The beginning of British espionage

Against the backdrop of “spy fever”, World War One saw the birth of Britain’s intelligence services as we know them today. Though there were several notable executions of German spies, fact and fiction melded in the public imagination, fuelled by the sensationalist novels of writers such as William Le Queux and John Buchan, who would himself go on to work for the Government’s propaganda office.

Such paranoia directly led to the establishment of the Secret Service Bureau in 1909. By the time the Western Front had become entrenched, the real Holy Grail for Allied agents was finding a way of getting information in and out of enemy territory. With its proximity to the continent and thousands of fleeing Belgians passing through who might be recruited as agents, Folkestone became a key battleground for Britain’s internally-competing spy organisations. There are dozens of fascinating historical spying characters from this period, but these are some of the key ones who appear in the latest Espionage and Propaganda season of Home Front.

Sir Mansfield Cumming

Code named “C”, Mansfield Cumming spymaster was a mythological figure. The head of the “Secret Intelligence Service” (which would later become MI1(c) and eventually MI6,) he claimed to have cut his own leg off with a pocketknife after a car accident and would reputedly stab his prosthetic replacement to test new recruits.

Though based at the War Office in London, we know that he had an office in Folkestone, for which our fictional character Johnnie Marshall (played by Paul Ready) works. Early in the war Cumming hoped to subsume rival organisation GHQ’s presence in the town, but this dominance was threatened when swathes of his spies were caught in summer 1916. His solution was to send South African Henry Landau into occupied territory later that year to establish La Dame Blanche, the biggest, most effective network of the war comprising of hundred of Belgians.

Listen to the episode in which he appears.

Major Cecil Cameron

Originally recruited by Cumming, Cameron’s codename “CF” (Cameron Folkestone) implies a subordinate status to his alliterative mentor. By 1916 their respective organisations were in active conflict not only with each other but also Ernest Wallinger’s in London, positioned to be closer to Tilbury docks. Since the previous year, Cameron’s network had been in decline after losing key Belgian spies such as Louise de Bettignies and Leon Trullin, a 17 year old refugee who reported enemy train movements.

The modern home of the Secret Intelligence Service, M16, on the River Thames, London.

Despite having previously been in prison for fraud, Cameron doesn’t seem to have kept a low profile from his Folkestone base in Marine Parade. In our research for this season of Home Front, we discovered that during this time he was summoned for breaching lighting regulations (blackouts were strictly ordered under the Defence of the Realm Act). Though only fined 10 shillings, this must have been a serious transgression for a man noted in the court report as an “Intelligence Officer” and whose house on Bayle Parade overlooked the sea. Whilst fears of enemy signalling at this time are likely to have lent themselves to the paranoia of “spy fever”, the spate of zeppelin raids in the South East between August and September 1916 were very real.

Major Cecil Cameron is played by Justin Salinger in Home Front.

Gabrielle Petit

Ironically codenamed “Mademoiselle Legrand”, Petit is one of scores of women involved in World War One espionage, even if she is not as well remembered as Mata Hari who, coincidentally, passed through Folkestone. Distributing her secret newspaper “La Libre Belgique” around her native Tournai, she also helped Allied spy networks through the underground mailing service “Mot du Soldat”.

A Red Cross Volunteer, Petit had initially helped her fiancé cross the border into neutral Netherlands, a feat which would become increasingly treacherous after the erection of a huge electric fence. Helping to smuggle intelligence back to British GHQ, she was later caught and sent to the same prison as the better known Edith Cavell near Brussels. Whilst Germany had sought to make executions of supposed spies a less public affair after Cavell’s, Petit was nonetheless killed by firing squad on 1st April 1916 aged just 23. Driven by patriotism until the very end, her last words are said to be “You will see how a Belgian woman will die”.

Listen to Home Front, a drama serial tracking the fortunes of a group of characters on the home front as they try to maintain normality while Britain is involved in the First World War.