Deuxième Bureau

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The Deuxième Bureau de l'État-major général (Second Bureau of the General Staff) was France's external military intelligence agency from 1871 to 1940. It was dissolved together with the Third Republic upon the armistice with Germany.

French military intelligence was composed of two separate bureaus prior to World War II. The Premier Bureau was charged with informing the high command about the state of French, allied, and friendly troops, while the Deuxième Bureau developed intelligence concerning enemy troops. The Deuxième Bureau was celebrated for its cryptoanalytical work, but criticized for its involvement in the Dreyfuss Affair and its consistent overestimation of German military formations prior to World War II.

Its final director was Colonel Louis Rivet.

1 Directors of the Deuxième Bureau
2 20th Century operations and agents
3 Wartime reorganization
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Directors of the Deuxième Bureau

Colonel Jean Sandherr, between 1886 and 1895
Georges Picquart, between 1895 and 1896
Hubert-Joseph Henry, from 1897 to 1898
Colonel Maurice-Henri Gauché, from 1937 to 1940
Colonel Louis Rivet, 1940

[edit] 20th Century operations and agents

The Deuxième Bureau developed a reputation as Europe's top cryptoanalytical service in the early 20th century. It scored a notable success at the outbreak of World War I when it cracked the Germans diplomatic cryptographic system. The French cryptoanalysts were able to decipher the lengthy telegram containing the German declaration of war before the German Ambassador in Paris could decipher it.

In June 1918 Captain Georges Painvin, a DB cryptoanalyst, was able to crack part of the Germans' ADFGVX cipher. These intercepts effected the reverse of the German Army's advances (15 divisions) under Ludendorff at Montdidier and Compiegne, about 50 miles North of Paris.

Prior to World War II, a Deuxième Bureau spy codenamed 'Rex' made contact with Hans-Thilo Schmidt, a German cipher clerk, in the Grand Hotel of the Belgian town of Verviers. Schmidt, who worked at Defence Ministry Cipher Office in Berlin, sold the French the manuals explaining how to operate the top secret Enigma cipher machine being used by the German Army. Schmidt ultimately provided all the information necessary to crack the complex ciphers, which would play a key role in the Allied victory.

In September 1939, when France declared war on Germany in response to Germany's invasion of Poland, Josephine Baker was recruited by the Bureau and provided them with information as an "honorable correspondent."

Raymond Arthur Schuhl, a French propagandist who had served in the 6th Section of the Deuxieme Bureau until the fall of France, became the OSS Chief of Morale Operations in Switzerland and was its principal forger through the war. Schuhl operated for the OSS under the cover name Robert Salembier (code name "Mutt"). He oversaw a prolific print shop in Geneva that produced millions of white and black pamphlets, leaflets, cards, postage stamps, and other forms of printed propaganda.

[edit] Wartime reorganization

Following the defeat of France in 1940, the Vichy regime's intelligence service was organized within the Centre d’information gouvernemental (Center for Government Information, CIG), under the direction of François Darlan. The Deuxième Bureau's former director, Colonel Louis Rivet, managed to reunite a large number of former agents in his Bureau des Menées Antinationales (B.M.A, Bureau of Anti-national Activities.) Officially, the service was charged with the répression of communist activities and anti-resistance efforts, but in fact was carrying out clandestine counter-espionage activities, notably the Travaux Ruraux enterprise, entrusted to Commandant Paul Paillole. In August 1942, the B.M.A was dissolved under pressure from the Germans. It was then recreated clandestinely as the Military Security Service by Pierre Laval and Admiral Darlan who needed such an organisation to try to preserve French sovereignty. Paillole was given control of this new structure.

At about the same time, the Free French government-in-exile in London created its own intelligence service, the Bureau central de renseignements et d'action (BCRA, Central Bureau of Intelligence and Action), under the direction of Colonel Passy.

Upon the reconciliation between General Henri Giraud and de Gaulle in 1943, the French national liberation committee ordered the fusion of the BCRA and the clandestine intelligence services of Rivet into a new structure, the Direction générale des services spéciaux (DGSS, General Directorate for Special Services). Louis Rivet resigned in opposition to the new unified system.

In 1944 the DGSS became the Direction générale des études et des recherches (DGER, General Diectorate for Study and Research), which became the Service de documentation extérieure et de contre-espionnage (SDECE, Foreign Documentation and Counter-Espionage Service) in 1945.