The British Army and Signals Intelligence During the First World War.

Ferris, John.

ISBN 10: 0750902477 / ISBN 13: 9780750902472

Published by Stroud; Alan Sutton for the Army Records Society, 1992, 1992

About this Item

FIRST EDITION. Octavo, pp. [8], 359, [1]. Publishers' scarlet cloth with gilt titles to spine and gilt crest to upper board, in unclipped pictorial dust-jacket. Contents clean and crisp with no annotation or inscriptions. Spine tips and upper corners very lightly bruised. Dust-jacket very slightly creased and a touch spine sunned. Publications of the Army Records Society Vol. 8. History of one of the most important sources of information during the war, which profoundly affected campaigns including the Somme and Gaza. Includes excerpts from reports by Army HQ, the memorandum "Enemy Codes and their Solution" from 1918, reports on enemy radio networks, and a report on breaking enemy ciphers.

Seller Inventory # 11436

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The British Army and Signals Intelligence During the First World War.
• Publisher: Stroud; Alan Sutton for the Army Records Society, 1992
• Publication Date: 1992
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0750902477
• ISBN 13: 9780750902472
• Binding: Hard Cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Dust Jacket Condition: Dust Jacket Included

About this title

Synopsis

Historians have paid little attention to the British Army's experience with signals intelligence during the First World War. However, this was one of the Army's most important sources of information about crucial matters such as the order of battle and intentions of the German and Turkish Armies. Britain's successes and failures in signals intelligence profoundly affected battles ranging from the race for the Channel Ports, first Somme, third Gaza and Amiens, among many others.
While efforts to weed the records on these topics have created major gaps in the sources, surviving evidence throws an entirely new light on the British Army in the Great War. It allows one to trace the evolution of the Army's signals intelligence organisations, to determine many of their successes and failures, to show how this intelligence affected various operations and, indeed, to demonstrate that signals intelligence influenced the operations of the British Army as much as those of the Royal Navy.
The material reproduced in this volume includes excerpts from reports by Army Headquarters in France, Italy and Mesopotamia and the Military Intelligence Directorate. It includes the memorandum "Enemy Codes and their Solution" by the G.H.Q. codebreaking section in January 1918, which is one of the two best sources known to exist about the techniques of "codebreaking"; surviving reports on the enemy radio networks in the Balkans and Anatolian Turkey, which are the most illuminating evidence from any theatre on the approach toward "traffic analysis" and a report on the breaking of German and Turkish Army ciphers in Mesopotamia during 1917, which is the best source known about the techniques of "cryptanalysis" used by an Army in the Great War.