Secret Service: British Agents in France, 1792-1815

by Elizabeth Sparrow

Something rare in the study of a period or a subject: a genuinely substantial addition to knowledge, of a kind that will henceforth need to be taken fully into account in any study of the British conduct of the great French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. - JOHN EHRMAN

'A tour de force of research, an essential document for future students of the subject.' - JOHN LE CARRE

Elizabeth Sparrow traces the origins of the British secret service to the turbulent aftermath of the French revolution, when Pitt's government, concerned to forestall civil unrest in Britain, set up police surveillance to counteract immigration and sedition. Close study of hitherto unknown Aliens Office documents reveals the expansion of this activity into a foreign secret service, the world of the Scarlet Pimpernel, drawing on an international intelligentsia to infiltrate the French revolutionary government and subsequently, as his domination of Europe seemed ever more certain, Napoleon's military machine.

ELIZABETH SPARROW is an independent scholar, author of a number of articles on the early history of the British secret service.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Research, Espionage

459 pages, Hardcover

First published December 2, 1999

Reviews

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting. Especially if you have an obsession with the Napoleonic War like I do.

[Rob Markley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is actually a very hard book to read and yet such a revelation that the effort is almost essential for anyone with greater than a passing interest in the period. But first the difficulties, and unfortunately there are many. Really Elizabeth Sparrow had so much information that this should have been two volumes, each of 400+ pages - the first dealing with revolutionary France and the second with Napoleonic France. However instead, perhaps because of publisher pressure(?), too much is crammed into too little space.

There are frequent jumps of topic and sometimes with little reason or warning what is coming.
As the book unfolds it introduces too many people to keep a handle on and it does so without any of the necessary priori. There barely a sentence of background history and next to no context, background or introduction to any of people, events, circumstances or to their various interrelationships. All this seems superfluous when set against the vast volume of new information to cram into the volume, however such niceties are really essential for good reading. Much of this could have been addressed by a really good glossary of names set alongside their code-names and various relationship linkages. The excellent and comprehensive index is a good beginning, but the topic really needed something more like a database approach.

As for the espionage aspect, this is definitely more George Smiley, not James Bond. In actual fact there is only a little said about actual field work or spycraft, and some extrapolation into life at the coal face of spying would have been helpful as well as adding some needed colour. Rather this is the back office of funds transfer, political masters and changes in spymasters. However many of the people we are dealing with here were surely also unrealistic dreamers, idealists and people living in fantasy worlds. Sparrow doesn't give sufficient critical weighting to this factor, as other mainline historians have (e.g. verdicts on Miranda, many of the Bourbon emigres etc), but that is a minor criticism.

With the picture of secret service that Sparrow presents, some of it almost makes me wonder at times if it all exists in her head!? For example that the writing in code (using euphemisms etc) really is actually talking of what it purports, instead of Sparrow's hidden meaning. Nevertheless Sparrow's research appears to be extensive, exhaustive, unique and original; and all with an impeccable range of sources given in her footnotes, but most of all, it is unchallenged . Therefore we really have to trust her on all this - at least as far as what was going on, even if we can excuse Sparrow's preoccupation with the secret service element to the exclusion of other factors working in parallel with her own narrative.

Among the most intriguing and indeed astonishing revelations is the part of Sidney Smith. Was he really controlling secret service agents when he patrolled the channel? Was his subsequent capture really a contrived mechanism by complicit officials in order to facilitate operating a spy ring out of Temple prison in Paris!? It certainly seems incredible, but although without much in the way of details, this is what Sparrow suggests. Thus his celebrated escape from Temple now appears in somewhat a different light! Then later in the Mediterranean, was Bonaparte's leaving Egypt something that happened only with the permission of Sydney Smith to enable subversion of the enemy government? It all seems rather stretching, but maybe not???

What does emerge time and time again, is the degree of complicity or duplicity within Paris and France- among police and politicians alike - something that certainly does not appear in most memoirs. Talleyrand and perhaps Fouche's playing of both sides is common knowledge, but what emerges here takes things to another level. Indeed there seems to be many more players keeping a foot in both camps, or at least hedging their bets against a return to legitimacy; than hitherto has been reported. Even Barras is a player! Many of the generals are implicated - Bernadotte's role also appears in Marbot's memoirs, but what of Mcdonald, Massena?! Even when Napoleon has seemingly secured power there seems to be a much more ready opposition against his autocracy than otherwise reported - but then the Mallet attempted coup has already proved such existed. All in all because of mixed loyalties amongst police (of which I learnt that there are multiple different police agencies all playing separate games), real spymasters and centres of intrigue are virtually never implicated and even less likely to be condemned, such that opposition always persists.

One of the doubtful aspects of the book is that British spymasters are working with the royalists and this necessarily muddies things - of course such were not loyal to the French regime, but that doesn't necessarily make them secret service agents either. Also these royalists are playing their own game of intrigue and betrayal as they seek to jockey for power amongst themselves.

Sparrow addresses many interesting topics. The book includes the best coverage I've come across of the assassination of Tsar Paul drawn from other sources rather than by original research, but no smoking gun is found to implicate British secret service action. It is also interesting to see Arthur Wellesley from Ireland had a part in Romana's seconding from Denmark back to Spain.

All in all this is groundbreaking research worth its weight in gold. However it is not presented in a way to compile a fully comprehensive case - rather it is gushing forth of information. Much more cross referencing and explanatory research is needed. The great shame is that Sparrow came from a non university background and thus I assume there are no academics shunting their doctoral students into corroborating and deepening knowledge of this topic. Sparrow's work is only the beginning, more's the pity!

[Phil Nicholls · Rating 4 out of 5]

Secret Service is an academic history of British agents, filled with extensive footnotes and a huge cast of spies, government agents and politicians. It is blessed with an extensive index, but I needed a list of personalities and another of organisations to help me follow the detailed account of events.

I was disappointed that the book is not a thrilling account of those agents who inspired the Scarlet Pimpernel. Instead, Sparrow provides an exhaustive account of British agents in Paris, Switzerland and even in Russia. The agents themselves are a mix of spies, agents provocateurs, diplomats and military personnel.

This was my second time reading the book and I was still surprised at the depth of Sparrow’s coverage of British actions. We see the government interfere extensively in France and in all the bordering territories, even as far afield as the Russian Imperial Court. Likewise, there are fascinating insights into the intrigue surrounding which French General was to overthrow the French Revolution. As with so much of history, the truth is often complex.

[Mathieu · Rating 1 out of 5]

The perfect example of what a history book ought not to be. This book displays an impressive range of research in primary sources (mostly in England but also some in France), but the author does nothing with them except painfully reconstructing a narrative that does not make any sense. Indeed, researching spies and secret services in the 18th century (and I suspect it is the same for other periods) leads naturally to untold stories, to missing documents and so to a impossible narrative. Hence, this book, because it offers no perspective, no contextualisation beyond "Napoléon won this battle and wanted power" or "Paul I of Russia was assassinated because he supported Napoléon", makes for a very tedious reading, one that brings absolutely no further intelligence on the period. Which is, again, a shame that such a commendable amount of primary research should not allow the author to offer something better. Maybe she should have offered an edited version of said primary sources.

[Dawn Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book with wonderful in depth information. Perfect for anyone who loves to read every little detail of history in learning how British agents worked during the French Revolutionary & Napoleonic wars. Great research.

[Norman Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should be fascinating, but I found it to be tedious instead. I have the feeling that the author was able to see the forest despite the trees, but her determination to described all the trees, and how they stood relative to each other, left me ill-informed in the end.

There were some sentences that were truly boggling: "A" wrote to "B" to tell him that "C" had reported that "D", in conversation with "E", had learned that "F" was disillusioned with "G", and that he was upset. Who the heck is "he" at the end of the sentence??? There were lots of details about the communications among the various agents, but very little about what was actually communicated. Were they bribing people? Were they hiring mercenaries? Were they paying insurrectionaries? Were they paying for stolen documents or other forms of intelligence?

On the other hand, there are some nice elements that emerge from the narrative, such as the events leading up to the death of Paul, the Tsar of Russia. A few more of those, and a lot fewer details about who spoke to who would have made this book easier to read. It would also have helped if the author had occasionally stepped back to describe the forest for us.

[Penny Hampson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skim read this book for info on espionage during the Napoleonic Wars; good deal of useful information on how Britain's spy system was set up and run.