292 • KNOBLOCK, EDWARD
By any standards Knight was an unconventional man who com-
manded great loyalty from his subordinates and agents. He retired
from MI5 in 1956 and established a reputation as a broadcaster, be-
fore succumbing to pneumonia in January 1968.KNOBLOCK, EDWARD. Born in New York in 1874, Edward
Knoblock was educated at Harvard. His first play wasFaun(1911),
and he coauthoredMilestones(1912) with Arnold Bennett. Fluent in
French, he lived in both Paris, where he had an apartment overlook-
ing the garden of the Palais-Royal, and rooms in Albany.
Early in 1916 he was introduced to the War Office’s military intel-
ligence branch bySomerset Maughamand took over Maugham’s
duties in Switzerland, working for Sir John Wallinger. In the autumn
he transferred to the Mediterranean theater, where he served with
Compton Mackenzie. Little is known about his clandestine work in
Switzerland, although Mackenzie gave an entertaining account of
Knoblock’s recruitment by him into theSecret Intelligence Service
(SIS) in October 1916, apparently at a party. Admiral Mansfield
Smith-Cumming, whom Knoblock referred to as ‘‘the skipper,’’ ap-
parently promised him a naval commission in the naval reserve, but
it was soon discovered that as an American citizen he was ineligible.
Instead, the Chief suggested a commission in the Royal Naval Air
Service but no sooner had the playwright bought the uniform before
he was obliged to accept a General Service commission and change
his naval uniform for the khaki and green tabs of an intelligence of-
ficer. Mackenzie recalled:
As we were due to leave England on November 3rd and as Knoblock’s
commission could not possibly be gazetted until long after that, we decided
it would be safest to take all three uniforms out to Greece, and possibly
dispose out there of the superfluous equipment when it was settled which
service he was to join. In his enthusiasm he even bought two swords, a
naval and a military one.Mackenzie and Knoblock shared the train journey to Greece, taking
the boat train to Paris and crossing the Italian frontier at Modane.
After a couple of days rest in Rome, they continued to Taranto. Mac-
kenzie went ahead to Piraeus, in the role of aking’s messenger,on
a French destroyer while Knoblock waited for a French dispatch boat,