Spies in Uniform British Military and Naval Intelligence on the Eve of the First World War

Author/creator Seligmann, Matthew S., 1967- Author
Other author American Council of Learned Societies.
Format Electronic
Publication InfoNew York : Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Description286 p. ill 06.200 x 09.300 in.
Supplemental ContentFull text available from ACLS Humanities E-Book
Supplemental ContentFull text available from Ebook Central - Academic Complete
Subjects

Summary Annotation Why did the British government declare war on Germany in August 1914? Was it because Germany posed a threat to British national security? Today many prominent historians would argue that this was not the case and that a million British citizens died needlessly for a misguided cause. This book counters such revisionist arguments. Matthew Seligmann disputes the suggestion that the British government either got its facts wrong about the German threat or even, as some have claimed, deliberately 'invented' it in order to justify an otherwise unnecessary alignment with France andRussia. By examining the military and naval intelligence assessments forwarded from Germany to London by Britain's service attaches in Berlin, its 'men on the spot', Spies in Uniform clearly demonstrates that the British authorities had every reason to be alarmed. From these crucial intelligencedocuments, previously thought to have been lost, Dr Seligmann shows that in the decade before the First World War, the British government was kept well informed about military and naval developments in the Reich. In particular, the attaches consistently warned that German ambitions to challengeBritain posed a real and imminent danger to national security. As a result, the book concludes that the British government's perception of a German threat before 1914, far from being mistaken or invented, was rooted in hard and credible intelligence.
Access restrictionAvailable only to authorized users.
Technical detailsMode of access: World Wide Web
Genre/formElectronic books.
LCCN 2005020665
ISBN9780199261505
ISBN0199261504 (Trade Cloth) On Demand
Standard identifier# 9780199261505
Stock number00020142

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