A possible British source in the German naval staff

Andy Boyd treats evidence of a senior British source inside the German Navy as suggestive and inconclusive. A timely December 1914 warning of planned Zeppelin attacks did not come from signals intelligence and appears to imply access to senior planning. A German naval officer later reported that Britain had bribed an officer in the German Admiralty, but this does not establish a senior source operating throughout the war. Menzies's later judgment that attempts to penetrate Germany had failed is interpreted as a failure to recruit a serving senior government or military source, rather than proof that no intelligence had been obtained.