The Admiralty divided personnel, construction, and logistics among Sea Lords while the Naval Intelligence Department contained foreign intelligence, mobilization, war strategy, defense, trade protection, and merchant-shipping work. It formally appeared as the Foreign Intelligence Committee in 1882 and became the Naval Intelligence Department in 1887, although its fully formed staff and the navy's older intelligence practice imply deeper informal roots. Naval intelligence may also have supplied more accurate information on the Boers than the War Office, although its role in that episode remains uncertain. The navy therefore had a staff in practice. Its deeper weakness was communication: intelligence officers compartmentalized excellent work and distrusted politicians, the press, the army, and even much of their own service. Louis of Battenberg's capable intelligence network illustrates both the department's quality and its political limitations.
Chapter · 31:53-46:36
The Naval Intelligence Department as the Royal Navy's hidden staff
The prewar Royal Navy already performed staff work, but housed strategy, mobilization, and trade protection inside a secretive intelligence department.