Changes

The increasing complexities of the 19th century and British entanglement in international affairs as the British Empire expanded demonstrated a new structure was needed to manage the government's espionage services. In 1909, the Security Service (MI5) and Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) were created with the realization two agencies were needed to manage domestic (MI5) and foreign intelligence (MI6) gathering. At this point, the emerging power of Germany became the biggest foreign threat, while civil unrest over inequality and poor conditions meant that MI5 was also very active in thwarting rebellion. However, it was the events of World War I were both these services saw great expansion. Even before the war, there was much tension over the increasing naval arms race between Britain and Germany that led to many accusations of espionage by Germany, with at least one case a true plot was, indeed, uncovered. During World War I, approximately 120 spies served Germany and were sent or assitgned to Britain, of which 65 were caught and the remainder failed to send significant intelligence. This demonstrated that the new structure of dividing the external and internal spy agencies was a relatively workable model. By the end of World War I, the new threat was seen to be Communism and rise of the Soviet Union.<ref>For more on the development of MI5 and MI6, see: Thomas, G. (2009) <i>Secret wars: one hundred years of British intelligence inside MI5 and MI6</i>. 1st ed. New York, Thomas Dunne Books.</ref>  While MI5 was active in keeping Germany and other threats away from harming Britain, MI6 worked to cultivate its spies in the continent. The development of many spies in Belgium, in particular, allowed Britain to gain a lot of quality intelligence from Germany during the course of the war. This network was known as ‘La Dame Blanche, where everything from monitoring train movements to troop movements and reports about battlefield losses were obtained from the spy networks primary area of operations in Belgium.<ref>For more on the ‘La Dame Blanche, see: Richelson, J. (1997) <i>A century of spies: intelligence in the twentieth century</i>. Oxford paperpacks. New York, Oxford Univ. Press, pg. 23.</ref>