Intelligence Corps | |
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Badge of the Intelligence Corps
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Active | 1914–29 15 July 1940– |
Allegiance | United Kingdom |
Branch | British Army |
Role | Military intelligence |
Size | 7 Battalions |
HQ Directorate Intelligence Corps |
Chicksands Templer Barracks Maresfield |
Nickname(s) | Int Corps, Green slime |
Motto(s) | Manui Dat Cognitio Vires Knowledge gives strength to the arm |
Beret | Cypress green |
March |
Rose & Laurel (quick) Purcell’s Trumpet Tune and Ayre (slow) |
Website | army.mod.uk/intelligence/intelligence.aspx |
Commanders | |
Colonel-in-Chief | HRH The Duke of Edinburgh KG, KT, OM, GBE, AC, QSO, PC |
Colonel Commandant | General Sir Nick Houghton |
Insignia | |
Tactical Recognition Flash |
The Intelligence Corps (Int Corps) is one of the corps of the British Army. It is responsible for gathering, analysing and disseminating military intelligence and also for counter-intelligence and security. The Director of the Intelligence Corps is a brigadier.
In the 19th century, British intelligence work was undertaken by the Intelligence Department of the War Office. An important figure was Sir Charles Wilson, a Royal Engineer who successfully pushed for reform of the War Office's treatment of topographical work.
In the early 1900s intelligence gathering was becoming better understood, to the point where a counter-intelligence organisation (MI5) was formed by the Directorate of Military Intelligence (DoMI) under Captain (later Major-General) Vernon Kell; overseas intelligence gathering began in 1912 by MI6 under Commander (later Captain) Mansfield Smith-Cumming.
Although the first proposals to create an intelligence corps came in 1905, the first Intelligence Corps was formed in August 1914 and originally included only officers and their servants. It left for France on 12 August 1914. The Royal Flying Corps was formed to monitor the ground, and provided aerial photographs for the Corps to analyse.
During the Irish War of Independence, Intelligence Corps operatives were used in an unsuccessful battle to defeat the Irish Republican Army. The Cairo Gang were overwhelmingly Intelligence Corps operatives. On Bloody Sunday, 1920, twelve of these agents were assassinated at their lodgings by Michael Collins' Squad. Due to this and similar failures, the Intelligence Corps was disbanded in 1929.