Abstract
The War Office's First World War cryptanalytic bureau MI1(b) has been severely overshadowed by its more glamorous equivalent in the Admiralty, ‘Room 40’. In particular its diplomatic decryption work has gone completely unnoticed; yet this was its main activity, and it contributed more than did Room 40 to their common successor, the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS). This article, drawing on the past decade's releases of GC&CS archives, traces the development of MI1(b)'s diplomatic work, disentangles its achievements from those of its better-known naval colleague, describes how the two organizations were merged to become GC&CS, and suggests why MI1(b)'s achievements were so quickly forgotten.
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