On May 9, 1913, a routine inspection by the Austrian Counter Intelligence Service uncovered an envelope stuffed with thousands of worn crown notes—worth nearly €35,000 today—alongside a letter addressed to a name unknown to both intelligence officers and police: Nikon Nitsatas. The address on the letter was linked to known espionage activity, and the discovery set off an investigation that would reach the highest levels of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. At the time, the Hapsburg monarchy was already vulnerable, with European powers jostling for position on the brink of war. France, Italy, and especially Russia were eager for information on Austria’s military plans, and soon much of those plans appeared to be falling into enemy hands.
The man responsible for Austria’s anti-espionage efforts was Alfred Redl, a Lemberg-born officer who had been placed in charge of the counter intelligence service in 1907. Redl modernized the field, introducing a fingerprint database and using cameras and recording devices to catch foreign spies. Redl had risen quickly through the ranks, becoming a cadet as a teenager and later attending the prestigious war school in Vienna. In 1900, at age 36, he was assigned to the Russian section of the Hapsburg Intelligence Bureau.
Little is known about his time in Russia, but it is believed the Russians eventually learned that Redl was homosexual—a fact that, if made public, could have destroyed his career. Despite that vulnerability, Redl continued to excel. He rose to lead the counter intelligence branch and in 1912 was promoted to chief of staff of the Eighth Army Corps in Prague. Taking his place as head of anti-espionage was Major Maximilian Ronge, who had trained under Redl and hoped to continue his mentor’s work.
On May 9, 1913, Ronge’s team discovered the envelope with the cash meant for Nitsatas. The unit decided to re-post the letter to the same Vienna post office, then stationed detectives around the clock to seize whoever came to claim it. Two weeks passed before a man in a gray suit picked up the envelope. Although three detectives were on duty and a bell had been placed on the counter to alert officers, the man evaded capture and disappeared into a taxi.
The detectives were left stunned at the main post office with no trail to follow. Then the same taxi unexpectedly returned. The detectives demanded to be driven to the address where the previous passenger had been dropped off. Inside the cab, they found a penknife sheath on the back seat.
When they arrived at the Hotel Klomser, they asked management to identify the guest who had lost the sheath. When a man appeared to claim it, the detectives were shocked to find their former commander, Alfred Redl, standing before them. After a brief interrogation by military officers, Redl confessed to treason. The celebrated head of Austro-Hungarian counter intelligence admitted to leaking Hapsburg military secrets to the French, Italians, and most significantly the Russians for more than a decade.
He had passed letters, codes, mobilization plans, and reports on the conditions of Austrian roads for eleven years. Redl’s motivations remain unclear. Some suggest he was driven by the money, while others believe the Russians used knowledge of his sexuality to blackmail him. Either way, the financial rewards were substantial.
Redl lived a luxury lifestyle far beyond what his officer’s salary would have allowed—he owned expensive cars, bought several apartments in the empire’s finest cities, and kept multiple lovers. The full extent of his betrayal has never been established. As a high-ranking intelligence officer, he would have had access to a vast amount of information beyond his immediate responsibilities. It remains contested whether any of the information he sold directly affected the outcome of the First World War, but he undeniably supplied Russia with details of Austria-Hungary’s planned invasion of Serbia—information that was then passed to Serbia, which prepared accordingly.
During his time as a spy, Redl betrayed fellow officers and Russian agents, earning the equivalent of roughly €3 million in the process. The day after his confession, military officers agreed to leave Redl alone with a loaded gun. Facing the impossible situation brought on by a life spent in the Austro-Hungarian army, he took his own life on the morning of May 25, 1913.
The Redl affair became one of the most damaging spy scandals in the empire’s history, shaking the Hapsburg monarchy just months before the outbreak of the First World War.