The Spy Net: The Greatest Intelligence Operations of the First World War

by Henry Landau

Overview

The 'White Lady' spy net stretched across Europe, encompassing more than 1,000 agents and producing 70 per cent of Allied intelligence on the German forces in the First World War. Through sheer ingenuity, it maintained a staggeringly complex network of spies deep behind enemy lines, who provided vital information on troop movements to and from the Western Front. Its success rested on one man: Henry Landau. Talent-spotted while on a dinner date with one of the secret service's secretaries, Landau left with an exclusive invitation to the service headquarters to meet the legendary 'C' (Mansfield Cumming, the 'chief' of what is now MI6). Fully aware that the man on the other side of the door had a reputation for intimidating his young recruits - such as stabbing his leg without letting on that it was wooden - Landau never expected to be given the daunting task of running La Dame Blanche, nor did he realise how instrumental he would be in helping the Allies turn the tide of the war. Vivid, fast-paced and utterly compelling, The Spy Net is the extraordinary story of the war's most successful intelligence operation, as told by the man who pulled the strings.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781849549585
Publisher:	Biteback Publishing, Ltd.
Publication date:	08/04/2015
Sold by:	Bookwire
Format:	eBook
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	587,095
File size:	414 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

After the war, Captain Henry Landau left the Service and during the 1930s wrote a series of books about his time as a spy, all of which were published in the US to avoid prosecution under the Official Secrets Act. The Spy Net describes the extraordinary extent of Cumming’s spies in Belgium, France, Holland and inside Germany itself.

Table of Contents

Introduction vii

1 From Boer to Briton 1
2 Getting to the firing line 11
3 I enter the British secret service 25
4 Van Bergen starts my first organisation 41
5 The White Lady of the Hohenzollerns 49
6 Militarisati on of the ‘White Lady ’ 69
7 The Hirson Platoon 77
8 The German Secret Police — their methods and organisation 93
9 Exploits of the Chimay company 105
10 The affair of the Villa des Hirondelles 117
11 Léon Trulin — youngest spy shot during the war 129
12 The Biscops Service 141
13 The Conneux Flying Squad 153
14 Siegburg — prison for women 163
15 Deserters and a Dame 171
16 Surprises of the coast patrol — the wireless torpedo boat 187
17 Espionage , counter-espionage and spy hysteria 195
18 ‘40 OB’ 209
19 Spy from the sky 227
20 An astounding proposition from the Hamburg soldiers’ council — and exit the Kaiser 235
21 Liquidation of the service 245
22 Edith Cavell — reflections 251
23 Passport control in Germany 263
24 Yvonne — an interlude 273
25 Investigating war wizardry 285
26 The German secret service makes a proposal 297
27 Russian adventure 303
28 Sabotage in the USA — Black Tom blows up 331
29 The Kingsland fire 343