Directorate of Military Intelligence
 |
|
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Preceding agency |
|
| Dissolved | 1964 |
| Superseding agency | |
| Jurisdiction | Government of the United Kingdom |
| Headquarters | Horseguards Avenue Whitehall London |
| Agency executive | |
| Parent department | War Office |
The Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) was a department of the British War Office.
Over its lifetime the Directorate underwent a number of organisational changes, absorbing and shedding sections over time.
The first instance of an organisation which would later become the DMI was the Department of Topography & Statistics, formed by Major Thomas Best Jervis, late of the Bombay Engineer Corps, in 1854 in the early stages of the Crimean War.
When the War Office was subsumed into the Ministry of Defence (MoD) in 1964, the DMI was absorbed into the Defence Intelligence Staff.
During World War I, British secret services were divided into numbered sections named Military Intelligence, department number x, abbreviated to MIx, such as MI1 for information management. The branch, department, section, and sub-section numbers varied through the life of the department, however examples include:
Two MI section-names remain in common use, MI5 and MI6, in most part due to their use in spy fiction and the news media.
"MI5" is used as the short form name of the Security Service, is included in the agency's logo and web address. MI6 is included as an alias on the Secret Intelligence Service website, though the official abbreviation, SIS, is predominant.
While the monikers remain, the agencies are now responsible to different departments of state, MI5 to the Home Office, and MI6 the Foreign Office.
Directors of Military Intelligence have been:
Director of Military Intelligence
Director General of Mobilisation and Military Intelligence
Director of Military Operations
Director of Military Operations and Intelligence
Director of Military Intelligence
...
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