World War I and the Origins of U.S. Military Intelligence

In World War I and the Origins of U.S. Military Intelligence, military historian James L. Gilbert provides an authoritative overview of the birth of modern Army intelligence. Following the natural division of the intelligence war, which was fought on both the home front and overseas, Gilbert traces the development and use of intelligence and counterintelligence through the eyes of their principal architects: General Dennis E. Nolan and Colonel Ralph Van Deman.Gilbert explores how on the home front, US Army counterintelligence faced both internal and external threats that began with the Army’s growing concerns over the loyalty of resident aliens who were being drafted into the ranks and soon evolved into the rooting out of enemy saboteurs and spies intent on doing great harm to America’s war effort. To achieve their goals, counterintelligence personnel relied upon major strides in the areas of code breaking and detection of secret inks. Overseas, the intelligence effort proved far more extensive in terms of resources and missions, even reaching into nearby neutral countries. Intelligence within the American Expeditionary Forces was heavily indebted to its Allied counterparts who not only provided an organizational blueprint but also veteran instructors and equipment needed to train newly arriving intelligence specialists. Rapid advances by American intelligence were also made possible by the appointment of competent leaders and the recruitment of highly motivated and skilled personnel; likewise, the Army’s decision to assign the bulk of its linguists to support intelligence proved critical. World War I would witness the linkage between intelligence and emerging technologies—from the use of cameras in aircraft to the intercept of enemy radio transmissions. Equally significant was the introduction of new intelligence disciplines—from exploitation of captured equipment to the translation of enemy documents. These and other functions that emerged from World War I would continue to the present to provide military intelligence with the essential tools necessary to support the Army and the nation.World War I and the Origins of U.S. Military Intelligence is ideal not only for students and scholars of military history and World War I, but will also appeal to any reader interested in how modern intelligence operations first evolved.

Outside of the combat arms--the infantry, artillery, and armor elements--the US public has little idea of the complexity of the US Army. One of the least-known but most significant branches is military intelligence. Gilbert, a former staff historian with the Army Security Agency, examines the evolution of the intelligence branch in this new study. Up to the 20th century, the Army's intelligence operations centered on the cavalry and Indian Scouts who conducted reconnaissance, even as late as 1916 in Mexico. By then, however, the US Army realized something had to be done to modernize their capability to collect information and refine data for US field commanders. Gilbert's groundbreaking analysis offers readers a rare glimpse into the growth of military intelligence, including counterintelligence, propaganda, communication security, and code breaking. On a tactical level, the army gathered information concerning the German order of battle along the Western Front. From that humble start, modern military intelligence has advanced technologically to become one of the critical components of the modern US Army. Gilbert's study is indispensible for anyone interested in the early history of US military intelligence. Summing Up: Essential. All levels/libraries., This book is highly recommended for historians, libraries with military history collections, and others interested in this aspect of U.S. military history., As World War I broke out, the U.S. Army was but a constabulary army lacking the staff officers required to organize and support a European style army. One glaring deficiency was its inability to gather and evaluate military intelligence, both at the strategic and tactical levels, and undertake the protection of its own operational plans. Thanks to President Woodrow Wilson’s mandate that the War Department would be neutral in both thought and actions concerning the war in Europe, the Army found itself at the beginning of 1917 without adequate intelligence staff resources to meet the needs of modern warfare. The author of this book tells a riveting story of how the Army overcame this intelligence gathering and evaluating deficiency and created, between April 1917 and November 1918, a competent internal Military Intelligence Division. . . . It is a book well worth reading and pondering., As an organizational history, Gilbert's book is superb. He follows both Nolan and Deman throughout their careers in intelligence—Deman as the head of MIS, Nolan as the American Expeditionary Force's G2, or head of Intelligence. ... Where the book really shines is in the discussion of counterespionage within the United States, which Gilbert says was "without a doubt, MID's greatest contribution." He lays out a number of sabotage plots that MID agents, many of them ex-policemen, defeated or even prevented. This particular aspect of World War I is far less known than the more traditional histories of combat overseas. ... [I]t is an excellent resource for more seasoned historians or for graduate students who already have a strong grasp of World War I and the basics of intelligence gathering and dissemination., James Gilbert’s new book is a welcome addition to the material that has been published in recent years on the evolution of US intelligence processes and organizations during the 20th century.

For forty years, James L. Gilbert served as the military historian responsible for documenting the role played by intelligence in peacetime and war. He is credited with directing the publication of a series of official histories that would, for the first time, trace the development of military intelligence and highlight its operational achievements.