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Directorate of Military Intelligence

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Dissolved
  
1964

Superseding agency
  
Defence Intelligence

Directorate of Military Intelligence

Preceding agency
  
Department of Topography & Statistics

Jurisdiction
  
Government of the United Kingdom

Headquarters
  
Horseguards Avenue Whitehall London

Agency executive
  
Secretary of State for War

The Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) was a department of the British War Office.

Contents

Over its lifetime the Directorate underwent a number of organisational changes, absorbing and shedding sections over time.

History

The first instance of an organisation which would later become the DMI was the Department of Topography & Statistics, formed by Major Thomas Best Jervis, late of the Bombay Engineer Corps, in 1854 in the early stages of the Crimean War.

When the War Office was subsumed into the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1964, the DMI was absorbed into the Defence Intelligence Staff.

Sections

During World War I, British secret services were divided into numbered sections named Military Intelligence, department number x, abbreviated to MIx, such as MI1 for information management. The branch, department, section, and sub-section numbers varied through the life of the department, however examples include:

Two MI section-names remain in common use, MI5 and MI6, in most part due to their use in spy fiction and the news media.

"MI5" is used as the short form name of the Security Service, is included in the agency's logo and web address. MI6 is included as an alias on the Secret Intelligence Service website, though the official abbreviation, SIS, is predominant.

While the monikers remain, the agencies are now responsible to different departments of state, MI5 to the Home Office, and MI6 the Foreign Office.

Directors of Military Intelligence

Directors of Military Intelligence have been:
Director of Military Intelligence

  • 1886–1891 Henry Brackenbury
  • 1891–1896 Edward Francis Chapman
  • 1896–1901 John Charles Ardagh

    • Director General of Mobilisation and Military Intelligence

  • 1901–1904 William Nicholson

    • Director of Military Operations

  • 1904–1906 James Grierson
  • 1906–1910 Spencer Ewart
  • 1910–1914 Henry Wilson

    • Director of Military Operations and Intelligence

  • 1914–1916 Charles Callwell

    • Director of Military Intelligence

  • 1916–1918 George Mark Watson Macdonogh
  • 1918–1922 William Thwaites

    • Director of Military Operations and Intelligence

  • 1922–1923 William Thwaites
  • 1923–1926 John Burnett-Stuart
  • 1926–1931 Ronald Charles
  • 1931–1934 William Henry Bartholomew
  • 1934–1936 John Greer Dill
  • 1936–1938 Robert Hadden Haining
  • 1938–1939 Henry Royds Pownall

    • Director of Military Intelligence

  • 1939–1940 Frederick Beaumont-Nesbitt
  • 1940–1944 Francis Henry Norman Davidson
  • 1944–1945 John Alexander Sinclair
  • 1945–1946 Freddie de Guingand
  • 1946–1948 Gerald Templer
  • 1948–1949 Douglas Packard
  • 1949–1953 Arthur Shortt
  • 1953–1956 Valentine Boucher
  • 1956–1959 Cedric Rhys Price
  • 1959–1962 Richard Eyre Lloyd
  • 1962–1965 Marshall St John Oswald

    • References

    Directorate of Military Intelligence Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA