Changes

After the turbulent years of the Napoleonic wars, French spying became more professionalized. The need for foreign intelligence became apparent after the French defeat in the Fanco-Prussian war in 1870-1871. The development of military intelligence was a result of this. This became known as the Deuxième Bureau, the agency in charge of French military spying and intelligence. The spy agency continued until 1940, when France fell to Germany. Notable success included early cryptanalytical work that helped in breaking foreign codes and communications. However, the agency suffered in the Dreyfus Affair, where notable military officers were accused or convicted of spying for Germany in the 1890s and injustice for a junior officer, Alfred Dreyfus, in being accused of being a spy proved to make the French military and its spying networks suffer in their reputation.  French external spying suffered greatly in reputation after the failures to predict Germany's invasion routes in 1940. After World War II, France developed the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE), which became the equivalent to MI6 in Britain. Notable successes included accurately predicting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, which the CIA had failed to anticipate, and uncovering Europe's largest technology spying network.