Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Wwii espionage
With the onset of WWI came advancements in several facets of warfare. With new advancements came new opportunities for schemers to flex their muscles in the world of espionage and offensive action. This research will focus on the relevant intelligence operations of the offensive and espionage in naval warfare of WWI. It will concentrate primarily on the German and British naval initiatives, but will not overlook those of Russia, France, and the United States. Any and all conjectures made throughout will be made with the consideration of a given party’s incentives to misrepresent as well as the anticipated payoffs ascribed with each initiated action.
The First World War produced a vast increase in the flow of diplomatic as well as military and naval intelligence. Perhaps more interesting, is how little attention the Foreign Office paid to it. The greatest intelligence advance of the war was the revival of British code breaking after a gap of seventy years —a revival with which the Foreign Office had nothing to do. The initiative came from the Director if Naval intelligence, Admiral Reginal ‘Blinker’ Hall, who founded a diplomatic annex to the wartime Admiralty sigint unit, Room 40, under personal control in the summer of 1915. During the Dardanelles campaign in 1915 he sent secret emissaries to Constantinople with authority to offer up to £4 million to secure the passage of the British Fleet.
Hall’s actions surrounding the Irish Easter Rising in 1916 prove to be something worth a second look. Hall learned of Germanys plans to land both German arms and The Irish nationalist sir roger casement on the west coast of Ireland. Hall failed to inform wither the foreign office or the Irish government. Dublin castle acquired the knowledge ...
... middle of paper ...
...ed submarine warfare also came with the recognition that such actions would probably being the United States into the war. Arthur Zimmermann thought he would distract America by getting Mexico to wage war on her. He was confidant Mexico would comply under the offer of the return of territories lost in the Mexican-American war of 1846. However, the British intercepted the message, Room 40 deciphered it, and Woodrow Wilson was promptly informed. Wilson gave it to the press and five weeks later, America declared war on Germany.
World War I changed the way wars were fought. Espionage in particular made huge advancements toward becoming an integral part of warfare. From submarines to sabotage, from telegrams to minefields, naval warfare shaped the course of the war. Had codes not been cracked, and messages not intercepted, the world would look very different today.
The American Revolution saw the rise of the American spy, and the father of these spies was George Washington, commander in Chief of the Continental Army. The siege of New York demonstrated the importance and dire need for intelligence to General Washington. Unfortunately, the difficulty, at least initially, lies with finding people willing and able to serve in this manner. Upon recognizing the necessity for a network of subterfuge, Washington created the Culper spy ring. Housed in New York City under the command of Colonel Benjamin Tallmadge, its purpose was more than merely gaining intelligence.
"World War I: Naval War." World War I: Naval War. N.p., 1 Dec. 2003. Web. 05 Nov. 2013. .
On April 2nd 1917, President Woodrow Wilson of the United States of America, ??went before Congress and called for a declaration of war. Both the House and the Senate voted overwhelmingly in favor of going to war with Germany.?# This was an act that led to much resistance among the American people. Not four months earlier the American people re-elected President Wilson, partly because of his success in keeping the United States out of this European war. However, a series of events, such as the Germans continuing submarine warfare and the attacks on five American ships, led President Wilson to sever diplomatic relations with Germany and send the United States into what would be labeled as World War I. As a result of the war the
After World War II American intelligence had the need to be transformed. The inexperience along with bureaucracy and poor coordination among American intelligence officers obligated the United States intelligence community to change dramatically in order to confront the new challenges that emerged after the end of WWII. From Early America through WWI the intelligence system of the United States of America was involved in operations in which they had to construct intelligence systems virtually from scratch (Andrew 1995). Human intelligence was already developed, but with certain limitations and other intelligence disciplines were underdeveloped and very seldom sophisticated. After WWI America recessed and settled in a period of peace. The United States faced no threat to its security from its neighbors, from powers outside of the Western Hemisphere (Lowenthal 2006). That caused a visible absence of intelligence activities, leaving America out of sight for any international conflicts; the United States of America focused and limited its activities beyond its own borders. In later years the Japanese attack to Pearl Harbor, America rushed to reactivate their military forces, moving from a passive country to full participation into a another international conflict; WWII. As a consequence, the United States engaged in activities that improved its intelligence system increasing its capabilities needed to address seriously the future threats of the Cold War.
“AIR RAID ON PEARL HARBOR. THIS IS NO DRILL.” This is the message sent out by radioman Kyle Boyer at 7:58 a.m. Sunday December 7, 1941; a date which will live in infamy. The empire of Japan had attacked the United States’ Pacific Fleet based in Pearl Harbor. For months the US Intelligence community, as well as others around the world, had been intercepting and decoding transmissions from mainland Japan to their diplomats and spies in the US. We had cracked their Purple Code, and knew exactly what military intelligence was being transmitted back and forth. The Dutch also cracked Purple and informed our government of the Japanese plan and were shocked to hear reports that we were taken by surprised. Even more disturbing, months before the attack a British double agent, Dusko Popov, codenamed Tricycle, turned over to the F.B.I. detailed plans of the Japanese air raid, which he had obtained from the Germans. The government had the information, and did nothing with it.
The German’s unrestricted submarine warfare was the main reason for the U.S. to enter war. Wilson had tremendous support from Americans. The Germans had to be stopped. The attacks came without warning killing many innocent people (Winter and Baggett, 1996). The Germans sank numerous ships including our own. The most famous ship sunk was the Lusitiania. Aboard that ship 128 Americans were killed (http://www.angelfire.com/in3/wilson/wilson.html). The Lusitania was torpedoed without any notice. The Lusitania sunk in 18 minutes killing a total of 1198 people (http://www.poltechnic.org/faculty/gfeldmeth/chart.ww1.html).
Over the year and a half between Pearl Harbor and Midway the United States made headway with various technological and military advantages. One of the most important of which was the code breaking efforts of Commander Joseph J. Rochefort Jr. “Most of the U.S’s information [on Japan] came from Rochefort. R...
In addition to the aid Germany would provide, Zimmermann also proposed to grant many American states to Mexico after the war. Wilson, livid at the telegram, immediately released it to the press. The country replied with its own indignation after hearing of Germany’s plot, and while the president still looked for ways to avoid the conflict, his “cabinet voted unanimously in favor of going to war” (James and Wells, 26). Wilson took on the persona of the leader of a “righteous war”, and with much support from the people, approached Congress asking for a declaration of war (James and Wells, 26). While not everyone was supportive of the war, the vast majority were extremely pro-war.
Field, Frank. British and French Operations of the First World War. Cambridge (England); New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
As the final days of World War One slowly drudged through the month of November, a war torn Europe left separated and waiting to be picked up and pasted back together. An astonishing number of thirty-eight million dead between the Allied Powers and the Central Powers during a war that took over four years to come to an end. The main players during 1914 - 1918 were Britain and Germany, however this rivalry did not begin simply because of World War One and all the logistics of those four years. This essay is not to address the events of World War One, but to however explain what caused them. The lead up to the world’s first “World War” is a story of Europe’s heavyweight title fight, in one corner the English, boasting a huge naval fleet and looking to be the face of Europe. In the other corner, Germany, led by Kaiser Wilhelm II was fueled and willing to go at whatever cost necessary to back up their Triple Alliance member Austria-Hungary. This was not the first time the English and Germans had become involved with one another. England’s first diplomatic relations with Germany began with an alliance between Ethelberht of Kent and Charibert I. These marriages between the two countries were sporadic, however this is where relations began. Enlgand had been on top of Europe for quite sometime,
When Hitler’s panzer divisions pushed towards Stalingrad, Stalin claimed that an invasion across the English Channel would force Hitler to distract troops from the Soviet front (Murray). Churchill and Roosevelt did not think the Allies had enough troops to engage in an attack on European soil. Instead, they launched Operati...
Immediately, the Battle of the Atlantic began when “the British announced a naval blockage of Germany” on September 3, 1939(“World War II” 391). Eight days later the Germans ordered a “counter-blockage” of the Allies(“World War II” 391). The Germans hoped to stop the shipments of war supplies and food to the countries of France and Britain. After only four months into the war, German U-boats, mines, airplanes, and surface raiders had destroyed more than 215 merchant ships and two of Britain’s largest warships. Over 1,500 people had been killed in this short time. “It was clear that despite the lull on land, a long war lay ahead on the world’s water” (Pitt 8).
Throughout history there are multiple intelligence failures such as 9/11 and Pearl Harbor. These failures are due to intelligence collected which was either delayed or misdirected to the rest of the intelligence community. Both events had catastrophic consequences and yet these tragic events has allowed the intelligence community to develop better security like warning signals and combat readiness to protect the United States. Pearl Harbor is still considered one of the worst intelligence failure in the history of the United States to date. During the upcoming months before the attack the U.S Naval Fleet intercepted and deciphered vast amounts of encrypted messages from Japan’s Imperial Navy. Due to manpower and at the time Japan being perceived as not a threat intercepted messages were disregarded or were delayed in being read. “The United States did not perceive the Japanese ability to attack the United States Naval Fleet at all and thus to bring the U.S into war- a step in which logically appeared to be a gross strategic miscalculation, as it indeed was” (Grabo, 2004). But ...
World War I is known as a war that occurred on extremely cruel terms; there were not many restrictions on what and when certain weapons could be used. Unfortunately, the Industrial Age brought with it many new ways to kill; the soldiers of World War I came in contact with many new weapons that they had never seen in combat.
"The War at Sea." World War I Reference Library. Ed. Sara Pendergast, Christine Slovey, and Tom Pendergast. Vol. 1: Almanac. Detroit: UXL, 2002. 123-136. World History in Context. Web. 29 Apr. 2014.