A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy (61 page)
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Authors: Deborah McDonald,Jeremy Dronfield
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Historical
BOOK: A Very Dangerous Woman: The Lives, Loves and Lies of Russia's Most Seductive Spy
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| 11 | Buchanan, Petrograd , p. 94. |
| 12 | The Baltic station was sometimes known as Tsarskoye Selo station, as that was originally the main destination of trains travelling from it. It was (and still is) the main station for routes to the Baltic states. It is now called Vitebsky station. |
| 13 | An ambassador’s chasseur was a combination of aide, manservant, butler and shield-on-shoulder. The job had a ceremonial element, and William was often required to wear a uniform, carry a sword and don a feathered hat (Buchanan, The Dissolution of an Empire , p. 5; Cross, ‘Corner of a Foreign Field’, p. 348). |
| 14 | Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter , p. 145. Knox had only recently been promoted from colonel to brigadier general ( Burke’s Peerage vol. 3, p. 3271). Captain Francis Cromie, commander of the Royal Navy’s Baltic submarine flotilla, stationed at Reval, was also present at this encounter, having travelled to Petrograd on the same train to begin a week’s leave (Cromie, letter to Adm. Phillimore, Mar. 1917, in Jones, ‘Documents on British Relations’ II, p. 357). Cromie was a friend of Meriel and Moura, but despite writing that he ‘arrived with Miss Buchanan’, he must have been merely on the same train rather than travelling with them, as he is not mentioned in any other sources. |
| 15 | Knox, With the Russian Army , p. 553. |
| 16 | Buchanan, Petrograd , pp. 94–5. Capt. Cromie, who was present at the arrival, wrote that Knox ‘considered the disorders as quite minor affairs’ (letter to Adm. Phillimore, Mar. 1917, in Jones, ‘Documents on British Relations’ II, p. 357). Since Knox considered them no such thing, this confirms that he was talking down the situation so as not to alarm the ladies. |
| 17 | Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter , pp 146–7; Recollections , pp. 267–8. |
| 18 | Buchanan, Recollections , pp. 267–8. |
| 19 | Buchanan, Petrograd , pp. 94–7. |
| 20 | Figes, A People’s Tragedy , pp. 312–13. Znamenskaya Square was renamed Vosstaniya Square (‘Uprising Square’) after the Revolution. |
| 21 | Some foreign observers, including Meriel Buchanan and her father, seem to have misunderstood the calls for a republic headed by a ‘Tsar’; they thought the simple workers had failed to grasp the concept of democracy (e.g. Buchanan, Petrograd , p. 107). |
| 22 | Lockhart, British Agent , pp.178–80. |
| 23 | Abraham, Alexander Kerensky , p. 301. |
| 24 | Prince Alexis Scherbatow, letters to Serge Troubetskoy and Andrew Boyle, via Robert Keyserlingk, 27 & 29 Sep. 1980, CUL Add 9429/2B/55–60. Prince Alexis (1910–2003) was a child at the time of the Revolution, and knew both Kerensky and Moura in later life. |
| 25 | Hill gives an account of Madame B’s work in his memoir ( Go Spy the Land , pp. 87–8). He certainly knew Moura well, and was not the only one who referred to her discreetly as ‘Madame B’. Gen. Knox did the same in his published diary. |
| 26 | Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin and the Russian Revolution’, p. 587. |
| 27 | Garstin, letter, Jul. 1917, reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin and the Russian Revolution’, p. 594. |
| 28 | Buchanan, Petrograd , pp. 125–6. |
| 29 | Quoted in Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter , pp. 170–71. |
| 30 | Abraham, Alexander Kerensky , p. 343. Among those who suffered reprisals in the period that followed were Boris Flekkel (former administrative secretary to Kerensky), who was captured and shot by the Cheka, and Kerensky’s brother Fyodor, shot in Tashkent by the Red Army in 1919. The deputy head of the Cheka said of Flekkel, ‘He admitted that he had been Kerensky’s secretary – that’s enough to be shot for’ (quoted in Abraham, p. 343). |
Chapter 3: Red Winter
| 1 | Denis Garstin, letter, 27 Nov. 1917 (NS), reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin’, p. 595. |
| 2 | Figes , People’s Tragedy , pp. 540–44. |
| 3 | The precise date of this incident is uncertain. Buchanan ( Ambassador’s Daughter , p. 181) implies that it was before Christmas 1917, citing it as the reason Christmas couldn’t be spent at Yendel, whereas Moura’s daughter Tania (Alexander, Estonian Childhood , p. 7) seems to place it in late 1918, during a second outbreak of anarchy after the German withdrawal. However, Tania does state that there were many such incidents at various times; also, she was too young to remember the incidents directly. |
| 4 | Smith, Former People , p. 131. |
| 5 | Garstin, letter, 8 Dec. 1917 (NS), reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin’, p. 596. |
| 6 | Russia, one of Britain’s most important diplomatic missions, was Buchanan’s first ambassadorial posting, which he took up in 1910 (Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter , pp. 87–8). |
| 7 | Garstin, letter, 6 Jan. 1918 (NS), reproduced in Walpole, ‘Denis Garstin’, p. 598. |
| 8 | Sir George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia , pp. 239, 243; Cabinet minute quoted in Kettle, The Allies and the Russian Collapse , p. 181. |
| 9 | Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter , pp. 190–91; Petrograd , p. 249. |
| 10 | Buchanan, Dissolution , pp. 273–4. |
| 11 | Buchanan, Petrograd , p. 249. |
| 12 | Buchanan, Ambassador’s Daughter , p. 191. |
| 13 | Meriel Buchanan ( Ambassador’s Daughter , pp. 194–5; Petrograd , pp. 233–4); Sir George Buchanan ( My Mission to Russia , pp. 249–50). Gen. Knox noted the presence of ‘Madame B—’ and remarked that ‘more [Russians] would have come if they had dared’ ( With the Russian Army , p. 740). |
| 14 | Lockhart ( British Agent , p. 191) refers to her as a ‘Russian Jewess’, but Kenneth Young, editor of his published diaries, identifies her as French and names her (in Lockhart, The Diaries of Sir Robert Bruce Lockhart, vol. 1 , p. 30). |
| 15 | Smith, Former People , pp. 133–7. |
Chapter 4: The British Agent
| 1 | Lockhart, British Agent , p. 220; Diaries vol. 1 , p. 33. |
| 2 | Lockhart, British Agent , p. 3. |
| 3 | Lockhart, British Agent , pp. 25–8. |
| 4 | Lockhart, Diaries vol. 1 , pp. 22–8; Hughes, Inside the Enigma , p. 66. |
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