The memoirs of General František Moravec capture the fascinating life story of a Czechoslovak officer, whose wartime fate began in 1915 with conscription into the Austro-Hungarian army, continued with Russian captivity, activity in the legions, and then a career in the army of the Czechoslovak Republic in the intelligence section of the general staff. Moravec's activities culminated in English exile, where from 1940 to 1945 he led the Czechoslovak intelligence service, which provided the Allies with valuable insights, partly thanks to his connection with agent A-54 Paul Thümmel, a high-ranking Abwehr officer. The legendary spy provided Czechoslovak intelligence with extraordinarily significant information – for example, about the planned attack on France, the preparation for an assault on the Soviet Union, or the development of new German weapons – yet the Allies, to their detriment, did not always attach sufficient importance to it. This period of Moravec's life, which definitively closed with his departure into exile in 1948, is the focus of the book, filled with information from behind the scenes of intelligence services and high politics.
