Sidney Reilly
Sidney Reilly Russian SFSR, Soviet Union | |
---|---|
Other names | "Ace of Spies"; Dr. T. W. Andrew; Mr. Constantine; George Bergmann |
Espionage activity | |
Allegiance | |
Service branch |
|
Codename | S.T.I. |
Military career | |
Allegiance | Second Lieutenant |
Awards | Military Cross |
Sidney George Reilly
Reilly disappeared in Soviet Russia in the mid-1920s, lured by the Cheka's Operation Trust. British diplomat and journalist R. H. Bruce Lockhart publicised his and Reilly's 1918 exploits to overthrow the Bolshevik regime in Lockhart's 1932 book Memoirs of a British Agent.[13][14] This became an international best-seller and garnered global fame for Reilly. The memoirs retold the efforts by Reilly, Lockhart, and other conspirators to sabotage the Bolshevik revolution while still in its infancy.
The world press made Reilly into a household name within five years of his execution by Soviet agents in 1925, lauding him as a peerless spy and recounting his many espionage adventures. Newspapers dubbed him "the greatest spy in history" and "the Scarlet Pimpernel of Red Russia".[15] The London Evening Standard described his exploits in an illustrated serial in May 1931 headlined "Master Spy". Ian Fleming used him as a model for James Bond in his novels set in the early Cold War.[16] Reilly is considered to be "the dominating figure in the mythology of modern British espionage".[17]
Birth and youth
The true details about Reilly's origin, identity, and exploits have eluded researchers and intelligence agencies for more than a century. Reilly himself told several versions of his background to confuse and mislead investigators.
Other sources claim that Reilly was born Georgy Rosenblum in Odessa on 24 March 1873. There is also speculation that he was the son of a merchant marine captain and Polina.
Yet another source states that he was born Sigmund Georgievich Rosenblum on 24 March 1874,[17] the only son of Pauline and Gregory Rosenblum,[27] a wealthy Polish-Jewish family with an estate at Bielsk in the Grodno Governorate of Imperial Russia. His father was known locally as George rather than Gregory, hence Sigmund's patronymic Georgievich.[27] The family seems to have been well-connected in Polish nationalist circles through Pauline's intimate friendship with Ignacy Jan Paderewski, the Polish statesman who became Prime Minister of Poland and also Poland's foreign minister in 1919.[27]
Travels abroad
According to reports of the tsarist political police the Okhrana, Rosenblum was arrested in 1892 for political activities and for being a courier for a revolutionary group known as the Friends of Enlightenment. He escaped judicial punishment, and he later was friends with Okhrana agents such as Alexander Nikolayevich Grammatikov,[29] and these details might indicate that he was a police informant even at this young age.[b][29]
After Reilly's release, his father told him that his mother was dead and that his biological father was her Jewish doctor Mikhail A. Rosenblum.[18] Distraught by this news, he faked his death in Odessa harbor and stowed away aboard a British ship bound for South America.[30] In Brazil, he adopted the name Pedro and worked odd jobs as a dock worker, a road mender, a plantation labourer, and a cook for a British intelligence expedition in 1895.[30][18] He allegedly saved both the expedition and the life of Major Charles Fothergill when hostile natives attacked them.[31] Rosenblum seized a British officer's pistol and killed the attackers with expert marksmanship. Fothergill rewarded his bravery with 1,500 pounds sterling, a British passport, and passage to Britain, where Pedro became Sidney Rosenblum.[30]
However, the record of evidence contradicts this tale of Brazil.[32] Evidence indicates that Rosenblum arrived in London from France in December 1895, prompted by his unscrupulous acquisition of a large sum of money and a hasty departure from Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, a residential suburb of Paris.[32] According to this account, Rosenblum and his Polish accomplice Yan Voitek waylaid two Italian anarchists on 25 December 1895 and robbed them of a substantial amount of revolutionary funds. One anarchist's throat was cut; the other, named Constant Della Cassa, died from knife wounds in Fontainebleau Hospital three days later.[32] The French newspaper L'Union Républicaine de Saône-et-Loire reported the incident on 27 December 1895:
A dramatic event occurred on a train between Paris and Fontainebleau.... On opening the door of one of the coaches, the railway staff discovered an unfortunate passenger lying unconscious in the middle of a pool of blood. His throat had been cut and his body bore the marks of numerous knife wounds. Terrified at the sight, the station staff hastened to inform the special investigator who started preliminary enquiries and sent the wounded man to the hospital in Fontainebleau.[33]
Police learned that the physical description of one assailant matched Rosenblum's, but he was already en route to Britain. His accomplice Voitek later told British intelligence officers about this incident and other dealings with Rosenblum.[32] Several months prior to this murder, Rosenblum had met Ethel Lilian Boole, a young Englishwoman who was a budding writer and active in Russian émigré circles.[28][34] The couple developed a rapport and began a sexual liaison,[35] and he told her about his past in Russia. After the affair concluded, they continued to correspond.[34] In 1897, Boole published The Gadfly, a critically acclaimed novel whose central character was allegedly based on Reilly's life as Rosenblum.[36] In the novel, the protagonist is a bastard who feigns his suicide to escape his illegitimate past, and then voyages to South America. He later returns to Europe and becomes involved with Italian anarchists and other revolutionaries.[36]
For decades, certain biographers had dismissed the Reilly-Boole liaison as unsubstantiated.[37] However, evidence was found in 2016 among archived correspondence in the extended Boole-Hinton family confirming that a relationship transpired between Reilly and Boole around 1895 in Florence.[35] There is some question of whether he was truly smitten with Boole and sincerely returned her affections, as he might have been a paid police informant reporting on her activities and those of other radicals.[37]
In London: 1890s
Reilly continued to go by the name Rosenblum, living at the Albert Mansions, an apartment block in Rosetta Street, Waterloo, London in early 1896.[39] He created the Ozone Preparations Company, which peddled patent medicines,[39] and he became a paid informant for the émigré intelligence network of William Melville, superintendent of Scotland Yard's Special Branch. Melville later oversaw a special section of the British Secret Service Bureau founded in 1909.[11][40]
In 1897, Rosenblum began an affair with Margaret Thomas (née Callaghan), the youthful wife of Reverend Hugh Thomas, shortly before her husband's death.[41][42] Rosenblum met Rev. Thomas in London through his Ozone Preparations Company[43] because Thomas had a kidney inflammation and was intrigued by the miracle cures peddled by Rosenblum. Rev. Thomas introduced Rosenblum to his wife at his manor house, and they began having an affair. On 4 March 1898, Hugh Thomas altered his will and appointed Margaret as an executrix; he was found dead in his room on 12 March 1898, just a week after the new will was made.[44] A mysterious Dr. T. W. Andrew, whose physical description matched that of Rosenblum, appeared to certify Thomas's death as generic influenza and proclaimed that there was no need for an inquest. Records indicate that there was no one by the name of Dr. T. W. Andrew in Great Britain circa 1897.[45][46]
Margaret Thomas insisted that her husband's body be ready for burial 36 hours after his death.[47] She inherited roughly £800,000. The Metropolitan Police did not investigate Dr. T. W. Andrew, nor did they investigate the nurse whom Margaret had hired, who was previously linked to the arsenic poisoning of a former employer.[47] Four months later, on 22 August 1898, Rosenblum married Margaret Thomas at Holborn Registry Office in London.[27] The two witnesses at the ceremony were Charles Richard Cross, a government official, and Joseph Bell, an Admiralty clerk. Both would eventually marry daughters of Henry Freeman Pannett, an associate of William Melville. The marriage not only brought the wealth which Rosenblum desired but provided a pretext to discard his identity of Sigmund Rosenblum; with Melville's assistance, he crafted a new identity: "Sidney George Reilly". This new identity was key to achieving his desire to return to the Russian Empire and voyage to the Far East.[38] Reilly "obtained his new identity and nationality without taking any legal steps to change his name and without making an official application for British citizenship, all of which suggests some type of official intervention."[48] This intervention likely occurred to facilitate his upcoming work in Russia on behalf of British intelligence.[48]
Russia and the Far East
[Sidney Reilly's role] is one of the unsolved riddles about the Russo-Japanese War.[33]
— Ian H. Nish, The Origins of the Russo-Japanese War[49]
In June 1899, the newly endowed Reilly and his wife Margaret travelled to
As tensions between Russia and Japan were escalating towards war, Motojiro had at his disposal a budget of ¥1,000,000 provided by the Japanese Ministry of War to obtain information on the movements of Russian troops and naval developments.
Shortly before the
Reilly would have an even greater success in January 1904, when he and Chinese engineer acquaintance Ho Liang Shung allegedly stole the Port Arthur harbour defence plans for the Japanese Navy.[51] Guided by these stolen plans, the Japanese Navy navigated by night through the Russian minefield protecting the harbour and launched a surprise attack on Port Arthur on the night of 8–9 February 1904 (Monday 8 February – Tuesday 9 February). However, the stolen plans did not help the Japanese much. Despite ideal conditions for a surprise attack, their combat results were relatively poor. Although more than 31,000 Russians ultimately perished defending Port Arthur, Japanese losses were much higher, and these losses nearly undermined their war effort.[54]
According to writer Winfried Lüdecke (
Continental exploits
D'Arcy affair
During the brief time Reilly spent in Paris he renewed his close acquaintance with William Melville[d] whom Reilly had last seen just prior to his 1899 departure from London.[57] While Reilly had been abroad in the Far East, Melville had resigned in November 1903 as Superintendent of Scotland Yard's Special Branch and had become chief of a new intelligence section in the War Office.[58] Working under commercial cover from an unassuming flat in London, Melville now ran both counter-intelligence and foreign intelligence operations using his foreign contacts which he had accumulated during his years running Special Branch.[58] Reilly's meeting with Melville in Paris 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.[57]
In 1904 the
Reilly, at the British Admiralty's request, located William D'Arcy at Cannes in the south of France and approached him in disguise.[60] Dressed as a Catholic priest, Reilly gate-crashed the private discussions on board the Rothschild yacht on the pretext of collecting donations for a religious charity.[60] He then secretly informed D'Arcy that the British could give him a better financial deal.[15] D'Arcy promptly terminated negotiations with the Rothschilds and returned to London to meet with the British Admiralty.[5] However, biographer Andrew Cook has questioned Reilly's involvement in the D'Arcy Affair since, in February 1904, Reilly might still have been in Port Arthur. Cook speculates that it was Reilly's intelligence chief, William Melville, and a British intelligence officer, Henry Curtis Bennett, who undertook the D'Arcy assignment.[61] Yet another possibility advanced in The Prize by writer Daniel Yergin has the British Admiralty creating 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.[59]
Although the extent of Reilly's involvement in this particular incident is uncertain, it has been verified that he stayed after the incident in the
Frankfurt Air Show
In Ace of Spies, biographer
Reilly and a British
Stealing weapon plans
In 1909, when the
In the early morning hours, Reilly picked the lock of the office where the plans were kept and was discovered by the foreman whom he then strangled before completing the theft. From Essen, Reilly took a train to a safe house in Dortmund. Tearing the plans into four pieces, he mailed each separately so that if one were lost, the other three would still reveal the essence of the plans.[65] Biographer Cook questions the veracity of this incident but concedes that German factory records show a Karl Hahn was indeed employed by the Essen plant during this time and that a plant fire brigade existed.[67][dubious ]
In fact, before the First World War, he is alleged to have operated in Russia (from September 1905 to April 1914, assistant naval attaché of Great Britain), then in Europe. By April 1912 Reilly returned to St. Petersburg where he assumed the role of a wealthy businessman and helped to form the Wings Aviation Club. In the reference book "All Petersburg" he was listed as "antique dealer, collector". Here he took a new wife, Nadezhda, without dissolving his marriage to Margaret. He resumed his friendship with Alexander Grammatikov who was an Okhrana agent and a fellow member of the club.
First World War activity
"Reilly was dropped by plane many times behind the German lines; sometimes in Belgium, sometimes in Germany, sometimes disguised as a peasant, sometimes as a German officer or soldier, when he usually carried forged papers to indicate he had been wounded and was on sick-leave from the front. In this way he was able to move throughout Germany with complete freedom."[71]
— Robin Bruce Lockhart, Ace of Spies, page 59.
In earlier biographies by Winfried Lüdecke and Pepita Bobadilla, Reilly is described as living as a spy in Wilhelmine Germany from 1917 to 1918.[52][22] Drawing upon the latter sources, Richard Deacon likewise asserted that Reilly had operated behind German lines on a number of occasions and once spent weeks inside the German Empire gathering information about the next planned thrust against the Allies.[72] (In one version by Lockhart Reilly is alleged to have been a part of a German War meeting involving Kaiser Wilhelm II). However, most later biographies concur that Reilly's activities in the United States between 1915 and 1918 precluded any such escapades on the European Front.[73] Later biographers believe that Reilly, while lucratively engaged in the munitions business in New York City, was covertly employed in British intelligence in which role he may well have participated in several acts of so-called "German sabotage" deliberately calculated to provoke the United States to enter the war against the Central Powers.[74]
Historian
This is confirmed by papers of Norman Thwaites,
Thwaites was sufficiently impressed with Reilly's intelligence work in New York that he wrote a letter of recommendation to
Thus Reilly arrived on Russian soil via
Ambassadors' plot
In 1918, behind-the-scenes helpers such as ... Sidney Reilly, the erstwhile Russian double agent who was operating on Britain's behalf, were involved in the formulation and execution of various attempts to snatch both Russia and the [Romanov family] from the Bolsheviks.[4]
— Shay McNeal, historical researcher on Russian history and contributor to BBC[90]
The attempt to assassinate Vladimir Lenin and to depose the Bolshevik government is considered by biographers to be Reilly's most daring exploit.[91][92] The Ambassadors' Plot, later misnamed in the press as the Lockhart-Reilly Plot,[93][94] has sparked considerable debate over the years: did the Allies launch a clandestine operation to overthrow the Bolsheviks in the later summer of 1918 and, if so, did Felix Dzerzhinsky's Cheka uncover the plot at the eleventh hour or did they know of the conspiracy from the outset?[95][91] At the time, the dissembling American Consul-General DeWitt Clinton Poole publicly insisted the Cheka orchestrated the conspiracy from beginning to end and that Reilly was a Bolshevik agent provocateur.[f][96][12] Later, Robert Bruce Lockhart would state that he was "not to this day sure of the extent of Reilly's responsibility for the disastrous turn of events."[9]
In January 1918, the youthful Lockhart—a mere junior member of the British Foreign office—had been personally handpicked by British Prime Minister David Lloyd George to undertake a sensitive diplomatic mission to Soviet Russia.[97] Lockhart's assigned objectives were: to liaise with the Soviet authorities, to subvert Soviet-German relations, to bolster Soviet resistance to German peace overtures, and to push Soviet authorities into recreating the Eastern Theatre.[97] By April, however, Lockhart had hopelessly failed to achieve any of these objectives. He began to agitate in diplomatic cables for an immediate full-scale Allied military intervention in Russia.[97] Concurrently, Lockhart ordered Reilly to pursue contacts within anti-Bolshevik circles to sow the seeds for an armed uprising in Moscow.[98][97]
In May 1918,
Planning a coup
In June, disillusioned elements of Colonel Eduard Berzin's Latvian Rifle Division (Latdiviziya) began appearing in anti-Bolshevik circles in Petrograd and were eventually directed to a British naval attaché Captain Francis Cromie and his assistant Mr. Constantine, a Turkish merchant who was actually Reilly.[101] In contrast to his previous espionage operations, which had been independent of other agents, Reilly worked closely while in Petrograd with Cromie in joint efforts to recruit Berzin's Latvians and to equip anti-Bolshevik armed forces.[102] At the time, Cromie purportedly represented the British Naval Intelligence Division and oversaw its operations in northern Russia.[103] Cromie operated in loose coordination with the ineffectual Commander Ernest Boyce, the MI1(c) station chief in Petrograd.[103]
As Berzin's Latvians were deemed the Praetorian Guard of the Bolsheviks and entrusted with the security of both Lenin and the Kremlin, the Allied plotters believed their participation in the pending coup to be vital. With the aid of the Latvian Riflemen, the Allied agents hoped to "seize both Lenin and Trotsky at a meeting to take place in the first week of September".[9]
Reilly arranged a meeting between Lockhart and the Latvians at the British mission in Moscow while purportedly expending "over a million rubles" to bribe the Red Army troops guarding the Kremlin.[94] At this stage, Cromie,[103] Boyce,[74] Reilly,[104] Lockhart, and other Allied agents allegedly planned a full-scale coup against the Bolshevik government and drew up a list of Soviet military leaders ready to assume responsibilities on its demise.[105] Their objective was to capture or kill Lenin and Trotsky, to establish a provisional government, and to extinguish Bolshevism.[9] Lenin and Trotsky, they reasoned, "were Bolshevism", and nothing else in their movement had "substance or permanence".[9] Consequently, "if he could get them into [their] hands there would be nothing of consequence left of Sovietism".[9]
As Lockhart's diplomatic status hindered his open engagement in clandestine activities, he chose to supervise such activities from afar and to delegate the actual direction of the coup to Reilly.[106] To facilitate this work, Reilly allegedly obtained a position as a sinecure within the criminal branch of the Petrograd Cheka.[106] It was during this chaotic time of plots and counter-plots that Reilly and Lockhart became further acquainted.[12] Lockhart later posthumously described him as "a man of great energy and personal charm, very attractive to women and very ambitious. I had not a very high opinion of his intelligence. His knowledge covered many subjects, from politics to art, but it was superficial. On the other hand, his courage and indifference to danger were superb."[12] Throughout their backroom intrigues in Moscow, Lockhart never openly questioned Reilly's loyalty to the Allies, although he privately wondered if Reilly had made a secret bargain with Colonel Berzin and his Latvian Riflemen to later seize power for themselves.[12]
In Lockhart's estimation, Reilly was a limitless "man cast in the Napoleonic mould" and, if their counter-revolutionary coup had succeeded, "the prospect of playing a lone hand [using Berzin's Latvian Riflemen] may have inspired him with a Napoleonic design" to become the head of any new government.[12] However, unbeknownst to the Allied conspirators, Berzin was "an honest commander" and "devoted to the Soviet government".[107] Although not a Chekist, he nonetheless informed Dzerzhinsky's Cheka that he had been approached by Reilly and that Allied agents had attempted to recruit him into a possible coup.[107] This information did not surprise Dzerzhinsky as the Cheka had gained access to the British diplomatic codes in May and were closely monitoring the anti-Bolshevik activities.[102] Dzerzhinsky instructed Berzin and other Latvian officers to pretend to be receptive to the Allied plotters and to meticuously report on every detail of their pending operation.[107]
Plot unravels
While Allied agents militated against the Soviet regime in Petrograd and Moscow, persistent rumours swirled of an impending Allied military intervention in Russia which would overthrow the fledgling Soviet government in favour of a new regime willing to rejoin the ongoing war against the Central Powers.
Hill later described Reilly as "a dark, well-groomed, very foreign-looking man" who had "an amazing grasp of the actualities of the situation" and was "a man of action".
On 30 August,
On the same day,
Due to the severity of his wounds, Lenin was not expected to survive.[111][103] The attack was widely covered in the Russian press, generating much sympathy for Lenin and boosting his popularity.[116] As a consequence of this assassination attempt, however, the meeting between Lenin and Trotsky—where the bribed soldiery would seize them on behalf of the Allies—was postponed.[9] At this point, Reilly was notified by fellow conspirator Alexander Grammatikov that "the [Socialist Revolutionary Party] fools have struck too early".[85]
Chekist reprisal
Although it is unknown if Kaplan either was part of the Ambassadors' Plot or was even responsible for the assassination attempt on Lenin,
Using lists supplied by undercover agents, the Cheka proceeded to clear out the "nests of conspirators" in the foreign embassies and, in doing so, they arrested key figures vital to the impending coup.[103][9] On 31 August 1918, believing Savinkov and Filonenko were hiding in the British consulate,[112][113] a Cheka detachment raided the British consulate in Petrograd and killed Cromie who put up an armed resistance.[119][112][113] Immediately prior to his death, it is possible that Cromie may have been trying to communicate with other conspirators and to give instructions to accelerate their planned coup.[103] Before the Cheka detachment stormed the consulate, Cromie burned key correspondence pertaining to the coup.[103]
According to press reports, he made a valiant last stand on the first floor of the consulate armed only with a revolver.
Meanwhile, Lockhart was arrested by Dzerzhinsky's Cheka and transported under guard to
Escape from Russia
On 3 September 1918 the
Hill proposed that Reilly escape from Russia via Ukraine to
While safely in England, Reilly, Lockhart and other agents were tried in absentia before the Supreme Revolutionary Tribunal in a proceeding which opened 25 November 1918.[128] Approximately twenty defendants faced charges in the trial, most of whom had worked for the Americans or the British in Moscow. The case was prosecuted by Nikolai Krylenko,[h] an exponent of the theory that political considerations rather than criminal guilt should decide a case's outcome.[129][128]
Krylenko's case concluded on 3 December 1918, with two defendants sentenced to be shot and various others sentenced to terms of prison or forced labour for terms up to five years.
Activities from 1919 to 1924
Russian Civil War
Within a week of their return debriefing, the British
Reilly identified four principal factors in the affairs of South Russia at this time: the Volunteer Army; the territorial or provincial governments in the Kuban, Don, and Crimea; the Petlyura movement in Ukraine; and the economic situation. In his opinion, the future course of events in this region would depend not only on the interaction of these factors with each other, but "above all upon Allied attitude towards them". Reilly advocated Allied assistance to organise South Russia into a suitable place d'armes for decisive advance against Petlurism and Bolshevism. In his opinion: "The military Allied assistance required for this would be comparatively small as proved by recent events in Odessa. Landing parties in the ports and detachments assisting Volunteer Army on lines of communication would probably be sufficient."[135]
Reilly's reference to events in Odessa concerned the successful landing there on 18 December 1918 of troops from the French 156th Division commanded by General Borius, who managed to wrest control of the city from the Petlyurists with the assistance of a small contingent of Volunteers.[135]
Urgent as the need for Allied military assistance to the Volunteer Army was in Reilly's estimation, he regarded economic assistance for South Russia as "even more pressing". Manufactured goods were so scarce in this region that he considered any moderate contribution from the Allies would have a most beneficial effect. Otherwise, apart from echoing a certain General Poole's suggestion for a British or Anglo-French Commission to control merchant shipping engaged in trading activities in the Black Sea, Reilly did not offer any solutions to what he called a state of "general economic chaos" in South Russia. Reilly found White officials, who had been given the job of helping the Russian economy get better, "helpless" in coming to terms with "the colossal disaster which has overtaken Russia's finances, ... and unable to frame anything, approaching even an outline, of a financial policy". But he supported their request for the Allies to print "500 Million roubles of Nicholas money of all denominations" for the Special Council as a matter of urgency, with the justification that "although one realises the fundamental futility of this remedy, one must agree with them that for the moment this is the only remedy". Lack of funds was one reason offered by Reilly to explain the Whites' blatant inactivity in the propaganda field. They were also said to be lacking paper and printing presses needed for the preparation of propaganda material. Reilly claimed that the Special Council had come to appreciate fully the benefits of propaganda.[135]
Final marriage
While on a visit to postwar Berlin in December 1922, Reilly met a charming young actress named Pepita Bobadilla in the
Zinoviev scandal
One year later Reilly was involved—possibly alongside Sir Stewart Graham Menzies[139]—in the Zinoviev letter scandal.[6][7][139] Four days before the British general election on 8 October 1924, a Tory newspaper printed a letter purporting to originate from Grigory Zinoviev, head of the Third Communist International.[6] The letter claimed that the planned resumption of diplomatic and trade relations by the Labour party with Soviet Russia would indirectly hasten the overthrow of the British government.[140] Hours later, the British Foreign Office responded to the letter with a note of protest to the Soviet government.[6] Soviet Russia and British Communists denounced the letter as a forgery by British intelligence agents, while Conservative politicians and newspapers maintained that it was genuine.[citation needed] Recent scholarship argues that the letter was indeed a forgery.[139][citation needed]
Amid the uproar following the printing of the letter and the Foreign Office protest, Ramsay MacDonald's Labour Government lost the general election.[6] According to Samuel T. Williamson, writing in The New York Times in 1926, Reilly may have served as a courier to transport the forged Zinoviev letter into the United Kingdom.[6][139] Reflecting upon these events, the journalist Winfried Lüdecke[c] posited in 1929 that Reilly's role in "the famous Zinoviev letter assumed a world-wide political importance, for its publication in the British press brought about the fall of the [Ramsay] Macdonald ministry, frustrated the realization of the proposed Anglo-Russian commercial treaty, and, as a final result, led to the signing of the treaties of Locarno, in virtue of which the other states of Europe presented, under the leadership of Britain, a united front against Soviet Russia".[7]
Career with British intelligence
[Mansfield] Cumming's most remarkable, though not his most reliable, agent was Sidney Reilly, the dominating figure in the mythology of modern British espionage. Reilly, it has been claimed, 'wielded more power, authority and influence than any other spy,' was an expert assassin 'by poisoning, stabbing, shooting and throttling,' and possessed eleven passports and a wife to go with each.[17]
— Christopher Andrew, emeritus professor at the University of Cambridge, Her Majesty's Secret Service (1985)
Throughout his life, Reilly maintained a close yet tempestuous relationship with the British intelligence community. In 1896, he was recruited by Superintendent
- In the Boer War he masqueraded as a Russian arms merchant to spy on Dutch weapons shipments to the Boers.[141]
- He obtained intelligence on Russian military defences in Manchuria for the Kempeitai, the Japanese secret police.[17]
- He procured Persian oil concessions for the British Admiralty in events surrounding the D'Arcy Concession.[5]
- He infiltrated a Krupp armaments plant in prewar Germany and stole weapon plans for the Entente Powers.[141]
- He seduced the wife of a Russian minister to glean information about German weapons shipments to Russia.[15]
- He participated in missions of so-called "German sabotage" designed to draw the United States into World War I.[74]
- He attempted to overthrow the Russian Romanov family.[4]
- Prior to his demise, he served as a courier to transport the forged Zinoviev letter into the United Kingdom.[6][139]
British intelligence adhered to its policy of publicly saying nothing about anything.
Reilly's most skeptical biographer, Andrew Cook, asserts that Reilly's SIS-specific career has been greatly embellished as he wasn't accepted as an agent until 15 March 1918. He was then discharged in 1921 because of his tendency to be a rogue operative. Nevertheless, Cook concedes that Reilly previously had been a renowned operative for
Execution
According to Reilly's wife Pepita Bobadilla, Reilly was perpetually determined "to return to Russia to see if he could not find and succor some of his friends whom he believed to be still alive. This he did in 1925—and never came back."
Thus, undercover agents of the OGPU lured Reilly into
The first impression of [Sidney Reilly] is unpleasant. His dark eyes expressed something biting and cruel; his lower lip drooped deeply and was too slick—the neat black hair, the demonstratively elegant suit. ... Everything in his manner expressed something haughtily indifferent to his surroundings.[148]
Reilly was brought across the border by
After Reilly crossed the Finnish border, the Soviets captured, transported and interrogated him at
During OGPU interrogation Reilly prevaricated about his personal background and maintained his charade of being a British subject born in Clonmel, Ireland. Although he did not abjure his allegiance to the United Kingdom, he also did not reveal any intelligence matters.[152] While facing such daily interrogation, Reilly kept a diary in his cell of tiny handwritten notes on cigarette papers which he hid in the plasterwork of a cell wall. While his Soviet captors were interrogating Reilly he in turn was analysing and documenting their techniques. The diary was a detailed record of OGPU interrogation techniques, and Reilly was understandably confident that 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.[153]
Reilly was executed in a forest near Moscow on Thursday, 5 November 1925.[154] Eyewitness Boris Gudz claimed the execution was supervised by an OGPU officer, Grigory Feduleev, while another OGPU officer, Grigory Syroezhkin, fired the final shot into Reilly's chest. Gudz also confirmed that the order to kill Reilly came from Stalin directly. Within months after his execution, various outlets of the British and American press carried an obituary notice: "REILLY—On the 28th of September, killed near the village of Allekul, Russia, by S. R. U. Troops. Captain Sidney George Reilly, M. C., beloved husband of Pepita Reilly."[137] Two months later, on 17 January 1926, The New York Times reprinted this obituary notice and, citing unnamed sources in the intelligence community, the paper asserted that Reilly had been somehow involved in the still ongoing scandal of the Zinoviev letter,[6] a fraudulent document published by the British Daily Mail newspaper a year prior during the general election in 1924.[139]
After Reilly's death there were various rumours about his survival;[
Fictional portrayals
Soviet cinema
As one of the principal suspects in the Ambassador's Plot and a key figure in the
Reilly: Ace of Spies
In 1983, a
In a review of the programme, Michael Billington of The New York Times noted that "pinning Reilly down in 12 hours of television is difficult precisely because he was such an enigma: an alleged radical, yet one who helped to bring down Britain's first Labour government in 1924 by means of a forged letter, supposedly from the Bolshevik leader Grigory Zinoviev, instructing the British Communists to form cells in the armed forces; a Lothario and two-time bigamist who was yet never betrayed by any of the women he was involved with; an avid collector of Napoleona who wanted to be the power behind the throne rather than to rule himself."[15]
James Bond
In Ian Fleming, The Man Behind James Bond by Andrew Lycett, Reilly is listed as an inspiration for James Bond.[16] Reilly's friend, former diplomat and journalist Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, was a close acquaintance of Ian Fleming for many years and recounted to Fleming many of Reilly's espionage adventures.[158] Lockhart had worked with Reilly in Russia in 1918, where they became embroiled in an SIS-backed plot to overthrow Lenin's Bolshevik government.[73]
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.[158] When queried on whether Reilly's colourful life had directly inspired Bond, Ian Fleming replied: "James Bond is just a piece of nonsense I dreamed up. He's not a Sidney Reilly, you know."[15]
The Gadfly
In 1895, Reilly encountered author Ethel Lilian Voynich, née Boole.[28] Boole was a well-known figure in the late Victorian literary scene and later married to Polish revolutionary Wilfrid Voynich. She and Reilly had a sexual liaison in Italy together.[28] During their affair, Reilly supposedly "bared his soul" to Ethel and revealed to her the peculiar story of his revolutionary past in the Russian Empire. After their affair had concluded, Voynich published in 1897 The Gadfly, a critically acclaimed historical novel set in Italy under Austrian rule in the 1840s, whose central character is allegedly based on Reilly's early life.[36] Alternatively, Reilly modelled himself on the revolutionary hero of Voynich's novel, although historian Mark Mazower observed "separating fact from fantasy in the case of Reilly is difficult".[159] For years, the existence of this purported relationship was doubted by sceptical historians until confirmed by new evidence in 2016.[28] Archived communication between Anne Fremantle—who attempted a biography of Ethel Voynich—and a relative of Ethel's on the Hinton side demonstrates that a liaison did occur.[28] The theme music for the 1983 television mini-series is based on the “Romance” movement of The Gadfly Suite (Op. 97a), Levon Atovmian’s arrangement of Dmitri Shostakovich's music for the 1955 Soviet film adaptation of the novel.[160]
See also
References
Notes
- ^ OGPU posited 1874.[20]
- ^ Switching one's political allegiances from anti-Tsarist revolutionary activist to pro-Tsarist police informant as a result of Okhrana blackmail was quite frequent in the final decade of the Russian Empire.[29] For examples of Okhrana informants similar to Reilly and Alexander Grammatikov, see R. C. Elwood, Russian Social Democracy in the Underground: A Study of the RSDRP in the Ukraine, 1907–1914 (Assen, 1974), pp. 51–58.
- ^ a b Winfried Lüdecke's 1929 mini-biography of Reilly was criticized as highly erroneous by Pepita Bobadilla, Reilly's last wife. Bobadilla wrote in 1931: "The section devoted to [Reilly] in Winfried Ludecke's standard work Behind the Scenes of Espionage abounds in inaccuracies." See Bobadilla's foreword to Adventures of a British Master Spy.[22]
- Secret Intelligence Service (SIS).[11]
- Mikhail Bonch-Bruyevich. However, General Bonch-Bruyevich's memoirs state that—while his old acquaintance Reilly had spoken with him in Petrograd during Spring 1918—Reilly "never came to see me in Moscow".[86] Edward Van Der Rhoer posits that Reilly instead contacted Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich, Vladimir Lenin's friend and secretary of the Council of People's Commissars.[84]
- ^ a b The persistent myth that Reilly was a Soviet agent originates in speculative remarks made at Oslo on 30 September 1918 by Dewitt C. Poole, the former U.S. Consul-General in Russia.[12] Both R. H. Bruce Lockhart and George Hill later rejected Poole's remarks as risible. Their confidence in Reilly's anti-Bolshevism was confirmed in 1992 following access to OGPU interrogation reports preceding Reilly's execution.[156]
- ^ Fanya Kaplan in the 30 August 1918 assassination attempt on Vladimir Lenin. See UPI press release in the Bibliography section.[117]
- ^ In 1938, Reilly's resolute prosecutor Nikolai Krylenko was ultimately arrested himself during Joseph Stalin's Great Purge.[129] Following interrogation and torture by the NKVD, Krylenko confessed to extensive involvement in anti-Soviet agitation. After a twenty-minute trial, Krylenko was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Soviet Supreme Court and executed immediately afterwards.[129] In Memoirs of a British Agent (1932), R. H. Bruce Lockhart described Krylenko as "an epileptic degenerate ... and the most repulsive type I came across in all my connections with the Bolsheviks".[130]
- George Alexander Hill, 4th Bn; Manch. R.; attend. R.A.F., 2nd Lt. Sidney George Reilly, R.A.F." See "No. 31176". The London Gazette (1st supplement). 11 February 1919. p. 2238. This citation misled biographers such as Richard Deacon to conclude that Reilly's medal was bestowed for military feats against the Imperial German Army during World War I.[72]
Citations
- ^ a b c Deacon 1987, pp. 133–136.
- ^ a b c Deacon 1987, p. 77.
- ^ a b c Deacon 1972, pp. 144, 175.
- ^ a b c McNeal 2002, p. 137.
- ^ a b c Spence 2002, pp. 57–59.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Williamson 1926.
- ^ a b c Ludecke 1929, p. 107.
- ^ a b Hill 1932, p. 201.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n New York Times 1933.
- ^ a b c d e Thomson 2011.
- ^ a b c d e SIS Website 2007.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Lockhart 1932, pp. 277, 322–323.
- ^ Lockhart 1932.
- ^ Spence 2002, Chapter 8: The Russian Question.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Billington 1984.
- ^ a b Lycett 1996, pp. 118, 132.
- ^ a b c d e f Andrew 1986, p. 83.
- ^ a b c d Deacon 1987, p. 134.
- ^ a b Ludecke 1929, p. 105.
- ^ a b c d Spence 2002, p. 2.
- ^ a b c Cook 2002, pp. 24, 292.
- ^ a b c d e f Bobadilla & Reilly 1931, Foreword.
- ^ a b c d e f Lockhart 1932, p. 322.
- ^ Segodnya 2007.
- ^ a b Lockhart 1986
- ^ a b c Cook 2004, p. 28.
- ^ a b c d e Ainsworth 1998, p. 1447.
- ^ a b c d e f Kennedy 2016, pp. 274–276.
- ^ a b c d e Elwood 1986, p. 310.
- ^ a b c Lockhart 1967, pp. 25–26.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 12.
- ^ a b c d Cook 2004, pp. 32–33.
- ^ a b c Cook 2004, p. 56.
- ^ a b Lockhart 1967, p. 27.
- ^ a b Kennedy 2016, pp. 274–76.
- ^ a b c Ramm 2017.
- ^ a b Cook 2004, p. 39.
- ^ a b Cook 2004, p. 44.
- ^ a b Cook 2004, p. 34.
- ^ a b Andrew 2009, p. 81.
- ^ Spence 2002, pp. 28–39.
- ^ Lockhart 1967, pp. 29–30.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 24.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 30.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 37.
- ^ Cook 2004, pp. 17–19.
- ^ a b Cook 2004, pp. 15–18.
- ^ a b Spence 1995, p. 92.
- ^ Nish 2014.
- ^ Cook 2004, pp. 44–50.
- ^ a b c d Castravelli 2006, p. 44.
- ^ a b c d e f Ludecke 1929, p. 106.
- ^ Spence 2002, pp. 40–55.
- ^ Cook 2004, pp. 59–60.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 61.
- ^ Cook 2002, p. 6.
- ^ a b c d Spence 2002, pp. 56–59.
- ^ a b Andrew 2009, p. 6.
- ^ a b Yergin 1991, p. 140.
- ^ a b Lockhart 1967, pp. 41–42.
- ^ a b c Cook 2004, p. 78.
- ^ a b Cook 2004, pp. 64–68.
- ^ a b c d Lockhart 1967, p. 47.
- ^ a b Spence 2002, p. 92.
- ^ a b c Lockhart 1967, pp. 36–38.
- ^ Lockhart 1967, p. 36.
- ^ Cook 2004, pp. 276–277.
- ^ Van Der Rhoer 1981, pp. 5–6.
- ^ Spence 2002, pp. 25–26.
- ^ Cook 2004, p. 104.
- ^ Lockhart 1967, p. 59.
- ^ a b c Deacon 1987, p. 135.
- ^ a b c Andrew 1986, p. 214.
- ^ a b c d e Long 1995, p. 1228.
- ^ Spence 2002, Chapter 6: War on the Manhattan Front.
- ^ Andrew 1986.
- ^ a b c d e Hicks 1920.
- ^ a b Spence 2002, pp. 150–151.
- ^ a b Spence 2002, pp. 172–173, 185–186.
- ^ "No. 30497". The London Gazette (Supplement). 25 January 1918. p. 1363.
- ^ a b c d McNeal 2002, p. 81.
- ^ Bonch-Bruyevich 1966, p. 303.
- ^ a b Spence 2002, p. 195.
- ^ a b Van Der Rhoer 1981, p. 2.
- ^ a b Elwood 1986, p. 311.
- ^ Bonch-Bruyevich 1966, p. 265.
- ^ Milton 2014, p. 112.
- ^ Van Der Rhoer 1981, pp. 26–28.
- ^ Elwood 1986, pp. 310–311.
- ^ McNeal 2018.
- ^ a b Spence 2002, pp. 187–191.
- ^ McNeal 2002, p. 121.
- ^ Hill 1932, pp. 241–242.
- ^ a b c d e f Long 1995, p. 1225.
- ^ a b Long 1995, p. 1226.
- ^ Debo 1971.
- ^ a b c d Long 1995, p. 1227.
- ^ Hill 1932, pp. 237–238.
- ^ McNeal 2002, pp. 105–106.
- ^ a b McNeal 2002, p. 234.
- ^ a b Cook 2004, pp. 162–164.
- ^ a b Long 1995, p. 1230.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Ferguson 2010, pp. 1–5, Prologue.
- ^ Hill 1932, p. 238.
- ^ a b c d e Cook 2004, pp. 166–169.
- ^ a b Long 1995, p. 1229.
- ^ a b c Long 1995, p. 1231.
- ^ Ainsworth 1998, p. 1448.
- ^ Kitchen: "Hill, George Alexander (1892–1968). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography."
- ^ a b Hill 1932, p. 239.
- ^ a b c d e Lockhart 1932, pp. 317–318.
- ^ a b c d Brooklyn Eagle 1918.
- ^ a b c Washington Post 1918.
- ^ a b Brooke 2006, p. 74.
- ^ a b c Donaldson & Donaldson 1980, p. 221.
- ^ Volkogonov 1994, pp. 222, 231.
- ^ Gransden 1993.
- ^ a b Brooke 2006, p. 75.
- ^ a b c d New York Times 1918, pp. 1, 6.
- ^ Britnieva 1934, pp. 77–86.
- ^ a b Lockhart 1932, p. 320.
- ^ Lockhart 1932, p. 330.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 209.
- ^ Hill 1932, pp. 242–244.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 234.
- ^ a b c d e Hill 1932, pp. 244–245.
- ^ a b Spence 2002, p. 240.
- ^ a b c d e Service 2012, pp. 164–165.
- ^ a b c Feofanov & Barry 1995, pp. 3, 5, 10–12.
- ^ Lockhart 1932, p. 257.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 236.
- ^ Spence 2002, p. 453.
- ^ Ainsworth 1998, p. 1454.
- ^ Spence 2002, pp. 247–251.
- ^ a b c Ainsworth 1998, pp. 1447–1470.
- ^ a b Lockhart 1967, p. 111.
- ^ a b New York Times 1925.
- ^ Bobadilla & Reilly 1931, p. 110.
- ^ a b c d e f Kettle 1986, p. 121.
- ^ Madeira 2014, p. 124.
- ^ a b Corry 1984.
- ^ Cook 2004, p. 188.
- ^ "No. 31176". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 February 1919. p. 2238.
- ^ Andrew 1986, pp. 433, 448.
- ^ a b c Elwood 1986, p. 312.
- ^ Deacon 1987, p. 136.
- ^ Grant 1986, pp. 51–77.
- ^ Cook 2004, p. 238.
- ^ Ristolainen 2009.
- ^ Kotakallio 2016, p. 142.
- ^ a b Solzhenitsyn 1974, pp. 127, 631.
- ^ Spence 2002, pp. 455–456.
- ^ Cook 2004, p. 250.
- ^ Cook 2004, pp. 258–259.
- ^ Van Der Rhoer 1981, pp. 186–235.
- ^ Ainsworth 1998, p. 1466.
- ^ "Reilly, Ace of Spies". Box Cover, A & E Home Video Edition (2005). Archived from the original on 3 November 2022. Retrieved 2 November 2022.
- ^ a b Cook 2004, p. 12.
- ^ Mazower 2018, pp. 31–33.
- ^ Doughty, David. "Liner Notes". Shostakovich: Jazz & Ballet Suites, Film Music (Brilliant Classics, 2006).
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