Adventures of a British Master Spy

by Sidney Reilly

  the Courier Service; take charge of coding; continue to use my own channels of information; run a small destruction gang; continue to keep in touch with the Air Force; and work in with 2nd Lt S. Riley (RAF), who was receiving very excellent information from all possible sources. I considered that Lt Riley knew the situation better than any other British officer in Russia, and as he also had the more delicate threads in his hand, I therefore agreed to co-operate with him, and leave the political control and our policy in his hands.

  I had some misgivings about staying on after the Missions left, as I had no instructions from General Poole to do so. However, the obvious necessity for someone to do this coupled with the information I received from Lt Boyce MI1c, that he had applied to General Poole through Mr Lindley (our Charge d’Affaires) for my services, determined me to remain.

  1ST, 2ND AND 3RD AUGUST

  Conferences with Lts Boyce, Webster and Riley and attending to details for remaining behind. I arranged to keep some of my people and to send the rest of the Mission home with Mr Lockhart’s Mission.

  4TH AUGUST

  We had our 1st conferences for arranging affairs and Lt Riley RAF and myself gave Lt Boyce MI1c our plans, the proposed work of organisations and our estimate, approximately, of the amount of money we should require to carry on. Our proposals were accepted and authorised by Lt Boyce MI1c.

  The following were my centres:—

  1) House on Pjatnitzkaia where I lived, stored money, kept papers and documents, coded, directed operations, and where I had my go-between and secretary.

  2) Flat on Degtjaranija where the chief courier received all messages for dispatch, interviewed his couriers and housed them when necessary.

  3) Rooms on the Karatni Rjad for recruiting and meetings.

  4) Rooms on the Bolshaia Dimitrovka, for meetings and destruction organisation.

  5) Flat at Yamskos Polys, for Station Control and passes, etc.

  6) Rooms on Bolshaia Poljanka for agents and money store.

  7) Flat on Manonovskai, for agents and money store.

  8) House 16 versts [1 verst: just over 1km]from Moscow, for indirect couriers and odds and ends (Kuskovo).

  9) House 60 versts from Moscow as retreat and refuge (Kudkovo).

  AUGUST 5TH

  We had been informed some weeks past, from very reliable sources, that the British Mission and official representatives would be asked to leave, and probably even be arrested before leaving.

  The situation for some days had been very critical and the Allies were not received by any of the Soviet officials and our agents informed us that the Soviet was divided into two very strong parties:—

  1) The arrest of all British and French officers, pending their enforced departure from the country.

  2) Our public execution as reprisals for the supposed shooting of some Soviet Commissars at Kem. This by some of the Extremists including Radek.

  Therefore I was not surprised when, early on the morning of the 5th, Captain Alfred Hill of Mr Lockhart’s Mission was arrested. This arrest was followed by the general arrests of French and British officers, and civilians all through the town. I immediately left my flat and went to Lt Riley’s flat. He knew nothing about the events in the town, but immediately got ready to leave his flat, packed up a few remaining things he had, destroyed his papers and a report he was writing, in my presence, and with me, after sending a warning to the American Consulate, left his flat for our secret quarters.

  It had been previously arranged that our go-betweens would be women, and each of us had a member on our staff who had been selected for this work. I sent for my assistant, who had not yet been arrested, and gave him his final instructions about the departure to England, instructing him to pay off all the people who had been working for us, to sell what was possible of our stores, destroy all papers and records and put himself under the orders of Mr Lockhart, whom we supposed would be leaving very shortly for England.

  On arrival at our new quarters S.T. and I went through our organisations, arranged passports, and then sent H1 to Lt Webster asking him to send us all the money stored by MI1c, as we considered it no longer safe with them. He returned with the news that the money would be sent to us, and one of Riley’s girls came with the news that Riley’s old flat had been raided, with the object of arresting him ‘as an allied official’.

  Later in the day we heard that Mr Lockhart with the members of His Mission and the Consulate together with Lts Boyce and Webster, had been arrested.

  1ST WEEK IN AUGUST

  Mr Lockhart, Consuls and Lt Boyce were all set free, and the latter informed us that the money had been safely hidden in the American Consulate previous to their arrest.

  At this time we had great difficulty with our documents, which were not in order and hampered our movements. These papers were legalised early in the second week of August, and another great difficulty was to find a suitable cover to work under. This was no easy task as the Soviet was busy preparing to exclude all non-government and manual workers from the City.

  Lt Riley got a job in a technical department while I received papers as a film actor and had an interest in a curio and fancy goods store.

  Our go-betweens had commenced their service and things seemed to be running very smoothly. Meetings took place as a rule in the public gardens. Lt Webster was liberated on the 7th August.

  AVIATION

  As soon as Allied troops had landed at Archangel great unrest commenced among the Air Forces and desertion to our and Tcheko-Slovak Lines was contemplated by many. This had to be stopped as punishments were being visited on the deserters’ squadron commander and members of his squadron who had remained behind; the unit was put under very strong supervision, and the petrol supply as a rule confiscated. The only form of desertion of pilots with machines justifiable at that time would have been the desertion of whole squadrons. To this end we stopped all individual desertions and worked for simultaneous squadrons’ flights.

  2ND WEEK IN AUGUST

  Our documents were put in order. Lt Riley’s naval connections reported and much information was obtained in regard to the morale, movements and plans of the naval circle. Sabotage and destruction plans in the event of Germany occupying Kronstadt and Petrograd were discussed, and the German activities on the Finnish Coast examined.

  A courier arrived from my destruction gang at Saratov with news of their plan; pro tem all destruction of naptha and oils was ordered to be stopped, but I suggested sabotage and systematic propaganda against the proposed movement of the Saratov division to the northern front, and if necessary, the destruction of the line over which they would have to be transported.

  (Note. This division never went north.)

  In the middle of the week, an order published by the Bolsheviks ordered all former officers, whether employed in any government branch, private business, or those out of work to report for examination and to receive new documents from the Soviet authorities. About 8,000 of the officers stationed in Moscow complied with this order, which broke up any hope of the White Guard organisation being effectively used against the Bolsheviks, as most of the officers examined were promptly arrested, put into barracks outside the town and disarmed. A similar movement had taken place in Petrograd, with the result that a great number of officers found themselves in Kronstadt and the White organisations were broken up by the Bolsheviks with equal success. In Moscow, the scattered remnants of these organisations came to me requesting that their men might be sent to Archangel, but owing to the shortage of funds, and the small likelihood of any real attempt being made by these officers to get through to the North, I informed them that it was impossible to help them.

  As a set off, however, of the white Guards’ fiasco at Moscow, Kazan fell to the white Guards, and the Bolsheviks’ position on the fronts was very critical, especially as the Allies seemed to be pressing from the North, and the mysterious disappearance of Trotsky, Commissar of war, caused much unrest in official circles. Many of the
Commissars of the various departments were procuring passports and money, and making general personal arrangements for safe departure.

  Despite this victory we were constantly receiving more or less disquieting news as to the state of the Tcheko-Slovak and white Armies. Lack of order, supplies, ammunition, material were constantly being reported, and internal strife was rumoured, and we felt that some desperate effort had to be made if this was to be rectified.

  It was during this week that Mr Lockhart sent for Lt Riley for a special interview. On his return from this visit he informed me that the Letts could probably be won over to our side, as a section of them considered that the time had come when it would be to their interest to come under our protection. At this interview Lt Riley had been introduced to Colonel Bersin, the leader of the movement, and it had been arranged that the proposition should be handled by Lt Riley.

  COURIER SERVICE

  We had had no messenger return from Archangel since the arrival of No. 3 without any reply (he having left the day before the Allied landing). News from other sources was disquieting, conditions were awkward, and one realised how great the chances were against a man getting through the lines, who did not know the conditions.

  Until the middle of August the courier routes set out on page 24 were being used.

  Each courier that set out received a larger advance to increase the chances of getting through, and this naturally led to some small leakages. Had the service been satisfactory, we should have continued the original plan, but as results were so poor, I decided to discontinue the direct messenger service and attempt to organise a large chain service, which though requiring a very much larger personnel and costing considerably more to maintain, would not only make the likelihood of the delivery of messages more sure, but would also fulfil the twofold object of messenger service and scout organisation for supplying information as to local conditions and all the minute details to the commanders of the allied troops operating from North to South.

  The new scheme was to provide a centre in Moscow. From Moscow there would be a relay of messengers to the three following points:

  1) Moscow to Tschudowo (about 100 versts south of Petrograd)

  2) Moscow to Vologda (not in town but district)

  3) Moscow to Viatka – three men.

  From these points the messages would be taken by the Tzchudowo − Vologda − Viatka groups, who consisted of five men and a group commander at each station.

  The group commander’s duties here would be to organise his men, select suitable places for living in, procure documents and passports, control the funds for carrying on the work, and meet all local needs and conditions as they arose. The commander and his group would, if necessary, work under the Bolsheviks, and in any case live and dress in keeping with the local inhabitants.

  Messages would be taken by these groups to the next set of stations consisting of

  1) Petrozavodsk

  2) A Station north of Vologda

  3) A place in Kotlass.

  At these stations the organisations consisted of a group commander and eight men.

  The duty of these groups would be to receive the messages from the southern stations and pass them on through into our lines. The group commanders here, in addition to fulfilling the work done at the last stations, would be provided with funds to enable them to get into touch with all local authorities. They also had to find out the best roads, know of all the troops, take stock of the disposition of the Soviet troops, guns, food stores, dumps, and morale of the army, and send these reports verbally to the Allied advanced detachments and scouts, also carry out, if desired, reconnaissance work required by these advance units. If necessary they were to occupy themselves with gentle sabotage. They should also know all those who were pro- or anti-Ally reliable and unreliable, for our use during subsequent occupation of villages by us.

  It was extremely difficult to find suitable men to volunteer for this work, but by the 22 August, an extremely fine batch of men were got together under experienced and very keen leaders. All these men had suffered and lost everything they possessed owing to the Bolsheviks. They proved themselves from the very start, and had we continued the work, it would have been entirely satisfactory. The parties left Moscow on the 22nd August and the whole chain was expected to be in operation by the first days of September.

  On the departure of these groups we immediately set about procuring a further 20 men to replace the casualties that were bound to occur (Note. Nine of the original number were executed by ‘Extraordinary Commissions’ in Vologda District).

  LETTISH AFFAIRS

  Mr Lockhart had arranged that Lt Riley should take charge of all questions dealing with the Letts, and from the first the Allies desired to leave the policy to him. After the first meeting, Lt Riley put me ‘au courant’ with all that had taken place and arranged that I should be fully posted in all matters so that should Lt Riley for any cause be prevented from bringing the work to a finish I should at once be able to pick up the threads and carry on.

  To make the following quite clear, it should be borne in mind that Lt Riley conducted all the negotiations, and that at no time did I see the commander or his staff, but at the conclusion of each meeting Lt Riley fully explained to me all that had been done.

  SITUATION OF LETTS

  It should be remembered that the Letts were a people away from their own country, and the civil population of them were refugees in Russia, with all their interests in the hands of the enemy − that the Germans − whom they had always hated.

  The Lettish battalion had retreated into Russia and on the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty were a united force without an occupation. They were a people who, by their thought, religion and upbringing, were absolutely strange and foreign to the Russians, and yet had absolutely nothing to lose in serving the Soviet, but rather everything to gain, as it was their temporary means of existence.

  The personnel of these regiments was composed of splendid and well tried fighters, and who in their way were well disciplined.

  The Soviet government, relying upon what one might term the insularity of the Letts, decided to use them as their main forces, and by giving them special facilities (good food and pay), kept them in their services. From June 1918 on, the Letts were the cornerstone and foundation of the Soviet government. They guarded the Kremlin, gold stock and the munitions. At the head of the ‘Extraordinary Commissions’ the prisons, the banks and the railroads were Letts. The nucleus of strength on the fronts consisted of Letts, and wherever fighting was to be done the Letts were sent. Russian troops could only be relied upon to act if backed up and coerced by the Letts.

  It was realised that if the Letts could be drawn away from the Soviet, the government would have to go. At the end of July the main weak spot was in the civil Lettish population, who were absolutely opposed to the government. As a people they had the principle of co-operation developed to a remarkable extent and most of them had landed property interests in Latvia, and the crushing of all financial and social stability made them fear and hate the Soviet.

  By August the Lettish troops felt themselves to be pure executioners; they did not like the Allies coming in from the North, nor did they see what good they could hope for from the future, and the discontent of their civil population had commenced a very great impression on them. It was therefore in keeping with the time that leaders among them should have made an effort to stop the headlong flight they had launched themselves into, and approach the allied representative for aid and protection.

  At the first meeting Colonel Bersin made a very favourable impression on Mr Lockhart, M. Grenard, the French Consul General, and Lt Riley. Certain sums of money for propaganda and work were promised, and it was arranged that, if on the departure of the Diplomatic Corps all the money had not been handed over, drafts would be left with Lt Riley to enable us to carry out the scheme.

  The scheme which the Allied Diplomatic representatives worked for was: a definite relief o
n our Northern and Tcheko-Slovak fronts, which was to be brought about by certain Lettish units turning over to our side and thereby weakening the main force against our ‘troops’.

  The Allies, the Tcheko-Slovak and White Guard troops were straining their utmost to join up with each other and to form a united front. The staged Yaroslavl affair had worn itself into a disastrous failure; the confidence of the White Guard organisation was shaken in the Allies and it was impossible to rely on any mob of theirs for support of the Allied troops; especially was it the case after the arrest of the Moscow Petrograd officers by the Bolsheviks, as already mentioned.

  The only sound scheme left was to back the Letts. This had been conceded as sound by most people who knew the conditions in Russia, but a few have had doubts as to the rights of staging a revolution internally in Moscow and Petrograd.

  The proposed turning of the Lettish troops to our cause on the fronts could not be achieved without very seriously affecting the Moscow and Petrograd centres. The simultaneous change on the fronts and at Moscow and Petrograd would have destroyed the Soviet government, and automatically the White Guards would have come into power, and the ammunition, arms and supplies would have been at the disposal of this new force.

  Destruction gangs organised by us for a time would have prevented any possible attempt at interference from the Germans until the Allied forces had linked up, and a national White Guard Army formed.

  Supplies from the North, corn from the East and produce from the Volga, with a White Guard force, and there would have been no fear of any trouble from the people. This was the possibility of success. In the event of failure and our being found in any plot, Lt Riley and myself should have simply been private individuals and responsible to no one. As we hourly expected the departure of the Allied representatives, the whole brunt would have been borne by us.