The Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) was a department of the British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 War Office

War Office

The War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1964, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...

.

Over its lifetime the Directorate underwent a number of organisational changes, absorbing and shedding sections over time.

History

The first instance of an organisation which would later become the DMI was the Department of Topography & Statistics, formed by Major Thomas Best Jervis, late of the Bombay Engineer Corps, in 1854 in the early stages of the Crimean War

Crimean War

The Crimean War was a conflict fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the French Empire, the British Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. The war was part of a long-running contest between the major European powers for influence over territories of the declining...

.

When the War Office was subsumed into the Ministry of Defence

Ministry of Defence (United Kingdom)

The Ministry of Defence is the United Kingdom government department responsible for implementation of government defence policy and is the headquarters of the British Armed Forces....

 in 1964, the DMI was absorbed into the Defence Intelligence Staff

Defence Intelligence Staff

Defence Intelligence is a key member of the United Kingdom Intelligence Community but differs from the agencies in that it is not a stand-alone organisation but is a constituent part of the Ministry of Defence . The organisation employs a mixture of civilian and military staff and is funded...

 (DIS), with some functions divested elsewhere in the MoD.

Present

Two section titles, MI5

MI5

The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...

 and MI6, remain in colloquial use in the United Kingdom and elsewhere to refer to the Security Service

MI5

The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...

 and the Secret Intelligence Service

Secret Intelligence Service

The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...

, although neither organisation has been officially titled as such since the late 1920s.

Sections

During the First World War, British secret service

Secret service

A secret service describes a government agency, or the activities of a government agency, concerned with the gathering of intelligence data. The tasks and powers of a secret service can vary greatly from one country to another. For instance, a country may establish a secret service which has some...

s were divided into numbered sections named Military Intelligence, department number x, abbreviated to MIx such as MI1 for information management.

The Branch, Department, Section, and Sub-section numbers varied through the life of the department, however examples include:

Name	Details
MI1 MI1 MI1 or British Military Intelligence, Section 1 was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was set up during World War I...	Codes and cyphers. Later merged with other code-breaking agencies and became Government Code and Cypher School (now known as Government Communications Headquarters Government Communications Headquarters The Government Communications Headquarters is a British intelligence agency responsible for providing signals intelligence and information assurance to the UK government and armed forces... ).
MI2 MI2 MI2, the British Military Intelligence Section 2 , was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was originally set up to handle geographic information. MI2a handled the Americas , Spain, Portugal, Italy, Liberia, Tangier, and the Balkans...	Information on Middle and Far East, Scandinavia, USA, USSR, Central and South America.
MI3 MI3 MI3, the British Military Intelligence Section 3, is a division of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was originally set up to handle geographical information...	Information on Eastern Europe and the Baltic Provinces (plus USSR, Eastern Europe and Scandinavia after Summer 1941).
MI4 MI4 MI4 was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, Section 4, part of the War Office. It was responsible for aerial reconnaissance and interpretation. It developed into the present day JARIC agency.-History:...	Geographical section — maps (transferred to Military Operations in April 1940).
MI5 MI5 The Security Service, commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its core intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service focused on foreign threats, Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence...	Liaison with Security Service, following the transfer of Security Service to the Home Office Home Office The Home Office is the United Kingdom government department responsible for immigration control, security, and order. As such it is responsible for the police, UK Border Agency, and the Security Service . It is also in charge of government policy on security-related issues such as drugs,...  in the 1920s.
MI6	Liaison with Secret Intelligence Service and Foreign Office.
MI7 MI7 MI7, the British Military Intelligence Section 7 , was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence. Part of the War Office, MI7 was set up to work in the fields of propaganda and censorship.-History:...	Press and propaganda (transferred to Ministry of Information in May 1940).
MI8 MI8 MI8, or Military Intelligence, Section 8, was the cover designation for the Radio Security Service , a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office...	Signals interception SIGINT Signals intelligence is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether between people , whether involving electronic signals not directly used in communication , or combinations of the two...  and communications security.
MI9 MI9 MI9, the British Military Intelligence Section 9, was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office...	Escaped British PoW debriefing, escape and evasion (also: enemy PoW interrogation until 1941).
MI10 MI10 MI10, or Military Intelligence, section 10, was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was responsible for weapons and technical analysis during World War II....	Technical Intelligence worldwide.
MI11 MI11 MI11, or Military Intelligence, section 11, is a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office and acted as Field Intelligence Police. It was responsible for protecting British troops against the enemy agents amongst civilian population during and in the...	Military Security.
MI12	Liaison with censorship organisations in Ministry of Information, military censorship.
MI13	Not used (except in fiction).
MI14 MI14 MI14, or British Military Intelligence, Section 14 was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence. It was an intelligence agency of the War Office, which specialised in intelligence about Germany...	Germany and German-occupied territories (aerial photography IMINT Imagery Intelligence , is an intelligence gathering discipline which collects information via satellite and aerial photography. As a means of collecting intelligence, IMINT is a subset of intelligence collection management, which, in turn, is a subset of intelligence cycle management...  until Spring 1943).
MI15 MI15 MI15, the British Military Intelligence Section 15 , was a department of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. It was set up in 1942 to handle aerial photography. In 1943 this function was transferred to the air ministry and MI15 became responsible for the...	Aerial photography. In the Spring of 1943, aerial photography moved to the Air Ministry Air Ministry The Air Ministry was a department of the British Government with the responsibility of managing the affairs of the Royal Air Force, that existed from 1918 to 1964...  and MI15 became air defence intelligence.
MI16	Scientific Intelligence (formed 1945).
MI17 MI17 MI17, or Military Intelligence, section 17, was the secretariat to the other departments of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence. The section has been disbanded....	Secretariat for Director of Military Intelligence from April 1943.
MI18	Not used.
MI19 MI19 MI19 was a division of the British Directorate of Military Intelligence, part of the War Office. In World War II it was responsible for obtaining information from enemy prisoners of war.It was originally created in December 1940 as MI9a, a sub-section of MI9...	Enemy PoW interrogation (formed from MI9 in December 1941).
MI (JIS)	Axis planning staff.
MI L(R)	Russian Liaison.

• British military attaché in St Petersburg, Colonel Alfred Knox.