For domestic quarters, Lockhart struck lucky, managing to secure his old apartment, the one he had shared with Jean during his days at the Moscow Consulate. It was on the fifth floor of an apartment block at 19 Khlebnyy pereulok,‡ in the district of Moscow where the violent raids on the Anarchists had taken place in April. It was now more or less safe again. Lockhart and Moura moved in on 3 August, and Hicks moved in with them.12
It was that very weekend, while they were moving in, that the news came to Moscow that the British had landed at Archangel – the news that threw the Bolsheviks into a state of near-panic.
At precisely the same time, Lockhart was busy opening up a new dimension to his business in Russia. Having begun as a friend to the Bolsheviks, he was starting to involve himself in a dangerous plot designed to bring down the Bolshevik regime from within, by infiltrating the ranks of its ‘Praetorian Guard’ – the Latvian rifle regiments.
Lockhart never quite told the truth about his involvement, and it would be decades before Soviet and British archives would yield up the facts that he covered up – about his own activities, and by implication those of Moura too. He never ceased loving her or protecting her, nor she him, in spite of what they did to each other that summer.
That weekend, while his household was settling into its new accommodation and the news of the landing was still on its way from Archangel, Lockhart was visited at his mission office by two men identifying themselves as Latvian officers.13 They gave their names as Smidkhen and Bredis and said that they had been sent from Petrograd by Captain Francis Cromie, who was planning to raise a rebellion among the Latvian regiments by playing upon the discontent that was already building within their ranks.
Everybody knew that the Latvian regiments were the most loyal in the Red Army, the mainstay in the defence against counter-revolution and the only reliable barrier against Allied invasion. But their morale was low and their loyalty becoming doubtful. Like other regiments they had been subjected to purges, many were unhappy about the Bolsheviks’ failure to live up to their socialist promises, and about permitting the Germans to take control of the Baltic provinces, including their homeland of Latvia. In July, believing that Bolshevism had run its course, they negotiated an amnesty with Germany which would allow them to return home. But their repatriation had not come about. There were many disaffected officers, said Smidkhen (the senior of the two, who did most of the talking), who would be amenable to raising a mutiny if given the right encouragement.14 When news of Archangel came through and the Bolsheviks began openly panicking, it looked still more promising.
But how could Lockhart know that these two men had really come from Cromie? He had been out of all contact with Petrograd for some time now, and had no way to check. They could easily be agents provocateurs sent by some element within the Bolshevik government. They had brought a note of introduction, allegedly written by Cromie. It was this, Lockhart would later claim, that convinced him they were genuine. In it Cromie wrote that he expected not to be in Russia much longer – ‘but I hope to bang the dore before I go out’. Poor old Crow was a great naval commander, but he never could spell. No forger would get such a detail right.15
It was true that Smidkhen and Bredis had come from Cromie. He and Sidney Reilly had been dealing with the two men for weeks, plotting how they could use them, sending tentative feelers into the officer corps of the Latvian regiments in the hope of finding sensitive spots, and spreading propaganda about the behaviour of the German occupiers in the Baltic states.16 On 29 July Cromie and Reilly met with Smidkhen in a hotel in Petrograd. Cromie furnished the letter of introduction for Lockhart, and the two Latvians were despatched to Moscow with a brief to facilitate the plot there. The key was to foment an uprising among the Latvian regiments in the garrison at Vologda, the main barrier between the Allied force and Moscow.
The note was genuine. The Latvians really did come from Cromie. And yet, in telling his tale of the misspelt word (which there is reason to believe he invented), Lockhart was covering up his real reason for believing in the two men. Somebody – some unidentified person – vouched for them. There were only two people in Moscow whom Lockhart could trust and who had been in Petrograd recently and close to Cromie. One was Sidney Reilly himself, but Lockhart would have no reason to obscure his involvement. The other was Moura.17 It was entirely likely that he would cover up her connection, especially in view of what it led to.
However the two Latvians were vouched for, Lockhart was still not wholly satisfied, either by the men themselves or by the prospects of stirring up mutiny. He told Smidkhen and Bredis that he would get involved if they managed to find a more senior Latvian officer who was willing to help. When they had done so, they should come back and see him again.
It would be more than a week before he saw them, and by that time the situation in Russia had changed dramatically and the need for a Latvian mutiny had become all the more urgent.
On Monday afternoon, while the Bolsheviks were still panicking over the news from Archangel, Lockhart and Hicks paid one of their occasional visits to the British Consulate. It was housed in the former Volkov-Yusupov Chambers, a miniature palace a few streets away from Moscow city centre, a remarkable place to choose for a diplomatic office – a marvel of bright pink and mint green, with a pink-and-white chequerboard-tiled roof; the interior was like the inside of a gilded musical box, florid with Art Nouveau and a forest of gold leaf.
Here Consul-General Oliver Wardrop and his small staff conducted their formal, ineffectual business in fretful peace while Lockhart and Cromie did the real work of diplomacy, espionage and propaganda. Wardrop was a slender, gentle-eyed fellow with a scholarly manner, who was in a frail state of health. He and Lockhart got on well, having the same view of Allied intervention – like Lockhart, Wardrop had opposed it; he understood the inevitability of revolution in Russia, but he differed from Lockhart in believing that interference would be futile.18 Now both men were caught up in the Bolshevik whirlwind.
Before dawn that morning, the Consulate had been raided by a group of ten armed men from the local Cheka; after forcing their way inside at gunpoint, they had eventually gone away again. An apology was given. But later that morning, Wardrop began to hear of arrests of British subjects around Moscow – businessmen, clergymen, journalists, and a woman from the consular staff. Then, in the afternoon, the Cheka came back in force, and this time they had a warrant. They surrounded the building with armed guards, and marched in, seizing control of every office and every chequer-tiled, gold-laced lounge and bijou stateroom. The officer in charge came into Wardrop’s office, where he was in a meeting with Lockhart and Hicks, and announced that everyone in the building was under arrest.
Lockhart and Wardrop begged to differ. The officer showed them his warrant, but Lockhart countered it with his own pass, signed by Trotsky, which made him and Hicks effectively immune from arrest. The officer turned to Wardrop, who shook his head and declined to recognise the warrant: ‘I shall yield only to force,’ he declared. The Cheka officer hesitated, realising the gravity of manhandling a senior diplomat, and held back. Pressing his advantage, Wardrop mentioned that Commissar Chicherin had promised that consuls would not be subject to arrest in any circumstances.19
Chicherin’s promise did nothing to protect the consular staff. While Lockhart, Hicks and Wardrop were held under guard in Wardrop’s office, the Chekists were going from office to office, sealing cupboards, safes and drawers and arresting the staff. Upstairs, British intelligence clerks were frantically burning their secret papers before being placed in custody. Wardrop had already destroyed his confidential papers. Eventually Lockhart and Hicks were allowed to go, leaving Wardrop under effective house arrest, alone with his guards in his defunct chocolate-box Consulate.
Lockhart and Hicks went straight to their mission headquarters in Bolshaya Lubyanka. It too had been raided, and his staff arrested. Lingner and Tamplin had been taken away and thrown in prison. There had also been raids and arre
sts at the French Consulate and mission office.20 A few days later, the Petrograd Cheka followed suit, and began arresting diplomatic staff and other Allied citizens and imprisoning them without charge or explanation.21
It was perfectly plain what was going on. ‘I do not regard failure to arrest myself and Mr. Lockhart as evidence of intention to treat us better than our staffs,’ Wardrop wrote on the day of the raid, ‘but rather the contrary.’ The fate of the prisoners was to act as hostages. ‘I do not regard Bolshevik detention of our nationals as aimed at deterring us from vigorous action’. Rather it was for the safety of the Bolshevik leaders. ‘They are converting houses in centre of the city into improvised fortresses in the belief that there will be soon a serious rising, in which their Allied prisoners will serve as centres. Finally, if they regard all as lost they will probably hound populace on to massacre these prisoners.’22
Such was the sense of doom hanging over the government that a rumour sprang up that there was a yacht anchored at Petrograd in which Lenin would escape into exile.23
In this atmosphere of oppressive tension, Lockhart and Wardrop did what they could to succour the prisoners. There were nearly two hundred in all, British and French, crammed into a small set of rooms and given no food other than bread.24 The diplomats of neutral nations – chiefly Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands – negotiated with the Bolsheviks for the prisoners’ release. It came gradually. First the women were let go, then, after three days of captivity, the last of the consular staff were freed. They all remained under close guard, and plans were made to evacuate them to Petrograd.
Lockhart was left now with just Hicks and Moura, plus occasional contacts with Sidney Reilly and the prospect of another visit from his two Latvians – assuming they managed to find a more senior officer to support them. It didn’t look promising – a week had gone by and still there was no further sight of them.
All thought of insurrection was driven from Lockhart’s mind by the terrible blow that fell a few days after the release of the prisoners. Accurate intelligence is always outpaced by wild rumour; finally, on the weekend of 10 August the truth came through to Moscow about the size of the force General Poole had landed at Archangel – the army that had been rumoured to be tens of thousands strong. It turned out to be rather smaller. Lockhart heard the news with disbelief, which quickly gave way to disgust and anger. Britain and her allies ‘had committed the unbelievable folly of landing at Archangel with fewer than twelve hundred men’. He called it ‘a blunder comparable with the worst mistakes of the Crimean War’.25 Lockhart, who knew the Russians well, knew how it would be perceived. As Cromie expressed it, and as the atmosphere during the past week proved, ‘a Russian only understands a big stick and a big threat, anything else is mistaken for weakness’.26
That afternoon, Lockhart called on Lev Karakhan at the foreign ministry, and where before there had been an air of despondency and doom, the deputy commissar’s face ‘was wreathed in smiles’.27 He knew, as did Lockhart, that the White Guard and the Czechoslovak Legion had strength, but it was unlikely to suffice in the absence of a strong Allied force.
Having been in two minds about Cromie and Reilly’s plan to suborn the Latvian regiments, Lockhart decided that he must do his best to put it into action. The Allied and anti-Bolshevik causes needed all the help they could get. He had come a long way since the beginnings of his mission. All friendly feeling towards the Bolshevik government had gone, and he had become implacably committed to bringing it down.
A few days later, at his flat, Lockhart received a second visit from the young, sallow-faced Latvian officer, Smidkhen. This time his young comrade was absent; in his place was an older man, ‘tall, powerfully built’ with ‘clear-cut features and hard, steely eyes’. He introduced himself as Lieutenant Colonel E. P. Berzin, commanding officer of the Latvian Special Light Artillery Regiment, one of the ‘Praetorian Guard’ units whose job was to guard the Kremlin. He had talked with Smidkhen and agreed that his fellow officers could be persuaded to act against the Bolshevik government, given the right inducements. Moreover, they certainly had no intention of fighting against Allied forces.28
The next day, Lockhart consulted his remaining Allied counterparts, the American and French Consuls-General, DeWitt C. Poole and Fernand Grenard. (Although they were as much part of the Entente alliance as Britain, the Bolsheviks had reacted much less harshly against them, especially the Americans.) Both men approved the plan, and that same day Grenard and Lockhart met with Colonel Berzin. Also present was Sidney Reilly, who had returned to Moscow from Petrograd, his bogus position in the Cheka still intact. He was now going by the name ‘Constantine’.
Berzin was asked what it would take to subvert the Latvian regiments. His answer was simple: money. Between 3 and 4 million roubles should do the job. Lockhart and Grenard agreed to consider the amount. They also promised, despite lacking their governments’ backing, full self-determination for Latvia in the event of the defeat of Germany and the fall of Bolshevism.29 Berzin’s task would be to prevent Latvian units being used against General Poole’s force; without their contribution, even that pitiably small formation ought to be able to link up with the Czechs and take Vologda. With that aim, Lockhart provided Berzin with signed documents to be used by picked Latvian officers as passports to the British lines, so that Poole could be informed of the plan.
If it occurred to him that with those small slips of paper, bearing his signature, he was potentially putting a lethal weapon into the hands of his enemies, it didn’t deter him.
Reilly suggested an additional scheme – to suborn the Latvian regiments within Moscow and the Kremlin, stage a coup and place Lenin and Trotsky under arrest. Lockhart and Grenard flatly refused to have anything to do with such a dangerous plan. Or so Lockhart later claimed. He would also claim that this was the last time he saw Sidney Reilly, and that his involvement with the Latvian scheme, having set it in motion and handed it over to Reilly to manage, ended here.30 In fact, Reilly went back undercover, bringing his fellow SIS agent George Hill – still in hiding in Moscow – into the plot. They began building up an intelligence-gathering network in and around Moscow and planning to use the Latvians to stage the decapitation coup which Lockhart had supposedly forbidden. Lockhart remained fully in contact with Reilly and Hill and their agents, and was equipped with the secure SIS cipher system in order that they could communicate with him.31
Lockhart was playing an extremely dangerous game. His role in the plot to subvert the Latvians would later, from the viewpoint of history, become almost invisible. But at the time he lacked the luxury of concealment which Reilly and Hill enjoyed. He was starkly visible, dependent on secrecy and on the hope that the remaining threads of his diplomatic status would keep him safe. But if the Bolsheviks discovered what he was involving himself in, it would offer him no protection at all.
While all this was going on, Moura remained in the background. The blanket of secrecy that was being tucked in around everyone involved covered her completely. If she was present in the flat while Lockhart was meeting Reilly, Berzin and Smidkhen, nobody ever recorded it. Neither was it ever noted whether her keen nose for intrigue detected what was going on. Still less was there any intimation of whether she was still connected to the Cheka, and if so, whether any information from within the flat at 19 Khlebnyy pereulok was ever passed to the grim offices at 11 Bolshaya Lubyanka by her pretty hands.
She and Lockhart continued to live their private life of romance in the spaces between political upheavals. There were days of relaxation in the gardens of the defunct British Consulate, where the men, English, French and American, played football.
And there was still nightlife. One evening, in an attempt to relive the memory of Guy Tamplin’s birthday party, Lockhart and Moura, together with Hicks, went out to Petrovsky Park, where the night-restaurants were. Sadly, the Strelna had been closed down. They found the maîtresse, Lockhart’s old and dear friend Maria Nikolaievna, living in a dacha nearby. �
��She wept over us copiously,’ Lockhart would recall, and having sung them some of their favourite gypsy songs in a faint, mournful voice, pleaded with them to stay with her – ‘She saw tragedy ahead of us.’ Lockhart was chilled by her words and her mood, and haunted by the memory of their parting, ‘beneath the firs of Petrovsky Park with the harvest moon casting ghostly shadows around us. We never saw her again.’32
While Lockhart and Moura indulged their passion and looked forward to their life together with their unborn baby, while he and his associates plotted, they were being closely watched.
After the conspirators’ meeting in Lockhart’s flat, the Latvian officers Smidkhen and Colonel Berzin had gone across the centre of Moscow to a certain notorious office in the Bolshaya Lubyanka ulitsa, where Berzin reported in full to deputy chief of the Cheka and fellow Latvian Yakov Peters. The truth was that Colonel Berzin was not a disaffected officer at all; he was an honest and scrupulous one, entirely loyal to the Bolshevik government. It was upon the orders of the Cheka that he had gone with Smidkhen to meet with Lockhart.
Likewise, Smidkhen himself was not a mutineer in waiting but an officer of the Cheka, real name Jan Buikis. Both he and the accomplice with whom he had first approached Lockhart – the man identified as ‘Bredis’, whose real name was Jan Sprogis – had been primed from the beginning by Peters and his boss, Felix Dzerzhinsky.
All three Latvians were what Lockhart had feared they might be – agents provocateurs. Their mission had been in train for months. Smidkhen and Bredis had been briefed to make contact with the British mission in Petrograd, and after two months of careful preparation had succeeded in getting themselves ‘cultivated’ by Captain Cromie, to whom they suggested the idea of subverting the Latvian regiments. Cromie was impressed and believed in them. Putting the plan into action, he sent them on to Lockhart. As soon as they arrived in Moscow, they reported to their chiefs in the Cheka, and continued to do so throughout the conspiracy. When Lockhart asked for a senior officer, the Cheka picked out Colonel Berzin from the Kremlin guard and briefed him to go along with Lockhart’s scheme.33
A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy Page 16
