Female Intelligence: Women and Espionage in the First World War (review)

In Female Intelligence, Tammy Proctor examines the role and perception of women involved in World War I espionage and intelligence, emphasizing those who served the British. She crosses a feminist study of women's wartime work, on the lines of Angela Woollacott, with an investigation of spying, in the tradition of John Keegan's recent book, Wartime Intelligence. She not only looks at a topic that is frequently skimmed over by both fields, women's contributions to wartime clandestine work, but she also addresses questions that arise out of a feminist studies background.

Proctor argues that women engaged in crucial intelligence work in Britain and espionage on the continent. This assertion contradicts the general view held by most male operatives at the time and the general public, then and now, that only a few women participated in secret warfare, and they did so largely as beings dominated by their sexuality; they have been represented by victims, such as Edith Cavell, or seductresses on the lines of Mata Hari.

To discuss these issues, Proctor begins her book by setting forth the context for secret work in British history as a way of explaining the novelty of the professionalization of such activity during World War I. She then describes the crucial contributions of women in hidden intelligence work in London, especially as postal censors. She demonstrates that female participation in espionage on the continent was extensive, too, illustrated by the story of La Dame Blanche, an organization that gathered information in Belgium and France for the Allies. Once Proctor establishes the essential, if not famous, work of women, she discusses the question of why these contributions have been ignored and why the sexualized images of female spies have become so popular instead. The traditional understanding of women as emotional and dangerous creatures colored the understanding and memory of women's roles as spies.

The author offers insights into the daily grind necessary to operate a large-scale intelligence and espionage system; one that is professional in some respects but still dependent upon personal recommendations to find employees and upon family efforts to gain information. Thus she deepens our knowledge of secret services during the advent of the modern system. She highlights the fact that military intelligence was a vibrant field, long before World War II and the Cold War. In addition, she broadens our understanding and perceptions of women's work in war and during the early twentieth century by writing a monograph that crosses some of the traditional historical subfield boundaries.

Proctor's sources include documents from multinational archives; by its nature espionage is an international endeavor. In addition, she displays a familiarity with secondary literature on the topic. Most intriguing, though, is her examination of public sources such as statues and postcards that capture the public perceptions of the women she discusses. This evidence ably supports and feeds her analysis of the faulty memorialization of female spies.

Her argument is strong, as is her evidence and her prose. Proctor's work is excellent for people in both military and social history—it incorporates issues of interest to both groups and is a pleasure to read.