The Enemy Within: A History of Espionage By Terry Crowdy, Osprey, $20

During the Napoleonic Wars, a ship, flying the French colours, took shelter in the English port of Hartlepool during a storm. The storm had gone the following morning. So, it seems, had the enemy ship. However, a monkey was washed ashore, dressed in what looked like “some sort of uniform”. The war had made the English a suspicious lot. The people of Hartlepool had never seen a monkey before but had heard that the French were short, hairy creatures. So they arrested the monkey, thinking it was a spy. The poor ape was found guilty in a hastily arranged trial and hanged from “the yard of a fishing boat”.

This anecdote, according to the author, Terry Crowdy, is supposedly an old legend about spies. Legend or not, the story does offer useful insights into the life of a secret agent, and the fear that his clandestine activities evoked in ordinary people. Spying, writes Crowdy, is the world’s “second oldest profession”. The earliest record of espionage dates back to Rameses’ war against the Hittites, in which Muwatallis, the Hittite king, sent two spies to spread false information in the Egyptian camp. Even the Old Testament is rich in similar tales of deception. Moses had sent 12 spies to gather information before leading his men into Canaan. Apart from Judas, The Bible also talks about the first female agent in history, Delilah, who passed on Samson’s secret to the Philistines. In ancient China, the philosopher-general, Sun Tzû, had dedicated the final chapter of Art of War to the use of spies. In India, espionage was more organized and counted on “a heady mix of spells, poison and devious chicanery to illicit secret information.”

It is not as if espionage was limited to specific religions, cultures and periods. What is interesting to note is that while Jesus Christ fell victim to a cunning spy, Muhammad, who founded Islam, employed spies to emerge victorious in the battle of Badr. Islam perceived spying as a noble profession, and its practitioners were portrayed as heroes. Rome, in the Dark Ages, was also a haven for the gatherers of secrets. During the Second Punic War, Carthaginian spies prowled the city streets, passing on information to Hannibal. Later, the Romans turned the tables on their enemy with the help of Publius Cornelius Scipio, who staged a brilliant ruse to fool Carthaginian generals. Shoku Nihon-gi, a translation of Sun Tzû’s work, defined the early contours of organized espionage in Japan. Britain also boasted of the exploits of Sir Francis Walsingham, the chief spy-master during the reign of Elizabeth,who played a critical role in the capture and grotesque execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Espionage attained a military character in the Age of Reason. Consequently, spies played increasingly important roles during conflicts. There was Giovanni Jacques Casanova, the Venetian seducer-extraordinaire. Chevalier d’ Eon, his contemporary, was a dragoon, a fencer and a cross-dressing spy of considerable repute. America, during the Revolutionary War, witnessed the rise of the Culper spy ring, a network that operated in and around New York. Intelligence-gathering acquired a degree of sophistication even as the world lurched from one military crisis to another. In 1805, Karl Ludwig Schulmeister, Monsieur Charles to the French, engineered one of the “greatest triumphs of deception in military history”, and helped Napoleon win the campaign at Ulm. Allan Pinkerton, one of America’s most colourful secret service figures, ran errands for Lincoln. Germany produced the “Godfather of Secret Service”, Wilhelm Stieber, who organized witch hunts against communists and later assisted Bismarck.

Some of the most celebrated spies during World War I were women: the exotic dancer Mata Hari; Marthe Richer, who managed to break into the German intelligence network, and Elsbeth Schragmüller, or ‘Tiger Eyes’, who worked for the Germans. The code-breaking operations at Bletchley Park, that enabled the Allies to win the Battle of the Atlantic, and counter-tactics of the Abwehr, were some of the classic instances of espionage in World War II. The post-war years also witnessed the establishment of extensive intelligence networks among rival nations. For instance, the Rosenbergs were executed for spying in America. The Eighties, dubbed as the Spy Decade, also saw some high-profile deflections and arrests all over the world. The collapse of the Soviet Union, it was thought at the time, would bring a lull in international espionage. However, the pause was only momentary. The poisoning attempt on the Ukrainian leader, Viktor Yushchenko or, more recently, the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in Britain suggests that spies continue to work from the shadows.

Crowdy’s research is extensive, but his presentation a tad dreary. He also fails to explore the personal aspects in a spy’s character — his or her thoughts, fears, and feelings of love and loss. Hence, the spies Crowdy refers to do not appear to be flesh- and-blood people. They remain distant and unreal, like characters in a work of fiction.