Conrad O'Brien-Ffrench

Infobox Military Person
name=Conrad Faulk Thomond O’Brien- Ffrench (Marquis de Castel et Thomond)


caption=Conrad O’Brien-Ffrench during WWI
born=1893
died=October 23, 1986
placeofbirth=London, England
placeofdeath=Loveland, Colarado
nickname=Eagle (Regimental nickname 1921)
allegiance=
branch=
serviceyears=1914-1922
rank=Captain
unit=Royal Irish Regiment (Disbanded 1922. Not the current Regiment created 1992)
commands=
battles=Mons
awards=
relations=
laterwork=SIS Agent ST36 1919-1922. He rejoined in 1930 and became an operative for Claude Dansey’s Z Organization until 1938.

Conrad O’Brien-Ffrench ( 1893 - October 23 1986), was a distinguished British Secret Intelligence Officer and Captain in the Tipperary Rangers of the Royal Irish Regiment World War I. He was also an accomplished linguist, mountaineer, skier, author.

Born in London, Ffrench was the second son of Harry O’Brien-Ffrench (Marquis de Castel et Thomond) and his wife Winnifred, a heiress from the Thursby family of Ormond House Lancashire. He and his older brother Rollo spent their early childhood in Italy at Villa Torlonia then in Florence at Piazza Della Indipendenza. They returned to England when Rollo reached school age living in Sussex Square Gardens in Brighton. In England his other siblings Yvonne and Alexis were born. Conrad after prep school in Eastbourne attended Bradley Court Agricultural College in the Forest of Dean where he developed his lifelong interest in fox hunting and other country pursuits, and became a junior member of the Ledbury Hunt. Rollo died in an accident playing football when Conrad was 16. Conrad met a Justice of the Peace from Saskatchewan who told him of life on the wild frontier and of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In April 1910 aged 17 Conrad sailed on the Empress of Britain for Quebec and joined the Royal North West Mounted Police at Buffalo Lake Alberta.

After basic training Conrad was posted to Cypress Hills (Canada) This was the untamed frontier he had desired to find. He learned the tough self reliance and strength of character which the Mounted Police are famous for. In these wild outposts the Mounted policeman was often both enforcer and often judge/arbiter of disputes. He always had a gun at his side but never drew it from its holster; even in extreme situations. He was posted to Willow Creek and then Battle Creek but in 1914 he had word that his Mother was mortally ill and the Great War was coming. He purchased his release and returned to England. His mother passed away and after seeing his sister Yvonne was cared for he went to his ancestral homeland Ireland and joined a special reserve unit of the Royal Irish Regiment, The Tipperary Militia. In the August of 1914 he was in Boulogne en-route to Mons with his regiment as part of the British Expeditionary Force. He was promoted to Captain and led his unit in an action at the Mons Insane Asylum near the Nimy canal on the first day of battle August 28th 1914. He was severely wounded was captured and became a prisoner of war. He was first sent to Toragau POW camp a Bismarkian fortress. Then to Burg de Magdeburg POW camp and after numerous failed escape attempts was transferred to what was considered an escape proof camp at Augustabad. Here Conrad began exchange letters with Kathleen Mann and by the use of invisible ink transmit details of troop movements and other strategic information he gathered from the new inmates at the camp. Kathleen was secretary to Stewart Menzies who was working for Field Martial Douglas Haig in counterintelligence. Conrad got detailed information on the prototype German Bomber from a pilot and an attempt was made to get him and the pilot out and back to London. But it failed and he saw the war out in Augustabad.

In 1919 he was summoned to Whitehall where he met Menzies and was recruited into MI6 by Captain Mansfield Smith-Cumming, the original “C” head of the Secret Service, a designation which remains to the present day. Not the “M” of popular fiction. He was posted to the British Legation in Stockholm as Assistant Military Attaché under the command of Major Dymode Scale. Conrad is mentioned in dispatches during his time here for bringing the Soviet Leonid Krasin into the west for top secret talks with Lloyd George about the restoration of trade with the West. In 1921 there were radical cutbacks in the Secret Service and Conrad seeing this resigned from the service and returned to England.

On his return Conrad was selected to go to India to act as an Aide-de-camp to one of the British Governors for the upcoming Royal tour of India by Edward VIII then the Prince of Wales. The Indian National Congress of Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru was in full swing and the tour was dogged by passive demonstrations and riots. The heavy handed response of the British to this resistance played a part in the end of the British Raj. Conrad witnessed the order to arrest Gandhi issued by the Governor Sir Harcourt Butler in March 1922. Once the tour ended he returned to his regiment; then stationed in India, and then to England where he was demobilised and returned to civilian life.

Conrad spent time in Bohemia where he met and reported on Karl Haushofer political mentor to Rudolf Hess then imprisoned after the Beer Hall Putsch. Back in England he attended Slade School of Fine Art for three years then The Academy of Modern Art in Paris for a further three years. Now a Professional Artist he spent time in Jamaica with his father painting for an exhibition which took place in London in October 1930 at the Claridge Gallery.

Conrad rejoined the Secret Service Stuart Menzies was now “C”. He established Tyrolese Tours offering package tours to Austria and Southern Germany. He was provided with the cover of Millionaire playboy by MI6. He based himself in Kitzbühel and proceeded to establish a spy network stretching from Austria deep into Southern Germany. He met Peter Fleming and Ian Fleming during this time and has a claim to be perhaps the primary of inspirations for James Bond. He was the first to inform London of the Anschluss of 1938 when Hitler annexed Austria. He also provided intelligence on Nazi occultism and the build up of the German forces in preparation for WWII. He was in attendence to Edward and Mrs Simpson who used Kitzbühel as their first home after abdication crisis of 1936. His cover as a spy was compromised after the Anchluss and he retired from the intelligence services not long after. During the war he served as Imperial censor in Trinidad. He retired to Canada after the war and established a Ranch “Fairholme” in Banff. In 1958 HRH Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon took up residence at Fairholme during her Canadian visit of that year. It provided splendid views of Princess Margaret Mountain named in honour of her visit. Conrad eventually retired to Loveland Colorado where he ran The Waterwheel Gallery and lived out his life painting and lecturing on Art and Philosophy and Theology.

ee also

*Ian Fleming
*Inspirations for James Bond

External links

* Conrad Faulk O'Brien Ffrench. Artist and Spy [http://00bien.tripod.com]