An interesting story of the work of the fighters of the invisible front of the First World War. What did intelligence and counterintelligence look like? Spies, scout qualifications, targets, tools for the job, rewards, punishments and other espionage subtleties.
By the beginning of the First World War, most of the participating countries had an extensive agent network on enemy territory. However, thanks to the long-term work of the counterintelligence bodies, a crushing blow was soon inflicted on it. So, employees of Scotland Yard on the second day of the war arrested 22 German spies, three more managed to escape to neutral states. As a result, Germany suddenly lost all its agents in Great Britain at once.
Counterintelligence officers from France, Russia, Germany and Austria were unable to destroy enemy spies with one blow. However, after several months of the war, many agents ended up in prisons or lost their means of communication. They tried to deploy a new agent network, the construction of which became an urgent need, already on the territory of neutral countries - Spain, Sweden, Holland and Switzerland. And although it was not possible to achieve the previous scale of activity, there were some spy successes.
World War I spies
