Alfred Redl Alfred Redl ( March 14 , 1864 – May 25 , 1913 ) was an Austrian officer who rose to head the counter - intelligence efforts of Austria - Hungary . He was one of the leading figures of pre - World War I espionage . His term in office was marked by innovation , and he used very high technology for the time to ensnare foreign intelligence agents . But he was himself a spy for the Russians . Claims that Redl also worked for secret services of France and Italy have appeared much later but they were neither confirmed nor disproved reliably . Career . Born in Lemberg , Galicia , Austrian Empire ( now Lviv , Ukraine ) , Redl came from a poor family , his father being a railway clerk . An exceptional intelligence enabled him to rise quickly in the officer ranks of the Austrian army , a position usually reserved for the wealthy and privileged . He joined the counter - espionage service and rose to become its chief . During his tenure in office he greatly improved the methods used by the Austrian counter - espionage service . But at the same time he himself was a spy for Russia , Austria ' s enemy , and his exposure was largely due to the improvements he had developed himself . Redl ' s motives for treason are still unclear . He may have been caught in a compromising position by Russian agents , since he was homosexual and being exposed as such would have been fatal to his career prospects . Actually , Russian military intelligence , based in Warsaw at the time , under the command of Colonel Nikolai Batyushin , had discovered Redl ' s homosexuality as early as 1901 , information that was used to blackmail him into revealing classified information . He was paid well for his services , and had a lifestyle far above what his official salary could cover . It is not unusual for people to be blackmailed into spying and then being well - paid for it as a means of ensuring that they continue . It would appear that there was also a strong element of vanity involved , as well as a taste for the dangers . A Russian report of 1907 describes Redl as " more sly and false than intelligent and talented " , a cynic " who enjoys dissipation . " From 1903 to 1913 , Redl was Russia ' s leading spy . Before World War I he gave the Russians Plan III , the entire Austrian invasion plan for Serbia . The Russians then informed the Serbian military command about Plan III . As a result , when the Austrians invaded Serbia , the Serbians were ready for it . Redl not only gave away all of Austria ' s military secrets and plans , but he also supplied very incorrect estimations of Russian military strength to the Austrian military . Redl has been called one of history ' s greatest traitors because his actions were responsible for the deaths of half a million of his countrymen . Redl is thought to have sold to Russia one of Austria ' s principal attack plans , along with its order of battle , its mobilization plans ( in an age when mobilization could be the key to victory ) and detailed plans of Austrian fortifications soon to be overrun by Russia . He is known beyond question to have sent Austrian agents into Russia and then to have sold them out to St . Petersburg . He also had Austrian agents within the Russian Imperial Staff , but sold them out too , to be hanged or to commit suicide . He is also believed to have betrayed various Russian officers who contacted Austro - Hungarian intelligence . Exposure . When he left the counter - intelligence service Redl was succeeded by Major Maximilian Ronge , a man trained by Redl himself . Ronge instigated the practice of checking suspicious mail . One suspect envelope — a poste restante letter to be returned unclaimed — was found to contain a large sum of money as well as references to known espionage cover addresses . On May 9 , 1913 , a duplicate letter with money was posted to the same cover name , " " Nikon Nizetas " " . Police detectives were assigned to monitor the post office and follow whoever claimed it . When the letter was finally claimed on May 25 , police pursued but lost contact when the suspect , who had picked up the letter , left in a taxi . While the policemen stood wondering what to do , they were handed a stroke of luck beyond imagination : the very same taxi that the suspect had taken returned . The policemen took the taxi and asked to be driven to the address that the previous customer had been taken to . The taxi drove them to the hotel " " Klomser " " and during the ride there they found a pen - knife sheath in the taxi . Arriving at the hotel , they told the management to ask the guests if any of them had lost the sheath and then waited in the lobby . When a guest arrived to claim the sheath , the detectives were shocked to recognise their former boss , Colonel Alfred Redl . When informed of his exposure , Redl committed suicide by gunshot , which was regretted both by Emperor Franz Josef , who would have preferred that Redl avoid dying in mortal sin , and by Austrian Intelligence , which would have preferred to interrogate him on the exact extent of his betrayal . Assessment . Historians of the Habsburg Empire , as well as espionage historians such as CIA ' s Allen Dulles and Soviet General Mikhail Milstein , agree in calling Redl an arch - traitor . Redl ' s treason is thought to have contributed to the defeats Austria - Hungary suffered in the early months of World War I , since the plans for the attack on Serbia were quite complete and could not easily have been changed in the time between Redl ' s suicide and the onset of the war . In the end it may have come down to the nature of the Austrian state itself , an anachronistic idea , rather than a fatherland . In the political post - mortem one Hungarian newspaper noted that " the Redl affair cannot be seen as a private matter . Redl is not an individual but a system . Whilst soldiers elsewhere are taught to love their homelands , lack of patriotism is held to be the greatest military virtue in this unfortunate monarchy . With us military education culminates in all national feeling being driven out of our soldiers . . . In the Redl affair this spirit has had its revenge . The Austrian and the Hungarian soldiers possess no fatherland ; they only have a war lord . "