British Intelligence History

The Black Door explores the evolving relationship between successive British Prime Ministers and the intelligence agencies, from Asquith's Secret Service Bureau to Cameron's National Security Council. At the beginning of the 20th Century the British intelligence system was underfunded and lacked influence in government. But as the new millennium dawned, intelligence had become so integral to policy that it was used to make the case for war.

World War I, also known in its time as the “Great War” or the “War to End all Wars”, was an unprecedented holocaust in terms of its sheer scale. Fought by men who hailed from all corners of the globe, it saw millions of soldiers do battle in brutal assaults of attrition which dragged on for months with little to no respite.

Anderson was a leading member of British intelligence for over three decades. She played key roles in both World Wars, worked in Bletchley Park and in the Middle East, and was among the top three female codebreakers in the world. She is famous in musicology circles as being the first to decipher the letters and diaries of Mozart and Beethoven. In 1961 Germany awarded her their highest honour, the Order of Merit First Class, completely ignorant of the fact that the interpretative skills they were honouring were the same utilised to defeat their military only a few years previously.