Shadow of great britain

During the turbulent thirty years in Europe, Britain was the only country in Europe that was not affected by the French Revolution. In this case, there was no need for the kingdom to go backwards, and our ruling class had no motivation to push history forward. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the chauvinistic fear of the French and Napoleon disappeared. It was this mentality that once bound all classes in Britain together.

The emotional ties that linked the entire country during the war disappeared, and with them came dissatisfaction and disappointment. The surge in the number of demobilized soldiers and sailors made the situation more dangerous. Soldiers resented the king and country they had fought for because they were obviously often ungrateful. This also brought new challenges to our police work and intelligence work.

Against this background, we must re-examine the intelligence agencies established since the 17th century. It is imperative to reform, reorganize and merge the intelligence agencies, and do everything we can to end the old tradition of the intelligence systems of the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Treasury, the Royal Navy, the Army, the General Post Office and Scotland Yard fighting on their own.

——Arthur Hastings, "Memoirs of Hastings: Fifty Years of Life"

If we talk about the history of intelligence agencies, Britain is obviously ahead of France and Germany.

The earliest British intelligence organization was founded during the reign of Elizabeth I. Due to the good use of intelligence, Britain won the war that destroyed Spain's maritime hegemony.

But after that, Britain, which lost external pressure, soon lost interest in collecting intelligence.

Because this is a high-investment job with extremely unstable returns, neither the Parliament nor the King is willing to increase investment in peacetime.

But as the King and the Parliament fought each other, the Protector of the Country Cromwell came on the stage of history. In order to prevent the restoration of the Stuart Dynasty, this famous dictator in British history, on the one hand, formed a new model army known as the "Iron Army", and on the other hand, began to drastically rectify and reform the lame intelligence system.

He appointed his confidant John Thurlow as Secretary of State, specializing in intelligence work.

And Thurlow lived up to expectations and spread his spies to various European countries. These spies not only closely monitored the actions of the European anti-British alliance, but also infiltrated the British royalists in exile. Through money, threats and many other means, Thurlow successfully instigated some royalists to use for his own purposes, and frustrated the restoration conspiracy of royalists again and again.

In terms of anti-espionage, Thurlow was even more of a master. He divided the country into 11 intelligence zones, each of which had a commander and a full-time counter-espionage cavalry squad, and all outsiders would be investigated and questioned by them.

In addition, postal inspection and code breaking were also important means for Thurlow to obtain intelligence.

After Thurlow became the Minister of Posts in 1656, he soon launched a new postal charter the following year. The new charter clearly stipulated that postal inspection was an effective way to detect subversion plans. Soon after, he promoted parliamentary legislation to confirm the government's power to open and read private letters.

In order to decipher the code in the mail, Thurlow also set up a deciphering organization in London and hired a large number of mathematicians to decipher the royalist code.

Thurlow's work was so successful that he even caused the Venetian ambassador to sigh: "No government in the world can keep secrets as well as the British government and learn about other people's affairs so quickly."

However, this tradition gradually declined with the death of Cromwell and the restoration of the British monarchy. Charles II and his successor James II did not pay much attention to intelligence work. Therefore, the development and research of codes were interrupted and abandoned, and postal inspection, an effective source and means of intelligence, was also abandoned.

After entering the 18th and 19th centuries, France and Germany came from behind in the field of intelligence.

The French had a good foundation in intelligence, and censoring mail had always been a method used by the old French regime for a long time. Its original purpose was to monitor foreign embassies and provide the king with some obscene gossip about the sexual affairs of his subjects from time to time.

After the Revolution, the new government that was suspicious of each other and the frequent assassinations intensified their fear of secret conspiracies, so this sentiment further pushed the French to attach great importance to intelligence.

Napoleon and his Minister of Police Fouché worked together to weave the French intelligence agencies into an airtight network.

There is no need to comment on what kind of person Fouché is.

Even Talleyrand felt that Fouché had low morals, but on the other hand, he admitted like Napoleon that Fouché was the kind of talent that could not be cultivated.

In the early days of the Revolution, Fouché insisted on executing Louis XVI and gained great prestige.

In order to show his loyalty to the National Assembly, Fouché took the initiative to go to Vendée to show his tough tactics.

To put it nicely, Fouché cleaned up a large number of counter-revolutionaries in Vendée, uprooted church organizations, and eliminated the remnants of Christianity.

To put it bluntly, Fouché did not kill many old nobles in Vendée, but massacred a large number of peasants and priests.

In addition, Fouché also had great success in suppressing the riots in Lyon, where he tied hundreds of people together and blasted them with shotgun shells, earning himself the "merit" of causing a river of blood.

In the following five turbulent years, Fouché repeatedly jumped between the Royalists and the Jacobins, and finally waited for the opportunity to "meet a wise leader."

In August 1799, General Napoleon, who had won a great victory in Egypt, secretly returned to Paris and met with Talleyrand, Fouché and others.

What exactly they talked about, it is estimated that only the parties involved know.

As outsiders, we only know that three months later Napoleon became the first consul of the Republic, while Talleyrand was reinstated as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Fouché as Minister of Police.

After Fouché, who officially became Minister of Police, took office at the headquarters on Voltaire River Road, the first thing he did was to ruthlessly suppress his former Jacobin colleagues and strictly censor theaters, publishing houses and newspapers to quell protests. To show his determination, all those who disobeyed were ordered to be shot.

Perhaps intelligence work always leads to the same end, or Fouché read the successful experience of Britain in a book.

Therefore, the French top intelligence chief soon made the long-lost code-breaking technology reappear in another place.

Although the National Assembly once issued a decree requiring all postal officials to swear not to violate the privacy of personal communications.

However, for national security reasons, the letters of political exiles were excluded from this law on May 9, 1793.

However, everyone knows that in France, the law is the law and the execution is the execution, and the two cannot be confused.

The country that first violated the Declaration of the Rights of Man was France, which drafted it.

Therefore, when Napoleon came to power, all social correspondence was placed under Fouché's control.

Even the "dark room" where Fouché checked the letterheads was set up next to the postal sorting office.

The staff of the "dark room" were often selected from the most savvy and capable clerks in the post office. This group of people were not only arranged for comprehensive training including mathematics, but the best of them were even sent abroad for further studies. Therefore, they can not only handle foreign language letters, but also recognize local dialects, popular words, rural slang and abbreviations.

Under Fouché's leadership, the "dark room" was proficient in cracking every kind of scam. It is familiar with any chemical method, and it has obtained the cracking method from mathematical probability and grammatical analysis. It can skillfully take the mold, soften the wax, and harden the wax after it penetrates into the replica seal. After a long period of learning, even the most difficult code will eventually be revealed.

What's more interesting is that in order to conceal the existence of this group of people, Fouché arranged other formal positions of similar status for the members of the "dark room" as soon as they took office.

And this is exactly what Arthur did in the Police Intelligence Bureau.

Noble souls have their own gorgeous colors, but dirty thoughts always smell the same.     If Fouché inherited Thurlow's intelligence thinking, then Arthur obviously regained the orthodoxy of spy work for Britain.

For this former senior police officer who is keen on surveillance, Foreign Secretary Viscount Palmerston called this kid a genius and highly praised the police research report that Arthur sent back to London. But compared to Viscount Palmerston, the attitudes of Prime Minister Earl Grey and Home Secretary Viscount Melbourne are much more conservative.

Prime Minister Earl Grey is not a realist, as can be seen from the fact that he has been calling for parliamentary reform and firmly supporting abolition for more than ten years in opposition.

For Earl Grey, protecting freedom is not just a slogan. Although limited by realistic factors, Earl Grey's ideas are no longer as radical as before after the impact of the London riots last year, and he is more willing to accept compromise solutions.

However, this does not mean that he thinks Arthur's initiative is a good idea, although this plan looks very attractive.

As for Viscount Melbourne, he has always been a centrist within the Whig Party. His political views are quite moderate among liberals, and even coincide with Sir Peel of the Tory Party in many aspects. However, he also thinks that Arthur's proposal is too conservative.

If the name is covered, he would even think that the proposer of this proposal is the Duke of Wellington, or the Earl of Eldon, the Duke of Newcastle, etc.

As for the Chancellor of the Exchequer Viscount Althorp, he firmly opposes this proposal.

But this is not about his political inclination. His opposition mainly stems from the old tradition of the Ministry of Finance.

The misers in the Ministry of Finance oppose all proposals that take money out of their pockets. Although most people think that this money is not from the Ministry of Finance at least in name, but from taxpayers, the Ministry of Finance obviously holds a non-mainstream view.

The Ministry of Finance believes that if you want to take money out of their pockets, you must first give him money. In other words, the Ministry of Finance requires tax increases, and they also cite extensive evidence to point out that Fouché's intelligence funds at the time mainly came from heavy taxes on gambling venues and brothels.

Therefore, if Parliament allows the Ministry of Finance to increase taxes on these venues, then the Ministry of Finance will agree to expand and reorganize the intelligence system.

But it is well known that casinos and brothels belong to the gray area in Britain. Britain has no laws that make these places legal or illegal, and there are no systematic laws to manage or ban these places.

Since there are no laws, it is naturally impossible to tax these places.

Therefore, if you want to regulate casinos and brothels, you must first legalize them.

This issue is a disaster for the lawmakers.

Is there anyone who can stand in the Palace of Westminster who doesn’t know that the largest group of voters at the moment, the middle class who are neither poor nor rich enough, most like to find a sense of accomplishment on moral issues?

Although the congressmen are not moral gentlemen, but a bunch of false moralists.

But perhaps because they are false moralists, in order to win votes and support, they often have to be more high-profile than moral gentlemen.

As long as gambling and prostitution are mentioned in the parliament, and these things they do every day, every member of the parliament will be filled with indignation, criticize the social problems caused by it, and rush to express that they are incompatible with pornography and gambling.

Then the thunder is loud and the rain is small. After grabbing a newspaper headline, he is satisfied to pick up the champagne, hug his lover and go to the casino to continue creating more social problems.

The noble Lords of Whitehall Street obviously understand the private character of most MPs in their own parties, so when the Treasury put the issue on the table, even Palmerston, who was the most staunch supporter of Arthur, The Viscount also turned his attention to His Majesty the King.

Seeing that he seemed to have made a big mistake, William IV quickly put all the 'credit' for this perfect plan on Arthur's head.

That's why the Duke of Sussex appeared in the box today to ask questions, but in fact he was full of sympathy.

From a personal standpoint, it is impossible for a liberal like the Duke of Sussex to like Arthur's plan. If Arthur had never met him, he might still hate this guy and regard him as someone like him. His brother is an extremely royalist figure like the Duke of Cumberland.

But people are such strange creatures. Although the Duke of Sussex and Arthur cannot be called friends, they have changed from reforming the "Bloody Act" to investigating the disappearance of St. Giles Parish to properly handling the riots in the Tower of London.

Sussex has always felt that this was a good young man with excellent character and ability.

Even leaving aside the previous events, Arthur had just used Ohm's incident to help the Duke of Sussex gain a reputation as a courteous corporal a few days ago, thus helping him temporarily suppress the dissatisfaction of the Royal Society scientists against him. .

He was even willing to take the initiative to make up for the Duke of Sussex's most criticized shortcoming - he had published neither philosophy papers nor natural philosophy papers.

Arthur sincerely invites the Duke of Sussex, in his capacity as President of the Royal Society, to publish an article in the first issue of Nature, which is currently being prepared.

Of course, if the Duke of Sussex thinks this is inappropriate, Arthur said that in addition to "Nature", "British" magazine also has a "Economist".

For someone like the Duke of Sussex, a purse like Rothschild's is certainly precious, but the Duke of Sussex, whose material desires are not as high as those of his other brothers, still pays more attention to reputation. If not, why would he jump into it despite knowing that the position of President of the Royal Society was a trap?

What Englishman could resist sitting where Sir Isaac Newton once sat?

The Duke of Sussex told Arthur the ins and outs of the matter bit by bit without any reservation, and he said without apology: "Arthur, I know you are not a person like Fouche, but your plan There are too many French elements in it. Although I don’t have any dislike for France, just like I like this painting "Liberty Leading the People". However, you also understand that there are too many anti-French elements in the cabinet and parliament. "

Disraeli on the side also pretended to be confused and followed the Duke of Sussex's words, putting all the blame on the French.

He patted his chest and said: "That's right, there is an anti-French element here. Arthur, your plan is not that bad, but I think if you want to pass it in Parliament, you need to add a little more Britishness. Britain has a long tradition, why do we need to imitate the French, just like how well they have done their own country."

Although the Duke of Sussex and Disraeli had already talked about this, Arthur, who wanted to show his face, still refused to give up. He also wanted to make a final resistance.

In fact, deep down in his heart, Arthur didn't have much intention to promote any bullshit reform.

It didn't even occur to him that His Majesty had actually taken the time to read his lengthy report on police reform.

However, since this matter has caused a stir in London, he still wants to try his best to fight for it.

As for why?

That is of course because the police intelligence reform Arthur wants to carry out is his area of ​​expertise. If this plan can be passed, then the most suitable person in Britain to preside over this work is none other than Sir Arthur Hastings.

He was simply fed up with being his thieves in Hanover. The students were not as obedient as the police. The pressure on him from the professors was far greater than that of Director Rowan and Sir Mayne.

Arthur thought about it and asked: "Your Highness, do you know about the secret service fund?"