Read Online Ace of Spies by Andrew Cook - Free Book Online

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.
    Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, who raised the Russian tricolour over Port Arthur in 1898, recalled Ginsburg as a ‘benefactor on whom the entire Pacific navy dpended… everything – from a pin to an anchor, and from rivets to a smoke stack – we got everything from Ginsburg’. 4 It was here, at the new base of the Russian Pacific fleet, that M. Ginsburg & Co. set up its new head office on Port Arthur’s main thoroughfare. The import-export company now had branches in Nagasaki, Yokohama, Chemulpo, Odessa and Singapore, and an annual turnover of over 1 million roubles.
    With his flair for languages and business, Reilly was seen as a distinct asset when he joined the staff of Ginsburg & Co., where he worked initially under G.M. Gandelman, Ginsburg’s office manager. 5 In addition to ‘direct’ trading, the company also acted as agents for other enterprises such as the East-Asiatic Company, a steamship line with branches in Odessa, St Petersburgand Copenhagen. Reilly was charged by Ginsburg to deal directly with all the line’s business and in this connection Reilly attended a major trade conference on behalf of the company in February 1902. 6 Reilly’s responsibilities as representative for both companies thus explains why East-Asiatic’s business address in Port Arthur is the same as that of Ginsburg & Co. 7 Also trading from the same address was ‘Grunberg & Reilly’, which along with the American firm Clarkson & Company was the main importer of American lumber. 8 Reilly’s business partner in the lumber business, V. Grunburg, was, according to East-Asiatic records, also a representative of the naval steamship company and the Chinese East railway. 9
    The approaching war with Japan was no secret for Moisei Ginsburg, who had a web of agents in Japan and China picking up news and speculation from some of the most informed sources. After the war, Ginsburg was to claim that he had warned the Russian navy of Japanese intentions, but had been overlooked or ignored. 10 It is equally possible that this claim may have been made to deflect criticism that he had been profiteering during the war. He further countered later criticism by claiming, with some justification, that his foresight had enabled the Russian garrison to hold out for two or three months longer than they would otherwise have been able to do.
    Thoroughly convinced that war with Japan was inevitable, Ginsburg and Reilly had been purchasing enormous amounts of food, raw materials, medication and coal. On 10 July 1903, for example, the Russian War Ministry in St Petersburg wrote to the Russian-Asiatic shipping company in Port Arthur, asking them to make enquiries about provisions sent to Grunberg and Reilly, intended for delivery to the 4th East-Siberian Rifle Regiment. Needless to say, the regiment was adament that the shipment had never arrived. What happened to this and indeed other missing shipments remains a mystery. There were also reports that Reilly was speculating in ground-lots during this period, another indication that he was well aware