Sidney Reilly – The Ace of Spies

The two legendary “spies” and their impact on World War I and the perception of the twentieth century spy are compared and contrasted. The legends and truth that surround Mata Hari’s persona as the courtesan spy and Reilly’s reputation as the master spy of the twentieth century are examined in detail. This chapter focuses on Mata Hari’s overall career as an artistic dancer and her alleged role as a German and French spy. Mata Hari’s role as an espionage agent is compared to other women spies: the French spy Marthe Richard, the Belgian spy Marthe McKenna (who won both an Iron Cross for Germany, a death sentence from Germany, and the highest accolades from Winston Churchill), and two who were martyred, Edith Cavell and Sarah Aaronson. Other relationships of Mata Hari are examined that include Sidney Reilly, Admiral Canaris, her Russian lover Vadime de Masloff, Baron von Mirbach of German Intelligence, Capt. George Ledoux of French Intelligence, her abusive husband John MacLeod, the mysterious deaths of her son and daughter, and the Japanese Red Army’s Fusako Shigenobu. Various biographers who created her false and unflattering public image are explained and exposed.

Sidney Reilly, the so-called ace of spies, was the Russian born British agent that created such a mystifying persona that no one is really sure what his real motives were as an espionage agent. This chapter investigates Reilly’s reputation as an immoral megalomaniac who used intelligence agencies for various countries to help him amass a huge personal fortune that he used in trying to topple the Bolsheviks. Additionally this chapter details his involvement in the Lockhart Plot, his possible role as a quadruple agent, his life as a model for the twentieth century super spy in film and literature, as well as his mysterious disappearance. Reilly’s relationships and affiliations include the first head of the British Secret Intelligence Service, Sir Mansfield Cummings, financier J.P. Morgan, British agents George Hill, Paul Dukes, Augustus Agar, British occultist Aleister Crowley, Jack Philby, Lenin, Trotsky, the Czar’s secret police Ochrana and the Bolshevik’s Cheka, British writer and agent Somerset Maugham, French journalist and Bolshevik sympathizer Rene Marchand, failed Lenin assassin Fanya Kaplan, British agent Bruce Lockhart, the Bolshevik intelligence network The Trust, anti-Bolshevik leader Savinkov, Japanese intelligence, the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, Stalin, and Mata Hari.

Interest in Mata Hari and Sidney Reilly continue long after their death. Their lives have been the subject of numerous books and film works. Several Hollywood projects concerning Mata Hari's life are being planned in the near future.