UNDER EVERY LEAF

From 1888 the Intelligence Division or ID of the War Office was useful to the politicians and great offices of state because it replaced conjecture with studied analysis. Young captains and majors with experience and expertise beyond their years wrote far reaching memoranda which affected policy and the lives of millions. As the century drew to a close, an increasing number of Foreign, Colonial and Indian office minutes ended with: "Presume you have asked the ID?" and back would come the answer: "Done" The ID did its best to be unbiased but by the 1890s it was so convinced that it knew what was best for the Empire that when the government did not move as rapidly as the Division believed it should have done over the retention of the Sudan to Egypt and the capturing of the head waters of the Nile, it took matters into its own hands and dragged the Empire behind it. This coincided with the Second South African or Boer War which the ID had long predicted and planned for, warnings which the War Office ignored. It was a remarkable organisation. Delving into an encyclopaedic array of little-known primary sources, William Beaver uncovers a cadre of exceptionally able and dedicated officers at the heart of Victoria's Empire. They formed the War Office Intelligence Division, which gave Britain's foreign policy its backbone in the heyday of imperial acquisition. This is the first major study to examine the seminal role of intelligence gathering and analysis in 'England's era'. So well did Great Britain play her hand, it seemed to all the world that, as the Farsi expression goes, 'Anywhere a leaf moves, underneath you will find an Englishman.' The historian William Beaver was also a soldier, arts editor and Anglican priest. Maps, 8 pages of photos, 352 paperback pages.