17. From Ukrainian Exile to British Spy
Whatever path he took to London, Zigmund Rozenblum arrived in the British capital in 1895. He got married three years later, and in 1899, took out a British passport with the name Sidney George Reilly. Over the years, he would take out eleven different passports, all with different names. In 1899, Sidney Reilly was given a permanent position with the British Naval Intelligence Department (NID). In one of his earliest assignments, made in the midst of the Boer War, Reilly was sent to Holland to gather information about arms shipments that were sent to the Boers in South Africa.
The new British spy was cool-headed, creative, brave, a natural at disguises, and had a flair for acting that allowed him to don just about any persona. Reilly used his talents to present himself as a Russian arms dealer, and that got him invited to inspect various Dutch arms factories. He returned to Britain with valuable information that impressed his superiors. Between that and other early successes, Reilly soon earned a reputation as one of the NID’s top agents.