LieutenantLieutenant is a military, naval, paramilitary, fire service, emergency medical services or police officer rank....
Sidney George Reilly,
MCThe Military Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
(
c.Circa means "in approximately" , referring to a date...
March 24 1873/1874 – November 5 1925), famously known as the
Ace of Spies, was a Jewish
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n- or
UkrainianUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
-born adventurer and
secret agentSecret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young...
employed by
Scotland YardNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
, the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927...
Secret Service Bureau and later the
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
(SIS). He is alleged to have spied for at least four nations. His notoriety during the 1920s was created in part by his friend, British diplomat and journalist Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, who sensationalised their thwarted operation to overthrow the
Bolshevik governmentThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
in 1918.
After Reilly's death, the
London Evening Standard published in May, 1931, a
Master Spy serial glorifying his exploits.
LieutenantLieutenant is a military, naval, paramilitary, fire service, emergency medical services or police officer rank....
Sidney George Reilly,
MCThe Military Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
(
c.Circa means "in approximately" , referring to a date...
March 24 1873/1874 – November 5 1925), famously known as the
Ace of Spies, was a Jewish
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n- or
UkrainianUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
-born adventurer and
secret agentSecret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young...
employed by
Scotland YardNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
, the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927...
Secret Service Bureau and later the
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
(SIS). He is alleged to have spied for at least four nations. His notoriety during the 1920s was created in part by his friend, British diplomat and journalist Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, who sensationalised their thwarted operation to overthrow the
Bolshevik governmentThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
in 1918.
After Reilly's death, the
London Evening Standard published in May, 1931, a
Master Spy serial glorifying his exploits. Later,
Ian FlemingIan Lancaster Fleming was a British author and journalist. Fleming is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling Bond's adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories...
would use Reilly as a
model forA number of real-life inspirations have been suggested for James Bond, the sophisticated fictional character and British spy created by Ian Fleming. Although the Bond stories were often fantasy-driven, they did incorporate some real places, incidents and, occasionally, organisations such as...
James BondJames Bond 007 is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. The character has also been used in the longest running and most financially successful English language film franchise to date, starting in 1962 with Dr...
. Today, many historians consider Reilly to be the first 20th century super-spy. Much of what is known about him could be false, as Reilly was a master of deception, and most of his life is shrouded in legend.
Origins and youth
The origins, identities, and activities of Sidney George Reilly have befuddled researchers and intelligence agencies for more than a century; hence, much of his purported life and many of his notorious exploits should be cautiously examined. Reilly himself told several versions of his origins to confuse and mislead investigators. Reilly claimed to be the son of (a) an Irish merchant seaman, (b) an Irish clergyman, and (c) an aristocratic landowner and habitué of the Imperial court of
Czar Alexander III of RussiaAlexander III Alexandrovich reigned as Emperor of Russia from 13 March 1881 until his death in 1894.-Early life:...
.
Apparently, Reilly was born
Georgi Rosenblum in
OdessaOdessa or Odesa is the administrative center of the Odessa Oblast located in southern Ukraine. The city is a major seaport located on the shore of the Black Sea and the fourth largest city in Ukraine with a population of 1,029,000 .Odessa was founded by Hacı I Giray, the Khan of Crimea, in 1240...
, then a Black Sea port of the
Russian EmpireThe Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia, and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
(now
UkraineUkraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Russia to the east; Belarus to the north; Poland, Slovakia, and Hungary to the west; Romania and Moldova to the southwest; and the Black Sea and Sea of Azov to the south. The city of Kiev is both the capital and the largest city of...
), on March 24, 1874 (Lockhart 1986); however, other theories of Reilly's birthplace and origins exist. In
Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly (pg. 28), author Andrew Cook states Reilly was born on March 24, 1873, in the Jewish
KhersonKherson is a city in southern Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Kherson Oblast , and is designated as its own separate raion within the oblast...
gubernia of Czarist Russia, as
Salomon (Shlomo) Rosenblum, and later that "Sidney Reilly" was the illegitimate son of Paulina (Perla), his acknowledged mother, and Dr. Mikhail Abramovich Rosenblum, the trusted first cousin of Reilly's putative father, Grigory (Hersh) Rosenblum (Cook 2004).
Early life
According to Reilly, in 1892, the Imperial Russian Secret Police (Czarist Ochrana) arrested him for being a messenger for the Friends of Enlightenment revolutionary group. When he was released, Grigory (Reilly's assumed father) told him that his mother, Paulina, was dead, and that his true, biological father was her Jewish doctor, Mikhail A. Rosenblum. Re-christening himself
Sigmund Rosenblum, he faked his death in Odessa Harbour and
stowed awayA stowaway is a person who secretly boards a vehicle, such as an aircraft, bus, ship or train, to travel without paying and without being detected....
aboard a British ship bound for
South AmericaSouth America is the southern continent of the Americas, situated entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere...
(Lockhart 1986).
In
BrazilBrazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is a country in South America. It is the fifth largest country by geographical area, occupying nearly half of South America, the fifth most populous country, and the fourth most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Atlantic Ocean...
, Reilly adopted the name Pedro and worked odd jobs: dock worker, road mender, plantation laborer, and in 1895, cook for a British intelligence expedition (Deacon 1987). Allegedly Reilly saved both the expedition and the life of Major Charles Fothergill when hostile natives attacked them. Reilly seized a British officer's pistol and with expert, single-hand marksmanship killed the attacking natives (Cook 2004). Appropriately for a fantastic story, Major Fothergill rewarded Reilly with £1,500, a British passport, and passage to Britain. There Reilly became
Sidney Rosenblum (Lockhart 1986).
Evidence asserted in Andrew Cook's
Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly (pg. 32) contradicts the aforementioned Brazilian scenario and declares the British expedition incident to be unsubstantiated. Cook states that the arrival of Sidney Reilly in London in December 1895 was via
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
and prompted by Reilly's unscrupulous acquisition of a large sum of money in
Saint-Maur-des-FossésSaint-Maur-des-Fossés is a commune in the south-eastern suburbs of Paris, France. It is located 11.7 km. from the center of Paris.-The abbey:...
, a residential suburb of
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, necessitating a hasty flight. According to Cook, Reilly and a Russian accomplice, Yan Voitek, waylaid two Italian anarchists on December 25 1895, and robbed them of a substantial amount of revolutionary funds. One anarchist's throat was cut; the other, Constant Della Cassa, died from knife wounds in Fontainebleau Hospital three days later. By the time Della Cassa's death appeared in the newspapers, police had learned that one of the assailants, whose physical description matched Reilly's, was already en route to England. Reilly's accomplice, Voitek, would later relate this incident and his other dealings with Reilly to the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
(Cook 2004).
Regardless of whether Reilly arrived in England via Brazil or France, Reilly was residing under the name of Sigmund Rosenblum at the Albert Mansions, a prestigious apartment block in Rosetta Street,
WaterlooLambeth is a place in the London Borough of Lambeth, although the area is now more commonly known as Waterloo, after the railway station whose viaduct separates the former centre of the village from the River Thames...
,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
, in early 1896 (Cook 2004). Now settled in England, Reilly created the Ozone Preparations Company, which peddled miracle cures. Because of his knowledge of languages, Reilly became a paid informant for the
émigréÉmigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out," but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
intelligenceIntelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence...
network of
William MelvilleWilliam Melville was a British Irish law enforcement officer and the first chief of the British Secret Service, forerunner of MI5.-Birth:...
, superintendent of
Scotland Yard'sNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
Special BranchSpecial Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in Ireland's Garda Síochána...
and, according to Cook, later the clandestine head of the
BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927...
Secret Service Bureau, which was founded in 1909.
In London: 1890s
In 1897, Sidney Reilly was involved in the sudden and suspicious death of the elderly Reverend Hugh Thomas. It has been verified that Reilly had a torrid affair with Thomas' youthful wife, Margaret Callaghan, just prior to Thomas' demise (Cook 2004).
Reilly, identifying himself as Sigmund Rosenblum, first met Thomas in London via Reilly's Ozone Preparations Company. Thomas had a kidney inflammation and was intrigued by the miracle cures peddled by Reilly. Thomas introduced Rosenblum to his young wife at his
Manor HouseA manor house or fortified manor-house is a country house, which has historically formed the administrative centre of a manor , the lowest unit of territorial organization in the feudal system...
, and an affair between the two developed over the next six months (Cook 2004).
On March 4 1898, Thomas altered his will and appointed Margaret as an executor. A week after the making of the new will, Reverend Thomas and his nurse arrived at Newhaven Harbour Station. On March 12 1898, in that same hotel, Reverend Thomas was found dead in his bed. A mysterious Dr. T.W. Andrew, who matched the physical description of Sidney Reilly, appeared on the scene to certify Thomas' death as generic
influenzaInfluenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals. The name influenza is Italian and means "influence"...
and, signing the relevant documents, proclaimed that there was no need for an inquest. Records indicate that no Dr. T.W. Andrew existed in
Great BritainGreat Britain is an island lying to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island. With a population of about 59.6 million people, it is the third most populated island on Earth. Great Britain is surrounded by over 1000 smaller...
circa 1897 (Cook 2004). Margaret Callaghan insisted Thomas' body be ready for burial a mere day and a half after his death. Six weeks later, Margaret inherited about £800,000. The Metropolitan Police did not investigate Dr. T.W. Andrew, nor did they investigate the nurse Margaret had hired, even though the nurse was previously linked to the arsenic poisoning of a former employer (Cook 2004).
Four months later, on August 22 1898, Reilly married Margaret Callaghan Thomas. The two witnesses at the ceremony were Charles Richard Cross and Joseph Bell. Bell was an Admiralty clerk, while Charles Cross was a government official. Both eventually married daughters of Henry Freeman Pannett, a close associate of William Melville. The marriage brought not only the wealth Reilly desired but provided a pretext to discard Sigmund Rosenblum and, with the help of Melville, assume the identity of Sidney George Reilly, husband of Margaret Thomas Reilly. This new identity was the key to achieving his desire to return to Czarist Russia and voyage to the Far East (Cook 2004).
Tsarist Russia and the Far East
In June 1899, Sidney Reilly and his first wife Margaret Callaghan Thomas traveled to Czarist Russia using Reilly's new British passport—a cover identity purportedly created by William MelvilleWilliam Melville was a British Irish law enforcement officer and the first chief of the British Secret Service, forerunner of MI5.-Birth:...
(Cook 2004). While Margaret remained in St. Petersburg, Reilly is alleged to have reconnoitered the CaucasusThe Caucasus or Caucas is a geopolitical region between at the border of Europe and Asia. It is home to the Caucasus Mountains, including Europe's highest mountain ....
for its oil deposits and compiled a resource prospectus as part of "The Great GameThe Great Game is a term used for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia. The classic Great Game period is generally regarded as running approximately from the Russo-Persian Treaty of 1813 to the Anglo-Russian Convention of...
." He reported his findings to the British government which paid him for completing the assignment. In early 1901, Reilly and his wife voyaged from Port SaidPort Said is a northeastern Egyptian city near the Suez Canal, with an approximate population of 515,007 ....
, EgyptEgypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Western Asia...
, across the globe to the Far EastThe Far East is a term used in English mostly equivalent to East Asia and Southeast Asia, sometimes to the inclusion of South Asia for economic and cultural reasons."Far East" came into use in European geopolitical discourse in...
(Lockhart 1986).
Shortly before the Russo-Japanese WarThe Russo-Japanese War or the Manchurian Campaign in some English sources, was a conflict that grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
, Reilly appeared in Port ArthurLüshunkou is a district in the municipality of Dalian, Liaoning province, China. Also called Lüshun City or Lüshun Port, it was formerly known as both Port Arthur and Ryojun....
, ManchuriaManchuria is a historical name given to a vast geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria either falls entirely within China, or is divided between China and Russia...
, as a double-agentDouble agent is a counterintelligence term for someone who pretends to spy on a target organization on behalf of a controlling organization, but in fact is loyal to the target organization...
serving both the British and the Japanese interests (Deacon 1987). As the Russian-controlled Port Arthur lay under the ever-darkening specter of Japanese invasion, Reilly and business partner Moisei (Moses) Akimovich Ginsburg turned the precarious situation to their financial benefit. They purchased enormous amounts of food, raw materials, medicine, and coal—and made a small fortune as war profiteers (Cook 2004).
Reilly would have an even greater success in January 1904, when he and a ChineseHan Chinese are an ethnic group native to China and, by most modern definitions, the largest single ethnic group in the world.Han Chinese constitute about 92 percent of the population of the People's Republic of China , 98 percent of the population of the Republic of China , 75 percent of the...
engineerEngineers are concerned with developing economical and safe solutions to practical problems, by applying mathematics and scientific knowledge while considering technical constraints. The term is derived from the Latin root "ingenium," meaning "cleverness"...
acquaintance, Ho-Liang-Shung, allegedly stole the Port Arthur harbor defense plans for the Japanese NavyThe Imperial Japanese Navy , literally Navy of the Empire of Greater Japan was the navy of the Empire of Japan from 1869 until 1947, when it was dissolved following Japan's constitutional renunciation of the use of force as a means of settling international disputes...
. Guided by these stolen plans, the Japanese Navy navigated through the Russian minefield protecting the harbor and launched a surprise attack on Port ArthurThe Battle of Port Arthur was the starting battle of the Russo-Japanese War. It began with a surprise night attack by a squadron of Japanese destroyers on the Russian fleet anchored at Port Arthur, Manchuria, and continued with an engagement of major surface combatants the following morning...
. Yet the stolen plans did not help the Japanese much. More than 31,000 Russians ultimately perished defending Port Arthur, but Japanese losses were much higher, losses that nearly undermined their war effort (Cook 2004).
Historian Winfried Ludecke suggests that upon leaving Port ArthurLüshunkou is a district in the municipality of Dalian, Liaoning province, China. Also called Lüshun City or Lüshun Port, it was formerly known as both Port Arthur and Ryojun....
, Manchuria, Reilly voyaged to Imperial Japan in the company of an unknown mistress. If Reilly did visit Japan, presumably to receive espionage pay, he could not have stayed very long, for by June 1904 Reilly appeared in Paris, France (Cook 2004). During the brief time Reilly spent in Paris, he renewed his close acquaintance with William MelvilleWilliam Melville was a British Irish law enforcement officer and the first chief of the British Secret Service, forerunner of MI5.-Birth:...
, sometimes incorrectly described as the first Director General of MI5The Security Service commonly known as MI5 , is the United Kingdom's counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of the intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service , Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence Staff...
, whom Reilly had last seen in 1899 just prior to his departure from London. Reilly's meeting with Melville is most significant, for within a matter of weeks Melville was to use Reilly's expertise in what would later become known as The D'Arcy Affair (Lockhart 1986).
D'Arcy affair
In 1904, the Board of the Admiralty projected that petroleumPetroleum or crude oil is a naturally occurring, flammable liquid found in rock formations in the Earth consisting of a complex mixture of hydrocarbons of various molecular weights, plus other organic compounds.The term "petroleum" was first used in the treatise De Natura Fossilium, published in...
would supplant coal as the primary source of fuel for the Royal NavyThe Royal Navy of the United Kingdom is the oldest of HM Armed Forces . From the beginning of the 18th century until well into the 20th century, it was the most powerful navy in the world, playing a key part in establishing the British Empire as the dominant world power from 1815 until the early...
. During their investigation, the British Admiralty learned that William Knox D'ArcyThe entrepreneur William Knox D'Arcy was one of the principal founders of the oil and petrochemical industry in Persia .- Biography :...
- who later founded the Anglo-Persian Oil Company (APOC) in April 1909 - had obtained a valuable concession from the Persian government regarding the oil rights in southern Persia and that D'Arcy was negotiating a similar concession from the Turkish GovernmentTurkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey
, is a Eurasian country that stretches across the Anatolian peninsula in Western Asia and Thrace in the Balkan region of southeastern Europe...
for oil rights in MesopotamiaMesopotamia "land between the rivers" is a name for the Tigris–Euphrates region in the eastern Mediterranean, largely corresponding to Iraq, as well as northeastern Syria, some parts of southeastern Turkey, and some parts of the Khūzestān Province of southwestern...
. The British Admiralty purportedly initiated efforts to entice D'Arcy to sell his newly acquired oil rights to the British Government rather than to the French de RothschildsThe Rothschild banking family of France was founded in 1812 in Paris by James Mayer Rothschild . James was sent there from his home in Frankfurt, Germany by his father, Mayer Amschel Rothschild...
(Lockhart, 1986).
In Reilly: Ace of Spies, Robin Bruce Lockhart repeats one of Reilly's oft-recited tales of how, at the British Admiralty's request, Reilly located William Knox D'Arcy in the south of FranceSouthern France , colloquially known as le Midi is a loosely defined geographical area consisting of the regions of France that border the Atlantic Ocean south of the Gironde, Spain, the Mediterranean Sea, Italy, and Switzerland south of the Jura Mountains...
and clandestinely approached him in disguise. According to Reilly, he boarded Lord de Rothschild's yacht attired as a Catholic priest and secretly persuaded D'Arcy to terminate negotiations with the French Rothschilds and return to London to meet with the British Admiralty (Lockhart 1986). Biographer Andrew Cook is sceptical about Reilly's involvement in the D'Arcy Affair, for in February 1904, Reilly was purportedly still in Port Arthur, Manchuria. Cook further claims that it was Reilly's intelligence chief, William MelvilleWilliam Melville was a British Irish law enforcement officer and the first chief of the British Secret Service, forerunner of MI5.-Birth:...
, and a British intelligence officer, Henry Curtis Bennett, who undertook the D'Arcy assignment (Cook, 2004).
Although the extent of his involvement in the D'Arcy Affair is unknown, it has been verified that Reilly stayed in the French RivieraThe Côte d'Azur, often known in English as the French Riviera, is the Mediterranean coastline of the south eastern corner of France, extending from Menton near the Italian border in the east to either Hyères or Cassis in the west....
on the Côte d'AzurProvence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur is one of the 26 regions of France...
after the incident - a location very near the Rothschild yachtA yacht is a high end recreational boat. It designates two rather different classes of watercraft, sailing and power boats. Yachts are different from working ships mainly by their leisure purpose. It was not until the rise of the steamboat and other types of powerboat that sailing vessels in...
. After conclusion of the D'Arcy Affair, Reilly journeyed to BrusselsBrussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the de facto capital city of the European Union and the largest urban area in Belgium...
, and shortly thereafter, in January 1905, he arrived in St. Petersburg, RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, (Cook, 2004).
An alternative scenario put forward in The Prize by Daniel YerginDaniel H. Yergin is an American author, speaker, and economic researcher. Yergin is the co-founder and chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, an energy research consultancy...
has the Admiralty putting forward a "Syndicate of Patriots" to keep D'Arcy's concession in British hands, apparently with the full and eager co-operation of D'Arcy himself.
Frankfurt International Air Show
In Ace of Spies, biographer Robin Bruce Lockhart recounts Reilly's alleged involvement in obtaining a newly developed German magnetoA magneto is an electrical generator that uses permanent magnets to produce pulses of high voltage alternating current. At one time the magneto was used in the ignition system of most gasoline-powered internal combustion engines to provide power to the spark plugs...
at the first Frankfurt International Air ShowAn air show is an event at which aviators display their flying skills and the capabilities of their aircraft to spectators in aerobatics. Air shows without aerobatic displays, having only aircraft displayed parked on the ground, are called "static air shows".Air shows are held for a variety of...
("Internationale Luftschiffahrt-Ausstellung") in 1909.
According to Lockhart, on the fifth day of the air show a German plane lost control and crashed, killing the pilot. The plane's engine was alleged to have used a new type of magneto that was far ahead of other designs. Reilly and a BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland was the formal name and the state form of the United Kingdom from 1 January 1801 until 12 April 1927...
SISThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
agentSecret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young...
posing as one of the exhibition pilots diverted public attention while they removed the magneto from the wreck and substituted another. The SIS agent quickly made detailed drawings of the German magneto, and when the engine had been removed to a hangar, the agent and Reilly managed to restore the original magneto (Lockhart, 1986).
Biographer Andrew Cook has countered that this incident never happened. According to documents about the air show, no plane crashes occurred during the event (Cook, 2004).
Stealing weapon plans
According to Lockhart, the German KaiserKaiser is the German title meaning "Emperor", with Kaiserin being the female equivalent, "Empress". Like the Russian Czar it is directly derived from the Latin Emperors' title of Caesar, which in turn is derived from the name of Julius Caesar...
was expanding the war machine of Imperial GermanyThe German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871 to 1918, when it became a German republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of Wilhelm II .The term Second Reich...
in 1909, and British intelligence had scant knowledge regarding the types of weapons being forged inside Germany's war plants. At the behest of British intelligence, Reilly was sent to obtain weapons plans (Lockhart 1967).
Reilly arrived in EssenEssen is a city in the central part of the Ruhr Area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Located on the Ruhr River, its population of approximately 579,000 makes it either the 7th- or 8th-largest-city in Germany...
, GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
, in 1909 disguised as a BalticThe Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population had never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural elite in...
shipyardShipyards and dockyards are places which repair and build ships. These can be yachts, military vessels, cruise liners or other cargo or passenger ships. Dockyards are sometimes more associated with maintenance and basing activities than shipyards, which are sometimes associated more with initial...
worker by the name of Karl Hahn. Having prepared his cover identity by learning welding at a Sheffield engineering firm, Reilly obtained a low-level position as a welder at the Essen plant. Soon he joined the plant fire brigade and persuaded its foreman that a set of plant schematics were needed to indicate the position of fire extinguishers and hydrants. These schematics were soon lodged in the foreman's office for members of the fire brigade to consult, and Reilly set about using them to locate the weapon plans (Lockhart 1967).
In the early morning hours, Reilly used lockpicks to break into the office where the weapon plans were kept but was discovered by the foreman. Reilly strangled the foreman and completed the theft. From Essen, Reilly took a train to Dortmund to a safe house, and tearing the plans into four pieces, mailed each separately. If one was lost, the other three would still reveal the gist of the plans (Lockhart 1967).
Cook casts doubt on this incident but concedes that German factory records show a Karl Hahn was indeed employed by the Essen plant during this time and a plant fire brigade was in formal operation (Cook 2004).
World War I activity
One of Reilly claims is that he was a secret agent behind German lines and allegedly attended a German High Command conference {see below}; however, see Cook {Chapter 6}, which effectively debunks this by revealing Reilly's activities between 1915 and 1918 {reference only} According to author Richard Spence, (TRUST NO ONE), Reilly lived in New York for at least a year, 1914-1915, where he engaged in arranging munitions sales to both the Germans and the Imperial Russian Army. Sometime in 1916-1918 Reilly reportedly received a commission in the Royal Canadian Flying Corps, and according to Spence, upon his return to London in 1918, Mansfield Cumming formally swore Lieutenant Reilly into service as a staff Case Officer in His Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), prior to dispatching Reilly on Counter-Bolshevik operations in Germany and Russia.
Ambassadors' plot
The endeavor to depose the Bolshevik Government and assassinate Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is considered by biographers to be Reilly's most daring scheme. The Lockhart Plot, or more accurately the Reilly Plot, has sparked debate over the years: Did the Allies launch a clandestine operation to overthrow the Bolsheviks? If so, did the Cheka uncover the plot at the eleventh hour or had they unmasked the conspirators from the outset? Some historians have suggested that the Cheka orchestrated the conspiracy from beginning to end and possibly that Reilly was a Bolshevik agent provocateur (Cook 2004).
In May 1918, Robert Bruce Lockhart, an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and Reilly repeatedly met with Boris SavinkovBoris Viktorovich Savinkov was a Russian writer and revolutionary terrorist...
, the head of the counter-revolutionary Union for the Defense of the Fatherland and Freedom (UDFF). Savinkov had been Deputy War Minister in the Provisional GovernmentThe Russian Provisional Government was the short-lived administrative body which sought to govern Russia immediately following the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II in February 1917. In September 14, the State Duma of the Russian Empire officially dissolved the newly created Directorate, and the...
of Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, and a key opponent of the BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
s. A former Social Revolutionary Party member, Savinkov had formed the UDFF consisting of several thousand Russian fighters. Lockhart and Reilly then contacted anti-BolshevikThe White movement , whose military arm was the White Army aka the White Guard , and as the Whites comprised some of the politico-military Russian forces who unsuccessfully fought the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution and...
collectives linked to Savinkov and supported these factions with SIS funds. They also liaisoned with the intelligence operatives of the French and U.S. consuls in MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
(Cook 2004).
In June, disillusioned members of the Latvian RiflemenLatvian riflemen were military formations assembled starting 1915 in Latvia in order to defend Baltic territories against Germans in World War I. Initially the battalions were formed by volunteers, and from 1916 by conscription among the Latvian population...
began appearing in anti-Bolshevik circles in Petrograd and were eventually directed to Captain Cromie, a British naval attaché, and Mr. Constantine, a Turkish merchant who was actually Reilly. As Latvians were deemed the Praetorian GuardThe Praetorian Guard was a force of bodyguards used by Roman Emperors. Before being appropriated for the use of the Emperors' personal guards, the title was used for the guards of Roman generals, at least since the rise to prominence of the Scipio family around 275 BC...
of the Bolsheviks and entrusted with the security of the KremlinKremlin is the Russian word for "fortress", "citadel" or "castle" and refers to any major fortified central complex found in historic Russian cities. This word is often used to refer to the best-known one, the Moscow Kremlin, or metonymically to the government that is based there...
, Reilly believed their participation in the pending coup to be vital and arranged their meeting with Lockhart at the British mission in Moscow. At this stage, Reilly planned a coup against the Bolshevik government and drew up a list of Soviet military leaders ready to assume responsibilities on the fall of the Bolshevik government. While the coup was prepared, an Allied force landed on August 4, 1918, at ArkhangelskArkhangelsk , formerly called Archangel in English, is a city and the administrative center of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia. It lies on both banks of the Northern Dvina river near its exit into the White Sea in the far north of European Russia. City districts spread for over along the banks of the...
, RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, beginning a famous military expedition dubbed Operation Archangel. Its objective was to prevent the German Empire from obtaining Allied military supplies stored in the region. In retaliation for this incursion, the Bolsheviks raided the British diplomatic missionA diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organization present in another state to represent the sending state/organization in the receiving state...
on August 5, disrupting a meeting Reilly had arranged between the anti-Bolshevik Latvians, UDFF officials, and Lockhart (Cook 2004).
On August 17, Reilly conducted meetings between Latvian regimental leaders and liaisoned with Captain George Hill, another British agent operating in Russia. They agreed the coup would occur the first week of September during a meeting of the Council of People's Commissars and the Moscow Soviet at the Bolshoi TheatreThe Bolshoi Theatre is a historic theatre in Moscow, Russia, designed by the architect Joseph Bové, which holds performances of ballet and opera. The Bolshoi Ballet and Bolshoi Opera are amongst the oldest and greatest ballet and opera companies of the world, respectively...
. However, on the eve of the coup, unexpected events thwarted the operation (Cook 2004).
On August 30, a military cadet shot and killed Moisei UritskyMoisei Solomonovich Uritsky was a Bolshevik revolutionary leader in Russia.He was born in the town of Cherkasy, Ukraine, to a Jewish family. His father, a merchant, died when Moisei was little and his mother raised her son by herself.Moisei studied law at the University of Kiev...
, head of the Petrograd ChekaThe Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by an aristocrat turned communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
. On this same day, Fanya Kaplan, a member of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, shot and wounded Lenin as he left a meeting at the Michelson factory in Moscow. These events were used by the Cheka to implicate any malcontents in a grand conspiracy that warranted a full-scale campaign: the "Red TerrorThe Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended in about October 1918...
." Thousands of political opponents were seized and executed. Using lists supplied by undercover agents, the Cheka arrested those involved in Reilly's pending coup. They raided the British Embassy in Petrograd and killed Cromie, Reilly's accomplice, who put up an armed resistance. Lockhart was arrested, but later released in exchange for LitvinovMaxim Maximovich Litvinov was a Russian-Jewish revolutionary and prominent Soviet diplomat.-Early life and first exile:...
, a diplomatA diplomat is a person appointed by a state to conduct diplomacy with another state or international organisation. The main functions of diplomats revolve around the representation and protection of the interests and nationals of the sending state, as well as the promotion of information and...
who had been arrested in London in a reprisal. Elizaveta Otten, Reilly's chief courier, was arrested as well as his other mistress Olga Starzheskaya. Another courier, Maria Fride, with papers she carried for Reilly, was arrested at Otten's flat (Cook 2004).
On September 3, the aborted coup was sensationalized by the Russian press. Reilly was identified as a leader, and a dragnet ensued. The Cheka raided his assumed refuge, but Reilly avoided capture and met with Captain Hill. Hill proposed that Reilly escape Russia via Ukraine using their network of British agents for safe houses and assistance. Reilly instead chose a shorter, more dangerous route north to FinlandFinland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
. With the Cheka closing in, Reilly, carrying a Baltic GermanThe Baltic Germans were mostly ethnically German inhabitants of the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, which today form the countries of Estonia and Latvia. The Baltic German population had never made up more than 10% of the total. They formed the social, commercial, political and cultural elite in...
passport, posed as a legation secretary and departed Moscow in a railway car reserved for the German Embassy. In KronstadtKronstadt , also spelled Kronshtadt, Cronstadt is a Russian seaport town, located on Kotlin Island, thirty kilometers west of Saint Petersburg near the head of the Gulf of Finland. It is under the administration of the federal city of Saint Petersburg and is also its main port...
, Reilly sailed by ship to HelsinkiHelsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the southern part of Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, by the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it the most populous municipality in Finland by a wide margin...
and reached Stockholm' is the capital and largest city of Sweden. It is the site of the national Swedish government, the Riksdag , and the official residence of the Swedish Monarch as well as the prime minister. The Monarch resides at Drottningholm Palace outside of Stockholm since 1980 and uses the Royal Palace of...
. He arrived in London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
on November 8 (Cook 2004).
The day before Reilly and Hill met with Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming ("C") in London for their debriefing, the Russian IzvestiaIzvestia is a long-running high-circulation daily newspaper in Russia. The word "izvestiya" in Russian means "delivered messages", derived from the verb izveshchat...
newspaper reported that both Reilly and Lockhart had been sentenced to death in absentiaIn absentia is Latin for "in the absence". In legal use it usually pertains to a defendant's right to be present in court proceedings in a criminal trial.-In absentia in common law legal systems:...
by a Revolutionary TribunalThe Revolutionary Tribunal was a court which was instituted in Paris by the Convention during the French Revolution for the trial of political offenders, and eventually became one of the most powerful engines of the Reign of Terror....
for their roles in the attempted coup of the Bolshevik government. Their sentence was to be carried out immediately should either of them be apprehended on Soviet soil. This sentence would later be served on Reilly when he was caught by the OGPU in 1925. Yet, within the week of their debriefing, the BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
and the Foreign Office again sent Reilly and Hill to Russia under the cover of British trade delegates. Their assignment was to uncover information about the Black Seaur a loser!The Black Sea is an inland sea bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas and various straits. The Bosporus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects it to...
coast needed for the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 (Cook 2004).
Career with British intelligence
Throughout his life, Sidney Reilly maintained a close yet tempestuous consanguinity with the British intelligence community.
In 1896, Reilly was recruited by Superintendent William Melville for the émigréÉmigré is a French term that literally refers to a person who has "migrated out," but often carries a connotation of politico-social self-exile....
intelligenceIntelligence is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence...
network of Scotland YardNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
's Special BranchSpecial Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in Ireland's Garda Síochána...
. Through his close relationship with Melville, Reilly would be employed as a secret agentSecret Agent is a 1936 British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll and Robert Young...
for the Secret Service Bureau, which the War OfficeThe War Office was a department of the British Government, responsible for the administration of the British Army between the 17th century and 1963, when its functions were transferred to the Ministry of Defence...
created in October 1909.
In 1918, Reilly began to work for MI1(c), an early designation for the BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
, under Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming. Reilly was allegedly trained by the latter organization and sent to MoscowMoscow is the capital and the largest city of Russia. It is also the largest metropolitan area in Europe, and ranks among the largest urban areas in the world. Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the world, a...
in March 1918 to assassinate Vladimir Ilyich Lenin or attempt to overthrow the Bolsheviks. He had to escape after the ChekaThe Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by an aristocrat turned communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
unraveled the so-called Lockhart Plot against the Bolshevik government.
Reilly told various tales about his espionage deeds and adventurous exploits. According to Reilly, he earned and lost several fortunes in his lifetime and had many wives and mistresses. He claimed that:
• In the Second Boer WarThe Second Boer War , commonly referred to as The Boer War and also known as the South African War , the Anglo-Boer War and in Afrikaans as the Anglo-Boereoorlog or Tweede Vryheidsoorlog , or the Engelse oorlog was fought...
he disguised himself as a Russian arms merchantThe arms industry is a global industry and business which manufactures and sells weapons and military technology and equipment. Arms producing companies, also referred to as defence companies or military industry, produce arms mainly for the armed forces of states. Products include guns,...
to spy on DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
weapons shipments to the Boers.
• He procured Persian oil concessions for the British Admiralty, the so-called D'Arcy AffairThe entrepreneur William Knox D'Arcy was one of the principal founders of the oil and petrochemical industry in Persia .- Biography :...
.
• In the disguise of a timber company owner, he gathered information on the Russian military presence in Port ArthurLüshunkou is a district in the municipality of Dalian, Liaoning province, China. Also called Lüshun City or Lüshun Port, it was formerly known as both Port Arthur and Ryojun....
, Manchuria, and reported to the KempeitaiThe was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945. It was not an English-style military police, but was a French-style gendarmerie...
, the Japanis an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese secret policeSecret police are a police agency which operates in secrecy to maintain national security against internal threats to the state....
.
• He spied on the KruppThe Krupp family, a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
armaments plant in GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
.
• He volunteered for the Royal Flying CorpsThe Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery cooperation and photographic reconnaissance...
in CanadaCanada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
at the start of World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
.
• He seduced the wife of a Russian minister to obtain information about German weapons shipments to Russia.
• During World War I he donned a German officer's uniform and attended a German Army High Command meeting.
• He saved diplomats in Brazil.
• He attempted but failed to engineer the downfall of the Russian BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
government.
British intelligence adhered to its policy of publicly saying nothing about anything (Deacon 1987). Yet Reilly's espionage successes did garner indirect recognition.
After a formal recommendation by Sir Mansfield "C" Smith-Cumming, Reilly, who had been commissioned into the Royal Flying CorpsThe Royal Flying Corps was the over-land air arm of the British military during most of the First World War. During the early part of the war, the RFC's responsibilities were centred on support of the British Army, via artillery cooperation and photographic reconnaissance...
in 1917, was awarded the Military CrossThe Military Cross is the third level military decoration awarded to officers and other ranks of the British Armed Forces and formerly also to officers of other Commonwealth countries....
on January 22 1919, "for distinguished services rendered in connection with military operations in the field." Cook claims the medal was bestowed due to Reilly's anti-Bolshevik operations in southern Russia, but espionage historian Richard DeaconGeorge Donald King McCormick was a British journalist and popular historian, who also wrote under the pseudonyms Richard Deacon and Lichade Digen....
states the award was given for Reilly's clandestine activities in World War IWorld War I , also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All Wars, was a global military conflict which involved most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance...
. Reilly had allegedly parachuted behind German lines on a number of occasions. Once, disguised as a German officer, he spent three weeks inside the German EmpireThe German Empire is the name commonly used in English to describe Germany from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871 to 1918, when it became a German republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of Wilhelm II .The term Second Reich...
(Deutsches ReichDeutsches Reich was the official name for Germany from 1871 to 1945 in the German language. The direct literal translation, "German Empire", is used only when describing Germany under Hohenzollern rule . For the entire 1871–1945 period, the English name given for Germany was the partially...
) gathering information about the next planned thrust against the AlliesThe Entente powers were the countries at war with the Central Powers during World War I. The key members of the Entente were the United Kingdom, France, and the Russian Empire. New Zealand, Belgium, Serbia, Canada, Australia, Italy, Romania and the United States were also drawn into the war...
.
Deacon asserts in History of the Russian Secret Service that in April 1912, Reilly was an Ochrana agent with the task of befriending and profiling Sir Basil Zaharoff, the international arms salesman and representative of Vickers-Armstrong Munitions LtdVickers was a famous name in British engineering that existed through many companies from 1828 until 1999.-Early history:Vickers was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by the miller Edward Vickers and his father-in-law George Naylor in 1828. Naylor was a partner in the foundry Naylor &...
. Another Reilly biographer, Richard B. Spence, claims in Trust No One: The Secret World Of Sidney Reilly that during this assignment Reilly learned "le systeme" from Zaharoff. To Zaharoff, "le systeme" was the strategy of playing all sides against each other in order to maximize financial profit.
Cook counters in Ace of Spies: The True Story of Sidney Reilly (pg. 104) that there is no evidence of any relationship between Reilly and Zaharoff. According to Cook, Reilly was more of a con artistA confidence trick or confidence game is an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence...
. Reilly claimed to have been employed by the BritishThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe. It is an island country, spanning an archipelago including Great Britain, the northeastern part of Ireland, and many small islands...
Secret Intelligence ServiceThe Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
since the 1890s, but he did not volunteer his services nor was he accepted as an agent until March 15, 1918, and was effectively fired in 1921 because of his tendency to be a rogue operative. Nevertheless, Reilly had been a renowned operative for Scotland Yard'sNew Scotland Yard is the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police Service, responsible for law enforcement within Greater London, excluding the City district, which is covered by the City of London Police....
Special BranchSpecial Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in Ireland's Garda Síochána...
and the Secret Service Bureau, which were the early forerunners of the British intelligence community.
Author Michael Kettle has claimed in Sidney Reilly: The True Story of the World's Greatest Spy (pg. 121) that despite having been fired by SIS, Reilly possibly was involved with Sir Stewart Graham MenziesMajor General Sir Stewart Graham Menzies, KCB, KCMG, DSO, MC was Chief of MI6, British Secret Intelligence Service, during and after World War II....
in the forging of the The Zinoviev LetterThe "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
in 1924.
Death
In September 1925, undercover agents of the OGPU, the intelligence successor of the ChekaThe Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by an aristocrat turned communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...
, lured Reilly to BolshevikThe Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903...
RussiaRussia , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia . It is a semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
ostensibly to meet the supposed anti-Communist organization The Trust—in reality, an OGPU deception existing under the code name Operation TrustOperation Trust was a counterintelligence operation of the State Political Directorate of the Soviet Union. The operation, which ran from 1921-1926, set up a fake anti-Bolshevik underground organization, "Monarchist Union of Central Russia", MUCR , in order to help the OGPU identify real...
. At the Russian border, Reilly was introduced to undercover OGPU agents posing as senior Trust representatives from Moscow. One of these undercover Soviet agents, Alexander Yakushev, later recalled the meeting:
After Reilly crossed the FinnishFinland , officially the Republic of Finland
, is a Nordic country and democracy situated in the Fennoscandian region of northern Europe. It borders Sweden on the west, Russia on the east, and Norway on the north, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland...
border, the Soviets captured, transported and interrogated him at Lubyanka Prison. On arrival Reilly was taken to the office of Roman Pilar, a Soviet official who the previous year had arrested and ordered the execution of Boris SavinkovBoris Viktorovich Savinkov was a Russian writer and revolutionary terrorist...
, a close friend of Reilly. Pilar reminded Reilly that he had been sentenced to death by a 1918 Soviet tribunal for his participation in a counter-revolutionary plot against the Bolshevik government. While Reilly was being interrogated, the Soviets publicly claimed that he had been shot trying to cross the Finnish border.
Historians debate whether Reilly was tortured while in OGPU custody. Cooke contends that Reilly was not tortured other than psychologically by mock execution scenarios designed to shake the resolve of prisoners. During OGPU interrogation, Reilly maintained his charade of being a British subject born in ClonmelClonmel in County Tipperary is the county seat of South Tipperary County Council. The town lies mainly on the northern bank of the River Suir with a smaller section south of the river. It lies in a valley, surrounded by mountains and hills. The Comeragh Mountains are to the south, while northeast...
, IrelandIreland is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island in the world. It lies to the north-west of continental Europe and is surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets. To the east of Ireland, separated by the Irish Sea, is the island of Great Britain...
, and would not reveal any intelligence matters (Cook 2004). While facing such daily interrogation, Reilly kept in his cell a diary of tiny handwritten notes on cigarette papers which he hid in the plasterwork of a cell wall. While his Soviet captors were interrogating Reilly, Reilly in turn was analyzing and documenting their techniques. As the diary was a detailed record of OGPU interrogation techniques, Reilly was understandably confident such unique documentation would, if he escaped, be of interest to the British SIS. After Reilly's death, Soviet guards discovered the diary in Reilly's cell, and photographic enhancements were made by OGPU technicians (Cook 2004).
Reilly was executed in a forest near Moscow on November 5, 1925; British intelligence documents released in 2000 confirm this. According to eyewitness Boris Gudz, the execution of Sidney Reilly was supervised by an OGPU officer, Grigory Feduleev. Another OGPU officer, George Syroezhkin, is credited for firing the final shot into Reilly's chest.
After the death of Reilly, there were various rumours about his survival. Some, for example, speculated that Reilly had defected and became an advisor to Soviet intelligence.
Ace of Spies
In 1983, a televisionTelevision is a widely used telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images, either monochromatic or color, usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming or television transmission...
mini-series, Reilly, Ace of SpiesReilly, Ace of Spies is a 1983 television miniseries, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, and based on the 1967 book Ace of Spies by Robin Bruce Lockhart. Sam Neill stars as Sidney Reilly. The theme music is the Romance movement from Dmitri Shostakovich’s The Gadfly Suite.The miniseries was issued on...
, dramatized the historical adventures of Reilly. The program won the 1984 BAFTA TV Award. Reilly was portrayed by actor Sam NeillNigel John Dermot "Sam" Neill, DCNZM, OBE is a New Zealand actor who was born in Northern Ireland.He has had a number of high-profile roles including: the lead in Reilly, Ace of Spies, the adult Damien in Omen III: The Final Conflict, Merlin in the miniseries Merlin, the executive officer, Capt...
. Leo McKernReginald "Leo" McKern AO was an Australian actor who appeared in numerous British television programs and movies, and more than 200 stage roles.-Early life:...
portrayed Sir Basil ZaharoffBasil Zaharoff, GCB, GBE , born Basileios Zacharias, was a Turkish-born French arms trader and financier of Greek heritage, the director and chairman of the Vickers munitions firm during World War I.-Early life:Basileios Zacharias was from a Greek family in Constantinople...
. The series was based on Robin Bruce Lockhart's book, Ace of Spies, which was adapted by Troy Kennedy MartinTroy Kennedy Martin was a Scottish-born film and television screenwriter best known for creating the long running BBC TV police series Z Cars, and for the award-winning 1985 anti-nuclear drama Edge of Darkness....
.
James Bond
In Ian Fleming, The Man Behind James Bond by Andrew Lycett, Sidney Reilly is listed as an inspiration for James Bond. Reilly's friend, former diplomat and journalist Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, was a close acquaintance of Ian FlemingIan Lancaster Fleming was a British author and journalist. Fleming is best remembered for creating the character of James Bond and chronicling Bond's adventures in twelve novels and nine short stories...
for many years and recounted to Fleming many of Reilly's espionage adventures. Lockhart had worked with Reilly in Russia in 1918, where they became embroiled in an SIS-backed plot to overthrow Lenin's Bolshevik government. Within five years of his disappearance in Soviet Russia in 1925, the press had turned Reilly into a household name, lauding him as a master spy and recounting his many espionage adventures. Fleming had therefore long been aware of Reilly's mythical reputation and had listened to Lockhart's recollections. Like Fleming's fictional creation, Reilly was multi-lingual, fascinated by the Far East, fond of fine living, and a compulsive gambler. He also exercised a Bond-like mastery of women, his many love affairs standing comparison with the amorous adventures of 007 (Cook 2004).
The Gadfly
According to Lockhart, while in London in 1895 Reilly encountered noted author Ethel Lilian VoynichEthel Lilian Voynich, née Boole was an English novelist and musician, and a supporter of several revolutionary causes. Her father was the famous mathematician George Boole. Her mother was feminist philosopher Mary Everest, niece of George Everest and an author for the early-20th-century periodical...
. Voynich was a well-known figure in the late Victorian literary scene and in Russian émigré circles. Lockhart claims that Reilly and Voynich had a sexual liaison and voyaged to Italy together. During this dalliance, Reilly allegedly "bared his soul" to Ethel and revealed to her the peculiar story of his youth in Russia. After their affair had concluded, Voynich published in 1897 The GadflyThe Gadfly is a novel by Ethel Lilian Voynich, published in 1897 . Set in 1840s Italy under the dominance of Austria, a time of tumultuous revolt and uprisings, the story centers on the life of the protagonist Arthur Burton as a member of the Youth movement and his antagonist Padre Montanelli...
, her critically-acclaimed novel whose central character, Arthur Burton, was allegedly based on Reilly's early life. Cook, however, disputes Lockhart's romanticized version of events and asserts that Reilly was not Voynich's inspiration. According to Cook, Reilly may have been merely investigating Voynich's radical, pro-émigré activities and reporting to William Melville of the Metropolitan Police Special Branch.
See also
People
- Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart
- Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming
- Sir Basil Zaharoff
- Boris Savinkov
Boris Viktorovich Savinkov was a Russian writer and revolutionary terrorist...
- William Melville
William Melville was a British Irish law enforcement officer and the first chief of the British Secret Service, forerunner of MI5.-Birth:...
Events
- The Battle of Port Arthur
The Battle of Port Arthur was the starting battle of the Russo-Japanese War. It began with a surprise night attack by a squadron of Japanese destroyers on the Russian fleet anchored at Port Arthur, Manchuria, and continued with an engagement of major surface combatants the following morning...
- The Red Terror of 1918
The Red Terror in Soviet Russia was the campaign of mass arrests and executions conducted by the Bolshevik government. In Soviet historiography, the Red Terror is described as officially announced on September 2, 1918 by Yakov Sverdlov and ended in about October 1918...
- The Zinoviev Letter
The "Zinoviev Letter" refers to a controversial document published by the British press in 1924, allegedly sent from the Communist International in Moscow to the Communist Party of Great Britain...
- Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War or the Manchurian Campaign in some English sources, was a conflict that grew out of the rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
- Frankfurt International Air Show
Organizations
- Secret Intelligence Service (SIS)
The Secret Intelligence Service , colloquially known as MI6 is the United Kingdom's external intelligence agency, part of the country's intelligence community. Under the direction of the Joint Intelligence Committee , it works alongside the Security Service , Government Communications Headquarters...
- Secret Service Bureau
- State Political Directorate (OGPU)
The State Political Directorate was the secret police of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1934...
- Tsarist Ochrana
- Socialist-Revolutionary Party
thumb|right|200px|Socialist-Revolutionary election poster, 1917. The caption in red reads "партия соц-рев" , short for Party of the Socialist Revolutionaries....
External links