Sidney Reilly

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Sidney Reilly : biography

24 March 1873 or 24 March 1874 – 5 November 1925

World War I activity

One of Reilly’s claims is that he was a secret agent behind German lines, and that he allegedly attended a German High Command conference ; however, see Cook , which effectively debunks this by revealing Reilly’s activities between 1915 and 1918 . According to author Richard Spence in "Trust No One", Reilly lived in New York for at least a year, 1914–15, where he engaged in arranging munitions sales to both the Germans and the Imperial Russian Army. This is confirmed by papers of Norman Thwaites, MI1c Head of Station in New York, wherein has been found evidence that Reilly approached Thwaites seeking a job in 1917–1918. Thwaites was reportedly impressed with Reilly, and wrote a letter of recommendation for him to Mansfield Cumming, head of MI1c. It was also Thwaites who recommended that Reilly first visit Toronto to obtain a military commission, which is why Reilly joined the Royal Canadian Flying Corps.

The fact that (by April 1917) the U.S. was now in the war and (by October) the Russians were out of the war made Reilly’s munitions business far less profitable since his company would then have been prohibited from selling ammunition to the Germans and the Russians were no longer buying.Christopher Andrew, Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1985W.W. Hicks, A Report on British Secret Service Activities in this Country, 1920, National Archives & Record Service, Washington, D.C. Sometime during 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 endeavour to depose the Bolshevik Government and assassinate Vladimir Ilyich Lenin is considered by biographers to be Reilly's most daring scheme.Richard B. Spence, Trust No One: The Secret World Of Sidney Reilly; 2002, Feral House, ISBN 0-922915-79-2. 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. 

In May 1918, Robert Bruce Lockhart (), an agent of the British Secret Intelligence Service, and Reilly repeatedly met with Boris Savinkov, head of the counter-revolutionary Union for the Defence of the Motherland and Freedom (UDMF). Savinkov had been Deputy War Minister in the Provisional Government of Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, and a key opponent of the Bolsheviks. A former Social Revolutionary Party member, Savinkov had formed the UDMF consisting of several thousand Russian fighters. Lockhart and Reilly then contacted anti-Bolshevik groups linked to Savinkov and supported these factions with SIS funds. They also liaised with the intelligence operatives of the French and U.S. consuls in Moscow.

In June, disillusioned members of the Latvian Riflemen 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 Guard of the Bolsheviks and entrusted with the security of the Kremlin, 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 Arkhangelsk, Russia, 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 mission on August 5, disrupting a meeting Reilly had arranged between the anti-Bolshevik Latvians, UDMF officials, and Lockhart.