Moran Johnson the Spy Thriller 2Jun10 Web
Transcript of Moran Johnson the Spy Thriller 2Jun10 Web
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Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)1
All statem ents of fact, opinion, or an alysis expressed in this article are those of the
auth ors. Nothin g in the article should be constru ed as asserting or im plying US gov-
ernment endorsem ent of an art icles factual st atements a nd interpretations.
Of Novels, Intelligence and Policymaking
In th e S ervice of Emp ire: Imp erial ism an d the
Britis h Sp y Th riller 19011914Dr. Christopher R. Moran and Dr. Robert Johnson
In the decade before the
First World War, theBritish spy thriller was a
cultural phenomenondrawing large and
expectant readerships
across all classes.
In t he decade before t he First
World War, th e Brit ish spy
th riller was a cultur al phenom-
enon dr awing large and expect-
an t reader ships across all
classes an d cat apult ing its
au th ors t o prominence as
spokesmen for t hen widelyprevalent concerns a bout impe-
rial st rength, n at ional power,
an d foreign espionage. Three
hun dred is a conservative esti-
ma te of th e nu mber of spy nov-
els that went into print between
1901 and 1914. This ar ticle
reflects u pon some of th e semi-na l publicat ions from t he
period, including Rudyar d
Kiplings Kim (1901), th e ta le of
a str eetwise orpha n who tr ainsas a spy and becomes em broiled
in t he int elligence duel on
India s North -West F rontier ;
Er skine Ch ilderss The Riddleof the Sand s (1903), th e st ory of
two gent leman yacht smen who,
cruising in the North Sea,
stum ble upon a secret Germa n
plot t o invade En glan d; and
William le Qu euxs S pies of the
Kaiser(1909), a dire prophecy
of Germ an espiona ge inadva nce of an invas ion.
In r ecent years, int elligence
historians have become increas-
ingly inter ested in spy fiction. A
sur e sign of this was a special
issue of th e jour na l,Intelli-
gence and N ational S ecurity,
published in 2008, devoted
ent irely to Spying in Film an d
Fiction. Anoth er indicator wa s
the a ppeara nce in J une 2009 of
a supplementa l edition ofS tud -ies in Intelligence in which pra c
ticing in t elligence officers
consider ed contem porar y fic-
tion in litera tu re, film, an d tele-
vision.
Hist oriograph y on t he su bject
has tended to hinge on t he issue
of realism or, put an other way,
the symbiosis between rea l
spies an d fictional spies. In
keeping with t he growing influ-ence of new lit era ry h istori-
cism, which seeks to
demonstr at e how both can oni-
cal literat ure an d, perha ps even
more so, low or popular
works can be qua rr ied for his-
torical mean ing, scholar s like
Allan Hepburn have scruti-
nized Kim and The Riddle to
see whether th ey reconst itut e
th e int elligence cycle with
accuracy or even disclose
tradecraft. 1
In Th e Great Gam e: Th e
Myths an d R eality of Espio-
nage, Fred H itz, a form er
inspector genera l of the Cen-
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2Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)
tral Intelligence Agency, sug-gested th at ther e is a clear
overla p bet ween rea l int elli-
gence, and t he fiction of Kiplingand Childers. 2 In a r ecent ar t i-cle for th e Journal of Transat-
lantic Stud ies, Adam Svendsen
proposed tha t the works of
ma ny spy novelists offer a nea r
perfect window ont o intelli-
gence processes. 3 In a field
notorious for its lack of declassi-
fied material, Svendsen contin-
ues, int elligence hist ory would
be great ly enriched if scholars
invested a little more time
thu mbing th rough fictitious
ren derings of th e sub rosa
world. The fact t hat ma ny
aut hors were themselves veter-
an s of int elligence is frequ ent ly
highlighted t o add credibility to
th is sort of appr oach.
We ar e not , however, of th e
opinion t ha t t he spy thr iller ismim et ic of rea l-life spying.
While gener ally t ru e-to-life
when it comes to th e period
det ails of int elligence (dis-
guises, sk et ch-books, etc.), spy
novels a re a ffected by comm er-cial concern s such as t he need
for dr ama tic impact. As th e
best-selling spy writer Gr aha m
Greene concedes: A novel
based on life in Secret Service
must necessarily cont ain alar ge elemen t of fan ta sy. As
outsiders, moreover, how can
we hope to distin guish, with
any certa inty, the aut hent ic
intrigue nar rat ives from the
apocryphal yarn s dressed up a s
real? The words of Allen
Dulles, former director of th e
CIA, seem a pposite: The opera -tions of an int elligence service
an d th e plots of most spy st o-
ries par t compa ny, never tomeet a gain.4
Rather t han appraising fin de
sicle spy novels as docum ent a-
tion for th e scholar of int elli-
gence (and then immediately
finding t hem want ing), we will
consider th e hist orical cont ext
within which they were pro-
duced a nd r eceived. Wha t inter-ests us a bout these texts is that
th ey reflected rea l geopolitical
anxieties that existed at the
time. Set against t he backdrop
of th e Grea t Ga me, th e pro-
tr acted s tr at egic conflict
between Britain, Fran ce, and
Tsarist Russia in Cent ra l Asia,
Kim is dark m editation on Rus-
sian imperial expansion a nd
intrigues toward India. Brewed
within th e atm osphere ofnat iona l soul-searching at t he
end of th e Boer Wa r, The Rid-
d le is a prophet ic vision of the
Great War, making graspa ble
th e growing capa city of Ger-
many as an adversarial seapower. S pies of th e Kaiser,
mea nwh ile, ostensibly chr oni-
cled th e dis covery of foreign
espionage networks at a time
when m inds were increasingly
cent ered on th e actual ma chi-na tions of Germ an int elligence.
We cont end in t his ar ticle tha t
ear ly 20th centu ry spy fiction
was designed, a bove a ll else, to
alert both t he government and
th e people of En gland t o the
vulnerabilities of the British
Empire.
Una sha medly patriotic, their
political sensibilities finely
tu ned t o th e caden ces of impe-
rial decline, authors wanted to
see more being done by theauthorities. 5 For exam ple,
Kipling supported Lord R ob-
ert ss call for a more r obust
defense of Empir e; Childers
sought t o gar ner public opinionin supp ort of new na val bases
an d a r apid expansion of th e
fleet; and le Queux deman ded
th e creat ion of a domest ic intel-
ligence service to comba t th e
German ogre, an enemy with
whom th e day of reckoning was
inevitable. We will also show
here that certain aut hors
quickly realized t hat whipping
up popular concern s was a prof-
itable enterpr ise. Le Queux was
by far the wiliest, reaping mas-
sive financial rewards by sensa-
tionalizing the extant threats
facing the n ation.
Admitt edly, this is not ent irely
new ground. In t heir larger his-
tories of th e British in telli-gence comm un ity, Chr istopher
Andrew an d Bernar d Port er
ha ve both s hown convincingly
how popular a ut hors from th e
period were implicated in the
business of scare-mongering,
giving voice to a ra nge of publicanxieties, from the vulnerabil-
ity of Brit ain s defensive prep a-
ra tions t o the s pecter of foreign
espionage.6 David F rench,
David Trott er, an d NicholasHiley ha ve also provided impor-
ta nt cont ribut ions on the role of
spy fiction in st irr ing up a h or-
net s n est of tens ion before th e
First World War. 7
We nevertheless feel that
there ar e two avenues that
Unashamedly patriotic, their political sensibilities finely tunedto the cadences of imperial decline, authors wanted to seemore being done by the authorities.
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Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)3
require furt her a nalysis. First,
ther e is a tendency in t he exist-
ing literat ure to suggest tha t
the th reat s discussed in spy fic-
tion ha d little or no groundingin r eality. Authors, it is often
said, were spinning mysteries
out of airy noth ings, so moti-
vated wer e th ey by comm ercial
gains. Yet su ch a judgm entseems too conclusive: ther e is a
difference between exaggera -
tion a nd pur e invention. Rus-
sia did ann ex strat egically
sensitive ar eas in Cent ral Asia
with th e intent ion of putt ing
diplomat ic pressure on Britain;
German y was building a batt le-
fleet wit h wh ich t o cha llenge
Brit ish imper ial hegemony.
Auth ors, moreover, recognized
tha t th e best an d most profit-
able fant asy conveyed some r eal
t ru th .
Second ly, we would lik e t o
show how cert ain spy novels
carried huge weight in th edefense councils of Empire, pre-
cipita tin g significant cha nges in
actu al policyma king. Alth oughhistorically, officials demurred
at giving credence to works of
fiction, between 1901 an d 1914,
th e opposite was t rue: intr igue
narr atives were taken seri-
ously in t he corridor s of power.
I . Kim a nd the External
Threa t to Emp ire
In Kiplings en igmat ic story
Kim , the orpha ned boy with
mixed parent age is perfectly
suited t o move between t he
world of Eur opeans a nd t he
people of th e colony an d, as
such, is by far th e best as set for
ma inta ining surveillan ce and
gather ing HU MINT. 8 Chal-
lenged by Colonel
Creight on, t he fic-tional h ead of th e
Intelligence Depart -
ment , to join his tea m
of tr ain ed local
agents, his missions
ranged from eaves-
dropping to the inter -
ception of sedit ious
messa ges. Kipling
gave moral backing to
int elligence work by
suggesting tha t it
safeguar ded th eempire and t hwarted
heinous plots. Mah -
bub Ali reassu res
Kim tha t h is delivery
of a k ey messa ge
ensu red: The gam e is
well played. That wa r
is done n ow an d t he evil wehope nipped before the flower,
than ks to me and t hee.
The litera tu re on Ki m is volu-
minous and well-trodden. 9 Crit-
ics of colonial d iscour se point to
a r an ge of mora l flaws in
Kiplin gs work . 10 Edward Said,
who in 2000 wrote an int roduc-
tion to a repr int ed edition, felt
tha t orienta list values perme-
at ed the n ovel to the extent
tha t it was a m ast erwork ofimperialism.11
Other scholars have dis-
missed the idea tha t Kim con-
ta ins a ny reality at all. Gerald
Morga n believed tha t it owed
practically everything toKiplings ima gina tion; th e only
thing that was not an inven-
tion was h is use of the t erm
The Grea t Ga me.12 Morgan
argued t here was n o secretworld of intelligence t hr ough-
out eith er northern India or
Centra l Asia. He argued th at
even th e Indian Survey Depart -
ment , employing a num ber of
Asian agents, was n ot engaged
in intelligence work, stating
tha t it was str ictly limited to
gath ering topograph ical infor-
ma tion. Morga n played down
the importan ce of th e actual
Intelligence Depart ment in
India, maintaining that its
ta sks were only really th ose of
collat ing in form at ion, whilst
the Political Service, formed in
1820, was little more th an a
diploma tic corps designed to
send a gents t o neighboring
states. 13
Certain spy novels carried huge weight in the defense councilsof Empire, precipitating significant changes in actual policy-making.
Drawin g of Rudyar d Kipling published in Th e Book-m an in 1903. Lebrecht /Corbis
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Agent s r ar ely collected infor-mat ion on the Russians an d
had n o powers to make tr ea-
ties. Their special duty wascarr ied out qu ite openly with
lett ers of intr oduction for t he
ru lers t hey visited. Brit ish offic-
ers, meanwhile, never ent ered
Russian t erritory without per-
mission. Morgan even ques-
tioned th e success of th e actua l
int elligence officers, doubtin g if
there was anything tha t th ey
rea lly achieved, beyond gat her -
ing t idbits of geograph ical
knowledge. 14
II. Reflections of Rea li ty i n
Kip lin gs Kim
If, as we suggest, spy th rillers
reflected a nxieties an d aspira -
tions of th e period, to what
extent does Ki m fulfill these
concern s? Kim is port ra yed as aboy fam iliar with in tr igue. Ini-
tia lly, he a cts as a courier even
though he did not underst and
the cont ents of the messa ges he
carr ied, for wha t he loved was
th e game for its own sa ke.15
Over t ime, however, he is
dra wn deeper int o th e world of
espiona ge. He delivers a vita l
documen t to the h ead of Brit-
ish int elligence in In dia. Its
cont ents revealed t he a ctivities
of a H indu ban ker in Pesha -war, a firm of gun m ak ers in
Belgium and an importan t
semi-independent Moham -
medan ruler.16 For spy chiefs,
the documen t h ighlight ed a cat-
alogue of th reat s: Imperial Rus-
sia, disloyal India ns in
positions of influence, an d gun -ru nn ers from Eur ope who could
supply th e latest firear ms t o an
India n force. The reference t o a
Moha mmeda n ru ler not onlyevoked concerns t ha t a p rincely
sta te m ight secretly foster sedi-
tion a gainst t he Raj in defiance
of Brit ish pa ra mount cy, but also
drew on imper ial Islam ophobia.
In th e novels clima x, Kim
steals th e plans of a Russian
and a Frenchman, who are car-rying out clandestine su rvey
work on th e mounta in
approaches t o India. He passes
th em, at th e cost of his cover
an d a lmost h is lifeto Colonel
Creight on back in Simla. Her e,
Kipling art iculat ed a deep-
seat ed an xiety of th e period. In
1894, th e Fr an co-Russia n Alli-
an ce brought t ogether Br ita ins
chief colonia l rivals a nd r aised
the specter th at Britain mightha ve to wage war on several
front s. Between 1894 and 1899,
when th e novel was writt en, the
Russian arm y marched into the
Pamirs and, at Somat ash,
clashed with the Afghans,whom Br itain was pledged to
protect.
Anxieties in Whiteh all about a
Russian t hreat to the landward
border s of India can be tr aced
back to th e 1830s. They were
magnified, however, from the
1870s onwards by the Tsarist
ann exation of th e khan at es of
th e old Silk Rout e, which
brought t he Russians closer to
the subcontinent. Statesmen
an d milita ry planners faced an
all t oo fam iliar in telligence
dilemma : what were th e
enemys r eal int entions an d
capabilities in the region, and
what should the response be?
While some deplored alar mist
reactions t o Russian expan -
sion, other s pointed t o evidence
of more sinist er designs: th e
discovery of secret Ru ssian mil-
ita ry plan s (1886); border skir-
mish es between th e Tsars
forces a nd Br ita ins Afgha n
allies (1885, 1892, and 1894);
an d th e ar rival of shootin g par-
ties, scient ific explorer s, an d
arm ed Cossack patr ols in themount ain pa sses on Indias
northern border (1887 and
1888). Such groups seem ed to
suggest an intent ion to stir up
th e peoples of Sout h Asia
against British ru le, perha ps as
a pr elude to a more serious
attack through Afghanistan.
Although the British ha d
ma naged to crush the Indian
Mutiny in 1857, there waswidespread concern th at they
might h ave to fight a border
war against tr ibesmen and Rus-
sian forces, while tr ying to sup-
press an internal r evolt at the
sam e time. This inter na l
dimension is often overlooked,
but t he m ood of th e Indian pop-
ulat ion was an importan t ele-
ment in t he calculat ions of th e
British aut horities.
Kipling was certa inly well-
informed a bout th e Great
Game. As a young journ alist a t
Simla, he read Maj. Gen.
Ch ar les MacGregors Defence of
India (1884), which was
regarded as the h andbook of
th e ha wkish Forwa rd S chool.
[The documents] contents revealed the activities of a Hindubanker in Peshawar, a firm of gun makers in Belgium and animportant semi-independent Mohammedan ruler.
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Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)5
He was a lso briefed on t he Ru s-
sian th reat to the borders of
India by Maj. Gen. (lat er Lord)
Frederick Roberts, commander-
in-chief of the Indian Army.Affectionately known as Our
Bobs, Robert s was a na tional
her o, celebrat ed in novels,
paintings, and music. Kipling
was in Simla with Robertswhen t he Penjdeh Incident
occurreda moment when war
with Russia a ppeared to be
imm inent . Moreover, Kipling
knew that the frequent skir-
mishes on the North-West
Fr ontier wer e fought to pacify
the t ribesmen who lived astr ide
th e poten tia l lines of comm un i-
cations into Afghanistan,
wher e, according to Robert s, the
British India n Army would
have to fight the Ru ssians.
Robert s a dvocated a Scien-
tific Frontier for India, not
along the a dministra tive line
which mar ked th e political bor-
der of India , but deep inside
Afghanista n a long the wat er-shed of the Hindu Kush. Dis-
guised as a native, Kipling
emulated the Great Game
agents t o move among the
Afghans and Pathans. 17 He vis-
ited Jamrud and interviewed
soldiers with experience in fron-tier wa rfare. He gleaned infor-
ma tion t hrough th e social
events of Simla. Kipling also
drew inspir at ion from hiking in
the Himalayan foothills.In deed, t he clima x of Kims mis -
sion is acted out in th e same
remote mount ain setting.
Kiplings conver sa tions wit h
Roberts were critical in shap-
in g Ki m . Robert s believed th at
the Russian thr eat to India was
the single most importan t fea-
tu re of Imper ial defense. He
drafted no less tha n 20 report s
on the defense of India between
1877 and 1893, advocated a n
increase in t he size of th e
India n Army (especially Brit-
ish bat ta lions), and cham pi-
oned t he creat ion of an Indian
Int elligence Bra nch t o scout
beyond th e frontier.18 As an
adm irer of Robert s, Kipling nat -
ur ally seized on thes e concernsan d adapt ed them in h is story. 19
To fash ion th e n ovels ba ck-
drop, Kipling used h is kn owl-
edge of Simla t o crea te both
atm osphere and character: the
slum s of Lah ore pr ovided th e
set tin g for Kims ea rly life,whilst Lurgan Sa hib was based
on th e Armen ian Jew, A.M.
J acob, who ar rived in th e can -
tonment in 1871, and who waslater r uined in 1891 after a pr o-
tr acted legal case with the
Nizam of Hyderabad. 20
In Kim , Kipling fus ed fic-
tional Brit ish int elligence oper-
at ions with the r eal work of th e
Indian Survey Departm ent,
which employed Asian a gents
with cryptonyms like The
Mirza or E5, to crea te a
hybrid organizat ion deeply
engaged in coun ter int elligence
activities on th e frontiers and
within th e Indian subcont i-
nent . Other tha n Colonel
Cre ight on (who, as Cont rol, is
na tu ra lly British), Kiplings
heroes are a ll Asian: the
Afghan horse tr ader, Mah bub
Ali; th e Indian ma ster of dis-
guises, Hur ree Babu; and the
mysterious agent E23. For
Kipling, it was essential t hat a
successful int elligence organ i-
zation r ecruited from a t arget
region em ployed expert lin-
guists a nd, where possible,
exploited t hose who alr eady
worked in t he enem ys sen ior
ranks.
The h irin g of local Asianagent s was comm on pra ctice.21
Attachs, consuls and news-
writersthe nam e given to
local spies hir ed by Brit ish
political officersgradually
becam e a more perma nent
arr angement . There were lis-
tening posts at Peshawar,Gilgit, Chitra l, Kandah ar,
Kabul, Tehra n, an d Meshed
from wh ere local a gents could
be dispatched. Ad hoc ar ra nge-ment s were made by more
nomadic expeditions too, for
example, by boun dar y comm is-
sions an d by agents t raversing
the Hindu Kush or Pamirs.
Indian m erchants could also
be used as th e eyes an d ears of
the Em pire. Ja mes Onley has
shown, with reference to the
Persian Gulf, that In dian mer-
chan ts were importa nt in creat-
ing access t o local elites an d
their networks, and pr ovided a
chea p an d useful tool for est ab-
lishing a presence and perha ps
influence.22 The Cont rol at
the consulat e at Meshed in
1887, Colonel C ha rles
MacLean, emp loyed Asian per-
In Kim, Kipling fused fictional British intelligence operationswith the real work of the Indian Survey Department, which em-ployed Asian agents with cryptonyms like The Mirza or E5.
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sonnel in dangerous work.23
Hereport ed tha t two messengers
had been ar rested in Merv, a
sma ll oasis settlement in Rus-
sian Cen tr al Asia. Agents Ian d J were compr omised a nd
ha d to be discharged. An a gent
in r ing C went missin g in
November 1888 after being dis-
patched to get photos of Rus-
sian guns, tr oops an d
barracks.24
Accord ing t o Ma cLea nsrecords, there were systemat ic
searches at the border, and
despite pr ecau tions such a s
usin g invisible ink in mes -
sages, more agent s were going
missing. 25 The consuls duties
in Meshed were domina ted by
monitoring relations between
Afghanista n a nd Persia, but
th ey also involved keeping a
close watch on Russian Centra l
Asia, part icularly th e routestha t a ny tr oops destined for
India would ha ve to take. 26
Asian an d British agents,
newswriters and att achs all
sent t heir informa tion either
directly to the in telligence
departm ents of London a nd
Simla, or to th e Foreign Minis-
tr y of th e Governm ent of India ,
th e governor of th e Pun jab
(which had responsibility for
the North-West Frontier P rov-
ince unt il 1901) or, in t he case
of Persia an d th e Gulf, to the
Foreign Office. 27 The Indian
nat ive sur veyors, th e Pun -
dits, sent th eir geograph ical
mat erial t o the Topographical
and Sur vey Departm ent, some
of which was subsequ ent ly pub-lished. Copies of reports con-
taining intelligence with
potent ial milita ry value went t othe In dian In telligence Bran ch.
The need to gather intelli-
gence on Centra l Asia was t o
assu age consider able fear s of
Russian capabilities and int en-
tions a nd to detect a ny
att empts by Tsarist agents t o
convert the natives. This was
especially importan t in t he caseof th e Afghans a nd Pat han s,
who, living on or n ear th e fron-
tiers, were beyond th e full
reach of th e au thorities. The
mounta inous environmen t
made British fears about t he
security of th e front ier even
more acute.
III . Kip l ing an d the Enemy
Within
The t argets of British intelli-gence in t he E mpire were n ot
just extern al enemies, but
internal subversives. Since all
empires a re, ultim at ely, cre-
at ed an d held by coercion, gat h-
ering int elligence about
potent ial or actua l threat s was
regarded as essential to th e
sur vival of Britain s E mpir e.
What is str iking about British
leader s, even in th e heyday ofimper ialism in t he 1890s, is
their consistent concern about
security. Joseph Chamberlain
wrote in 1898: We a re t he m ost
powerful Em pire in th e world,
but we ar e not a ll-powerful.28
The simple fact was th at the
colonial administrators were so
sma ll in nu mber th ey did not
ha ve the capacity to const ru ct
police stat es. Indeed, as Rich-ar d Popplewell point s out , ther e
was cont empt for t he sta te
appar at uses of Russia and
other Orient al despotism s: A
str ong aversion t o th e use ofspies was one of th e alien tr adi-
tions of governm ent which the
British brought to India.29
Tra cing nu mer ous episodes of
where th e British were badly
informed, he shows that they
sought t o avoid har assmen t of
th e people, concluding: Wha t
th ey could not afford was t o
alienate t he Indian pu blic on a
substa ntial scale. The maint e-
na nce of British rule in India
depended upon the acquies-
cence and pa rt icipat ion of th e
ruled.30
Kiplings In dia r eveals th e
depth of concern a bout th e
th reat t o th e Raj from the
na tive populat ion, which lin-gered beneat h t he sur face long
after t he tra umas of the Indian
Mut iny. The police were t ask ed
to detect subversionthey
would a chieve var ying degrees
of successbut the authorities
were also eager to influen ce theelites, the potential leaders of
revolt, a nd, wher e possible, to
sh ap e public opinion. As C.A.
Bayly argues, the idea was t o
regulate t he m eans of comm u-nication so as to establish an
emp ire of opinion.31
The sett ings in Kiplings work
are pr ecisely at the m ar gins of
aut hority in the informa tion
order, seeking out th e sinister
hidden ha nd of rebels an d for-
Since all empires are, ultimately, created and held by coercion,gathering intelligence about potential or actual threats was re-garded as essential to the survival of Britains Empire.
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eigners. More tha n th at , the
as su mp tion of Kiplings Ind ia is
tha t disorder itself is threa ten-
ing, with no acknowledgemen t
of the inh erent ly undemocrat icna tu re of Brit ish colonial r ule
tha t would ma ke protest neces-
sary. Indeed, th ere was a ten-
dency to conflate pr otest an d
thr eat a nd to see all pubicexpressions of an ger an d fru s-
tr ation as indicat ive of latent
nat ive fanat icism. The sheer
size of the n at ive popula tion
mean t th at pu blic disorder ha d
to be tak en ser iously, and, as a
genera l ru le, prompt coercive
action was preferred. Muslims,
part icularly those ast ride the
frontier, were not only well
armed a nd num erous, but also
saw th e Afghan king as t heir
nat ura l leader or, in th e
extrem e, th e caliph of th e Ott o-
man Em pire.
When it came t o the intercep-
tion of nationalist agitators,
who began a bombing and
assas sination campa ign beforeth e First World War, ther e was
little enth usiasm to consider
political reform s. There were,
nevertheless, considerable
efforts t o tra ck down t he con-
spirators wh o were directing
the t errorist campaign fromoutside In dia. As Popplewell
ha s demonstr at ed, th is led to
the surveillance of agitating
movement s in Britain an d
Asia.32
Kiplings n ovel suffered t oo
from t his imper ial blind spot;
ther e is no sense th at the con-
spirators with which Kim a nd
his colleagues do batt le have
any legitimat e cau se, and t heir
mora l weaknes s is confirm ed by
th eir treachery toward t heEm pire and their dependence
on foreign support. Instead,
Kiplings idea lized world is onewhere British intelligence is
alert t o the da ngers, operat es
within th e sub-stra ta of nat ive
society, and t hwar ts t he con-
spirat ors to ma intain British
security.
Between 1899 an d 1901, when
Kipling was writing Ki m , the
Army in India was deployed torestore order no fewer tha n 69
times. 33 Concerns that the
police were un reliable to th e
point of mu tiny, not t o ment ion
th e difficult ies of gat her ing
int elligence before a n insu rr ec-
tion broke out, meant tha t t he
army was a vital instrument in
maintaining order. Kipling was
awa re of its import an ce, and it
is not purely coincidenta l tha t a
British regiment featu res soprominently in Kim, making its
presen ce felt by showing th e
flag. Lord Robert s wr ote:
We can not afford to let
our Native troops or the
people of India doubt t he
m aintenan ce of our
suprem acy, wh ich t hey
certainly w ould if w e were
to allow Russia to over-
run Afghanistan. We must
let it be clearly seen th at
we do not fear Ru ssia,
and that we are deter-
m ined she shall not
approach near enough to
India to cause us serious
trouble in our rear.34
Roberts felt t hat the Br itishpeople supported a robust impe-
ria l defen se policy. 35 The press
and the enfra nchised public
could be used as tools t o exertpressure on government s tha t
did n ot exhibit su fficient
resolve. When Robert s r etur ned
from t he Sout h African War, he
was convinced th at Brita ins
volunta ry system of enlistm ent
was no longer a dequate. He set
up t he Na tional Ser vice League
an d as ked if Kipling would
write some stir ring lines to
bring home to the pu blic the
dan ger of allowing ourselves t o
be a second tim e in the sa me
risky position without a ny prop
erly trained t roops in t he
country.36
Kipling was an eager recruit.
He was a ppalled by the fact
th at successive Libera l govern -
ment s ha d neglected th e arm y,given concessions to t he Boers,
an d vacillat ed over Home Rule
for Irela nd, a ll of which were
critical issues for t he Em pire.
Kipling, however, did n ot sha re
Robert ss faith in th e Britishpeople and publicly criticized
the complacency tha t seemed t o
prevail.
IV. A Yacht ing Stor y w ith
a Pu rp ose: Erski ne
Chi lders and The Riddle of
the Sands
The Edwar dian period was a
time of much a nxiety and inse-
curity for t he British Empire.
Alth ough t he South African
Kiplings novel suffered too from this imperial blind spot; thereis no sense that the conspirators with which Kim and his col-leagues do battle have any legitimate cause,
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War (18991902) ha d been won,
man y Britons were left wonder-
ing how th e British Arm y, num -
bering alm ost ha lf a m illion
soldiers, had ta ken nea rly three
years t o defeat a guerr illa force
of rough ly 60, 000 men. Goaded
int o th e conflict by th e British ,
the outn umbered Boers evoked
great inter na tional sympat hy,
especially in Fr ance an d Ger-
ma ny, leaving th e British
devoid of both friends andallies. In a n a ge increa singly
influen ced by the doctr ine of
survival of the fittest, as
much between nat ions as indi-
viduals, certa in voices su g-
gested that England had
somehow gone soft and that
the na tion was deteriora ting
physically.
Testam ent to the pu blic mood,
in 1905 a pam phlet entit ledThe Decline an d Fall of the
British Em pire sold 12,000
copies in just six month s. 37 Brit-
ish eyes also began to tur n n er-
vously t owar d Ger ma ny, which,
seeking its place in the su n
comm ensur at e with it s rising
industrial strength, deter-
mined t ha t Weltpolitik was
impossible without th e con-
struction of a High Seas Fleet.
In challenging t he Royal N avysdominan ce of the seas, the t ra-
ditional linchpin of nat iona l
security, the kaiser u nder-
mined th e wisdom of diplo-
ma tic isolat ion a nd pr ovoked a
sta te of profound u nea se con-
cerning the vulnerability of
Brita ins defensive prepa ra -
tions.
The air th ick with fear a nd
un cert ain ty, the spy novel
began to reproach the a uth ori-
ties for wha t it saw as a chronic
lack of preparedness against
potential invasion. By any yard-
stick, the most famous spy
thr iller to address th is was
Er skine Childerss 1903 n ovel
The Ridd le of the Sand s. Bornint o th e governin g class a nd
schooled a t Ha ileybur y College,
the principal Victorian t ra ining
groun d for Br ita ins colonial
elite, Childers was a sta unch
imperialist. 38 One can set no
limits t o the possibilities of an
alliance of the English speak-ing ra ces, he declared in a let -
ter to Basil William s, a close
friend, in October 1903.39
The Sout h African War deeply
colored Childer ss th ink ing.
Shocked at the ease with which
British forces had m et t heir
mat ch at th e han ds of guerril-
las, he developed an u ncomfort -
able feeling tha t t he Em pire
was in mortal danger. Childers
became particularly concerned
about Germany, which had
made no secret of its sympath y
for t he Boers (even supplying
arma ments against the British
tr oops). Like m ost of his fellow
count rymen, he h ad been
appa lled by th e notorious
Kruger Telegram in 1896, a
messa ge sent by Kaiser Wil-
helm II t o the president of th e
South African Republic, con-
gratu lating him on repelling
the J ameson Raid, a sortie on
th e Transvaa l from the British-
cont rolled Ca pe Colony. Upon
his return from the Boer War,th erefore, he r esolved himself to
write a yachtin g story, with a
pur pose. Tha t pu rpose was to
rouse the government to the
German threat .
The Riddle occupied m uch of
Childerss time bet ween sprin g
1901 and wint er 1902. He was
not, by his own a dmission, a
na tur ally accomplished writer
of fiction. It is clear from h is
corr espondences tha t h e feltconstr ained by the medium a nd
ha mpered by the need to pro-
vide titillation and a sense of
climax consistent with litera ry
convent ions. I fear th e st ory is
beyond m e, he la men ted in one
letter. 40 Ther e is no sensat ion,
only what it mea nt to be con-
vincing fact, he grieved in
another.41
Having finally submitted th edraft sh ortly before Chr istma s
1902, Childer ss wors t fear s
were soon confirmed, wh en h is
publisher, Reginald Sm ith of
Smith, E lder & Co, retur ned
the ma nuscript fort hwith, ask-
ing for dra st ic revisions. My
experience is tha t people will
not ta ke th eir litera ry publica-
tions in t he close pemm ican
fare wh ich you adopt,
explained Sm ith.42
With itsforensic att ention to deta il, par -
ticular ly with respect to all
things nau tical, the draft ha d
none of th e flow a nd glow
requ ired of a work of fiction.
While caviar to the yachting
frat ern ity, Ch ilderss extens ive
use of cart ographic mat erials
In challenging the Royal Navys dominance of the seas, the tra-ditional linchpin of national security, the Kaiser undermined thewisdom of diplomatic isolation and provoked a state of pro-found unease.
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(see below), delineating (with
exact depth indications) the tel-
lurian sa nds an d archipelagos
of the North Sea mudflats ha d
the potent ial to frighten t he[gene ra l] re ad er a way. The
ma n who read s a work of ima gi-
na tion, however clearly found ed
on fact, is in a word not ener -
getic, tu tored Sm ith . 43
What really troubled the pub-
lisher about th e manu script
was t he complet e omission of
women. As it stood, The Riddle
was very m uch a ma ns book. It
is worth remem bering th at, by
the dawn of th e 20th centu ry,women (ever m ore litera te fol-
lowing advan ces in educat ion
provided for girls, but s till
lar gely excluded from th e pub-
lic sph ere ) had become big con-
su mer s of fiction. At Sm ith s
insistence, therefore, the n arr a-
tive ha d to offer m ore in t he
way of feminin e inter ests.
For Childers, th e th ought of
less sailing, fewer charts andmore women was a nath ema.
Sa iling wa s a school of cha ra c-
ter, saying mu ch for t he gritan d ha rdih ood of young Brit-
ons; maps demonstr at ed the
ease with which England could
be invaded; while lashin gs of
romance undermined the seri-
ous m essage conta ined in th e
book. After mu ch pr ocra stin a-
tion on both sides, a compr o-
mise was eventua lly reached:
th e ma ps would not be cut ; the
book would now h ave a love
int erest . I was wea k en ough
to spat chcock a girl int o it a ndfind her a h orrible nuisan ce,
grumbled Erskine in a private
letter. 44
What th en of th e finished
product? Drawing u pon
Child ers s own exper iences of
sailing along th e Germa n coast,
which brought to the nar rat ive
an ast onishing verisimilitu de,
The Riddle tells th e story of two
pat riotic duffersMessrs. Car-rut hers and Daviesembody-
ing all that was good about t he
adventur ous E nglish chara cter,who lark a bout in a sma ll
seven-ton yachtthe Dulci-
bellaand explore islan ds in
the North Sea.
When off the Fr isian Islands
duckshooting and incidentally
fat homing the shoals and inlets
ther eabouts, t hey discover th at
the Germa ns, with the a id of an
arm ada of shallow dra ft boats,
plan to send t roops across from
the sand berms that a dorn thelonely st ret ch of coast between
Holland an d Denmar k. This
was to be a sur prise att ack or,
in milita ry par lance, a coup de
main.
With no shore defense on th e
Ea st Anglian coast , and no
British fleet perman ently sta-
tioned in the North Sea , the
two sailors conclude th at a Ger-
ma n D-Day, if lau nched, wasbound t o succeed. Mr. Davies
point s th e finger of blame a t
Brit a ins blockh ea ds of
statesmen.45 At another point
in th e text, he gives th e bluffdeclar at ion, Those Admira lty
chaps want waking up.46
Thankfully for England, the
mu dlar k an d his compan ion foil
th e fiendish plot before it is t oo
late. As if the pr opaganda ma s-
quera ding as fiction was not
enough, Childers also provided
a postscript, which reminded
readers a bout the growing
capacity of Germ an y as a sea
power We ha ve no North S ea
naval base, no Nort h Sea Fleet,
an d no North Sea policyand
What really troubled the publisher about the manuscript wasthe complete omission of women.
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10Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)
called for the creation of a vol-
unt eer naval reserve, one th at
would ta ke advant age of the
unquenchable enthusiasm a nd
unt apped ta lents of the cruis-
ing fra ter nit y.
The pu blished version ofThe
Riddle is less acerbic in it s
treatm ent of German y than th e
draft manuscript. Whereas the
draft is embroidered with Ger-
ma nophobia, describing itscafs a s hostile an d referrin g
to the unconqu ered spirit an d
iron heel of Pru ssia, th e pu b-
lished copy rejects na tionalist
stereotyping and implies tha t
German y is motivat ed by Real-
politik rat her t han
ruthlessness. 47 Nevertheless,the ka iser banned th e book, and
it is said that when Childers
next went sailing in th e Baltic,
Germ an spies followed hismovements.
The Riddle was published in
May 1903. Sa les of th e book
were more th an ample to jus-
tify th e effort pu t int o it. By th e
end of th e year, it h ad become a
best seller, going thr ough th ree
editions, plus a cheap penn y-
packet issue that sold more
than 100,000 copies. Reviewed
widely in t he pr ess, the book
was greeted with widespread
critical a cclaim . The Westmin-
ster Gazette, which, as its t itle
indicates, sought t o be influen-
tial in pa rliament ary circles,
called it a litera ry a ccomplish-
men t of mu ch force an d origi-
na lity; an an onymous crit ic of
a Boston N ewspaper rh apso-
dized: The au th or mu st be
credited with a n a bility
am ount ing to genius, to be com-
pared in th e minut ia of his art
only to Defoe an d in t he
resources an d fertility of his
ima ginat ion t o Robert Louis
Stephenson.48
As En glands newest liter ar y
sensa tion, Childers received
man y letters of congrat ulation.You ha ve writ ten one of th e
most original books, gushed
W.D. Howells. Your people ar e
wonder fully life-like. Davies is
extraordinarily good, and the
whole thing per fectly
circumstanced.49 In a particu-
lar ly sycophan tic letter, a Mr.K. Ward from Stanthorpe
County Durham , wrote th at the
book had stirr ed in me a fresh
desireto do a little for m ycoun tr y, pr ompt ing him to form
a local rifle club pr esum ably
from wher e well-int ent ioned
pat riots could be tra ined to kill
the Boche.50
Among Ch ilderss m ore distin -
guished adm irers was Kipling,
who, from the 1890s on, was
repeatedly denouncing his
count rymen in t he pr ess for
failing to prepare or ta ke a firm
sta nd against th e sham eless
Hu n. As well as excellent sales
and reviews, The Riddle
brought Ch ilders, an eligible
bachelor, to th e front ra nk s of
Londons social scen e.
The books su ccess wa s n o
fluke. Childer ss skill as a n
auth or was to sense and to
seize on glib contemp ora ry t alk
about im peria l collapse a nd for-eign t hrea ts. The t iming of its
publication was in one sens e
brilliant ly done t o make maxi-
mu m imp act of th e fallout from
th e South African War, whenquestions about na tional
str ength an d efficiency, as well
as th e wisdom of diploma tic iso-
lation, dominated both public
a nd official d iscour se.
The books r elease a lso coin-
cided with t he first wave of rea lpublic anxiety about Germany,
with whom relations had soured
ma rk edly. By 1903, ma ny
islan d-folk were concern ed th at
th e Royal Navy was a bout to
lose its ma stery of th e seas, thus
increa sing th e possibility of
invas ion. Only a year ea rlier, in
a s peech to th e Reichst ag, Vice
Admira l Livonius of th e Ger-
ma n n avy had boldly pro-
nounced:
Carrying out a la nd ing on
the E nglish coast has been
greatly increased by the
introduction of steam
power. The possibility of
steam ing by night with
light s covered in order to
escape th e enem ys obser-
vation, have mu ch
reduced the ad vant ages of
England s in sularposition.51
Under Kaiser Wilhelm II, Ger-
ma ny had begun launching its
pre-drea dnought fleet, some of
the largest and fastest war-
ships ever bu ilt. A popular
image was tha t of the ka iser
Among Childerss more distinguished admirers was Kipling,who, from the 1890s onwards, was repeatedly denouncing hiscountrymen in the press for failing to prepare or take a firmstand against the shameless Hun.
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kitted out in m edals, sword a nd
polished bootsbrea king cham -
pagne bott les over t he bows of
impressive steam-powered ves-
sels. Convinced that Nemesiswas close at han d and saddled
with xenophobic paranoia, the
British press did nothing to
subdue ten sions, beating the
pat riotic drum an d whipping uppopular en thu siasm for rem e-
dying the very st ra tegic defi-
ciencies of which Childers ha d
protested.
Demands for the government
to do some th ing were not in
fact being ignored. Weeksbefore The Riddle was due t o go
to press, the Admiralty
ann ounced that it had selected
a sit e on t he Fir th of Fort h for a
new North Sea na val base,
causing Childers t o insert a
ha sty postscript t o the effect. A
year ea rlier, His Ma jestys Gov-
ernment ha d set up a Commit-
tee of Imperia l Defence to
consider the expanding Ger-
man batt lefleet and its poten-tial inten tions.
Lord Selbourne, the First
Lord of t he Adm ira lty, took
great interest in The Riddle (I
rea d [it] with m uch pleasu re),
but with reservations. In a pr i-
vate letter, he disputed th e
claim of No North Sea Policy,
suggesting that, like so many
other writers, he [Childers]
takes it for grant ed that noth-ing goes on at th e Admira lty, or
is done by the Adm ira lty, except
what t he public ha ppens to
know.52 Selbourne rejected the
books emp ha sis on t he Forth as
an essential buffer against Ger-
ma n att ack as representa tive of
a very comm on delu sion; th e
only thing which r eally ma t-
ter s, he went on, is sh ips
believe me.53
By cont ra st, H ugh Arn old-For-
ster, then pa rliament ar y secre-
ta ry to the Admira lty, was
unr eservedly impressed.54 As
was t he h ighly influent ial Vic-
torian war hero, Lord Wolseley,
formerly commander-in-chief of
th e British forces:
Th e subjects it deals with
are m ost int erestin g. Few
m en in En gland have
stud ied the question of the
invasion of these islands
m ore closely than I h ave
done. When m en perhaps
laugh at this expression of
m ine, I alw ays content
m yself with rem inding
them th at I attach m ore
weight to the opinions ofNap oleon, Wellin gton,
Nelson and Collingwood,
than I do to theirs.55
For Wolseley, what ma de t he
book more than ordinarily
interesting was the minuteness
of detail with which t he na rra -
tive was loaded, th e appar ent
perfect familiarity with th e
scene of the event s described.
Sailing th e Nort h Sea was
kn own to be one of th e au th orshobbies, and it was clear th at
his personal experiences ha d
added a sem blance of truth to
what was, at its core, a prett y
far-fetched narrative.
Pressu re from backbenchers,
especially those representing
Ea st Coast const ituencies,
eventually prompted Lord Sel-
bourn e to ask th e Naval Intelli-
gence Division (NID) for a
deta iled report on the feasibil-
ity of a Germa n invasion as out-
lined in t he book. The m ost
recent inquiry, car ried out in
1902 on th e assum ption th at
France represented t he ma in
thr eat, ha d concluded tha t
invasion was not an eventual-
ity which we need ser iouslyconsider.56
After s end ing a coup le of
experts to reconnoiter t he Fr i-
sian Coast, the NID rea ched
th e sam e conclusion, point ing
out th at th e want of railways
and roads, the shallowness ofth e wat er, th e configur at ion of
the coast, n ot t o mention t he
terr ific amount of prepara tion
of wha rves, lan ding-places,causeways, sheds and what not
besides, would ha ve render ed a
secret emba rka tion
impossible.57 As a novel it is
excellent; as war plan it r ub-
bish, was th e assessm ent of
Lord Louis Bat ten berg, direc-
tor of nava l int elligence. 58
This was n ot, h owever, the
last of establishment interest in
The Riddle. On 27 Janua ry
1906, Childers r eceived a let-
ter mar ked Secretfrom
Ju lian Corbett , who, only
month s before, ha d become the
Admira ltys unofficial st ra tegic
adviser. Corbett explained that
th e Admir alt y was an xious to
get some inform ation about t he
Pressure from backbenchers, especially those representingEast Coast constituencies, prompted Lord Selbourne to askthe Naval Intelligence Division for a detailed report on the fea-sibility of a German invasion as outlined in the book.
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12Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)
Frisian Coast but ha d not
th ought it expedient to sendan yone to get it just now.a 59
Being an expert on th e Nort h
Sea, Childers was invited t o
lunch with Capta in Charles
Ott ley, Bat ten bergs successor
as DNI. During th e luncheon,
Childers h an ded over copies of
all of his na ut ical char ts, delin-
eating pilotage and topographi-
cal deta ils. A few mont hs la ter,
Childers was cont acted by
Fra ncis Gath orne-Hardy fromth e War Office Sta ff College.
With a view to possible ra ids on
the North German Coast, in the
event of war, th e War Office had
instructed Gathorne-Hardy to
collect geostrategic intelligence
on t he ar ea a nd on th e locali-
ties. During his resear ches, he
had found t ha t t he existing War
Office cha rt s wer e h opelessly
out of dat e, notin g: I find [us]
rat her lacking oninformation.60
Having identified Borkum,
Wan gerooge an d t he S ylt
Islan ds as possible bases fromwhich t o laun ch a n a mphibious
assault upon the German m ain-
a In 1910, the somewhat dilatory Admi-
ralt y did send two spies to the F risian
Islands. Unfortu nat ely, in what becamean intern ational cause clbre, Lt. Vivian
Bran don and Ca pt. B.F. Trench were both
detected and arrested by the Germans
and pardoned by the kaiser three years
later. During his tria l in the imperial
court at Leipzig, Brandon caused scenes of
hysteria when he revealed that h e had
read The Riddle not once, but thr ee
times. See British Spies Sentenced,
Daily News, December 1910.
land, he asked Childers the fol-
lowing:
Are they are defended and towhat extent?
What facilities do th ey pos-
sess both on h ar bors a nd on
th e open beaches for lan ding?
What size ships can approach
an d lie in their ha rbors?
Have the buoys been removed
since t he publication of yourbook?
In your opinion, is there an
easier landing th at could be
effected on an y oth er point? 61
Once again, Childers fur-
nished the au th orities with a ll
tha t h e could. On Gat horne-
Ha rdys insist ence, Childers
was required t o keep secret his
dealings with th e War Office,
since it was not consider edgood form in E nglan d even t o
th ink of protection, much less
retaliation.62
Over time, The Riddle becamecore r eadin g for an yone
involved in naval policy or espi-
onage. In April 1908, th e Admi-
ra lity ordered 117 copies for u se
in it s Fiction Libra ries.63 In
1912, the War Office issued a
secret handbook, entitled The
S pecial Mi litar y Resources of
the Germ an Em pire, which
praised t he brilliant imagina-
tion of th e au th or of The Rid-
dle of th e Sa nd s an d imp lored
agents to familiarize them-
selves with its content. 64
In illustrat ing both th e com-
mercial rewards and political
leverage th at could be ha d from
the deceptive blending of fact
a nd fictionor fa ctionit s ett he s ta ge for a whole slew of fic-
tionalized spy stories th at dealt
with t he specter of German
invasion. As th e next s ection
will discuss, per ha ps Ch ilderssgreatest legacy was in laying
th e founda tion for th e an ti-Ger-
ma n crus ades of William le
Queu x, who, in concert with
military careerists like Lt. Col.
Ja mes Edm onds, played a part
in t he crea tion of Brit ain s m od-
ern in telligence service an d
th us changed t he course of an
empire.
V. The Germ an s are
Comi ng !: The Ficti on of
Wi l l iam le Queux
After The Riddle, as Chr isto-
pher Andrew ar gues, an
increasingly prominent featu re
of Edwa rdia n s py fiction wasth e seditious work of Germ an
spies.65 If not for litera ry st yle
an d grace, th en certa inly for
success a nd influence, th e
au th or typically ass ociat ed with
th e devilish intr igues of th e
German Secret Service was
William le Queu x. Averaging
five novels a year u nt il his
death in 1927, he was among
th e highest pa id fiction wr iters
of his tim e, ear nin g 12 guinea sper 1,000 words (rough ly $1,000
in t odays m oney), the s am e
rat e as H.G. Wells a nd Thomas
Ha rdy. An h abitu of London
clubland an d inexhaust ibly
well-tr aveled across some of the
Continen ts most elite r esorts,
le Queux claimed t o know
[The Riddle] set the stage for a whole slew of fictionalized spystories that dealt with the specter of German invasion.
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everyone in E ur ope wort h
knowing, from Qu een Alexan-
dra, r eputedly his biggest fan,
to Em ile Zola, th e celebrat ed
French writer who was instr u-ment al in exonera ting the
falsely convicted ar my officer
Alfred Dreyfus. Throughout his
career, le Queux presented him-
self as a spyma ster, who, withan intim at e knowledge of for-
eign espionage, battled das-
ta rdly foreign nat iona ls in th e
service of the Br itish govern-
men t. To th is day, ma ny of le
Queuxs dista nt relatives ma in-
ta in th at he was killed by Bol-
shevik th ugs, while workin g as
a secret a gent in t he Soviet
Union. 66
The lessons of th e Boer War
bit d eeply int o le Queuxs
psyche: Hist ory tells us t ha t a n
Em pire which cann ot defend its
own possessions must inevita-
bly perish, he would la ter
write.67 Like Childers, he set
out t o use fiction a s a vehicle
for political pa mph leteerin g,designed to awaken the govern-
ment to the uncomfort able
trut h th at England had become
idle and complacent, whereas
rival nat ion sta tes were fast
becoming virile and pur poseful.
In common with m ilitar y
threat assessment a t th e turn
of th e centu ry, he ha d in fact
sta rted h is literar y car eer not
as a German ophobe, but a s aFr an cophobe, predicting con-
flict between En gland and
Fra nce. In 1894, he sh ot t o
fame with Th e Great War in
Englandin 1897, which
depicted an a tt empted French
invasion. Unlike George
Chesn eys ea rlier ta le of war-to-
come, Th e Battle of Dorking(1871), which en ded with th e
British being soundly defeated,
Th e Great War in Englan dcon-cluded with En glish victory.
Five year s lat er, published
only mont hs a fter the Fa shoda
Incident, th e terr itorial dispute
between Britain and Fr an ce in
the Sudan,En glan ds Peril
(1899) int roduced reader s to
Gast on La Touche, the villain-
ous chief of th e Fr ench SecretSer vice. In En glan ds Peril, a
member of Parliam ent ha s his
head blown off by, it eventually
tr an spires, an explosive cigar.
By 1906, as bad blood began to
arise between Britain a nd th e
ka iser, following th e sta rt of th e
dreadnought race that th reat-
ened t o ren der obsolete Brit ish
batt leship su premacy,
German y replaced France
as th e main enemy in leQue uxs novels. As David
Stafford argues, like any
successful a ut hor, he
kept a n eye on t he shift-
ing tides of publicopinion.68
Obsessed with th e end
of empire a nd fearing th e
encroachment of beast ly
foreigners int o the
Un ited Kingdom, le
Queu x began to forward
report s to the Foreign
Office, which, ta ken at
face value, confirmed th e
existence of a Ger ma n
spy network in Brit ain.
These reports, he
claim ed, cam e from a n
informa nt in Berlin.69
With n oevidence t o corrobora te his a lle-
gat ions, however, th e au th ori-
ties dismissed th e reports as
wishful thinking.
His pleas falling on dea f ears,
le Queux adopted a new
appr oach, us ing his social skills
and immense clubability to
seek, and a cquire, the friend-
ship of senior crown ser vant s.
By early 1906, he ha d gained a
valua ble ally in Admira l LordCha rles Ber esford, one of th e
most a dmir ed na val officers of
his genera tion, considered by
ma ny t o be a per sonificat ion of
John Bu ll. Eager to promote h is
views about t he developmen t of
th e fleet, Beresford lent his
great public voice to num erous
Obsessed with the end of empire and fearing the encroach-ment of beastly foreigners into the United Kingdom, le Queuxbegan to forward reports to the Foreign Office.
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14Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)
ar ticles writ ten by le Queu x onthe need for pr eparedness.
Le Queuxs most import an t
coadju tor was Lord Robert s.
Just as the famous general had
assisted Kipling, he shared le
Queuxs a nxiety a bout Brita ins
unr eadiness for a ma jor cont est
of ar ms: My dear William, t he
world th inks me a lunat ic also,
becau se, after fort y year s ser-
vice in In dia, I h ave come h ome
and dar ed to tell England tha tshe is un prepa red for war.70 As
president a nd moving spirit of
the National Service League, a
pressu re group for compulsory
milita ry tr aining, Roberts sa w
an a llian ce with le Queux as an
opport un istic way of canvass -
ing public support for conscrip-
tion, opposed by man y people at
th e tim e for s ma cking of cont i-
nental militar ism.
Having secured the priceless
imprim at ur of Lord Roberts, le
Queux began to plan for The
Invasi on of 1910, a graphic
ima gining of a successful in va-
sion of Englan d by a 40,000-
strong Germa n ar my. Funding
for th e pr oject was provided by
Lord Northcliffe, proprietor of
Brita ins first ma ss-circulat ion
newspaper, th eDaily M ail . As a
pat hological Ger ma nophobe,
with a n inst inctive flair for a
profitable story, Northcliffe was
only too willing to stu mp u p th e
cash in r etu rn for exclusive
serializat ion rights.
Str iving for r ealism, le Queux
consulted military experts like
Col. Cyril Field and Ma jor Ma t-son; he even spent four mont hs
touring the sout heast of
England in order to map outth e most likely invasion route.
As he wrote in t he preface, th e
aim wa s to bring home to th e
British public vividly and forc-
ibly what rea lly would occur
were an enem y suddenly to
appear in our midst.71
A tough t askm ast er, Nort hc-
liffe rejected th e first dra ft. Hismain objection was t hat th e
invading Germa n a rmy a voided
the m ajor cities, and t hus t he
ma jority ofDaily Mail readers.
To rectify this, le Queu x was
required to devise a new route,
one where sa les took pr ece-
den ce over a ccur acy.
Th e Invasion began its serial-
ization on 13 Mar ch 1906. In
London, itineran t sandwich-boar d men , employed by th e
Daily M ail and dressed in
spiked helmets, Prussian u ni-
form s a nd bloodst ain ed gloves,
bellowed at city workers, war n-
ing th em of th e Hun s ar rival in
th e nat ions capita l. The st ory
was centered on German tr oops
advancing inlan d, until they
eventu ally rea ched London. As
th ey went, t he fierce, jack-
booted soldiers des poiled farm -
land , looted churches, violat ed
women, mut ilated babies an d
bayoneted resistance fighters.
Le Queux described how a hun -
dred Germa n spies, prior t o the
assa ult, had para lyzed Brit-
ains defenses by cut tin g tele-
phone lines and destroying
bridges, rail tracks and coal
staithes.
Newspaper serialization cam e
with a special map, illustra ting
th e regions a nd towns where
th e Germa ns were t o be concen-
tr ated. Just sout h of Cam-
bridge, there was to be the
Grea t Ba tt le; in t he fields
between Loughborough and
Leicester, th ere wa s t o be Con-
sidera ble Fighting.72 Readers
were instructed to keep the
map for referenceIt will be
valuable.
Th e Inv asion was explicit inagitat ing for a system of
nat iona l service an d in its
denu nciation of Brita ins slum -
bering stat esmen for failing to
prepa re for a possible invasion.
Splash ed across th e top of each
extract was th e eye-cat ching
headline, WHAT LORD ROB-ERTS SAYS TO YOU, followed
by: The catast rophe that may
ha ppen if we still remain in our
present sta te of unpr epared-ness is vividly and forcibly
illustr at ed in Mr. le Queu xs
new book, which I r ecomm end
to th e peru sal of everyone who
ha s th e welfare of the Br itish
Empire at heart .73
The Invasion was a h uge suc-
cess, boosting t he Daily Mails
circula tion a nd, in book form ,
selling over 1 million copies in
27 languages. Although th e lit-
erar y cognoscent i berat ed th e
somewhat primitive composi-
tion of th e writin g, le Queux
could not h ave been ha ppier.
With Roberts on h is side, he
established his bona fides as a
serious a ut hor; with North-cliffe
offering colum n-inches, he h ad a
Northcliffe rejected the first draft. His main objection was thatthe invading German army avoided the major cities, and thusthe majority ofDaily Mail readers.
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suita ble forum for h is an ti-Ger-
ma n views; and with high sa les,
he now had a mple privat e
mean s t o fund his count erespio-
na ge work. E ncour aged by thepublics r esponse, le Queu x an d
Roberts founded a volunt ar y
Secret S ervice Depart ment , a
group of am at eur spy hunt ers
devoted to gath ering inform a-tion that might be u seful to our
coun tr y in case of need.74
By contr ast, the government
was not am used. In Parlia-
ment , Prime Minister Sir
Henry Campbell-Bannerman
said th at le Queux was a per-nicious s carem onger and su g-
gested that t he story risked
inciting war between E ngland
and German y. 75 This is not t o
sa y, however, th at officials could
ignore th e inva sion bogey. Pu b-
lic press ur e to reconsider th e
quest ion of oversea s at ta ck
caused Campbell-Bann erma n to
appoint a subcommittee of
Committ ee of Imper ial Defence,
which m et 16 times between27 November 1907 and 28 July
1908, and included dignitaries
like David Lloyd George and
Edward Grey. On t he first day
of th e groups conven ing, tes ti-
mony was given by none oth er
tha n Lord Roberts. During histime in t he spotlight , the aging
milita ry hero reha shed the
invasion plan a s predicted by le
Queuxs m elodra ma . To th e
delight of Sir J ohn Fish er, th enfirst sea lord a nd fath er of th e
ultra -modern dreadnought, the
sub-committ ee concluded th at
an invasion was un tena ble so
long as a large, technologically-
advanced navy was
maintained. 76
Le Qu eux wa s, of cours e, notth e only fiction wr iter tra ns-
fixed with th e sinister ma china-
tions of Germ an spies. Le
Queu xs biggest rival wa s t heself-st yled Pr ince of St orytell-
ers, E. P hillips Oppenh eim. An
outspoken critic of un prepa red-
ness, Oppenheim demanded th e
intern ment of enemy aliens and
support ed Lord Robertss cam -
paign for t he int roduction of
compu lsory na tional s ervice
am ong able-bodied men .
Cent ra l to Oppenh eims yarn s,
as with th ose of Childers a nd le
Queux, was th e importan ce of
th e gifted ama teu r. Typically
well-born an d wea lth y, her oes
were accidental rather than
professiona l spies, a lways pr ov-
ing, un der severe t est, t o be of
sterling wort h. In The Great
S ecret(1907), th e lead cha ra c-
ter while in London playingcricket for his count yis ina d-
vertently dra wn int o defending
his na tion when he discovers a
German spy ring operat ing
from t he Ca f Suisse in Soho.
As both David Sta fford a ndDavid Trotter h ave argued, rul-
ing-class amateurs were not
only her oes in t heir own right
but a lso guar dian s of th e social
hierar chy; set apa rt by their
gentlemanliness, they repre-sen ted a symbol of sta bility in
a t ime of increasin g work ing-
class agitation. 77 Moreover,
becau se they were gentleman,
they somehow made spying
acceptable, even h onoura ble, to
a rea dership brought up to
believe th at espiona ge was adirty trade.
Though others had muscled in
on the genr e, le Queux ulti-
mately trumped th em a ll with
S pies of the Kaiser. Published in
1909, an d preceded by an
advertising campa ign in t he
Weekly News offering rea ders
10 for in form at ion on Foreign
Agents in Brita in, Spies pitted
Ray Raymonda pa tr iot t o his
hea rt s coreagainst litera llythousan ds of Germa n spies,
most of th em nest led in t he
En glish coun tr yside, disguised
as lan dlords, waiters, an d bar-
bers. In deta iling the Germa n
hidden han d, le Queux was a da-
man t th at h is novel was based
on serious facts, unear th ed
over a 12-month period touring
the United Kingdom:
As I w rite, I have beforem e a file of amazin g docu-
ments, which plainly
show th e feverish activity
with w hich this advan ce
guard of our enem y is
workin g to secure for their
emp loyers the most
detailed in form ation.78
To combat t his men ace, the
book cha mpioned th e creat ion
of a professiona l coun ter intelli-
gence service, a messa ge tha tchim ed with public fear s of
invasionnow at fever-pitch
with t he ka isers an nounce-
men t in la te 1908 of an a cceler-
at ed shipbuilding progra m. 79
Frightened m embers of th e
public inu nda ted th e novelist s
Moreover, because they were gentlemen, they somehow madespying acceptable, even honourable, to a readership broughup to believe that espionage was a dirty trade.
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16Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)
ma ilbox with a lleged sightin gsof German spies. Letters
detailed German espiona ge in
all its form s, from t he su rveil-lan ce of beaches, fort ificat ions,
and sh ipyar ds to the purloin-
ing of secret tr eat ies, war pla ns,
and blueprints. Although the
ma jority of th ese reports wer e
pure fantasy, le Queux ear-
nestly forwarded t hem t o
Lt.Col. Ja mes E dmonds, head
of MO5, the fledgling counterin-
telligence section of the War
Office Directorate of Military
Operations.
Convinced of the existence of
enemy s pies (nea rly every Ger-
man clerk in London spends his
holidays on biking or walkin g
tours in t he eastern
counties),80 but a lso with one
eye on securing fund ing for his
own fledgling outfit, E dmonds
ha d long been na gging Richa rdHa ldan e, secreta ry of sta te for
war, on t he sh ort comings of
British espionage. Ha ldane,
who still ha rbored h opes of a
rappr ochement with Germ any,
had hitherto demurred at thisassessment , believing tha t
enemy agents were really the
appar at us of th e white slave
traffic.81 For Edmonds, there-
fore , le Queu xs eviden ce was
a godsend.
By early 1909, the tradition-
ally unflappable Haldane ha d
judged t ha t le Queu xs report ed
sightings, however far-fetched,
had just enough plausibility to
merit an investigat ion. In
March, he set up a comm ittee to
consider the n at ure a nd extentof foreign espiona ge tha t is a t
present t aking place with in this
country.82Edm onds, th e com-
mit te es chief witn ess, inform edmembers of a ra pid rise in
cases of alleged Germa n espio-
na ge: five in 19 07; 47 in 1908;
and 24 in the first t hree months
of 1909. 83 Of th e 24, le Queu x
ha d pr ovided fivealthough, in
th e ser vice of anonymity, he
was r eferr ed t o only as a well-
known a ut hor. The individua ls
accused by le Queux of being
German spies included: a
cyclist wh o swore in Germ an
when nea rly run over by the
aut hor in his motorcar ; a Ports-
mouth h airdresser, na med Sch-
weiger, who appar ent ly took
much int erest in navy gossip
an d consort ed with officers; a nd
a r etired captain, called Max
Piper, who was believed to act
as a go-between for Germanagents based in the United
Kingdom.84
Astonish ingly, le Queu x an d
his associat es ma ter ial was
instrumenta l in persuadingmembers to reach t he conclu-
sion:
Th e evidence which was
produ ced left n o doubt in
the min ds of the com m it-
tee that an extensive
system of German espio-
nage exists in th is
coun try, and tha t we have
no organ izat ion for keep-
ing in touch w ith that
espionage and for accu-
rately determin ing its
extent or objectives.85
This assessmen t, derived not
from ha rd facts reported by the
police aut horities, but from
information ascertained from
am at eur spycat chers, led
directly to the form at ion of th e
Secret Service Bureau, forerun-
ner of MI5 an d MI6, in lat e
1909.
Historical resear ch h as now
proved beyond a ny doubt th at
no such exten sive system of
Germ an espiona ge existed.Between August 1911 and t he
outbrea k of th e Grea t War, MI5
apprehen ded and t ried only a
ha ndful of sus pected spies.
Alth ough t he spy ring of Gust av
Steinha uer was rounded up, th e
German spymaster ran no more
tha n 20 poorly trained a gents,focused for t he m ost par t on r iv-
ers and beaches rather t han
military insta llations. What
th is underlines is the fact th atin 1909 officials h ad be en com-
pletely deceived. In success-
fully hoodwinking t he
establishment int o a sta te of
tota l delusion, le Queuxunbe-
lievablyha d played a key role
in th e crea tion of th e modern
Brit ish int elligence comm un ity.
Th e Great Wargave le Queu x
th e ideal canvas on which to
pain t h is political beliefs. In no
fewer tha n 40 novels relating to
th e conflict, pu blished between
1914 and 1918, he a rgued for
more coun ter espionage, bigger
ships, an d a stronger stand
against immigration. Con-
vinced that every stra nger with
a gutt ura l accent was a spy in
This assessment, derived not from hard factsbut from infor-mation ascertained from amateur spycatchers, led directly tothe formation of the Secret Service Bureau.
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disguise, he continued to flood
government departments with
rep orts of Ger ma n officers in
mufti.
By th e war s end , however, evi-
dence suggests th at the aut hori-
ties h ad finally wised up to le
Queu xs febrile ima ginat ion. In
August 1914, para noid tha t th e
German s were out to get h im on
accoun t of his coun ter int elli-
gence work a nd involvemen t
with M05, he wrote to the Met-
ropolitan Police r equesting t ha t
local Bobbies give him an d his
family special protection:
Owing t o the fact th at for
a nu m ber of years I have
interested m yself in th e
tracing and identification
of Germ an spies in
England an d in laying
th em before the proper
authoritiesthreats have
been conveyed to me th at
the gentry in question
intend to do me bodily
harm!
A reply was sent to th e effect
th at th e local police would
mak e a short beat near his
house. Not sa tisfied with t his,
le Queux t ook t o car rying a p is-
tol before protestin g to Edward
Hen ry, comm issioner of th e
Met ropolita n Police: Although
I cont inue to be threa tened an d
am unfortu nat ely a ma rked
man by Germans, I a m being
afforded no special protection
whatsoever.86
Over th e next few mont hs, his
ta ctic was t o engulf th e local
sta tion sergeant with reports of
German intruders infiltrating
his pr emises, only to be driven
off by gua rd dogs. On 17November, he wrote, On two
occasionsstr an gers ha ve been
prowling about my property
with evil intent , presumably toinquire about m y private Wire-
less st a tion, or, possibly, to
make an attempt upon myself
and my family.87 Henr y never-
theless saw him a s not a per-
son to be taken seriously an d
refused t o fulfill his requ est. 88
In a final desperate bid tosecure pr otection, le Queux sent
a ser ies of fawn ing letter s to
Pat rick Quinn of Scotla nd
Yar ds Special Br a nch, prom is-
ing th at , if Quinn were willing,
le Queux would ur ge cert ain
influentia l gentlemen to rec-
ommen d th at [Quinn] should be
placed in supreme command of
the whole department and
given comp lete power s, with no
super ior a ut hority.89 Th einfluentia l gent lemen whose
ears t he fabulist apparent ly
ha d included Lord Leith of
Fyvie, Lord Port smout h, Hol-
combe I ngleby, an d Cecil Har m-
sworthmen wh o believed tha tpresen t p olice met hods for dea l-
ing with enemy aliens were
insufficient and ineffective.
By now, however, no one was
going to be tak en in by le
Queu xs a nxieties. The Met ro-
politan Police severed all con-
ta ct with him, even issuing a
circular, ent itled Mr. Le
Queu x, war ning officials th at
he sh ould be viewed in th e
proper perspective.90 Accord-
ing to the circular, th is was a
man whose att ention ha d beenso long centered on Germ an
spies tha t th e subject ha d
become a monoman ia with
him. Alth ough le Queu x, in hisown eyes, was a per son of
importa nce and da ngerous to
th e enemy, to th e esta blish-
ment he ha d now come t o be
seen as a charlatan .
Conclusion
While it is clear th at Kipling,
Childers, and le Queux were
prone to exaggera tion, their
works were based on reality
an d, more importa nt ly, reflected
both an idealized view of Brit -
ain s imperia l needs an d a
desire for grea ter security. The
anxieties they represented were
not entirely without foundation
and a ppear all the more
aut hent ic when we remembertha t t hey were often passed on
by militar y figures.
Fiction is m ore believable
when a nchored in rea lity, and it
is the case that early 20th cen-
tu ry spy fiction was u sed to
push genuine agendas, includ-
ing calls for a n at iona l service
ar my, a lar ger na vy, and a
secret s ervice. Though t hey cel-
ebrat ed imperialism a nd t he
qualities that built it, th ey alsorepr esent ed a t ool for the m obi-
lizat ion of opinion a nd stood a s
clar ion calls aga inst perceived
compla cency in Whit eha ll.
In Ki m , Kiplings char act er s
speak of th e need t o combatRussian intr igue on th e North -
Fiction is more believable when anchored in reality, and it is thecase that early 20th century spy fiction was used to push genuine agendas.
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18Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)
West Frontier a t a t ime when
Britain was en gaged in a genu-ine protr acted st ru ggle forinfluence in Afghanista n an d
the In dian borderlan ds. In The
Riddle, Childer ss her o re veals
secret Germa n na val schemes
at t he precise moment when th e
Royal Navy was being con-
front ed by the k aisers men ac-
ing warship-building program.
New na val techn ologies also
inspired t he a nxieties of le
Queux. In ma ny of his n ovels,German spies ar e invaria bly
foun d reconn oiter ing poten tia l
invasion beaches or a tt empting
to pilfer importan t n aval
secrets.
For le Queux, th e problem was
not so mu ch th e Royal Na vys
inability to destroy the Ger-
ma n Na vy, but th e compla -
cency of th e Br itish
governm ent . His lobbying, like
tha t of Childers, was instru -
ment al in fostering a man ia for
spies, but it a lso led to a more
sober debat e in the ar med
forces about th e tru e nat ure ofthe t hrea t, which went someway to inspirin g the form at ion
of th e Secret Service Bur eau .
Moreover, th e crea tion of the
India Political Int elligence
Office, also in 1909, a long with
the long-standing employment
of Asian a gents a nd t he a ctivi-
ties of th e Int elligence Bra nch
in India, points to a similar
reaction by the British a uth ori-
ties in India. In essence, then,fin de sicle spy novelists
gauged pu blic opinion an d ta i-
lored their works accordingly,
drawing heavily on actua l
events, compla cency am ong the
aut horities, and fear a bout
potent ial enemiesphenomena
which were not fictional a t a ll.
For intelligence officers in the
21st century, perhaps the most
import ant message of th is story
is tha t popular culture, how-
ever s eemingly absurd, can eas-
ily tra nslat e itself into real
policy. In a significant recent
ar ticle, int elligence historian
Rob Dover argued that televi-
sion shows like 24 and Spooks
have an importa nt real worldimpa ct, conditioning both pub-
lic and official dis cour se a bout
intelligence.91 In th e early 20th
centur y, tha t golden evening of
Em pire, the rea l world impactof spy fict ion wa s cons ider able.
The Riddle ha d a profound
effect on Br itish na val policy.Le
Queux, for all his sin s, has a
genuin e claim to be considered
th e fath er of the Brit ish int el-
ligence community. Were it not
for his far-fetched tales of Ger-
ma n espionage, it ma y well
have been month s, perha ps
years, before dozing aut horities
woke up t o th e need for a pro-
fessiona l coun ter int elligence
service. Indeed, it is chilling t o
th ink what th e consequences
would have been had t he
au thorities not been influenced
by le Queux an d persisted with
th eir dilat ory str at egy towar ds
th e intrigues of th e GermanSecret Service.
For intelligence officers in the 21st century, perhaps the mostimportant message of this story is that popular culture, howev-er seemingly absurd, can easily translate itself into real policy.
Notes
1. Allan H epburn , Intrigue: Espionage and Culture (New Ha ven, CT: Yale Un iversity P ress, 2005).
2. Frederick Hitz, The Great Game: The Myths and Reality of Espionage (New York: Ra ndom House, 2 004).
3. Adam D.M. Svendsen , Paint ing Rath er t han Ph otograph : Exploring Spy Fiction a s a Legitimat e Source
Concerning U K-US Int elligence Co-operat ion,Journal of Transatlantic Stud ies 7 n o. 1 (Mar ch 2009): 122.
4. Allen Dulles (ed.), Great S py S tories from Fiction (Guildford: Ha rper an d Row, 1985), xii. For a n excellent
trea tmen t of th e gap between r eal life an d fictiona l espiona ge see Charles E . Lath rop, Th e Literary Spy: The
Ultim ate Source for Quotations on Esp ionage an d In telligence (New Ha ven, CT: Yale Un iversity P ress, 2004).
5. D. Sta fford, Th e Silent Gam e: The R eal World of Im aginary S pies (Ath ens, GA: The Un iversity of Georgia
Pr ess, 1989), 6.
-
8/3/2019 Moran Johnson the Spy Thriller 2Jun10 Web
19/22
British Spy Thrillers
Studies in Intelligence Vol. 54, No. 2 (June 2010)19
6. Chr istopher Andrew, S ecret Service: Th e Makin g of the British Int elligence Com m un ity (Lond on: Heine-
man n, 1985); Berna rd Porter, Plots and Paranoia (London: Routledge, 1989).
7. D. Fr ench, Spy Fever in Br ita in, 19001915, Th e Historical J ournal 21 no. 2 (Ju ne 1978): 35570; David
Trott er, The Politics of Adventu re in t he E ar ly British S py Novel,Intelligence and National Security 5 no. 4(October 1990): 3054; Nicholas Hiley, Decoding Germ an Spies: Brit ish Spy F iction 1 90818,Intelligence
and N ational S ecurity 5, no.4 (October 1990): 5579.
8. Mart in Thomas,Em pires of Intelligence (Berkeley, Los Angeles. an d London: Un iversity of California Pr ess,
2008), 2425.
9. See Peter H opkirk, Th e Quest for Kim (London: J ohn Mu rr ay, 1996); Andr ew Lycett ,Rudyard Kipling (Lon
don: Weidenfeld an d N icolson, 1999); Zoreh S ullivan ,Narratives of Empire: The Fictions of Rudyard Kipling
(Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993).
10. Feroza J uss awalla , (Re)rea ding Kim : Defining Kiplings Ma ster piece as Postcolonia l,Journal of Com-
m onw ealth and Postcolonial S tud ies 5, no. 2 (1998): 11230.
11. Edward Said, Introduction, in Rudyard Kipling, Kim (London: Ra ndom House, 2000), 45.
12. Gerald Morgan , Myth a nd Rea lity in t he Grea t Ga me in Asian Affairs 60 (1973): 55.
13. T.C. Coen, Th e Ind ian Political Service (London: Ch at to a nd Windus, 1971); I.M. Moir, A Stu dy of the H is
tory and Organ isation of the Political an d Secret Depart ment s of the Ea st In dia Company, the Boar d of Con-
tr ol an d th e India Office, 17841919, Un publish ed Thes is for U niversit y College London Diploma in Archive
Administration (London, 1966).
14. Morgan, Myth, 57, 58-9.
15. Kipling, Kim (Oxford, 1987 edn.), 3.
16. Kipling, Kim , 22.
17. Lycett , Rudyard Kipling, 107.
18. Robert J ohnson, Rus sian s at th e Gat es of Ind ia? Plann ing th e Defence of Ind ia, 1885-1900,Journal ofMilitary History, 67 (Ju ly 2003): 697744.
19. One of Kiplings form er lovers, Gussie Tweedell, mar ried Colonel Cr icht on of th e Sur vey Depar tm ent , pro
viding Kipling with t he n am e of his own fictiona l intelligence chief, Colonel Creight on.
20. Angus Wilson, Th e Strange Ride of Rud yard Kipling: His Life and Works (London: Book Club Associates,
1977), 90.
21. See Ronald E. Robinson, Non-European foundations of European imperialism: sketch for a theory of col-
labora tion, in ed. R oger Owen an d B. Su tcliffe, S tud ies in the Th eory of Imp erialism (London: Prentice H