Bailey, F.M. [Col.] Mission to Tashkent. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 2002. [pb] London: Trubner, 2003. Bailey, F.M. [Col.] Mission to Tashkent. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992. 2002. [pb] London: Trubner, 2003.
Wyatt, I&NS 8.2, says this book was "impossible to put down." It concerns "Bailey's activities in Russian Central Asia" in the period immediately after Russia had dropped out of World War I. The Foreign Office withheld the book from publication until 1946. This reprint is "fascinating and informative."
Crossland, John. "British Spies in Plot to Save Tsar." Sunday Times (London), 15 Oct. 2006. [http://www.timesonline.co.uk]
The newly discovered "diary of Captain Stephen Alley, second in command of the British intelligence mission in Petrograd[,]... shows he positioned four undercover agents ready to extract ... the deposed Tsar Nicholas II and the Russian imperial family" from the house in Ekaterinburg where they were being held. Nicholas' wife, Alexandra, was Queen Victoria's granddaughter. The diary was found accidentally by Alley's "descendants in a trunk of his papers and will be featured in Queen Victoria’s Grandchildren, a documentary to be shown ... in December."
Hill,
George A. Go Spy the Land: Being the Adventures of I.K. 8 of the British
Secret Service. London: Cassell, 1932.
Constantinides identifies this as an account of Hill's secret service work in Russia during World War I. There "is much of historical interest" here.
Hopkirk,
Peter. On Secret Service East of Constantinople: The Great Game and the Great War. Grantham, UK: Grantham Book Services, 1992. Like Hidden Fire: The Plot to Bring Down the British Empire. New York: Kodanska/Globe, 1994.
According to Surveillant 4.1, the author "describes the attempt of Wilhelm II of Germany to harness the forces of militant Islam against Britain's imperial interests in central Asia during WWI.... Hopkirk weaves a romantic yet factual tale of intrigue.... The book covers, in detail, some of the shadowy episodes of the period."
Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri. "W. Somerset Maugham: Anglo-American Agent in Revolutionary Russia." American Quarterly 28, no. 1 (1976): 90-196.
Neilson, Keith. "'Joy Rides'? British Intelligence and Propaganda in Russia, 1914-1917." Historical Journal 24 (1981): 885-906.
Occleshaw, Michael. Dances in Deep Shadow: Britain's Clandestine War in Russia. London: Constable & Robinson, 2006.
According to Peake, Studies 51.1 (Mar. 2007), the author "suggests that the role of allied intelligence services, particularly Britain's," in the intervention in Russia at the end of World War I "was far greater than heretofore acknowledged."
Plotke, A.J. Imperial Spies Invade Russia: The British Intelligence Interventions, 1918. Westport, CT, and London: Greenwood, 1993.
Surveillant 4.3 notes that "[a]lthough the activities of Britain's SIS ... play a role, the focus is on military intelligence in terms of assessments, influence on policy, and field operations.... Whether one agrees or not, this book will stir the brain cells while serving as an exemplar of what to expect from historians as they begin to deal with newly released documents."
To Sheffy, I&NS 10.4, this "study is innovative ... and fills in the historiographic gap" on clandestine intervention. The book pivots around War Office Military Intelligence and the Dunsterville mission dispatched to the Caucasus to engage in what is today called covert action. The author "unjustifiably ... minimises the role of the political decision-makers in London.... Contrary to Plotke's inference, General Dunsterville was not part of an independent Military Intelligence. His mission was in fact the brainchild of the political echelon." The book also "contains several factual errors, though non-critical, about British Intelligence structure.... Regardless of these flaws,... as well as a rather cumbersome writing style," this "is a well-researched historical study that is solidly based on an abundance of documentary evidence."
Siegel,
Jennifer. "British Intelligence on the Russian Revolution and Civil
War--A Breach at the Source." Intelligence and National Security
10, no. 3 (Jul. 1995): 468-485.
Siegel reviews the disputes between and around Robert Bruce Lockhart, Britain's representative in Russia after January 1918, and General Alfred Knox, the former British military attaché in Petrograd. After Lockhart's expulsion in October 1918, the British became even "more dependent upon less reliable sources." In the final analysis, however, "[e]vents and conditions in Russia were not the determining factors in the formation of British policy; on the contrary, it was domestic political and economic concerns which dominated the thoughts of policy-makers as they grappled with questions of intervention." Thus, the failures of British intelligence to provide an accurate picture of Civil War Russia may not have mattered.
Teague-Jones,
Reginald. Intro. and epilogue, Peter Hopkirk. The Spy Who Disappeared: Diary of a Secret Mission to Russian Central Asia in 1918. London: Gollancz, 1990. [pb] 1991.
According to Surveillant 1.1, the "author, who took the name Ronald Sinclair, was in fact the missing British political agent Reginald Teague-Jones, who before his death made available his secret diaries for publication." Popplewell, I&NS 6.4, notes that Teague-Jones was dispatched to the Trans-Caspian area in 1918 because of a dearth of information of what was going on in the region in the wake of the Russian Revolution.
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