The consensus of other Reilly writers is that they left England for the Far East between 1900 and 1902. Michael Kettle places their departure ‘about 1900’,88 whereas Robin Bruce Lockhart has Reilly playing a role in Holland in the Boer War, spying on Dutch aid bound for South Africa. When the Boer War ended in 1902, Lockhart states, Reilly was sent to Persia to report on the possibilities of oil exploration in the area, and was eventually sent to Port Arthur in Manchuria around 1903. He also writes that Margaret stayed in England89 while Reilly was away on these missions, taking to drink in his absence. Jay Robert Nash makes similar claims to Lockhart in terms of missions in Holland and Persia, although he asserts that Reilly was at this time in the employ of NID, the Naval Intelligence Department.90
While Margaret’s own recollections refer to proceeding to China in 1901,91 this does not necessarily imply they went directly from England to China. Although she does not give a specific date for the liquidation of the Manor House in Kingsbury, we know that this occurred after August 1898. Her account also claims that following the liquidation Reilly wished to return to Russia due to ‘homesickness’, and that in 1901 they changed their name to Reilly92 and proceeded to China. It therefore follows that they left England in June 1899 for Russia, and thence to China.
The timing of their departure from these shores was opportune to say the least, as they left at the very same time as a top-level Russian investigation was in progress in London. On 17 April, Petr Rachkovsky, chief of the Paris Ochrana, had written to William Melville at Scotland Yard seeking information concerning individuals residing in London who were ‘without any doubt’ involved in a massive rouble-counterfeiting ring operating in London. He concluded by:
…warmly recommending my friend Mr Gredinger, Deputy State Prosecutor in St Petersburg, who is leaving for London tomorrow, with the aim of taking charge of this case. It would be much appreciated if you could help Mr Gredinger out with whatever he might need and do everything in your power to make his job easier. My friend, will refund you… all of the costs which you have incurred in collecting information.93
This was no amateur racket. The counterfeiters had a contact inside the currency-printing firm of Bradbury and Wilkinson, and the contact obtained a plate that was copied by an engraver. The counterfeiters then carried out the printing themselves using their own ink and paper. Rosenblum’s name was not initially connected with the investigation. It emerged when attention turned to how the forged money was being shipped out of the country.
According to Ochrana records, Rosenblum had an interest in the Polysulphin Company, in Keynsham, Somerset.94 The factory produced a host of chemical products including soap, which it exported abroad. This was an ideal vehicle for smuggling money and indeed other commodities. Although the file itself is now incomplete, and therefore inconclusive, Polysulphin must be considered a prime suspect in terms of the counterfeiters’ distribution network.
In order to perpetrate such a scheme, an expert knowledge of printing inks would have been required. As a chemist with some experience in this line, Rosenblum may therefore have played a wider role outside that of mere distribution. Once Rosenblum’s role was uncovered, Melville would have had good grounds to fear that his connection with Scotland Yard might prove a severe embarrassment if discovered by Gredinger and the Ochrana. The safest thing all round would clearly be for Rosenblum’s planned departure to be brought forward post haste with Melville’s assistance. With his new passport and new identity, Rosenblum and his wife were thus able to leave the country, and head for probably the last place the Ochrana would think of looking for them – Russia. It would not be the first, or indeed the last time that he would disappear just as the net was tightening around him.95
THREE
GAMBIT
Leaving London behind, Margaret and Sidney Reilly proceeded to Russia in June 1899 where they remained until the autumn of the following year. During the summer of 1900, Reilly travelled around the oil-rich Caucasus, visiting the ports of Petrovsk and Baku while Margaret remained in St Petersburg. It is noteworthy that during these months, War Office records note that: ‘Mr Stevens (at the British Consulate in Baku) has an agent who travels between Petrovsk, Baku and along the T.C. Railway and reports to Stevens by word of mouth’.1
Whatever the nature of the information being supplied, it would appear that it was of sufficient interest to warrant payment being made to the informant. The scenario certainly fits Reilly’s ‘modus operandi’, although there is no positive proof that the informant was actually Reilly.
In September 1900, the Reillys made their way to Constantinople and took a ship to Port Said in Egypt. Here the SS Rome departed for Colombo, where they again changed ships for the final stage of their journey to Shanghai via Penang, Singapore and Hong Kong. After several months in Shanghai, they proceeded to Manchuria, arriving in Port Arthur during the early months of 1901.2
Life in Port Arthur was not only primitive by comparison to the one they had led in England and Russia, it was also at the very epicentre of a simmering regional conflict of interest between Russia and Japan, which before too long would break out into open hostility. Located at the tip of the Liaotung peninsula, the port held great strategic significance, due to its commanding position on the Gulf of Chihli, which gave access to the Chinese capital of Peking. In 1898 the Chinese had, by way of a lease, conceded the peninsula to the Russians, with the greatest of reluctance and much to the chagrin of the Japanese. The Russians had renamed the Port of Lushun Port Arthur and made it the base for their Pacific fleet. The harbour was, without doubt, the perfect defensive location, shielded by ‘the tiger’s tail’, a natural deep-lying peninsula. This natural fortification was further reinforced by what was reputedly the strongest fortress in China.
To the Japanese, Port Arthur was a token of Russia’s desire for naval supremacy in the region, an aspiration that they, as an emerging naval power themselves, could not countenance. On the economic front, the two powers were equally at loggerheads in that they were both competing for the same unexploited natural resources in Manchuria and Korea. In the same way that Japan saw Russia’s annexation of the Liaotung peninsula as an ominous sign in the military and naval sphere, the continued expansion of Russia’s railway empire into Manchuria raised economic danger signals for the Japanese. While trying to contain Russian expansion by diplomacy, the Japanese were at the same time preparing for the contingency of war.
Reilly entered this cauldron of intrigue determined to make the most of the business opportunities that beckoned. At first sight, his reported activities in Port Arthur seem to have little or no logical connection. Records, for example, indicate his involvement in lumber trading, real-estate speculation and shipping. Closer inspection, however, reveals that all these ventures were effectively linked by the mutual involvement of one Moisei Akimovich Ginsburg.
Ginsburg, born on 5 December 1851 in Radzivilov in the Ukraine, had long-standing associations with the Rosenblum family. His early life was quite typical of any Jew in the Russian Empire. Born into poverty, he started work at the age of eleven by writing out labels at the local customs house. At fifteen he went to the seaport of Odessa from where he proceeded to Germany, England and America. Having saved $90 working in San Francisco, he bought a third-class ticket for a ship heading for China. On the way the ship docked at the Japanese port of Yokohama, where Ginsburg took an immediate liking to Japan and decided to stay there. By 1877 he had set up his own trading company in Yokohama supplying ships sailing in Japanese waters. He soon gained a reputation as ‘the only Russian in Japan who knew perfectly the local conditions’.3 The Russian Pacific fleet, then based at the port of Vladivostok, was only in its early stages of development and its facilities struggled to supply the fleet with even the barest of essentials. Ginsburg therefore stepped in and within a few short years had become indispensable to the Russian navy.