This section documents enemy agents captured in Great Britain during the First World War (1914–1918).
Defence of the Realm
Most espionage cases during this period were prosecuted under the Defence of the Realm Act (DORA) 1914, emergency wartime legislation that permitted trials by military court-martial.
One notable exception was Roger Casement, an Irish nationalist and former British diplomat, who was prosecuted under the High Treason Act and executed in 1916.
Execution and Burial
Eleven condemned spies were executed by firing squad within the Tower of London, either in the ditch or the miniature rifle range. Though the rifle range was demolished in 1969 to make way for office space and parking, the site remains a significant point of interest for historians.
While the physical structures have changed, the Tower now commemorates these events with a series of bronze plaques along the inner wall above the site of the former rifle range. These plaques depict the eleven German spies of the First World War, alongside Josef Jakobs, the only spy executed at the Tower during the Second World War.
All of the spies executed during the First World War were interred at the East London Cemetery in Plaistow in unmarked graves. While most share a communal memorial stone, Carl Hans Lody remains the only individual with a family-laid headstone, added in the 1970s.