ABSTRACT
The numbers of the German and Indian plotters, and of the British intelligence officers deployed to thwart them, were minute in comparison with the vast armies fighting on the Western Front and against the Turks. British intelligence in the Far East grew to play a vital role in protecting the British Empire behind its front lines. Though India was the obvious base for any system of British intelligence in the Far East, its strategic outlook in 1914 was still governed by nineteenth century conditions. The Department of Criminal Intelligence (DCI) would have faced serious problems in meeting all the requests for assistance which it received from British local authorities in the Far East. The Department of Criminal Intelligence informed Petrie that Lieutenant Oelsner of the German General Staff was intending to proceed through China to Japan, and there to take charge of Indian-German plots.
