The founder of British Secret Service-Sir Vernon Kell

The founder of British Secret Service - Sir Vernon Kell (Part-2)

Vernon Kell and his company

   The Germans made another attempt to throw a spy ring in Britain, but they could make absolutely no headway. Vernon Kell had appealed to the public through the newspapers that it should help to get the German spies arrested by giving full information regarding suspicious characters. Information regarding suspected spies started to poor in. the room of a Norwegian journalist was searched because he was to quiet and kept himself detached from people. The journalist did turn out to be a foreign spy. He was found in possession of invisible ink which has been kept in a bottle labeled as “throat wash”.

   It was Vernon Kell who was responsible for the arrest of Carl Hans Lody, a German spy residing in America. His arrest led to the decisive victory over Germany by the British. In the year 1914 Carl Hans Lody reached Scotland posing to be a tourist in the month of September. He sent a telegram to his Swedish contact which read, ”Hope we will soon defeat the wretched Germans.”
   Sweden and U.S.A. both were neutral countries then. Therefore, such messages were enough to arouse suspicion. Vernon Kell thought as to why anyone should spend so much money over such an insignificant message. He immediately got Carl Hans Lody followed. At that time, Lody was traveling all over the Britain. Vernon Kell found out that Carl Hans Lody had sent his message to Germany that the Russian troops were arriving in Scotland to help the allies. This was a piece of false information which had allowed to fall into Lody’s hands in such a manner as if it was absolutely actual. This information was misguided Kaiser Wilhelm II who had complete faith in Carl Hans Lody and he sent two divisions of his army to ward off the Russians.  This resulted in the weakening of his defense at battle-field and the Kaiser suffered an embarrassing defeat. If this was not happened, there was a fair chance of Germany to winning the war. The wrong information provided by Lody was responsible for the very bad defeat to the Germans. In November 1916 Carl Hans Lody was arrested and shot dead.

Carl Hans Lody

   Vernon Kell was able to gauge that Mata Hari was a German spy and he informed the French about her activities. It was on account of Vernon Kell’s warning that Mata Hari was shot dead in October 1917. There was only one German spy who could escape from the clutches of Vernon Kell, and that was Jules Silber. Jules Silber worked in the department of Postal Censor. He would read people’s letters and collect information to be sent to the Kaiser. His own letters went unopened because he stamped them with the remark “Passed by Censor”. Jules Silber sent a lot of important information to Germany regarding the Q Warships which England had concealed in the Atlantic Ocean to counter the attacks of German submarines. Kaiser’s navy was greatly helped by this information.


   This was the only failure in Vernon Kell’s career. Had Vernon Kell not defeated Germany in her espionage game, it can be safely said that the First World War would have resulted in German victory. In those days foreign spies were not taken seriously as long as war did not break out. Spying in peace times was not considered a crime. Vernon Kell tried very hard to get the laws of the official secrets changed. In 1911, the laws were changed and this helped Vernon Kell to smash the spy rings spread all over the country. Spying even during times of peace became a legal offence. Under the purview of this new law, Dr. Armgaard, Karl Graves, Heinrich Grosse and Fredrick Adolphus Schroeder, were all imprisoned by Vernon Kell.

   Vernon kell was given the knighthood by the British Government in return for his services. From a Captain he rose to rank of a Major General. Till the World War II, it was Vernon Kell who was responsible for countering spy activities in Britain. However, he had differences of opinion with the political leader, Winston Churchill. This was the reason of Vernon Kell’s downfall, but before that he had succeeded in leaving a permanent mark upon the history of espionage. His name was written in letters of gold in the British Secret Service.





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