further detail on Cumming’s appointment see Jeffery, Official History of the Secret Intelligence Service, part I.

  92 Mansfield Cumming diary; cited by Judd, Quest for C, pp. 84–7, 110.

  93 Judd, Quest for C, p. 87.

  94 Mansfield Cumming, diary, 22 Oct. 1909.

  95 Kell, [Six-monthly report], April 1910–October 1910 [which begins by summarizing the work of the previous six months], TNA KV 1/9.

  96 See below, p. 31.

  97 Mansfield Cumming, typed note, 1 Nov. 1909, filed with diary; Judd, Quest for C, p. 115.

  98 Mansfield Cumming diary, 1 Nov. 1909; Judd, Quest for C, p. 114.

  99 Judd, Quest for C, pp. 114–15.

  100 Mansfield Cumming diary, 26, 30 Nov. 1909; Judd, Quest for C, p. 119.

  101 Security Service Archives.

  102 Judd, Quest for C, pp. 151, 155.

  103 Mansfield Cumming diary, 17 March 1910.

  104 Ibid., 23 March 1910;Judd, Quest for C, pp. 151–2.

  105 Mansfield Cumming diary, 5, 6 April 1910, SIS Archives.

  106 Ibid., 28 April 1910.

  107 Ibid., 9 May 1910.

  Chapter 1: ‘Spies of the Kaiser’

  1 The title used in some of Kell’s progress reports.

  2 Security Service, pp. 67–9.

  3 Their names are identified in the Security Intelligence Service Seniority List and Register of Past and Present Members (December 1919) and some earlier lists. Few records of service survive for early staff.

  4 Commander B. J. Ohlson, RNR (who joined in May 1911), Major R. J. Drake (April 1912), Captain E. E. B. Holt-Wilson (December 1912), Captain F. B. Booth (January 1913), Captain M. Brodie (July 1913), Captain J. B. Fetherston (January 1914) and Lieutenant Colonel M. M. Haldane (April 1914). Major J. F. C. Carter joined on 4 August 1914. In addition, Captain Stanley Clarke served in the Bureau from January 1911 to November 1912, and Captain K. E. Lawrence from January 1913 to March 1914. Ohlson’s position is somewhat unclear. According to staff lists, he was continuously employed by Kell’s Bureau from May 1911 to November 1914. However, according to an interwar MI5 Who’s Who, Ohlson returned to his previous employer, P&O, from May 1913 to May 1914. One possible explanation is that the P&O posting provided cover while he was working for Kell’s Bureau.

  5 J. Regan (June 1911) and H. I. Fitzgerald (November 1912).

  6 J. R. Westmacott (March 1910), Miss D. Westmacott (January 1911), Corporal F. S. Strong (September 1911), Miss H. M. Newport (October 1911), Miss S. Holmes (February 1913) and Miss D. Bowie (January 1914).

  7 Mrs Sumner.

  8 Churchill, My Early Life, p. 355.

  9 Ewart to Churchill, 27 April 1910, CCAC Churchill MSS, CHAR 13/1/25.

  10 E. Marsh (Home Office) to Chief Constables of England and Wales, 28 April 1910, CCAC Churchill MSS CHAR 13/1/25.

  11 Kell diary, 8 June 1910, TNA KV 1/10.

  12 Kell, [Second Progress Report], April 1910–October 1910, TNA KV 1/9.

  13 Security Service Archives.

  14 On the Meldewesen before 1914, see the first-hand assessment by a US police official in Fosdick, European Police Systems, pp. 349–51. On policing in imperial Germany, see Evans, ‘Police and Society from Absolutism to Dictatorship’.

  15 ‘Office instructions to preparation of possible suspects list’, Holt-Wilson papers, Security Service Archives.

  16 See above, p. 3.

  17 Kell, First Progress Report, 25 March 1910, TNA KV 1/9. G Branch History, p. 22, TNA KV 1/39.

  18 See above, p. 20.

  19 Kell diary, 6 June 1910, TNA KV 1/10.

  20 Ibid., 28 July, 5 Aug. 1910.

  21 Seligmann, Spies in Uniform, pp. 61–2, 69–70, 170–71. Copies of despatches from Colonel Trench, 24 June, 15 Dec. 1910, TNA KV 3/1. Kell diary, 29 Aug. 1910, KV 1/10.

  22 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 130–31. Judd, Quest for C, pp. 178–82.

  23 Kell diary, 30 Aug. 1910, TNA KV 1/10.

  24 Ibid., 5 Sept. 1910.

  25 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 104–5. Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 48–9.

  26 Kell diary, 6 Sept. 1910, TNA KV 1/10. Since Helm was the second German officer to become her lover, Miss Wodehouse’s explanation does not carry complete conviction.

  27 Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 104–5. Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 50–51.

  28 The Times, 22, 23 Dec. 1910. Brandon and Trench were released in 1913.

  29 Correspondence between German Foreign Ministry and Prussian War Ministry, 12 Sept. 1910, 7 Dec. 1910, Politisches Archiv des Auswàrtigen Amtes, Berlin; cited by Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 50.

  30 Kell diary, 14 Nov. 1910, TNA KV 1/10. Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 51.

  31 Kell described the appointment of Thwaites as DMI in 1918 as ‘a very good choice too – a fortunate one for us, as he knows us all so well and appreciates our work’. Kell to Holt-Wilson, 7 Sept 1918, Holt-Wilson papers, Security Service Archives.

  32 Kell diary, 18 Nov. 1910, TNA KV 1/10.

  33 The report seems to have been related to the belief by Thwaites’s sister that the Germans had ‘insulted her’. Kell diary, 24 Nov. 1910, TNA KV 1/10.

  34 Kell, [Second Progress Report], April 1910–October 1910, TNA KV 1/9.

  35 Kell diary, 15 Nov. 1910, TNA KV 1/10.

  36 According to Security Service records, Clarke left MO5, for unexplained reasons, on 30 November 1912. (Within the War Office, the cover name for Kell’s Bureau was MO5(g).)

  37 Kell, ‘Progress during the quarter ending 31st March, 1911’, TNA KV 1/9. Kell diary, 17 March 1911, TNA KV 1/10.

  38 Kell diary, 3 March 1911, TNA KV 1/10.

  39 Recent research shows that Melville was born in 1850 (Cook, M: MI5’s First Spymaster, p. 14). Kell’s Bureau, however, did not know his birth-date. An interwar career summary in Security Service Archives gives the date as ‘about 1847’.

  40 ‘IIIrd Report of the work done by the Counter-espionage Section of the Secret Service Bureau from October 1910 to May 1911’, TNA KV 1/9.

  41 Security Service staff registers (one of which is reproduced in Cook, M: MI5’s First Spymaster, p. 259).

  42 On 16 December 1910, Kell noted in his diary: ‘Lt J. Ohlson of P & O offered job as marine assistant at £350 per annum with £10 per annum rise to £400. Will try for a year leave of absence in the first instance.’ TNA KV 1/10.

  43 ‘IIIrd Report of the work done by the Counter-espionage Section of the Secret Service Bureau from October 1910 to May 1911’, TNA KV 1/9.

  44 Kell, ‘Progress Report for the Quarter ending 30th June, 1911’, TNA KV
1/9.

  45 ‘Steinhauer, Gustav’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112. ‘Information Obtained by Chance’, G Branch History, p. 33, TNA KV 1/39. Holt-Wilson, ‘Security Intelligence in War’, 1934, IWM Kell MSS. The earliest surviving reference to this episode appears in Kell’s ‘Progress report for the quarter ending 30th September 1911’ (filed with his diary for 1911 in TNA KV 1/10): ‘The Leith case investigations are in hand, due to information received from Leith, that have led to the discovery of the name and address of a genuine German agent abroad, and the name and addresses of several of his correspondents in this country. The matter is being very carefully investigated.’ Kell’s progress reports never mentioned the name of the recipient of the letter (in this case Holstein). None of the surviving accounts explains how Clarke (about whom little is known) found himself in the same railway carriage as Holstein. He had originally joined a Scottish regiment and may have been visiting family and friends. Or, which is perhaps more likely, Clarke had gone to investigate reports of suspicious Germans in Leith, the port for Edinburgh.

  46 See below, pp. 37–8.

  47 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 71.

  48 Ibid., p. 54.

  49 Security Service, p. 68.

  50 Churchill to Sir Edward Grey, 22 Nov. 1911, CCAC Churchill MSS, CHAR 13/1/25.

  51 KV 1/48 ‘Rough Draft Summary of G-Branch’, p. 36.

  52 The Times, 6 Aug. 1913, 14 Nov. 1914.

  53 ‘Steinhauer, Gustav’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112. The Times, 6 Aug. 1913, 14 Nov. 1914. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 116–18.

  54 ‘Steinhauer, Gustav’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  55 ‘G’ Report, Part 1, ch. 3, TNA KV 1/39. Andrew, Secret Service, pp. 105–6. Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 54–6.

  56 Parl. Deb. (Lords), 25 July 1911, col. 642.

  57 Williams, Not in the Public Interest, pp. 24–8.

  58 Parl. Deb. (Commons), 18 Aug. 1911, cols. 2252ff.

  59 Kell, ‘Progress Report for the Quarter ending 30th September 1911’, TNA KV 1/9.

  60 Kell, ‘Report on Counter-Espionage from December 1911 to 31 July 1912’, TNA KV 1/9. ‘Espionage in Portsmouth’, The Times, 10 Feb. 1912. Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 56–9. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 64.

  61 Graves, The Secrets of the German War Office, p. 136.

  62 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 60–61.

  63 Kell had become a second lieutenant in the South Staffordshire Regiment in 1894; Drake, three years younger than Kell, became a second lieutenant in the North Staffordshire Regiment in 1896.

  64 Security Service Archives.

  65 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, IWM.

  66 Security Service Archives.

  67 Security Service Archives. Information on Clarke’s career from Gloucestershire County Archives, GBR/L6/23/B715.

  68 Cook, M: MI5’s First Spymaster, p. 220.

  69 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, p. 222, IWM. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 102. On Holt- Wilson’s resignation, see below, p. 227.

  70 Holt-Wilson diary, p. 9, CUL Holt-Wilson papers. I owe this reference to Dr Victor Madeira.

  71 Letter to Kell from Holt-Wilson, Security Service Archives.

  72 ‘G’ Report, Part 1, ch. 4, TNA KV 1/40.

  73 Though Fitzgerald, about whom very little is known, officially joined Kell’s Bureau as a detective on 1 November 1912, according to the Staff Register, it is possible that, as in the case of some other early recruits, he had worked informally for the Bureau before that date.

  74 ‘G’ Report, Part 1, ch. 4, TNA KV 1/40.

  75 ‘Graves, Armgaard Karl’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  76 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 61–3.

  77 ‘Rough Draft of G-Branch History’, p. 7, TNA KV 1/48. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 68. Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 63–7.

  78 ‘Hentschel, Karl Paul Gustav’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  79 ‘Parrott, George Charles’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  80 ‘Hentschel, Karl Paul Gustav’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  81 See above, p. 35.

  82 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, pp. 64–5.

  83 ‘Parrott, George Charles’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  84 On Otto Kruger, see below, p. 874.

  85 ‘Ireland, Frederick James R.N.’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  86 ‘Hattrick, John James @ Devlin, Walter John’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  87 ‘Parrott, George Charles’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  88 The Times, 17 Jan. 1913.

  89 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 66.

  90 The Times, 10, 19 Nov. 1913. Andrew, Secret Service, p. 113.

  91 The Times, 7, 14, 21 March 1913. ‘Klare, William’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  92 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 67.

  93 Andrew, Secret Service, p. 115.

  94 Boghardt, Spies of the Kaiser, p. 68.

  95 ‘Gould, Frederick Adolphus (real name: Schroeder)’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  96 Andrew, Secret Service, p. 115.

  97 Kell to Troup (Home Office), 11 Dec. 1913, TNA HO 48/10629/199699.

  98 Security Service, p. 69.

  99 The list consisted of Austro-Hungarians, Belgians, Danes, Germans, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes and Swiss. It also included naturalized British formerly citizens of these countries. Although allied to the Central Powers, Italians were excluded, as were the small number of resident Turks. ‘General Staff Policy in connection with Enemy Alien Civilians during war’. This document formed part of a wartime ‘Summary of the work and duties of Branch F of MO5’, Security Service Archives. According to Constance Kell, ‘naturalised Englishmen, originally Germans, were especially under suspicion’. Lady Kell ‘Secret Well Kept’, p. 125, IWM.

  100 The British licensee of the US Roneo Company was established in 1909, making Kell one of its earliest customers. One of the founding directors and investors of Roneo was Edmund Trevor Lloyd Williams, the founding chairman of another equally modern high-tech business, the Gramophone Company Ltd. For additional details see ‘General Staff Policy in connection with Enemy Alien Civilians during war’ in ‘Summary of the work and duties of Branch F of MO5’, n.d., Holt-Wilson papers, Security Service Archives, and was evidently added to in the course of the war. The first round of aliens registration was evidently complete by the first anniversary of the Bureau, for on 3 November 1910 Kell noted: ‘The Home Secretary approved the Aliens Return. I ordered 1500 copies to be printed by Mr C. Harrison.’ Kell diary, TNA KV 1/10.

  101 The information contained in this section is derived from a 1929 account by Mrs L. F. Edmonds of the Registry filing system as it then existed, with some additional notes on its beginning. Such was the quality of this account that Vernon Kell described it as ‘An extraordinarily interesting report. The most complete we have yet had on the subject, without being in too much detail. I am glad to have seen it. Mrs. Edmonds is to be congratulated.’ His deputy Eric Holt-Wilson noted, ‘I congratulate Mrs. Edmonds and your staff. I consider this a monument of common sense in the practical development into an easy routine system of conflicting elements which might have led to inextricable chaos.’ Major Phillips observed, ‘I think this note will supply a “long felt” want and the writer has set out the details very clearly.’ Security Service Archives.

  102 Security Service, p. 68.

  103 Kell, ‘Report on Counter-Espionage from December, 1911 to 31 July, 1912’, TNA KV 1/9.

  104 ‘The letters of a spy’, The Times, 24 July 1912.

  105 ‘Steinhauer, Gustav’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  106 Steinhauer also claimed, not very plausibly in view
of the arrest of his agents in August 1914, that he used his letters to Britain in order to deceive the British authorities with bogus information. Steinhauer, Steinhauer, p. 6.

  107 ‘Steinhauer, Gustav’, ‘Game Book’, vol. 1: 1909–1915, TNA KV 4/112.

  108 Steinhauer, Steinhauer, pp. 18–24.

  109 F Branch Report, vol. 1, pp. 54–6, TNA KV 1/35. Hiley, ‘Entering the Lists’, p. 49.

  110 Lady Kell, ‘Secret Well Kept’, p. 140, IWM.

  111 The names of the seven suspects arrested by local police forces without instructions from Kell appear on a list of twenty-one arrests included in a draft wartime history compiled in 1921 by an MI5 historian, Dr Lucy Farrar (whose PhD was in literary history); G Branch Report, vol. 1, pp. 48–9, TNA KV 1/40. Farrar, however, failed to realize that this list, mainly composed of the first suspects to be arrested, was a mixture of arrests ordered by Kell and others arrested by local police forces. The chronic post-war lack of resources in MI5, which had only thirteen officers at the end of the 1920s, prevented the draft history (prepared for purely internal use) being either checked or, in all probability, much read. But the error was eventually noticed and a correct list of the twenty-two arrests ordered by Kell in August 1914 compiled in 1931 (again for internal use); AR (L. F. M. Edmonds), minute to DCDS, 12 May 1931, TNA KV 4/114. As Edmonds noted, Farrar’s list contained ‘several names which were not M.I.5. cases’. The fact that all the arrests in the 1931 list actually occurred can be corroborated from other files.

  112 Arrests in August 1914 of German agents identified by Kell’s Bureau:

  1 Alberto Rosso (aka ‘Rodriguez’ and other aliases)

  Language teacher in Portsmouth, whose correspondence with German intelligence office in Brussels, which sent ‘lengthy questionnaires on naval matters’, was first intercepted in March 1914. Arrested on 3 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  2 Frederick Apel

  First detected by letter interception in May 1913 sending information on Vickers Shipyard at Barrow to German intelligence in Antwerp. Arrested on 4 August 1914 and later imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.

  3 Commander Friedrich von Diederichs

  Espionage mission to Medway, Sheerness and Chatham on eve of war discovered through intercepted correspondence. Arrested on 4 August 1914 and subsequently imprisoned under Aliens Restriction Act.