Guido Preparata's website

[Danny Jarman]

Were it to be true that something deeper was going on, then it is the Anglo-Americans who have their fingerprints all over it. My guess would then be the development of a strategy that further aimed to stop any future relationship between Germany and Russia, which is the really big fear of Anglo-American planners for the past century. Quite how that would play out I'm not sure though. But when you read again the article by Alfred McCoy above about Brzezinski's strategy to use muslims to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan, then it is not such a stretch to imagine a similar situation in Germany.

Nikolai Starikov explains Europe's refugee crisis

Published on Sep 18, 2015

An invisible organizing hand with a clear purpose is behind Europe's waves of refugees, according to writer and geo-political analyst Nikolai Starikov, who observes in particular: A pretext has been made ​​to bomb Syria.

[video=youtube_share;DTJc9pN29A4]http://youtu.be/DTJc9pN29A4[/video]

Civil unrest and street fighting has begun in Germany

http://speisa.com/modules/articles/index...rmany.html

In a build-up to what might end in a regular civil war, Germany now warns of a massive right-wing radicalization due to the migrant crisis - as street fighting and clashes erupt between left-wing and right-wing demonstrators in several German cities.

The migrant and refugee crisis has led to that right-wing extremists are mobilizing in Germany, warns the German security services BfV.

- What we see in connection with the refugee crisis is that right-wing extremists are mobilizing in the streets, but also that the radical left mobilize against them, says Hans-Georg Maassen, chief of Bundesamts für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), to German radio on Sunday.

The extreme groups show a greater willingness to use violence, he informs. This applies to both right-wing radicals, anti-racists (fascists) on the left, and Islamists.

On Saturday night, police and soldiers had to protect two buses with 100 immigrants and refugees who were taken to a reception center in the town of Niederau in the east German state of Saxony. Protesters gathered at the reception center, a former supermarket.

Demonstrations against refugees and immigrants gathered over 1,000 people in several towns in the northeastern state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on Friday.

In the coastal town of Stralsund, three people were wounded in clashes with counter-demonstrators. Also in Leipzig, regular street fights between demonstrators from left and right erupted.

So far this year there have been 22 attempts to set fire to reception centers, including reception centers which had not yet been taken into use, according to Maassen.

But not only the extreme groups protest the out-of-control migrant situation.

In Dresden, tens of thousands of ordinary Germans, men, women and children, gathered in the city center to peacefully protest this week.

Cheers for this. Ol' Nikolai bang on point as usual.

[Paul Rigby]

Whoever Controls Eurasia Controls the World

The battle over Syria is part of a much larger - and longer-term - struggle for global hegemony

Hans-Christof Kraus (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung) Fri, Oct 16, 2015

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/wh...ld/ri10549

This article originally appeared in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Translated from German by Nils Hansen

One can only be astounded at the scope of almost criminal naïveté, or even just plain ignorance, shown by many who are judging the Syrian crisis in particular when it comes to revealing the background motives behind the tough game of tug-of-war in the UN Security Council, between America and the western powers on the one side and China and Russia on the other.

If one were to follow the narrative of the conflict in large parts of the western world, then the heart of the matter would seem to be only the question of whether or not the Syrian people could eventually be freed from a cruel dictator. Particularly in Germany, the lack of awareness seems to be limitless in the current discussion of this contest up to the point of an alleged (although not confirmed) enquiry to the Russian government as to whether Russia would be ready to grant asylum to Assad should he be overthrown.

However, very different issues are at the core of this matter. The lines of conflict run where most German observers fail to notice them chiefly because they have forgotten how to think in global-political and geostrategic terms. Viewed from a global-political angle, it is in the first instance irrelevant from the perspective of geostrategic considerations, whether the Syrians will be now, or in the future, ruled either by a dictator of the house of Assad, by a democratic government or at least one pretending to be democratic, or a radical Muslim regime.

A division into World Island' and Heartland'

Around and after the year 1900, the world, the entire global land surface, was divided and mostly under the political reign of the Europeans and the Americans, the geostrategic thinkers of that time developed a completely new idea for global politics going forward.

The Anglo-Saxons, even though they in particular seemed invulnerable, for the first time had a reason to fear for their position in the world. British geographer and politician Halford Mackinder, shortly before the onset of the First World War, developed his extraordinarily momentous doctrine of the inferiority of the maritime global powers.

Whereas previously the maxim posed by American military historian Alfred T. Mahan had applied, stating the unassailability of globally acting maritime powers, Mackinder asserted the contrary.
In his new analysis of the world's land surface, he assigned the sea powers to the Outer Insular Crescent', while conceiving of Europe, Asia and Africa collectively as a gigantic supercontinent which he dubbed the World Island'.

The core of this World Island was supposed to be the Pivot Area', which he found to be in northern and central Asia. According to Mackinder, seven out of eight of the world's population were situated in the Pivot Area' and its surroundings, , as well as by far the largest share of globally available raw materials. Thus, the future rulers of the world were bound to be not the Anglo-Saxon maritime powers, so Mackinder argued, but possibly the very power (or group of powers) that would succeed in bringing the Pivot Area' completely under their control.

The debate about the worlds-politically decisive region on the earth

Not only the strong Anglo-Saxon distrust in the communist Soviet Union in the interwar period, but also the inexorably led war by America and Great Britain, fought to unconditional surrender against the two axis powers Germany and Japan, who were threatening the Pivot Area' from West and East, can only be understood against the backdrop of this geopolitical conception:

The nightmare of a pivot area jointly controlled by Germany and Japan, or by Germany alone in the worst case, in the heart of Eurasia. This situation had to be averted using all possible means. This was the primary and most important war aim of Roosevelt and Churchill, to which everything else was subordinated.

Still, before the end of the war, Mackinder's teachings about the meaning of the pivot area were improved upon and slightly altered. Nicholas Spykman, the most significant American geo-politician of his time, had developed during the war the theory that it was not actually the Pivot Area', but rather its bordering area, the Rim Land', which was the geopolitically decisive region of the world. This Rim Land' reaches from Scandinavia across Central Eastern Europe, Turkey, the Arab and Near Eastern countries and India, to Indochina, Korea as well as Eastern and Northern China.

This was to be the truly decisive region of the World Island, of the whole Eurasian continent, and he who would succeed in subjugating the Rim Land' with its enormous population and undeletable stock of raw materials, would be the ruler of the earth or at least have the ability to force it's will upon other powers, in particular upon the traditional maritime powers.

A ban on interventions by powers from outside the region?

Based not least of all on the premises of these fundamental analyses by Spykman, who died in 1943, it became the post-war foreign policy of the United States to ultimately abandon its traditional isolationism and henceforth develop into an active driver of world politics.

For the era of the Cold War in any case it can be said that almost all of the main conflict lines between East and West have been located in the regions of this wide Rim Land' between Finland in the West and Korea in the East. Most wars of the post-WWII period, from the Korean War to the Middle-Eastern and Gulf wars to the Vietnam conflict, have taken place in this very zone.

The counter theory to Mackinder and Spykman in terms of geopolitics and international law dates back perhaps even longer; its core it can be found in the American Monroe Doctrine of 1823; borrowing the title from a well-known oeuvre of the 20th century, it could be called an "International Legal Order for Large Regions with a Ban on Interventions by Powers from Outside" (the title of a book written by Carl Schmitt).

Admittedly, this model did not work out at the time of its creation; and especially with a view to the importance of the Rim Land' and the heart land, the Americans have neither recognised, nor accepted, a ban on interventions outside of their own American hemisphere (in any case if it was directed against their own interests).

The primary goal is not to protect the Syrian people

Quite the opposite: after 1945, the Americans have repeatedly intervened in those places where they deemed it necessary to strengthen their own position of power. The oil affluent and strategically crucial region between the eastern Mediterranean and the Arab Sea has made this area in particular, a main field of action for American foreign policy. The recent Iraq war, the occupation of Afghanistan and the opaque actions in north-eastern Pakistan, which are by no means legitimate by International Law, are the result of this policy.

The current conflict about an intervention, or non-intervention into the Syrian civil war is so explosive because this question is the manifestation of the antagonism between two radically different geostrategic and world political concepts.

The Americans and the Western side are not particularly concerned with helping the pitiable Syrian people, but rather with influencing the reshaping of the country after an anticipated overthrow of the current regime. Even though the US and its Western partners have been able to work well with the Syrian government in the past, several long-planned oil and gas pipelines of paramount importance for the West are at stake. These pipelines are designed to connect Saudi Arabia and Qatar to the eastern Mediterranean area and Turkey and therefore are, at least partially, to cross Syrian territory.

The tables have turned

The Russians and Chinese have a different perspective. The Russian Mediterranean military base, situated in the Syrian port of Tartus, is also at stake just like the general power/political position of Moscow and Beijing in the Middle and Near East. The prospect of a possible military conflict between Israel and Iran makes it inevitable that the two largest Asian powers will be present there.

It cannot yet be foreseen which of the two sides will prevail, as the Americans have oftentimes in the past ignored UN resolutions when they deemed it necessary for the advancement of their own interests. The undeclared war against Iraq, which led to the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime, was only grudgingly accepted by Moscow and Beijing in the end only because they did not dare to stand more decisively against the only highly armed world power at the time.

Today, the tables have turned: Due to severe home-made economic problems, themselves connected to a strongly over-expansionist foreign policy and military engagement, the United States finds itself in a considerably weakened position. A military intervention in Syria on their part, for this reason alone, seems hardly probable.

The die is not yet cast

Therefore the government in Washington must interpret the veto by Beijing and Moscow, now voiced three consecutive times, with which a UN resolution against the Syrian regime has been averted, as a serious warning. It appears that China and Russia perceive themselves in a common position of co-dominance over the South Asian realm, and their fierce no' against an intervention by western powers in Syria can well be seen in the sense of a political-international-legal doctrine of an, at least hinted at, ban on interventions by powers from outside the region, directed chiefly at America.

The government in Washington would hardly be able to accept such a ban if it is meant seriously. Because, as a consequence, it would mean the ultimate surrender of its political-economic influence, possibly even of military intervention, in the regions of the Rim Land'. Washington cannot, simply in their very own interest, afford to leave these Eurasian Rim Land regions to their fate, let alone to the two Asian world powers.

Therefore, one can derive from the scope, the course, and, as can be foreseen, the soon materialising consequences of the Syrian conflict, the current distribution of geopolitical power potentials is like using a concave mirror. The die is not yet cast. Yet the geostrategic global players hold these things in their hands.

Hans-Christof Kraus teaches recent and modern history at the University of Passau.

[Paul Rigby]

Some interesting bits and pieces in here:

When Money Dies: The Nightmare of the Weimar Collapse by Adam Fergusson (London: William Kimber, 1975)

http://thirdparadigm.org/doc/45060880-Wh...y-Dies.pdf

Page 2: "It is not always clear what events what popular uprising, or Allied ultimatum, or political assassination contributed to the inflationary panic; or which were themselves directly or indirectly caused by the ceaseless depreciation of the currency and rise in the cost of living."

Pages 25/6: "Frontkdmpfertag expressed a spirit of reaction that was rife in Germany from north to south. Flesh was being added to the skeletal myth of the Dolchstoss. Two days later, on August 36, Mathias Erzberger himself, to the Right the embodiment of civilian treachery, was murdered by Nationalist gunmen in the Black Forest. It is not fanciful to suppose that this deed was largely inspired by the speeches of the Nationalist (DNVP) leader Karl Helfferich, the wartime Minister of Finance under whose auspices the German inflation first got a grip. Erzberger was not only a civilian and a Republican but a Jew.

The outside world watched with deep misgivings. In an article in Le Peuple, a Belgian Socialist deputy remarked that

"assassination seems now to have become the rule in Germany, where militarist brutes, after having practised on thousands of Belgians whom they massacred, continue to adopt this means of suppressing those in their way … it is a very grave sign of collective criminal degeneration, which must strike all Germans who have retained feelings of respect for human life."

In Germany itself, the death of Erzberger, that most fearless exponent of Socialist taxation, let loose a torrent of abuse against the Right. In Berlin the Majority Socialists and the Independent Socialists joined forces in a demonstration to protest 'against the enemies of the Republic'. One Herr Harden, whom Lord D'Aber-non described as an acute if somewhat acid observer, explained to the British Ambassador that 'the followers of the Right were perpetually hunting for the old culprits responsible for the downfall of the empire and the old system, but instead of attacking the generals Ludendorff and company who were really the cause, or the old gang of princes and sycophants, they reviled the Jews and assassinated the leaders of the Left together with those who did not take their own perverted view.' More than three hundred assassinations among the leaders of the Left had been perpetrated since the Armistice, Herr Harden said, 'and no one is punished.' (He himself had had fifty telephone calls to warn him that he was next on the black list, and was leaving for America.)

Page 55: "In the middle of May 1922 Dr Schober's gallant, almost single-handed efforts as Chancellor to bring order to Austria's economy and moderation and common-sense to her politics came to an end. His administration was defeated in parliament a bare four weeks after he had persuaded the Allies at Genoa to relinquish their prior mortgage rights on all Austrian State property held to meet occupation and reparation costs an agreement which cleared the way for raising an Austrian loan. The politicians may have felt that Schober had served his turn, but the dismissal of the country's strongest statesman immediately sprinkled question-marks over the country's creditworthiness so long as she controlled her own finances. With the news of the ex-police chief's resignation the British credit promised by Lloyd George ran out, that from France and Italy never materialised, and the krone began to slip away again. Austria's condition stayed particularly critical, in contrast to that of Hungary or Germany, because of her heavy dependence upon foreign imports.

After June 1 the graph of the krone's fall became vertiginous. The June 5 figure of 52,000 to the pound, well over 10,000 to the dollar, produced something of a panic which contributed during the next two days to a further fall of 40 per cent. On June 9 the pound was at 70,000 kronen, the dollar at more than 15,000. Within a month of Rathenau's assassination in Germany at the end of June, the krone dived in sympathy with the mark from 100,000 to 125,000. In parallel with the fall came huge price increases, the index whose base had been 100 in July 1921 reaching 2,645."

So who was commanding & funding the death squads in German? One of the key figures is named below:

Former King wanted England bombed and an Anglo-German alliance, archives reveal

http://nsnbc.me/2015/07/19/former-king-w...es-reveal/

Duke of Coburg

Coburg was a grandchild of Queen Victoria destined for a privileged and unspectacular life. But the experiences of World War I changed him. After Germany lost the war, he turned to the radical right. In the 1920s he got involved with a German terrorist group that tried to overthrow the democratically elected German Republic. Members of the group were involved in several political murders in the 1920s. Though he did not pull the trigger himself, Coburg funded these murders.

After the failed Hitler Putsch of 1923, Coburg hid several Hitler supporters on the run in his castles. Hitler would not forget this great favour and later rewarded Coburg by making him a general. But he also needed him for something more secretive. In 1933 the Führer was short of international contacts and did not trust his own foreign ministry.

He therefore used members of the German aristocracy for secret missions to Britain, Italy, Hungary and Sweden. Coburg was particularly useful in London from 1935 to 1939 and was received in Britain due to his sister Alice Countess of Athlone's tireless work. She was Queen Mary's sister-in-law and fought for Coburg's acceptance. This resulted in him not just being welcomed in British drawing rooms, but most importantly, by the royals, including the Duke of Windsor.

Coburg as agent of MI6? Looks that way.

Extract from Russia's Awesome Responsibility

By William F. Engdahl

18 October 2015

http://journal-neo.org/2015/10/18/russia...nsibility/

Russia before Bolsheviks

Contrary to the mythology that passes for history at western universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, Princeton or Harvard, Russia in the years leading to outbreak of World War I was on the path to become a towering prosperous economic nation, something especially not welcome in London.

Czar Alexander II during the American Civil War issued a decree to liberate the serfs in 1861. Unlike Lincoln's emancipation of slaves, Russian serfs were liberated with land. The 22 million liberated serfs were free to go to the cities where they provided the labor force for emerging industry. In 1881, a terrorist band of some 40 members, assassinated Alexander II. Russia was becoming too powerful for the British. The assassin came from a terrorist clique, People's Will (Narodnaya Volya), secretly financed by London international bankers as were virtually all such "revolutionary" organizations then in Russia, much as the USA government NGO's today finance the Russian Opposition Coordination Council, Alexey Navaly's Progress Party and other "opposition" groups.

Despite the death of Alexander II, modernization of Russia continued. In 1883 the assassinated Czar's son, Alexander III, followed serf liberation with creation of the state Peasant Land Bank allowing peasants to buy their land with virtually interest free loans. Railways were built, including the Trans-Siberian Railway, the ambitious project of Russia's great economic innovator, Count Sergei Witte. Witte, who had translated the German national economist Friederich List into Russian, was well aware that the phenomenal industrialization of Germany after 1871 owed much to the ideas of List and his followers.

The Czar named Witte as Director of Railway Affairs within the Finance Ministry from 1889 to 1891. There he initiated building the Trans-Siberian Railway to unify the vast area of Russia. Witte also managed to win the principle to assign employees based on their performance, rather than political or family connections.

In 1889, Witte published a paper, "National Savings and Friedrich List," outlining the economic theories of List, who justified the need for a strong domestic industry, protected from foreign competition by customs barriers, opposite today's WTO or TPP or TIPP free trade regimes. This resulted in a new customs law for Russia in 1891, which spurred a dramatic increase in industrialization.

In 1892 Witte as Minister of Finance accelerated funds to railway construction, made a treaty agreement for passage of the Trans-Siberian rail line via China to Vladivostok, and concluded a ten year commercial treaty with Germany. In 1896 he put the ruble on the gold standard, and passed a law limiting factory work hours and other labor laws more advanced than those of the United States then. Russia was prospering and at peace with all her neighbors, especially Germany and China.

British machinations to foster the 1905 Russo-Japanese War and the ensuing Revolution of 1905 in Russia, and ultimately to manipulate the Czar into a secret alliance with France against her natural ally, Germany, resulted in the destruction of the enormous positive developments of pre-Revolutionary Russia. Wall Street and the City of London financed Leon Trotsky, Lenin, and the Bolshevik Revolution essentially as they did Boris Yeltsin after 1990, to open up Russia for looting and balkanization by favored western companies.

In summary, the British expanded their assassination and destabilisation programmes, post-WWI, from Russia to Germany.

[Paul Rigby]

Does anyone find the claim that Alan Dulles wanted to destroy the British Empire credible?

It is completely credible. The War and Peace Studies Group of the Council on Foreign Relations made the dismantling of the British Empire a key aim. One reason, I suppose why this study is still not available for public scrutiny. This study ran from 1939-45 and Dulles "led" the Armaments Group.

Shoup & MInter's Imperial Brain Trust - The Council on Foreign Relations and United States Foreign Policy is the key available book here, for it shows, in brief, what the War & Peace Studies Group ambitions were. The British Empire had to be dismantled in order for the new American Empire to arise.

Historically, it had been the ambition of the Rhodes-Milner Kintergarden to extend and develop the British Empire to become the global dominating force. But Rhodes eventually understood that this was not possible without the USA - and they wouldn't play that game. Instead they wanted to be the governing empire themselves. Rhodes ultimately decided that Great Britain would throw it's lot in with the USA and proceed with the original plan with Britain becoming the junior partner.

It is also worth bearing in mind that the CFR was the sister organization of Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs), itself a creation of the Rhodes "Group". The RIIA was founded in 1919 during the Paris peace conference where, co-incidentally, the Dulles brothers were both present and plied their trade.

In short, this is the New World Order.

PS, I have linked a brief synopsis of the RIIA/CFR nexus above (Chatham House) by the CorbetT Report, which is worth reading.

The United States and Iran-Iraq War 1980-1988

by Stephen R. Shalom

The Iran Chamber Society

http://www.iranchamber.com/history/artic...q_war1.php

As far back as the 1920s, the State Department sought to force Great Britain to give U.S. companies a share of the lucrative Middle Eastern oil concessions. The U.S. Ambassador in London -- who happened to be Andrew Mellon, the head of the Gulf Oil Corporation (named for the Mexican, not the Persian Gulf) -- was instructed to press the British to give Gulf Oil a stake in the Middle East.[4] At the end of World War II, when the immense petroleum deposits in Saudi Arabia became known, Secretary of the Navy James Forrestal told Secretary of State Byrnes, "I don't care which American company or companies develop the Arabian reserves, but I think most emphatically that it should be _American_."[5] And it wasn't the Russians that Forrestal was worried about. The main competition was between the United States and Britain for control of the area's oil.[6]

In 1928, Standard Oil of New Jersey and Mobil had joined British and French oil interests in signing the "Red Line Agreement," under which each pledged not to develop Middle Eastern oil without the participation of the others. Nevertheless, after World War II these two U.S. firms (together with Texaco and Standard Oil of California) grabbed the Saudi concessions for themselves, freezing out the British and French. When the latter sued on the grounds that the Red Line Agreement had been violated, Mobil and Jersey told the court that the agreement was null and void because it was monopolistic.[7]

In the early 1950s, oil was used as a political weapon for the first time -- by the United States and Britain against Iran. Iran had nationalized its British-owned oil company which had refused to share its astronomical profits with the host government. In response, Washington and London organized a boycott of Iranian oil which brought Iran's economy to the brink of collapse. The CIA then instigated a coup, entrenching the Shah in power and effectively un-nationalizing the oil company, with U.S. firms getting 40 percent of the formerly 100 percent British-owned company. This was, in the view of the _New York Times_, an "object lesson in the heavy cost that must be paid" when an oil-rich Third World nation "goes berserk with fanatical nationalism."[8]

In 1956 the oil weapon was used again, this time by the United States against Britain and France. After the latter two nations along with Israel invaded Egypt, Washington made clear that U.S. oil would not be sent to Western Europe until Britain and France agreed to a rapid withdrawal schedule.[9] The U.S. was not adverse to overthrowing Nasser -- "Had they done it quickly, we would have accepted it," Eisenhower said later[10] -- but the clumsy Anglo-French military operation threatened U.S. interests in the region.

[Paul Rigby]

Hitler's financiers

Party friends, homosexual friends, bankers from Wall Street, oil barons, Russian tsarists, ev. Frenchmen etc.

by Michael Palomino (2007, translation in 2010)

http://www.hist-chron.com/eu/3R/Hitlers-...-ENGL.html

[Paul Rigby]

Published on Oct 24, 2015

Intro theme: "Dream Agent" by Ariel Electron, Holeg Spies and Thierry Gotti on the "Kore Kosmou" album.

Writer and translator Mark Hackard of SouloftheEast.org and EspionageHistoryArchive.com joins me for this early episode of Esoteric Hollywood on TalkNetwork.com. In this episode we cover World War 2 films, as well as Cold War classics and some of Hollywood's campy, crappier B films like Red Scorpion. Mark and I delve into his translation work and how many spy films actually come very close to being reality!

[video=youtube_share;leBHgbgSkqo]http://youtu.be/leBHgbgSkqo[/video]

[R.K. Locke]

Newly released by The National Archives:

http://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/blog...KF,E8ALG,1

Dodgy dealings with the merchant of death'

Monday 21 December 2015 | Dr Richard Dunley | Records and research | 1 comment

An international arms dealer known by the universal nickname of Zedzed. Corrupt payments seeking to provoke a war between two European powers. The widespread buying up of newspapers and the use of these to spread propaganda. Demands of backhanders in the form of money and honours in return for illegally influencing the policies of independent countries.

This sounds more like the plot of a James Bond film than the activities of an elected government, but as a series of Foreign Office files held here at The National Archives show, this was exactly the policy pursued by the British government during the First World War.

The Merchant of Death: Sir Basil Zaharoff


The man at the centre of the entire scheme was Sir Basil Zaharoff, Zedzed, who was also widely referred to as the merchant of death, Europe's man of mystery or the wickedest man in the world. Zaharoff appeared to be living proof of the old adage that fact is stranger than fiction. The son of a Constantinople commodity dealer he reportedly started out on his business career running brothels and starting fires as part of a protection racket run by the Constantinople fire brigade. He moved to Britain posing as Prince Zacharia Gortzacoff, a Russian army officer. He married Emily Boroughs in October 1872 but in the following year he pleaded guilty at the Old Bailey of stealing from a fellow merchant and promptly fled (HO 27/165).

He turned up in Cyprus and America, where he made money in the railroad business, bigamously married a New York heiress and eloped with her to Rotterdam. Finally he secured himself a position as an agent for the Swedish armaments manufacturer Thomas Nordenfelt, where his undoubted talents began to show. Famed for his unscrupulous methods and a willingness to ferment political trouble in order to boast arms sales, Zarahoff quickly established himself as the leading arms dealer in Europe. By 1897 he was working for the British armaments giant Vickers and was as likely to be selling battleships as he was rifles. This success brought fabulous wealth and led to Zaharoff moving in the rarefied circles of European high society. Intrigue and shady practices were, however, in Zaharoff's blood and the outbreak of the First World War gave him the opportunity to exploit these at a whole new level.

It started with letter Zaharoff wrote to his friend and director of Vickers, Sir Vincent Caillard, in November 1915. In it he claimed that if I had in hand the £1,200,000, I have given to Greece during the last 9 years and if I were to add £300,000 to it, I could make Greece join the Allies and start fighting the Bulgars within 20 days.' He continued that all that is needed is to buy the Germanophile papers, also 45 Deputies and on Frontier Commander'. (FO 1093/47) It is clear that Zaharoff intended to bribe elements in the Greek army into provoking an incident on the Bulgarian frontier and then use the rest of the money to persuade' the Greek government into declaring war.


Caillard showed this letter to the influential Lord D'Abernon who, far from being horrified by Zaharoff's suggestions, brought the matter to the attention of the British government. A few days later Caillard wrote back to Zaharoff saying that key figures including the Prime Minister, Herbert Asquith, were generally keen on the idea. They expressed concerns about Zaharoff's plan to provoke a crisis on the Greco-Bulgarian frontier, although this was not based on any moral principle. Instead, they are unwilling to face the risk… this might be traced back to the source'. Regarding the underhand funding of pro-British factions within Greek politics the British government had no such qualms and Asquith wrote to Caillard to say that I have talked this matter over with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Please let your friend go straight ahead: the sum named by him will be found by the Government'. (FO 1093/47)


The correspondence between these hugely influential men has an air of farce to modern eyes, particularly the refusal to use people's actual names. As such the Prime Minister became the Chairman', the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the Treasurer' and together they were simply Caillard's friends'. Zaharoff, naturally, was Zedzed, or sometimes simply Z.

Zaharoff, mainly operating from the safety of the Hotel de Paris in Monte Carlo, began to distribute monies in support of key figures, especially the liberal politician Elefthérios Venizélos. At the same time he pursued a campaign of propaganda both in Greece and beyond through the Radio Telegraph Agency which he had set up. By March 1916 he could report to Caillard that our preparation of fermenting Greco-Bulgarian frontier troubles has begun to give fruit.' (FO 1093/48). Asquith clearly agreed, writing to Zaharoff I beg on behalf of His Majesty's Government to tender to you their sincere gratitude for the most valuable service which, at a critical time you have rendered the cause of the Allies.' Later in 1916 Zaharoff would declare that the last Greek Parliament, not once proposed or voted anything against the Allies. I am rather proud of that work.' (FO 1093/48)

Despite failing to get Greece to enter the war on the British side, Zaharoff soon set his sights on an even bigger prize, bribing the Ottoman Empire into leaving the war. The Ottomans had joined the Germans soon after the outbreak of war, and Allied attempts to force their surrender through military operations at the Dardanelles and Gallipoli had failed miserably. Zaharoff proposed a very different option. Through a contact, Abdul Karim Bey, Zaharoff was approached by the Ottoman military commander Enver Bey. Enver wanted to discuss coming to an arrangement with the Allies. At secret talks Abdul Karim told Zaharoff:


all talk of a separate peace with Turkey, was out of the question, because the Germans held Constantinople in their iron grip, but added why not open the Dardanelles to you treacherously? What is it worth to the Allies in American dollars payable in America?' (FO 1093/48)

Caillard discussed the matter with the Prime Minister who felt that it is rather an off chance but worth risking a certain amount for'. Asquith was particularly concerned about the risk of the Turks taking the money before the goods' were delivered. As if to clarify Caillard wrote to Zaharoff to say that by "goods delivered he means the delivery over to us of the forts and the opening of the sea-way' [Dardanelles]. (FO 1093/50) By the time the British decided the proposal was worth "risking the toss"' the Turks had begun to have second thoughts and the opportunity slipped.


Zaharoff was not a man to be easily dissuaded and he felt it was worth having another go. In May 1917 he decided to go to Switzerland where "by accident", I am bound to run across some of our Ottoman friends and that might be a way of re-opening the subject.' The initial overtures proved successful and Caillard discussed the matter with the new Prime Minister, David Lloyd-George. He was very keen on the whole idea, but listed an extraordinary set of demands which led Caillard to note that it was a pretty tall order to negotiate separate terms of Peace on the basis of the practical dismemberment of the country with which you would be negotiating.' Zaharoff met his contacts in Geneva where he was told that Turkey was ruined and lost and that Enver & Co were willing to throw up the sponge on "reasonable conditions" and get out with their lives'. The "reasonable conditions" included safe passage to New York and $12,000,000 paid into an account at J P Morgan's. Unsurprisingly Lloyd-George was not entirely convinced but was full of courage about the business, and quite ready to take reasonable risks'. (FO 1093/52)

A number of meetings took place between Zaharoff and Abdul Karim in various Swiss hotels throughout 1917 and 1918, but they always came unstuck on the Turkish demand that a $2,000,000 retainer be paid prior to the start of any serious negotiations. The British were unwilling to take this gamble. Although the discussions intensified in autumn 1918 it is not clear that they had any direct impact on the Turkish decision to sue for peace in October 1918.

It is difficult to work out the direct impact of Zaharoff's underhand dealings. The British government invested considerable effort and money with little obvious result, but both Asquith and Lloyd-George seemed happy with the proceedings. The willingness of the British to act upon Zaharoff's suggestions shows how much war changed the moral perspective of these democratically Liberal politicians. As if to cap it all Zaharoff felt that he deserved to be recognised for all the effort he put into these shady dealings. He lobbied hard to be awarded a Grand Cross of the British Empire quite a step for a former brothel tout from Constantinople. As with most things in life Zaharoff got his way. In his own words this was his reward, his chocolate'. (FO 1093/52)

[R.K. Locke]

See also:

https://firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordp...-zaharoff/


And:

https://firstworldwarhiddenhistory.wordp...ret-elite/


Interestingly, Allen Dulles was based at the U.S. Embassy in Istanbul in 1921, during the Greco-Turkish War.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greco-Turk...2%80%9322)


From Glen Yeadon's 'The Nazi Hydra in America':

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vh7s...ul&f=false


Another interesting perspective on this period can be found in the memoirs of Compton Mackenzie:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=NY65...on&f=false


And we know what happened later...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-IbQ...ce&f=false

[David Guyatt]

Great links as usual R K. The Nazi Hydra is an excellent book in my opinion too.

When looking at Zaharoff the impression I come away with is that the guy was a snake. That also is the view I have of Allen Dulles. Two very crooked and amoral characters playing everyone against each other and pocketing wads of money along the way.

[R.K. Locke]

Great links as usual R K. The Nazi Hydra is an excellent book in my opinion too.

When looking at Zaharoff the impression I come away with is that the guy was a snake. That also is the view I have of Allen Dulles. Two very crooked and amoral characters playing everyone against each other and pocketing wads of money along the way.

Very true, David. Zaharoff appears to have been an agent of the Rothschilds in much the same way that Dulles was an agent (primarily) of the Rockefellers. Accounts at the time often described him as one of the richest men in Europe, so we can only wonder as to the true wealth of his masters. Google Newspapers is a useful source for this kind of thing:

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2...8025&hl=en

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...3694&hl=en

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...8053&hl=en

https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1...7144&hl=en


I think it's fair to say that the true history of this era is as yet unwritten. For example, here is a list of leaders/rulers assassinated in the 20 years before the outbreak of World War I:

Marie François Sadi Carnot - France - 1894 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sante_Geronimo_Caserio)
Stefan Stambolov - Bulgaria - 1895 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Stambolov#Death)
Naser al-Din Shah Qajar - Persia - 1896 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirza_Reza_Kermani)
Juan Idiarte Borda - Uruguay - 1897 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avelino_Arredondo)
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo - Spain - 1897 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michele_Angiolillo)
José María Reina Barrios - Guatemala - 1898 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_...rios#Death)
Empress Elisabeth of Austria - 18989 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luigi_Lucheni)
Ulises Heureaux - Dominican Republic - 1899 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulises_Heureaux)
Umberto I of Italy - 1900 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaetano_Bresci)
William McKinley - US - 1901 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Czolgosz)
Alexander I of Serbia & Queen Draga - 1903 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_...assination)
Theodoros Deligiannis - Greece - 1905 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodoros_Deligiannis)
Dimitar Petkov - Bulgaria - 1907 * (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitar_Petkov)
Mirza Ali Asghar Khan Amin al-Soltan - Persia - 1907 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirza_Ali_..._al-Soltan)
Carlos I of Portugal - 1908 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_I_o...assination)
Boutros Ghali - Egypt - 1910 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boutros_Ghali#Death)
Pyotr Stolypin - Russia - 1911 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Stol...assination)
José Canalejas - Spain - 1912 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manuel_Pardi%C3%B1as)
Francisco I. Madero - Mexico - 1913 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_I._Madero#Death)
George I of Greece - 1913 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_I_o...assination)


That's without even mentioning significant statesmen like Jean Jaurès.

Of course, anyone who has read Conrad's The Secret Agent will be familiar with the old "anarchist assassin" routine that was so prevalent at the time...