My Adventures as a Spy

By Robert Baden-Powell

Written during the first years of World War I by a British military hero, this charming volume introduces the essentials of spycraft. Sir Robert Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scouts and storyteller extraordinaire, developed his spying skills in South Africa and conducted some of his most inspired work in the Balkans, where he worked undercover as a butterfly hunter. In brief, breezy chapters, he explains how to adopt disguises, hide messages, create diversions, escape capture, and perform other thrilling maneuvers.
"A good spy no matter which country he serves is of necessity a brave and valuable fellow," Baden-Powell declares. His attitude toward espionage as a sport, in which the players appreciate and honor each other, brings the emotional exhilaration of a well-played game to these tales of danger and adventure. This book will captivate anyone with an interest in spying and the history of espionage.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Dec 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9780486320458

Robert Baden-Powell

Robert Baden-Powell OM, GCMG, GCVO, KCB was a lieutenant-general in the British Army, and, famously, the founder of the Scout Movement. He served in the British Army from 1876-1910 in India and Africa, and these experiences served as the basis for many of his writings on military tactics, training, doctrine and scouting techniques. His book Scouting for Boys is the fourth bestselling book of all time.

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My Adventures as a Spy

IT has been difficult to write in peace-time on the delicate subject of spies and spying, but now that the war is in progress and the methods of those much abused gentry have been disclosed, there is no harm in going more fully into the question, and to relate some of my own personal experiences.

Spies are like ghosts—people seem to have had a general feeling that there might be such things, but they did not at the same time believe in them—because they never saw them, and seldom met anyone who had had first-hand experience of them. But as regards the spies, I can speak with personal knowledge in saying that they do exist, and in very large numbers, not only in England, but in every part of Europe.

As in the case of ghosts, any phenomenon which people don’t understand, from a sudden crash on a quiet day to a midnight creak of a cupboard, has an affect of alarm upon nervous minds. So also a spy is spoken of with undue alarm and abhorrence, because he is somewhat of a

Reviews for My Adventures as a Spy

[aliceanna-1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Pretty dry and boring for an espionage account. Interesting from a perspective as a slice of life from the times, but not terribly exciting.