Codebreakers: The true story of the secret intelligence team that changed the course of the First World War

by James Wyllie, Michael McKinley

While battalions hunkered down in the mud of western France, anti-aircraft guns took aim at zeppelins floating over the capital, and Atlantic convoys tried desperately to evade German U-boats, another, more secret battle was underway. Down gloomy Whitehall corridors a team of eccentric and pioneering codebreakers were fighting for information that would give them a decisive advantage over the enemy.

The new technologies of wireless and telegraph were vital for governments and the military, but vulnerable to interception. Cracking the codes used to protect them quickly became a crucial part of the war effort, and London Room 40, led by the charismatic and cunning ‘Blinker’ Hall, was at the centre of this push for intelligence. Not content to wait for enemy communications to come to him, Hall was soon running agents in other countries, particularly in neutral USA where German saboteurs were intent on damaging the essential flow of munitions to Britain.

The stories of Bletchley Park and the spies of the Second World War are well known, but it was Room 40 and their colleagues across the intelligence services that started it all. From the docks of New York City to shady Cairo hotels, this is the gripping and fast-paced story of spies, codebreakers and saboteurs.

Genres: History, Military Fiction, Nonfiction, War, World War I, Espionage

352 pages, Hardcover

First published June 4, 2015

Reviews

[Vikas Datta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Most intriguing.. gives an entirely new perspective to the World War I

[Rob Kitchin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Codebreakers tells the story of codebreaking by the British in the First World War and how it impacted on the course of the war and specific actions. The book covers a number of themes, such as the art of codebreaking, which often relied as much on dare-doing elsewhere to recover code books; the institutional politics in and between government agencies, and specifically Room 40 and other units; international politics and especially tackling German spying in America, and attempts to bring the US into the war. The tale is told in a loose chronological order and mainly focuses on particular key individuals, their personalities and stories. The strength and the weakness of the book is that it tends towards the large picture and spying in general, rather than specifically on codebreaking. Clearly, codebreaking is a key aspect of spy work and how it functions and used fits into a larger set of practices. At the same time it would have been interesting to get more insight into the actual day-to-day work of the codebreakers and their strategies and work. As the authors note, this was limited by a lack of written archival sources. Nonetheless, Codebreakers is an interesting and informative read, detailing a number of now little-known but important events and the intersection of codebreaking, politics and military action in the First World War.

[CameronWake · Rating 3 out of 5]

Found it hard to follow along as the book kept jumping across dates. None the less, it was nice to learn about Room 40.

[Joe Nineties]

This book has some great characters in it, which was the highlight for me.

I'm not particularly interested in the military, but read this book as I received it as a gift. The detail on how the war was won is good and even though it's not a topic for me, it was never boring and always informative.

My favourite parts were the portraits of the cast of characters which played major roles in the story. A few colourful and eccentric individuals, to say the least. (Some might say they'd fit well in Alice's Wonderland.)

I won't give this book a star rating, because I think if you are into military history then you'd get much more enjoyment out of this book than I did. That said, it was an interesting read and the closing chapter which draws direct lines from the work of 100 years ago to the politics of today was especially thought-provoking.

[J Grimsey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book full of interesting information good to read for people who are interested in the Great War and/or Code Breaking

[Fred · Rating 4 out of 5]

Less about code breakers than the title implies but interesting discourse on a little publicised area of the first world war

[Artie LeBlanc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ultimately unsatisfying because it rabbited on for the first 70 pages about personalities who weren't well drawn enough. Not helped by the very poor print quality in the paperback edition.

[Mark A Simmons · Rating 3 out of 5]

An entertaining but ultimately unsatisfying narrative of Britain's Room 40 during the First World War. Written from an Americocentric perspective, the story regularly drifts away from the UK and Europe to explore sabotage and deception on "the Other Western Front". While interesting, I found these diversions diluted the book's supposed central focus. In addition, a number of factual mistakes (the most outstanding howler being how the British supposedly didn't trust "colonial troops" to carry rifles in action), and the inclusion of the occasional conspiracy theory about the Lusitania and the Zimmerman telegram alongside otherwise well researched text became annoying, as did the repeat of various stereotypes about the war. Worth reading as an introduction, but I personally would have prefered the authors to focus on one thing or the other.

[Michael Rumney · Rating 3 out of 5]

The edition I read of this book because of Codebreakers being prominent on the cover I thought it would be more about the individuals themselves. Instead it was more about an agency called Room 40 led by Blinker Hall and the war time battles and escapades their decoding activity had a bearing on.
The book loss some focus as it moved around in time and it hard to keep up with various players involved in different aspects of the conflict.
It was well researched with accompanying photographs to back up the text. It also became apparent towards the end of the book how little the authors had in terms of archive material in order to put the book together, so did a reasonable job in the circumstances.
One thing that comes across is no matter how impregnable you think your code is someone will crack it.