CaptainCaptain is a senior officer rank of the Royal Navy. It ranks above Commander and below Commodore and has a NATO ranking code of OF-5. The rank is equivalent to a Colonel in the British Army or Royal Marines and to a Group Captain in the Royal Air Force. The rank of Group Captain is based on the...
Sir George Mansfield Smith-Cumming KCMGThe Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George is a British order of chivalry founded on 28 April 1818 by George, Prince Regent whilst he was acting as Prince Regent for his father, George III. It is named in honour of two military saints, St. Michael and St...
,
CBThe Most Honourable Order of the Bath is a British order of chivalry founded by George I on 18 May 1725. The name derives from the medieval ceremony for creating a knight, which involved bathing as one of its elements. The knights so created were known as Knights of the Bath...
(1 April 1859 – 14 June 1923) was the first director of what would become the
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
(SIS), also known as MI6. In this role he was particularly successful in building a post-imperial intelligence service.
Early military career
Born
Mansfield George Smith on April 1 1859 in British India, the youngest in the family of five sons and eight daughters of Colonel John Thomas Smith (1805–1882) of the
Royal EngineersThe Corps of Royal Engineers, usually just called the Royal Engineers , and commonly known as the Sappers, is one of the corps of the British Army. It provides combat engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces...
, of Föellalt House,
KentKent , originally Cantia, is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the River Thames estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent...
, and his wife, Maria Sarah Tyser. Smith attended the
Royal Naval CollegeBritannia Royal Naval College is the initial officer training establishment of the Royal Navy, located on a hill overlooking Dartmouth, Devon, England. While Royal Naval officer training has taken place in the town since 1863, the buildings which are seen today were only finished in 1905, with...
at
DartmouthDartmouth is a town in Devon in South West England. It is a tourist destination set on the banks of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal ria that runs inland as far as Totnes. It lies within the South Devon Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty .-History:Dartmouth was of...
from the age of thirteen and, upon graduation, was commissioned to the Navy as a sub-lieutenant. He was posted to
HMS BellerophonHMS Bellerophon was a Victorian central battery ironclad battleship of the Royal Navy; she was a major step forward in design technology as compared to previous classes in terms of engine power, armament, armour, hull design and seaworthiness....
in 1878, and for the next seven years served in operations against
MalayMalaysia is a country in Southeast Asia that consists of thirteen states and three Federal Territories, with a total landmass of . The capital city is Kuala Lumpur, while Putrajaya is the seat of the federal government. The population stands at over 28 million inhabitants...
pirates (during 1875–6) and in
EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
in 1883. However he increasingly suffered from severe seasickness, and in 1885 was placed on the retired list as "unfit for service".
He was recalled to duty into the foreign section of
Naval IntelligenceThe Naval Intelligence Division was the intelligence arm of the British Admiralty before the establishment of a unified Defence Staff in 1965. It dealt with matters concerning British naval plans, with the collection of naval intelligence...
in 1898, and undertook ‘special service’, including occasional intelligence work abroad, but his main work for the next decade was the construction and command of the
SouthamptonSouthampton is the largest city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire, on the south coast of England, and is situated south-west of London and north-west of Portsmouth. Southampton is a major port and the closest city to the New Forest...
boom defences. He also travelled through eastern
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
and the
BalkansThe Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
pretending to be a highly successful German
businessmanA businessperson is someone who is employed at usually a profit-oriented enterprise, or more specifically, someone who is involved in the management of a company, or even an entrepreneur...
, despite not speaking
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
. His work was so successful that he was recruited to the Secret Service Bureau (SSB) as the director of the foreign section.
In 1885 Cumming married Dora, daughter of Henry Cloete of Great Constantia, Cape Colony. After her death he married, on 13 March 1889, a Scottish heiress, Leslie Marian (May), daughter of Captain Lockhart Muir Valiant (afterwards Cumming), of the 1st Bombay lancers and Logie, Moray. As part of the marriage settlement he changed his surname to Smith-Cumming, later becoming known as Cumming. Their only son, Alastair, a dangerous driver like his father, was killed in October 1914, driving Cumming's Rolls in France. Cumming himself lost the lower part of his right leg in the same accident.
Pre-1914
In 1909, Major (later Colonel Sir)
Vernon KellMajor-General Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, KCMG was the founder and first Director General of the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5....
became director of the newly-formed Secret Intelligence Bureau (SIB), created as a response to growing public opinion that all Germans living in England were spies. In 1911, the various security organizations were re-organised under the SIB, Kell's division becoming the Home Section, and Cumming's becoming the new Foreign Section, responsible for all operations outside Britain. His remit did not cover the gathering of information on foreign navies or military for which the
Naval Intelligence DivisionThe Naval Intelligence Division was the intelligence arm of the British Admiralty before the establishment of a unified Defence Staff in 1965. It dealt with matters concerning British naval plans, with the collection of naval intelligence...
and Military Intelligence Branch arms of the Royal Navy and British Army were responsible. Over the next few years he became known as 'C', after his habit of initialing papers he had read with a C written in green ink. This habit became a custom for later directors, although the C now stands for "Chief".
Ian FlemingIan Lancaster Fleming was a British author and journalist. Fleming is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling Bond's adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories...
took these aspects for his "M", Sir Miles Messervy - using Cumming's other initial for the name and having M always write in green ink.
In 1914, he was involved in a serious road accident in France, in which his son was killed. Legend has it that in order to escape the car wreck he was forced to amputate his leg using a pen knife. Hospital records have shown however that while both his legs were broken, his left foot was only amputated the day after the accident. Later he often told all sorts of fantastic stories as to how he lost his leg, and would shock people by interrupting meetings in his office by suddenly stabbing his artificial leg with a knife, letter opener or fountain pen.
Budgets were severely limited prior to
World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
, and Smith-Cumming came to rely heavily on
Sidney ReillyLieutenant Sidney George Reilly, MC , famously known as the Ace of Spies, was a Jewish Russian- or Ukrainian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard, the British Secret Service Bureau and later the Secret Intelligence Service . He is alleged to have spied for at least four nations...
(aka the
Ace of Spies), a
secret agentSecret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young...
of dubious veracity based in
Saint PetersburgSaint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city's other names were Petrograd and Leningrad...
. He described pre-1914 espionage as ‘capital sport’, but was given few resources with which to pursue it. His early operations were directed almost entirely against Germany. Between 1909 and 1914 he recruited part-time ‘casual agents’ in the shipping and arms business to keep track of naval construction in German shipyards and acquire other technical intelligence. He also had agents collecting German intelligence in
BrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the de facto capital city of the European Union and the largest urban area in Belgium...
,
RotterdamRotterdam ; city and municipality in the Dutch province of South Holland, situated in the west of the Netherlands. The municipality is the second largest in the country, with a population of 584,046 as of January 2007...
, and St Petersburg.
WW1
At the outbreak of war he was able to work with Vernon Kell and Sir
Basil ThomsonSir Basil Home Thomson, KCB was a British intelligence officer, police officer, prison governor, colonial administrator, and writer.-Early life:...
of the
Special BranchSpecial Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in Ireland's Garda Síochána...
to arrest twenty-two German spies in England. Eleven were executed, as was Sir
Roger CasementRoger David Casement , , was an Irish patriot, poet, revolutionary and nationalist...
, found guilty of
treasonIn law, treason is the crime that covers some of the more serious acts of disloyalty to one's sovereign or nation. Historically, treason also covered the murder of specific social superiors, such as the murder of a husband by his wife...
in 1916. During the war, the offices were renamed: the Home Section became
MI5The Security Service commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of the intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service , Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence Staff...
or
Security ServiceThe Security Service commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of the intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service , Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence Staff...
, while Smith-Cumming's Foreign Section became MI6 or the Secret Intelligence Service. Agents who worked for MI6 during the war included
Augustus AgarCaptain Augustus Willington Shelton Agar, VC, DSO, RN was a noted Royal Navy officer in both World War I and World War II and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest and most prestigious award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces.In...
, Paul Dukes,
John BuchanJohn Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir was a British novelist and Unionist politician who, between 1935 and 1940, served as the Governor General of Canada...
,
Compton MackenzieSir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie was an English-born Scottish novelist and nationalist.-Background:...
and
W. Somerset MaughamWilliam Somerset Maugham , CH was an English playwright, novelist and short story writer...
.
When SSB discovered that
semenSemen is an organic fluid, also known as seminal fluid, that usually contains spermatozoa. It is secreted by the gonads and other sexual organs of male or hermaphroditic animals and can fertilize female ova...
made a good
invisible inkInvisible ink is a substance used for writing, which is invisible either on application or soon thereafter, and which later on can be made visible by some means. Invisible ink is one form of steganography and it has been used in espionage...
his agents adopted the motto "Every man his own
styloA stylus is a writing utensil. The word is also used for a computer accessory . It usually refers to a narrow elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styluses are heavily curved to be held more easily...
".
With the outbreak of the First World War, Cumming's control of strategic intelligence gathering as head of the wartime MI1c was challenged by two rival networks run by general headquarters. Cumming eventually out-performed his rivals. His most important wartime network, ‘
La Dame BlancheLa dame blanche is an opéra comique in three acts by the French composer François-Adrien Boïeldieu . The libretto was written by Eugène Scribe and is based on episodes from no less than five of the works by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott, including his novels The Monastery, Guy Mannering, and...
’, had by January 1918 over 400 agents reporting on German troop movements from occupied Belgium and northern France. Cumming was less successful in post-revolutionary Russia. Despite a series of colourful exploits, his agents obtained little Russian intelligence of value.
Secret Service budgets were once again severely cut after the end of WWI, and MI6 stations in
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
,
LisbonLisbon is the capital and largest city of Portugal. It is also the seat of the district of Lisbon and the main city of the Lisbon region...
,
ZürichZürich or Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zürich. The city is Switzerland's main commercial and cultural centre and sometimes called the Cultural Capital of Switzerland, the political capital of Switzerland being Berne...
and
LuxembourgLuxembourg , officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg , is a small, landlocked country in western Europe, bordered by Belgium, France, and Germany...
were closed. Cumming succeeded, however, in gaining a monopoly of espionage and counter-intelligence outside Britain and the empire. He also established a network of SIS station commanders operating overseas under diplomatic cover.
Anglo-Irish War
When Britain's Government Committee on Intelligence decided to slash Kell's budget and staff and subordinate MI5 under a new Home Office Civil Intelligence Directorate led by Special Branch's Sir Basil Thomson in January 1919, the powerful MI5/Special Branch partnership that admirably managed counterintelligence and subversives during the war was suddenly thrown into disarray. These bureaucratic intrigues happened at the very moment that the Irish abstentionist party, Sinn Féin, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) were launching their own independence campaign.
With MI5 reduced to a skeleton staff of just 28 officers and relegated to the sidelines, and with Thomson unable to contain or penetrate the revitalized IRA with a series of clumsy and hastily organized police intelligence operations, it fell to Smith-Cumming and SIS (then MI1(c)) to organize a new espionage unit in Ireland, based on continental lines and called the Dublin District Special Branch, in mid-1920.
The DDSB consisted of some 20 line officers drawn from the regular army and trained by Smith-Cumming's department in London. Beyond that, however, Smith-Cumming began importing some of his own veteran case officers into Ireland from Egypt, Palestine and India, while Basil Thomson organized a special unit consisting of 60 hastily vetted ethnically Irish street agents managed via impersonal communications from Scotland Yard in London.
On Sunday, 21 November 1920, the Headquarters Intelligence Staff of the IRA, and its special Counterintelligence Branch (known as "The Squad") under the leadership of IRA Intelligence Chief and
IRA Adjutant General Michael CollinsMichael Collins was an Irish revolutionary leader, Minister for Finance and MP for Cork South in the First Dáil of 1919, Director of Intelligence for the IRA, and member of the Irish delegation during the Anglo-Irish Treaty negotiations...
, mounted a
successful operationBloody Sunday was a day of violence in Dublin on 21 November 1920, during the Irish War of Independence. In total, 31 people were killed – fourteen British, fourteen Irish civilians and three republican prisoners....
to assassinate 14 of Smith-Cumming's case officers. While many more appear to have escaped the IRA execution squads that morning, Whitehall feared that more of its professional agents would be identified and suffer the same fate and this prompted the hasty withdrawal of most of the remaining SIS agents from Ireland in the days that followed. This was the single greatest catastrophe in the history of the British Secret Service, and according to author Nigel West, Smith-Cumming was forever after reluctant to involve the SIS in Irish operations.
To the end of his life Cumming retained an infectious, if sometimes eccentric, enthusiasm for the tradecraft and mystification of espionage, experimenting personally with disguises, mechanical gadgets, and secret inks in his own laboratory.
He also had a fascination with most forms of transport, driving his Rolls at high speed around the streets of London. In his early fifties he took up flying, gaining both French aviators' and Royal Aero Club certificates. But his main passion was boating in
Southampton WaterSouthampton Water is a stretch of the sea north of the Isle of Wight and the Solent, in England. The city of Southampton lies at its most northerly point. Along its saltmarsh-fringed western shores lie the New Forest villages of Hythe and "the waterside", Dibden Bay, and the Esso oil refinery at...
and other waters calmer than those which had ended his active service career. In addition to owning ‘any number’ of yachts, Cumming acquired six motor boats. In 1905 he became one of the founders and first rear-commodore of the Royal Motor Yacht Club.
He was appointed CB in 1914 and KCMG in 1919. He died suddenly at his home, 1 Melbury Road, Kensington, London, on 14 June 1923, shortly before he was due to retire.
Portrayal in popular culture
In the television series
Reilly, Ace of SpiesReilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, and based on the 1967 book Ace of Spies by Robin Bruce Lockhart. Sam Neill stars as Sidney Reilly. The theme music is the Romance movement from Dmitri Shostakovich’s The Gadfly Suite.The miniseries was issued on...
, he was portrayed by
Norman RodwayNorman Rodway was an Irish actor.-Early life:Rodway was born in London and moved to Dublin at an early age. He studied classics, graduating at Trinity College. He worked as an accountant, teacher, and university lecturer before acting.-Career:He made his stage debut in May 1953 at the Cork Opera...
.
Further reading
- Judd, Alan: The Quest For C - Mansfield Cumming And The Founding Of The Secret Service; HarperCollinsPublishers, 1999, ISBN 0002559013
- Andrew, C: Secret service: the making of the British intelligence community; 1985
- Hiley, N: The failure of British espionage against Germany, 1907–1914, HJ, 26 (1983), 867–89
See also
- Vernon Kell
Major-General Sir Vernon George Waldegrave Kell, KCMG was the founder and first Director General of the British Security Service, otherwise known as MI5....
- Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart
- Sidney Reilly
Lieutenant Sidney George Reilly, MC , famously known as the Ace of Spies, was a Jewish Russian- or Ukrainian-born adventurer and secret agent employed by Scotland Yard, the British Secret Service Bureau and later the Secret Intelligence Service . He is alleged to have spied for at least four nations...
- Boris Savinkov
Boris Viktorovich Savinkov was a Russian writer and revolutionary terrorist...
- William Melville
William Melville was a British Irish law enforcement officer and the first chief of the British Secret Service, forerunner of MI5.-Birth:...
- Charles Cumming
Charles Cumming is a British writer of spy fiction. The son of Ian Cumming and Caroline Pilkington , he was educated at Ludgrove School , Eton College and the University of Edinburgh , where he graduated with 1st Class Honours in English Literature...