Room 40 was the unofficial name of the British Admiralty's World War I code breaking organisation. Its mastery of the German Navy and Diplomatic codes had as profound an effect on the outcome of the First World War as Bletchly Park's penetration of Axis codes did on the Second. But for the work of Room 40, there would have been no Battle of Jutland, the Irish Easter Rising of 1916 might have succeeded, the United States would not have joined the Allies in April 1917.
These were the code breakers who broke the Zimmerman Telegram that brought the US into WWI.
When I bought this I thought it would be more about the individuals involved in the code breaking, instead I found that the author had used each instant of code breaking to explain the military action that resulted or did not result because of this. There are biographical details of the main organizers but this is more regarding the military out come.
Not that there is not a goldmine of information it was just not what I expected. There were 248 vessels involved in the Battle of Jutland, two fleets hammering each other. Battle on a massive scale.
The most interesting part of the book for me was the sinking of the Lusitania, it appears she was a legitimate military target and the one torpedo happened to hit armaments meant for the Allies. A massive loss of life followed, 1195 civilians, including 94 children, all of whom were unaware that they were travelling atop high explosives.
So, not the book I thought it would be but very interesting all the same.
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