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Abstract
The pre-war British Army understood well the importance of intelligence. Like the British Army on which it was patterned, the AIF entered the First World with only a small Intelligence Staff, albeit one that understood the role that intelligence would play in modern conflicts. Intelligence was acknowledged as an important element of military planning, but the maintenance of a large Intelligence Staff or a standing Intelligence Corps was viewed as an extravagance in peace time.
Despite popular myth, intelligence was an important part of battle planning during the First World War and the amount of intelligence available to the British Army increased exponentially over its course.
From the time they arrived in Egypt and throughout the Gallipoli campaign, the AIFs command and staff had access to a large body of intelligence with which to plan its operations. Arriving on the Western Front, the AIF gained access to more forms and greater quantities of intelligence. Throughout 1916 and 1917, as Australian staff took a greater role in planning the battles fought by the AIF, there was continual improvement in the way in which they used intelligence to plan and conduct battles. By 1918, intelligence was often the determining factor in how and where the AIF's battles were fought and by the end of the war, the Australians had shown themselves to be adept users of and effective collectors of intelligence. Intelligence was a key input into every level of operational planning.
Anzac Intelligence offers a thematic examination of how the AIF used the different types of intelligence that were available at the outbreak of the war, or which became available as the war progressed, to plan and conduct its battles. It will focus on the different types of intelligence available to the AIF and the AIFs use of these over the course of the war.