 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1873 |
| Preceding agency |
|
| Dissolved | 1964 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Jurisdiction | Government of the United Kingdom |
| Headquarters | Horseguards Avenue Whitehall London |
| Agency executive | |
| Parent department | War Office |
The Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) was a department of the British War Office. [1]
Over its lifetime the Directorate underwent a number of organisational changes, absorbing and shedding sections over time.
The first instance of an organisation which would later become the DMI was the Department of Topography & Statistics, formed by Major Thomas Best Jervis, late of the Bombay Engineer Corps, in 1854 in the early stages of the Crimean War. [2] [3]
In 1873 the Intelligence Branch was created within the Quartermaster General's Department with an initial staff of seven officers. [4] Initially the Intelligence Branch was solely concerned with collecting intelligence, but under the leadership of Henry Brackenbury, a protege of influential Adjutant-General Lord Wolseley, it was increasingly concerned with planning. However despite these steps towards a nascent general staff, the Intelligence Branch remained a purely advisory body, something that sharply limited its influence. The Branch was transferred to the Adjutant General's Department in 1888 and Brackenbury's title was changed to Director of Military Intelligence.
After Wolseley's appointment as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in 1895, he made the Director of Military Intelligence directly responsible to him. At the outbreak of the Second Boer War in 1899 the Intelligence Branch had 13 officers. Prior to the war it produced a highly accurate summary of the Boer republics' military potential and was the only part of the War Office to escape criticism in the resulting Royal Commission. In the immediate aftermath of the Boer War the Intelligence Branch was enlarged and its head elevated to Director General of Mobilisation and Military Intelligence.
Following the Esher Report in 1904 the War Office was dramatically reorganized. The post of Commander-in-Chief was abolished and replaced by the Chief of the General Staff. Planning and intelligence would be the responsibility of the Directorate of Military Operations.
When the War Office was subsumed into the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1964, the DMI was absorbed into the Defence Intelligence Staff. [5]
During World War I, British secret services were divided into numbered sections named Military Intelligence, department number x, abbreviated to MIx, such as MI1 for information management. The branch, department, section, and sub-section numbers varied through the life of the department; examples include:
| Name | World War I [6] | World War II [7] | Current status |
|---|---|---|---|
| MI1 | Secretariat, including:
| Administration | Reorganized around 1919 MI1b is an ancestor of GCHQ |
| MI2 | Geographical information (Americas, Latin countries, Balkans, Ottoman Empire, Trans-Caucasus, Arabia, Africa less French and Spanish possessions) | Information on Middle and Far East, Scandinavia, US, USSR, Central and South America. | These functions were absorbed into MI3 in 1941. |
| MI3 | Geographical Information (rest of European countries) | Information on Eastern Europe and the Baltic states (plus USSR, Scandinavia and Finland after summer 1941). | Functions absorbed into MI6 in 1945 |
| MI4 | Topographical information and military maps | Geographical section—maps. | Transferred to Military Operations in April 1940 |
| MI5 | Counter-espionage and military policy in dealing with the civil population (the former Home Section of the Secret Service Bureau) | Liaison with the Security Service (counterintelligence) | Active |
| MI6 | Legal and economic section dealing with the MI finance as well as economic intelligence and personnel records. Monitoring arms trafficking. | Liaison with Secret Intelligence Service | Active |
| MI7 | Press censorship and propaganda | Press and propaganda | Transferred to the Ministry of Information in around May 1940. [8] |
| MI8 | Cable censorship | Signals interception and communications security. | Ran until 1961. |
| MI9 | Postal censorship | Escaped British PoW debriefing, escape and evasion (also: enemy PoW interrogation until 1941). | Operated until 1945 |
| MI10 | Foreign Military Attaches | Technical Intelligence worldwide | Merged into MI16 after World War II |
| MI11 | Military Security. | Disbanded at the end of WWII | |
| MI12 | Liaison with censorship organisations in Ministry of Information, military censorship. | ||
| MI13 | (Not used) | ||
| MI14 | Germany and German-occupied territories (aerial photography). | Operated until spring 1943 | |
| MI15 | Aerial photography. In the spring of 1943, aerial photography moved to the Air Ministry and MI15 became air defence intelligence. | Operated during the World War II era. | |
| MI16 | Scientific Intelligence (formed 1945). [9] | ||
| MI17 | Secretariat for Director of Military Intelligence from April 1943. | ||
| MI18 | (Not used) | ||
| MI19 | Enemy prisoner of war interrogation (formed from MI9 in December 1941). | Operated during the World War II era. | |
| Others | MIR: Information on Russia, Siberia, Central Asia, Persia, Afghanistan, China, Japan, Thailand and India | MI (JIS): ″Axis planning staff″ related to Joint Intelligence Staff, a sub-group of the Joint Intelligence Committee. | |
| MI L: Attaches. | |||
| MI L(R): Russian Liaison. |
Two MI section-names remain in common use, MI5 and MI6, in most part due to their use in spy fiction and the news media.
"MI5" is used as the short form name of the Security Service, and is included in the agency's logo and web address. MI6 is included as an alias on the Secret Intelligence Service website, though the official abbreviation, SIS, is predominant.
While the names remain, the agencies are now responsible to different departments of state, MI5 to the Home Office, and MI6 the Foreign Office.
Directors of Military Intelligence have been: [10]
Deputy Quartermaster General, Intelligence Branch
Director of Military Intelligence
Director General of Mobilisation and Military Intelligence
Director of Military Operations
Director of Military Intelligence
Director of Military Operations and Intelligence
Director of Military Intelligence
MI5, officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), and Defence Intelligence (DI). MI5 is directed by the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), and the service is bound by the Security Service Act 1989. The service is directed to protect British parliamentary democracy and economic interests and to counter terrorism and espionage within the United Kingdom (UK).
Captain Sir Mansfield George Smith-Cumming was a British naval officer who served as the first chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).
The War Office has referred to several British government organisations in history, all relating to the army. It was a department of the British Government responsible for the administration of the British Army between 1857 and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the new Ministry of Defence (MoD). It was at that time, equivalent to the Admiralty, responsible for the Royal Navy (RN), and the Air Ministry, which oversaw the Royal Air Force (RAF). The name 'War Office' is also given to the former home of the department, located at the junction of Horse Guards Avenue and Whitehall in central London. The landmark building was sold on 1 March 2016 by HM Government for more than £350 million, on a 250 year lease for conversion into a luxury hotel and residential apartments.
Defence Intelligence (DI) is an organisation within the United Kingdom intelligence community which focuses on gathering and analysing military intelligence. It differs from the UK's intelligence agencies in that it is an integral part of a government department – the Ministry of Defence (MoD) – rather than a stand-alone organisation. The organisation employs a mixture of civilian and military staff and is funded within the UK's defence budget. The organisation was formerly known as the Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS), but changed its name in 2009.
A security agency is a governmental organization that conducts intelligence activities for the internal security of a nation. They are the domestic cousins of foreign intelligence agencies, and typically conduct counterintelligence to thwart other countries' foreign intelligence efforts.
Sir John Alexander Sinclair, was a British Army general who was head of the Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) from 1953 to 1956.
The Defence Intelligence Division of the South African National Defence Force is the primary military intelligence agency of South Africa which came into being on 27 April 1994. The other intelligence agencies of the country are:
MI4 was a Section of the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) established in December 1915. Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 4 was the designation for the Topgraphic Section of the Directorate, in the charge of [Col Walter Coote Hedely]. It was responsible for the following : (a) A Staff of 6 Officers whose duty it is to make all preparation for the provision of the necessary maps for peace and war. This includes the compilation, drawing and reproduction of maps. Each Officer deals with a special area, and it is his duty to have a complete knowledge of the maps and surveys of his area and to keep in touch with all the Survey Departments in those areas. The GSGS is in constant communication with the Ordnance Survey and with the Surveys of India and Egypt, and with the Surveys of all British Colonies and Protectorates, and with the surveys of Foreign Countries, especially France, Belgium and Italy. (b) A Map Curator who has charge of a library of maps which include copies of all published topographical maps of the world and a vast mass of unpublished maps and map material. This is an essential part of any geographical establishment and is the material from which all new work is done. (c) A staff of 22 geographical draughtsmen. (d) A photographic establishment. (e) A lithographic establishment including three printing machines. (f) A map store where GSGS maps are stored and whence they are issued.
MI7 was a branch of the British War Office’s Directorate of Military Intelligence with responsibilities for press liaison and propaganda. The branch was originally established in the First World War and disbanded after the signing of the Armistice. The branch was re-formed at the start of the Second World War. The new MI7, while less significant than its predecessor, acted as a necessary liaison link between the War Office and the Ministry of Information and Political Warfare Executive.
Colonel Valentine Patrick Terrell Vivian CMG CBE was the vice-chief of the SIS or MI6 and the first head of its counterespionage unit, Section V. Vivian, while he was attempting to introduce new blood into the service, selected Kim Philby, who later became notorious as "The Third Man" double agent and defected to the Russians, causing considerable harm to the system he had infiltrated.
General Sir Henry Brackenbury, was a British Army officer who was assistant to Garnet Wolseley in the 1870s and became part of his 'Ring' of loyal officers. He also wrote several books of military history and memoirs.
The Directorate of Military Intelligence is the military intelligence branch of the Defence Forces, the Irish armed forces, and the national intelligence service of Ireland. The organisation has responsibility for the safety and security of the Irish Defence Forces, its personnel, and supporting the national security of Ireland. The directorate operates domestic and foreign intelligence sections, providing intelligence to the Government of Ireland concerning threats to the security of the state and the national interest from internal and external sources.
The chief of the Secret Intelligence Service serves as the head of the Secret Intelligence Service, which is part of the United Kingdom intelligence community. The chief is appointed by the foreign secretary, to whom they report directly. Annual reports are also made to the prime minister.
The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), commonly known as MI6, is the foreign intelligence service of the United Kingdom, tasked mainly with the covert overseas collection and analysis of human intelligence on foreign nationals in support of its Five Eyes partners. SIS is one of the British intelligence agencies and the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service ("C") is directly accountable to the Foreign Secretary.
The Government of the United Kingdom maintains several intelligence agencies that deal with secret intelligence. These agencies are responsible for collecting, analysing and exploiting foreign and domestic intelligence, providing military intelligence, and performing espionage and counter-espionage. Their intelligence assessments contribute to the conduct of the foreign relations of the United Kingdom, maintaining the national security of the United Kingdom, military planning, public safety, and law enforcement in the United Kingdom. The four main agencies are the Secret Intelligence Service, the Security Service (MI5), the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and Defence Intelligence (DI). The agencies are organised under three government departments, the Foreign Office, the Home Office and the Ministry of Defence.
Major-General Sir John Charles Ardagh, was an Anglo-Irish officer of the British Army, who served as a military engineer, surveyor, intelligence officer, and colonial administrator.
Major-General Sir Charles Edward Callwell, was an Anglo-Irish officer of the British Army, who served in the artillery, as an intelligence officer, and as a staff officer and commander during the Second Boer War, and as Director of Operations & Intelligence during World War I. He was also a noted writer of military biography, history, and theory.
Kathleen Maria Margaret Sissmore, OBE (1898–1982), was known as Jane Sissmore and then Jane Archer after her marriage in 1939. In 1929 she became the first female officer in Britain's Security Service, MI5, and was still their only woman officer at the time of her dismissal for insubordination in 1940. She had been responsible for investigations into Soviet intelligence and subversion. She then joined the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), but when Kim Philby, later to be exposed as a double agent, became her boss he reduced her investigative work because he feared she might uncover his treachery.
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