Ve Haf Vays of Making you Coffee

In these days of extraordinary rendition and the like the intelligence community might wish to take a note of how intelligence was gathered in the past. Today’s Observer carries a story about German interrogation techniques in WWI. Did this involve thumbscrews and beatings? According to military historian Christopher Duffy, a cordial welcome, cigarettes and a chat about mutual acquaintances, helped to elicit crucial information from British soldiers taken captive during the Battle of the Somme.

Duffy said: 'The Germans had a tremendous advantage in their knowledge of Britain. Many had been there, they were fascinated by Britain so when they received British PoWs, they could talk to them about landmarks and perhaps mutual acquaintances. 'The British expected to be beaten and shot, instead the initial questioning was very mild and persuasive. The Germans were interested in building up a picture of what made the British tick. They asked some initial questions, then gave the prisoner a coffee and cigar, then turned the conversation to militarily irrelevant details. In this relaxed stage, a lot of military information did leak out.'

Colonel Nicolai, the head of German military intelligence, described the British officer as 'a model of silence yet, Duffy found, almost every prisoner ended up revealing valuable information. Few resisted the German request to fill in a card to be dispatched to their families at home. None grasped that the Germans wanted to learn about all aspects of British life, from relations within the army and between the allies to conditions inside Britain, from tensions in Ireland and India to long-term predictions for the war.

For example, one Lieutenant Harvey was convinced he had never given away any secret of value, yet from him the Germans learnt of reinforcements for the 48th (South Midland) Division, heavy losses among the Australians at Pozieres, and the officers' estimates of British losses in the opening phase of the Battle of the Somme

However, what German intelligence mainly learnt from the questioning did not please them. At the end of 1916, the Germans summed up, the British were surprisingly confident of winning and were proud of what they achieved on the Somme.