Espionage has a long history characterized with various prominent people, activities, and events. However, the global community has essentially associated the history of espionage with some iconic events and people. The paper analyzes the roles that different people and events played in the History of Espionage and the various aspects of the history from the ancient time to the future.
Based on Sun Tzu’s Art of War, he talked about espionage in the form of spies where he stated that hostile armies could be confronted with each other for years, as they both strive for their own victory that is can be decided in just one day. Such being the case, to stay in ignorance of the condition of the enemy simply for the reason that one feels the resentment of the outlay of one hundred ounces of silver symbolized by various honors and emoluments shall be considered the peak of inhumanity. Sun Tzu became a famous political leader in espionage when he led the operation in Ch’eng T’ang's upon Chieh Kuei. He is likewise famous mainly for advocating for the expansion of the territories in espionage. He analyzed the consequences of engaging in territorial war and advised that it would cost the more than it actually should.
In the case of the Kautiliya Arthasastra which is known as Sanskrit writing work written in the 4th century B.C., consists of postulate on local and international politics and statecraft. It made use of espionage using liberal use of aggressive agents has been used on in most cases. This was the approach taken by the king for murder and false accusations using secret agents by clearly disregarding morals or ethics. The secret agents served as help for the kings by checking the impulsive ambitions of their own sons. There were also some instances when the agents served to aid the princes to prevent the manipulative authority of their fathers. Kautilya can be considered as a form of dishonesty on the part of the official to discover the illegitimate acts of the insiders (Hastedt 45).
The Throckmorton Plot was an event by the women in many countries that took parts in revolutions. The work also presented women’s developments in Europe especially on how they would conquer the development plan and their role in wars in the region. Under British and French leadership, women planned on how they would support men in war and the roles that they would take in the development of the region such as agriculture, finance, and governance.
Rose O'Neal Greenhow was a popular host in Washington before and after the death of her husband, Greenhow. She took a major part in the civil war where she supplied her Confederate friends and neighbors with information, which she acquired from her pro-Union friends and contacts. The most important information she passed along was the timetable used by Union Army's in their movements targeting Manassas in 1861.This allowed the General Beauregard to put together enough forces and train well before the forces entered First Battle of Bull Manassas in July 1861(Hastedt 28).
The Bureau of Military Information was the earliest American military intelligence service instituted during the civil war. The agency collected information during the war that helped America to counter their enemies easily and that eventually led to the victory in the war. However, the agency was disbanded in 1965 after the civil war ended. It mainly collected and disseminated information about America’s enemies and their plans.
Francis Walsingham is the founder of the English, and later British, the intelligence, and espionage service. He helped to unmask the secrecy that England had especially in the civil war. He was the secretary of state after taking refuge abroad for some time and took a major role in the formation of the secret service in the United Kingdom. He is regarded as the father of intelligence services that greatly helped the country during the civil war.
The Chevalier d’Eon took a major part in the economic and political lives of the people during his life. He is remembered for his insight on the roles that women needed to play in the civil war and the developments in Europe at his time. He is also remembered for his works that sparked women into activity in the 18th century as they felt they had something worth fighting for in the civil war. He majorly took part in the French involvement in the civil war by insisting that politics was not for the people who kept quiet, but for those who stood up in times of aggression.
Joseph Fouché is touted as the founder of the police service and the intelligent units in France. He popularized the idea that the people needed an intelligence service that would watch over them and gather relevant information that would help them remain secure. He came up with the concept of the intelligence service that is widely used in many countries including the United States of America.
The Black Dispatches was a group of brave African Americans that gathered intelligence information during the civil war. The group comprised of people who risked their lives so that the rest of the people would live in a secure environment to ensure that others would not fear being attacked by any of the enemies during the war. The information gathered helped in fighting the enemies hence the group became a great spy agency during the civil war. Important intelligence and confederate education gained by the members enabled them to obtain information from most interior sources.
Nathan Hale was a captain in the 19th regiment in the continental army who took a major role in the civil war through being a spy. In a mission that was extremely dangerous, Nathan Hale volunteered his life in order to spy behind the British army that had invaded the Manhattan Island before the revolutionary war. He stepped up willingly, a factor that totally surprised the leadership. However, he was later executed for holding crucial documents that could affect the war outcome. He was hanged in 1776 by the British army.
The Babington Plot formed in 1586 was intended to assassinate Queen Elizabeth for the purpose of raising to the throne Scotland cousin, who was the rescued to Queen Elizabeth. However, the plot failed because some of the documents that were used required after they remained on a negotiation table. The plot also led to the execution of Queen Mary Stuart of the Scots due to her involvement in the plot. However, the main failure of the plot was lack of cooperation from King Philip II of Spain.
The Molly Maguire Riots were industrial riots in the peninsula led by Franklin B. Gowen against one of the largest industrial unions on the land. He was celebrated as a king who led the people to demand for their industrial rights but the riots are remembered to have taken the lives of many people in peninsula. Ten men were executed on 21June 1877 at two different places, six at Pottsville, and four at Mauch Chunk due to these riots. Large crowds of silent and somber miners surrounded the two abandoned jail yards, in each of which a scaffold for their execution had been erected (Volkman 59).
The telegraph is a communication tool used in Europe and America widely from the time of the civil war. It shaped the history of Espionage by providing an effective communication tool that people used mainly to plan how to attack different areas and spying over their enemies. The telegraph mainly contributed to leaking of the secrets of the enemies while some people used it to pass social and economic messages to other people.
Nathan Maroney was a popular German sports man who took the industrial revolution by storm through ordering the reaction of other people who were part of the industry. He led the Espionage great industrial revolution but was later arrested and charged in the United States of America.
Richelieu was a young bishop who started with dreams to become the king at some stage in his life. He sought to unify France after the civil war, something that seemed impossible at the time. However, he utilized a team of spies who collected information that after helped him to unify France and consolidate their support. He also won on the foreign relations through dancers he dispatched to other countries thus; he brought stability back to the state.
Jesuit conspiracy theories are theories advanced to show the developments that led to the religious conflicts in England mainly after the Jesuits were accused of amassing wealth in inappropriate ways. Most of the theories focused on the personality of certain individuals in whom the people had trust. Later, the theories thrived in Germany because many people felt that the religious faiths had landed them into many negative deals and they saw the need to deal with the conspiracy faster.
Giacomo Casanova is an Italian spy who played a major role in spying the nuns and the church cleric across Europe especially during the civil war. Casanova came up with a game which people enjoyed a lot as he used it to gather key information that would help his people in the wars. He also used the game to plead and escape from prison. He was one of the greatest spies ever in Italy.
Otto von Bismarck was the German chancellor and founder of the German empire. He is remembered for his establishment of the empire and subsequently leading the empire to successful wars, which enabled it to expand their territories. One of the major wars undertaken by Bismarck is the Franco-Prussian war against the French, which strained relationships between the two empires. He became chancellor after he had also won against Denmark and conquered in the seven days war. He was popularly known as the iron chancellor due to his leadership style.
The siege of Jericho is a story in the bible that shows the power of the Israelites and the assistance God gave them throughout after the death of Moses. Joshua took over the leadership and God ordered him to take soldiers who would help him to conquer Jericho. This was after Israelites had spied Jericho through the assistance of rehab. At the order of Joshua, the soldiers brought down the wall of Jericho and Israelites conquered the land.
Rudyard Kipling is a great spy who traces his roots in India where he was born. He learnt the basic tricks to become a great spy and decided to use games and tricks as a spy. He is widely known for his spying over soldiers during the civil wars, a state that put his life in danger but brought him a lot of fame. He relied on literature that gave him information on how to trick different people.
Cameralism is well described through the activities of the cameralists. The cameralists were German writers from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, who proposed the same central question, and who developed a coherent civic history that corresponded with the German administration system in course of evolution. Their completely social theory moved from the central task of furnishing and enriching the state with ready means.
Gunpowder Plot was a plot to assassinate James and the ruling Protestant elite, which would, however taint all English Catholics with a charge of treason for many centuries to come. The plot failed because of a letter that was sent to the target hence he avoided the session where he would be assassinated.
The Oprichniks were members of the squads and secret police in service of Tsar Ivan, who was the terrible who took part in assassinations and deaths of main people during the civil war. They carried out the orders given to them by Ivan to torture and execute enemies hence they undertook many murder missions on his behalf. They abused power and made the social and economic powers in Russia to collapse off (Farago 24).
Okhrana files are the secret information used by rebels and fighters although they had some literature for economic development. The main role that the files played was providing information that led to the ouster of the Romanovs.
The convert operations in the east and the west from the ancient to the medieval espionage involved a lot of spying. In the ancient espionage, the spies relied on information provided to them by the people within the armies especially in their conquer missions. However, in the medieval espionage, the spying got a note higher as some of the spies followed the enemies and observed their actions on their own. The main similarity between the two stages is that they both aimed at the information that could enable them destroy the enemies plan. The societies did not like the idea of spying at first because they thought it exposed the people a lot. This affected efficacy as the people did not give relevant information that could help the spies in their duties.
During the evolutionary espionage however, many things changed. Spying became more intense and the people got more involved in the convert operations. What changed mostly was the fact that the governments started using the locals and more advanced spying mechanisms. For instance, the government in Prussia hired a spy to get into the French army and spy their operations leading to victory in the Franco-Prussian war. At the same time, the attitude of the societies changed. Most of the people started supporting the spies by providing confidential information for instance the training programs of the enemy.
Allan Pinkerton never thought he would be a spymaster before. However, due to his experience in dealing with people, he established one of the most respected detective agencies in America, the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which he headed up to his death in 1886. He is remembered for his role in the labor spying that led to many industrial revolutions in the state. Wilhelm Johann Carl Eduard Stieber was a German spy who helped Germany obtains key spy information during the civil war both within the country and outside. Mostly, he paused like a doctor while using the chance to spy for the good of the Prussian empire. In fact, he was Otto von Bismarck’s best spy during the civil war. Wilhelm Johann Carl Eduard Stieber was a better spymaster than Allan Pinkerton was because the former could camouflage and obtain any information in any area, an act that the latter could not manage.
After victory in the war of first coalition, the French engaged the British in another war along the coast of Egypt. This was the battle of the Nile, which pointed out the strengths, and weaknesses of intelligence in both camps. As Nelson and the French advanced to control the islands, the British used their intelligence to master their plan and movement hence when they stroke, the French had no option but to surrender. Local spies played a major role in the battle as they provided the British army with information on the movements of nelson. The Battle for Shenandoah Valley involved advanced intelligence especially in Virginia. However, during this battle, most of the spies played a back role by providing their masters with lean information on the movements of the enemy. Intelligence produced surprise attacks against Thomas J. Jackson, which lead to his defeat. In both battles, intelligence played a major role in victory as it made the enemy monitor the activities of another and plan surprise attacks.
The politics of Espionage in ancient times involved little spy games among the people with most of them being murdered for trying to find truth about the leaderships. However, the leadership evolved in the evolutionary espionage where people developed strong intelligence and spy games became widespread. Various battles came up during the revolution. One of the major battles was between Daniel Pinkerton vs. Strieber, which represented the rivalry against America. Intelligence played a major role in all the battles with the Battle of the Nile vs. Battle for Shenandoah Valley as one of the major examples. However, in the Battle of the Nile, the application of advanced intelligence resulted to high performance than in other battles.
Work Cited
Farago, Ladislas. Burn After Reading: The Espionage History of World War Ii. Annapolis, Md: Naval Institute Press, 2003. Print.
Hastedt, Glenn. Espionage: A Reference Handbook. Santa Barbara, Calif. [u.a.: ABC-CLIO, 2003. Print.
Volkman, Ernest. The History of Espionage: The Clandestine World of Surveillance, Spying and Intelligence, from Ancient Times to the Post-9/11 World. London: Carlton, 2007. Print.
