Part Two: Basil Zaharoff: The Man Who Sold World War One

Robert is joined again by Teresa Lee to continue discussing Basil Zaharoff.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome back, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Sophie, Jesus Christ. No, no,
we're running all of this is the podcast, every single bit. Also,
it's not welcome back if it's a new episode that's
from an ad break hid Robert, Sophie. This is Behind
the Bastards easily our worst opening. Definitely our worst opening

(00:23):
because Hitler from like two weeks ago, that might have
been our best. Well for the five people who haven't
stopped listening to this episode, because if it's terrible, Sophie
chosen opening. Um, this is Behind the Bastards podcast where
we talk about the worst people in history. And this
is part two of our series on Basil Zaharov and Teresa.

(00:47):
How are you doing in this part too? Feeling you know,
I'm feeling a little scared about, you know, the inevitable
death of all these people in the story. But um,
you know, I'm a I'm a brave girl, So I
think I can. I think I can finish listening to
this story. Probably won't be able to go to sleep,
I mean, but it's a good thing. It's the middle
of the day. I feel like there's some lessons that

(01:09):
we can all learn in our own careers from the
career of Basil zahar Off. Um, like, maybe if you're
trying to sell a movie, you you, you, you should
first sell submarines to Turkey and Greece and Russia and
spark a naval arms race. I should first saw movies
to different countries and then sell one to one country,

(01:30):
then say do you want to of my movies. I
don't know if that would work the same way. Yeah,
I mean I think, Uh, I don't. I don't know
what you're saying, that I should sail a rich woman
out of her money. Yes, absolutely, for years and everything

(01:54):
will be good. I did dye my hair blonde, so
I'm halfway to Russian prince. Do Russians half blond hair?
Very very close? Oh yeah, all of them, every single Russian. Yeah.
Um No. That was one of the one of the
first things I ever said to you when we met,
was you should pretend to be a Russian prince and
marry a rich woman and steal her money and then
flee the continent. Yes, I remember that. That's not a

(02:16):
lie at all. Uh, Robert, I only see your like
mouth top of your face is kind of but it matters.
But I was just looking at your mustache. Thank you,
it's um a mustache. Uh. So, before we get back
into Basil Zaharov's career, I want to talk a little

(02:39):
bit about the way this man presented himself to the world.
He wore fine suits at all times, and he was
known for having a striking mustache. He spoke rarely in
public and confined himself mostly to shadowy back rooms and
salons of the great and good. He preferred to speak
in a whisper to and like talk to mainly powerful
people and never really like he was. Never guy was

(03:00):
like out in public like there there's no like big
addresses of this guy. He didn't have like um, a
very public life. Um. One writer at the time, Osbert Sitwell,
described him as evil and imposing, noting his quote beaky face, hooded,
I wrinkled neck, the impression of physical power, in the
capacity to wait. He was an outlook, merely a super croupier.

(03:22):
And once I heard him introducing himself to a millionaire
friend of mine with a startling phrase, I am sir
Basil Zaharov, I have sixteen millions, so like which I
am million dollars? Yeah? Frank Well, who wanted yeah? Uh?

(03:42):
To his friends, he went by z Z. To the
management at Vickers, he went by Okay, yeah, it was
his nickname. Is that who the dj Z is named after?
He doesn't. Yes, yes, that I'm yes, that is exactly
the story. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's just like I know,

(04:06):
I know who all of the musicians, my fans and
guests are formerly dated Selena Gomez very briefly, but we
who all these people are. You're very convincing, Robert, thank you.
UM to most other people. Yeah, So the management at

(04:27):
Vickers called him our general representative abroad, and to most
other people in the arms industry who we competed with,
he was called the Armaments King. And it was in
this last role that he would leave his most enduring
mark on the modern world. UH. Finance is boring, so
we often ignore matters of debt when we tell the
stories of the great wars of the past. But the
fact that the Russians are spent the early years of

(04:47):
the twentieth century signing loan after loan with the French
government to pay for his military build up went on
to be one of the most consequential decisions of the
twentieth century. UM. So like Russia's gotta like buy six
million dollars, which is like an enormous amount of money
back in those days, rebuilding its military, and they just
don't have the cash on hand, and the money comes

(05:08):
primarily from France. Um. And the money comes primarily from
France because like Frances, Russia's military ally in this period,
and they're kind of trusting that Russia will help them
fight Germany if they have to have a war with Germany. Yeah,
the fact that Russia a cruise hundreds of millions of
dollars in debt to France would prove really key to

(05:30):
the start of the First World War, and we can
thank Basil zahar Off for that. Uh. There were a
number of arms manufacturers trying to get these are to
give them his business, including Krupp, the German firm. But
Basil had spent half his life pretending to be a
Russian prince, and oddly enough this actually prepared him really
well for the job of selling guns to Russia. He
spoke perfect Russian. Uh. He was a member of the

(05:53):
Orthodox Church, and he's spent a lot of time in Russia.
And it didn't hurt that his dad had rucified the
family's last name. So at this point in time, France
and Germany were kind of like fighting over Russia's friendship
because like Germany had been Russia's ally before, and like
they all wanted Russia on their side because Russia is
like a sixth of the world's land mask so whoever
gets the Russian Empire to back them has a really

(06:15):
big advantage in any kind of war in Europe. UM.
So while there were a lot of factors that weighed
into Russia choosing to stay with France, um, the fact
that the country was deeply in debt to the French
Republic did not hurt, and Zaharov's firms wound up winning
the lion's share of the Czarist business and shining Basil
is the most successful arms dealer on the planet. But
the people of France didn't just decide to loan Russia

(06:37):
all of that money, um, because like they liked Russians
or anything. Um. Yeah, Zaharov convinced them to do it.
He owned newspapers in Paris, including one called Excelsior, which
he ordered to send out a steady stream of propaganda
supporting the cause of loaning more money to Russia. Um.
And he had a lot of like they were like,
this wasn't super easy to do because like about a

(06:59):
century before less uh, France had fought a big, bloody
war with Russia that had killed the shipload of their
young men. Um So there was like some bad blood there.
So he had to like put out a bunch of
propagandic had to convince them like, no, it's actually a
good idea to give all of your money to Russia
to buy a ton of guns. Um. So Basil found
himself in the position of simultaneously trying to convince the

(07:20):
French government to risk lots of money backing Russian rearmament
while also doing everything he could to stop French munitions
makers from selling any of their weapons to Russia. So like,
you've got to convince France to give Russia all this
money to buy guns, but you also have to convince
Russia not to buy any French guns because like you
want to sell them. Yeah. So it's kind of a

(07:42):
hard trick, hat trick to poll as a as a
gun salesman, but Zaharov pulls it off. Yeah, So he
succeeds in like making sure that Vicker's a firm founded
by an American and UH like a bunch of British
people and run by a Greek pretending to be a
Russian sold arms to the Russian Empire rather than the
country who was actually loaning them the money to buy guns.

(08:05):
His main competitor for Russia's business was a French firm
called Schneider Crusoe. Uh It's head, the eponymous Schneider, wound
up dueling Basil for their right to take all of
Russia's money. He had his own newspapers and he planted
a story in them that Russia was about to sign
a deal with krup to let them build factories inside Russia.
This was really scared of the people of France because
all of the gun plans that Russia had gotten were French.

(08:27):
So if Krupp started building Russian arms factories producing French guns,
that would effectively mean that Germany was gaining access to
all of France's military secrets. Um none of that was true.
It was just a bunch of lies that Schneider put
out in newspapers, but it scared French people enough that
a lot of them demanded their government loan Russia twenty
five million dollars to rebuild its railways in exchange for

(08:48):
letting Schneider Crusoe build arms factories in uh in Russia.
So all this kind of sketchy dealing is going on
with like all of the different companies in the arms trade.
And we really don't know much about what Zaharov it
or said exactly to Russia, but we know that Vickers
one of the vast majority of the different arms contracts
that went to Russia. So like, even with all this
facory from Schneider Crusoe um, most of the Empire's new

(09:12):
guns are provided by Vickers through Zaharov. Now, machine guns
and rivals and artillery pieces weren't the only thing that
modern armies needed at this point. The twentieth century saw
the advent of air travel and air war as things,
and Basil Zaharov knew straight away that he wanted to
sell planes to His first step was to use a
small chunk of his fortune to endow a share of
aviation at the Sorbonne. This presumably would give him a

(09:35):
highly placed flunkey when the French government decided to start
buying planes. Unfortunately for Basil, this move attracted controversy. And
I'm gonna quote an article by John T. Flynn, written
by from The mess Daily, which is a libertarian think
tank publications. These guys actually really like Zaharov. Um quote
Zaharov for all his pains to elude this spotlight found

(09:56):
that revealing beam playing upon him at intervals, and to
his discomfiture, who is this Mr Zaharov? What is he to?
What country does he owe allegiance? He was born in Turkey,
he is a Greek, he's a French citizen, he's an
English businessman. But what country does he serve? And what
sort of game is he playing? In France? These were
not pleasant questions for one who indeed had what Mr
Roosevelt calls a passion for anonymity. So he starts to

(10:18):
like get like like the fact that he's endowing chairs
at universities and stuff, and like owning newspapers in France
gets people really suspicious about his intentions. Uh, And so
he has to quiet those intentions by like buying. Basically,
he buys a convalescent home for old French soldiers and
donates to a bunch of French causes and becomes like
a philanthropist so that people don't think that there's something

(10:40):
shady about all the guns he's trying to get other
countries to buy. Wait, so he was more anonymous before,
but now he's putting his name on all these like
buildings and stuff. Yeah he has to in order to
like because they're starting. Yeah yeah, he does it to
bribe France into liking him. Yeah. Yeah, so that's cool. Um, yeah,

(11:01):
it's cool. Yeah, it's fine. It's what you do. I mean,
it's kind of what Rockefeller did. Like, that's what that's
That's what it is to like be a philanthropist is
you're usually trying to stop people from thinking too much
about how you made all the money that you can donate. Yeah,
it just comes up. You just want a building that
tourists go take an elevator up to and look around.

(11:24):
That's when you know you've made it when your name
is on a building like that. Yeah, or all of
the wonderful public parks provided by the Raytheon Corporation. Yeah. So. Uh.
This sort of palm greasing accompanied Bezel's plotting in nations
around the world. Vicker's plants soon cropped up in Canada, Italy, Africa, Greece, Turkey, Russia,

(11:45):
New Zealand, Ireland, and Holland. They made machine guns and
cannons and ships, but also brand new warplanes, um, some
of the ones that were like just being bought up
by European powers. When sales would slump, Zaharov would use
his press organs to pump more stories into the media
out say France's rivals arming. So even notice the sales
are slumping, then he'll try to drum up fear that
there's a war in Europe happening or that's about to happen,

(12:09):
so like people will start demanding that their country buy
more guns. Now. Since Vickers was ostensibly a British company,
the British government was happy to help Zaharof by using
their own soft power to bribe and cajole foreign nations
into buying British guns. Sometimes the agreement to allow Vickers
came with direct military aid from the British Empire. The
Royal Navy itself was for sale provided that, like the

(12:30):
company buying guns from Vickers sent enough money back to
the English economy to make it worthwhile. So like he's
basically using the British like he gets to use the
British military as like um like like like like if
you buy enough guns from us, like, we'll send in
our boats to help you do ship like because there. Yeah,
it's a bunch of money for England. Yeah. So frustratingly,

(12:53):
there's very little specific information on individual acts of bribery
that Zaharov may or may not have carried out because
he burnt all of his records um when he was
an old man. Um and the British government isn't about
to correct the record. Um. But there were folks at
the time who paid attention to a Basil his fellow
arms dealers were doing to Europe and the rest of
the world, and some of them had the courage to

(13:13):
speak up. And I'm gonna quote now from Basil's biography
Man of Arms again. On March eighteenth, nineteen fourteen, on
the very brink of the coming disaster, Philip Snowden disease
racked crippled socialist labor leader Rosen Commons to make a speech.
When he had done, he had rocked the British empire
with his disclosures. For two years, a young Quaker socialist
named Walton Newbold had been tracing with infinite pains the

(13:33):
torturous trail of the international arms makers and Philip Snowdon
had in his possession the fruits of that long quest.
When he rose to speak, One by one, he pointed
out cabinet ministers, members of the House, and named high
ranking officials, and army and navy circles, persons of royal
position who were large holders and shares of Vickers and Armstrong,
and John Brown and Beard more shipbuilders. The profits of
Vickers and Armstrong had been enormous, and those powerful persons

(13:55):
in the state and church and the nobility had bought
into them to share in the profits. Vickers had among
its director two dukes, to marquesses too, family members of
fifty earls, fifteen baronets and five knights, twenty one naval officers,
to naval government architects, and many journalists. Armstrong had even more,
sixty earls or their wives, fifteen baronets and twenty knights,
twenty military or naval architects and officers. While there were

(14:17):
thirteen members of the House of Commons on the directorates
of Vickers, Armstrong or John Brown. It would be impossible,
said Snowdon, to throw a handful of pebbles anywhere upon
the opposition benches without hitting members interested in these arms firms, Ministers, officers,
technical experts moved out of the government, out of the Navy,
the Army, the War Office, the Admiralty, into the employee
of the munitions manufacturers. Snowden, quoted Lord Welby, head of

(14:39):
the Civil Service, who only a few weeks before had
denounced the arms conspirators. We are in the hands of
an organization of crooks, said Lord Welby. They are politicians, generals,
manufacturers of armaments and journalists. All of them are anxious
for unlimited expenditure and go on inventing scares to terrify
the public and terrify the ministers of the Crown. So
part of how Zaharov, and not just him, these other
arms companies get away with what they're doing um is

(15:02):
that they hire like they'll hire these like members of
the nobility, members of the government, or convince them to
buy stocks that these people profit too. And that's why
he can convince the British government to send the Royal
Navy into companies that buy from his firm, is because like,
these guys have a vested interest too, and so they're
basically spending public money to make themselves money. Um By,

(15:25):
like drumming up more arms sales. So that's cool. Dang,
that's like, uh, who is this informant? Like, uh was he?
How did he know all this? Like is he just
a guy who was like yeah part of it? Yeah?
It was this quaker. Yeah, this quaker like socialist activist
who just like slowly would start tracing like basically like

(15:46):
starting with like stock sales and stuff, like who's buying
up interest in all these firms? Snowden no relation to
Edward Snowden. No, No, Snowden's the Snowden is a socialist
labor leader who like makes this speech using this guy
the stuff that this other guy found. But yeah, it
is weird that like it is another Snowden. So yeah. Um.

(16:08):
From eighteen seventy seven to nineteen fourteen, a kadra of
arms dealers, spearheaded by Basil Zaharov, who was the most
successful of them, bribed a succession of admirals, generals, high
ranking politicians, um and nobility from all of the great
powers of Europe. Krupp employed hundreds of people who received
salaries without doing any actual work, provided they were willing
to put in a good word to their government ministries.

(16:28):
When Krupp needed it. One German armament maker at the
time admitted, for some families, Crupp factories are a great
sinecure where nephews and poor relations of officials whose influence
in war is great find themselves jobs. In nineteen thirteen,
the year before Snowden made that speech, Dr Carl Liebneck,
a socialist leader in Germany's Reichstag, gave a similar speech
uncoiling massive corruption within the German Ministry of War. It

(16:50):
resulted in the trial and conviction of several ministry officials
who were found to be agents of Krupp. In Japan,
another scandal was involved with the German arms firm Siemen Schuchert,
who was found to have paid out more than half
a million modern dollars in bribes to Japanese officials to
guarantee them the contract to build a massive battleship. And
these give us an idea of the kind of stuff
Basil himself would have engaged in um But in general

(17:12):
we only catch glimpses of him during this period. As
Smithsonian Magazine summarizes quote, he appears sporadically in the Vicar's papers.
Now at Cambridge University Library and increasingly in the British
Foreign Office archives. These sources allow us to trace z
Z's increasing wealth and status. Between nineteen o two and
nineteen o five, he was paid a hundred and ninety
five thousand pounds and commissions worth twenty five million dollars

(17:33):
today in By nineteen fourteen, he was active not only
in Istanbul and Athens, but in St. Petersburg, Buenos Aires
and Assuncion. Uh. He owned several banks, lived in a
French chateau, and was romancing the Duchess of Villa Franca,
a Spanish noblewoman who would become his third wife. They're
not that so yeah, like this is part of what's
frustrating by writing about this guy's like we don't know
specifically what he did. We know that, like because like

(17:57):
the people who the people who were like bribing public
of was that we know about in this time, we're
the ones who weren't as good as Zaharov because he
was doing more of this. Yeah, because they got caught.
But like what happens in Europe, and this is something
we don't talk about much when we talk about World
War One, but a big part of why that war
happened is that the leadership of every country involved like

(18:18):
had personal financial stakes and the mass sale of weapons
and armaments, which also led to them buying more guns
and scaring each other with all the guns they were buying,
which led them to get angrier at each other, which
increased the belligerence between the nations. And it was all
basically to sell a shipload of guns to profit. Like
these arms manufacturers and the people that they bribed in
government had like a powder kig. I went to middle school.

(18:42):
I remember the little diagram went to draw. You know,
it's like World War One is a powder kig. Oh
my god. Yeah, but it's a powder keg that like
I think it's usually put that, like there are these
like that. A huge part of it was like I
don't know, like right, they didn't uncover all this the yeah,

(19:05):
the sinister underneath. I mean some of it was known
at the time, like particularly like a lot of socialist
politicians at the time were like, the arms industry owns
all of our governments and are like clearly lurching us
towards a horrible war. Somebody should do something about this,
but nobody did anything about it. So that's I mean
that doesn't sound like anything familiar, like the world lurching

(19:28):
towards clear disaster? What that that reminds me of something?
But I can't put a finger on it. Yeah, thankfully
it never happened again. Does a general sense of dread?
What is? What is that of something going on today? No?
I can't think of it. You know what all assuage

(19:48):
your general sense of dread? To reason products and services,
Because I, if I know something that has nothing at
all to do with corrupt arms panies buying politicians and
using them to bring the world closer and closer to disaster,
it's beautiful, beautiful, sweet lady capitalism. So let's calm our

(20:11):
souls with a little bit more of that and we're back.
So we don't know exactly what Zaharov did in most cases,
but there is bits and pieces of it. There are
bits and pieces of evidence here, and the documentary evidence
that survives suggests that the chief value he brought to

(20:32):
Vickers was his instinctive understanding of when into whom he
should offer bribes. Um. So he was like one of
the guys who was basically getting members of parliament, getting
like all these royal people to like get involved with
Vickars and make themselves like have a financial interest in
the success of his company. Um he wrote gleeful memos
that told of doing the needful and administering doses of

(20:55):
vicars to various prominent people in England. Foreign Office records
showed that in nineteen twelve, Zaharov was instrumental in passing
a hundred thousand roubles to officers in Russia's Ministry of
the Marine in order to divert government contracts to a
local ship building group in which Vickers had an interest.
At the same time, for reasons that remain obscure but
can be guessed at, Vickers also won a contract to

(21:15):
supply light machine guns to the Russian Army, despite the
fact that it's bid was fifty more expensive than one
submitted by a local Russian company. There is reason to
suppose that in the latter's case, Saharov's charm an easy
way with women was at least as helpful as his
money um One historian William Fuller suggests that he made
particularly effective use of his association with the ballerina Kashinskaya, who,

(21:37):
after losing her place as a mistress, took up with
Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich, Inspector General of the Russian Artillery.
So some of like he succeeds in basically like getting
Russia to buy a bunch of guns from him for
way more money than a local Russian firm wants to
sell them. For ballerina, he's dating a ballerina who's also

(21:57):
fucking the Grand Duke of Russia. Um, which is you know, yeah,
poking again more. Pola is like a delicate ballet, mm
hmm exactly. Um. So the individual acts Basil took during
this period are less important than the impact of strategies
and tactics had on the broader climate in Europe. World

(22:18):
War One was most directly a product of the armament
schedules of various nations of Europe. UM. So like once
like Germany realized that, like, okay, there was a conflict
you know, happening over between Austria and Serbia, and it's
gonna pull in Russian, it's gonna pull in France. They
knew that they had like only a certain amount of
time to mobilize their troops and get their army ready,

(22:39):
and everyone else in Europe knew that too. So it
was this kind of thing that like, once everyone starts
mobilizing for war, you really have to continue because any
delay can mean you lose the war because you don't
have your reserves and ship ready in time. UM and
the system Zaharov developed had ensured that each of these
great powers had obsessively scheduled updates for their weaponry, their ships,

(23:00):
their cannons, and their aircraft. And the varying levels to
which all of these different militaries were updated played a
huge role in the war calculus that drove the decision
making in August nineteen fourteen. UM. So like basically he's
got like all of these different countries are being convinced
to update their weapons and buy new fancier guns and
new fancier planes and stuff and new fancier canons at

(23:22):
different times, and all of the other powers know this.
So like Germany and nineteen fourteen is in this position
where they realize like they have the most advanced army
in Europe by their calculus, but Russia is rearming because
Zakharov has got them to buy a bunch of guns,
and France is rearming, and so they're like, if we
don't get involved, like fight a war right now, with

(23:44):
both of these countries and another five or six years
they'll have bought new guns and their guns will be
better than ours, and then we won't have a chance
of winning this war. So like, because of this this
kind of armament schedule that Zaharov helps to create, Germans
like if you look at the internal documents, like German
officers like von Moltke, who's in charge of their military

(24:04):
at the time, are writing each other during the July crisis.
They call it a preventative war, and the thing they're
trying to prevent is Germany getting losing a fight against
France and Russia, because like Russia's buying all these guns
from Vickers, and they're like soon they're going to actually
be able to beat us if we don't fight them
right now. It's like I feel like that's like when
I break up with someone because I don't want them

(24:26):
to break up with me later. So I'm like, I'll
do it now even though things are good, but like
later I'll be sad if you break up with me. Yeah,
and I think we all remember that breakup you had
that led to thousands of French and yeah, exactly, yeah,
it's um so yeah, So that's cool, right, um. So

(24:51):
basically like von Moltke and the German general staff thought
that nineteen fourteen was like the last year they could
beat both France and Russia in a war. Um. The
Saxon military attache in Berlin in July nineteen fourteen noted
this about the German commander quote, I had the impression
that the general staff would be pleased if war were
to come about now, conditions and prospects would never be

(25:12):
better for us. Victor Naumann, a journalist writing in Germany
at the time, noted the same thing. There is considerable
uneasiness in Berlin over Russian armaments and the test mobilization
of considerable Russian forces, not only an army and navy circles,
but also in the foreign ministry. The idea of preventative
war is regarded with less disapproval than a year ago.
There's like a really direct line between the fact that

(25:33):
Zaharov convinced it like, sells so many guns to Russia,
gets France to loan them all this money, and the
fact that World War One starts like it's it convinces
the Germans that they have to fight right now. That
wording to like less disapproval is also like a lot
of propaganda because it's spinning like there's disapproval, but it's
less disapproval instead of just been like they approved. No,

(25:54):
it's just slightly less disapproval. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Um
so yeah, Well, Europe lurched from crisis to crisis in
the final week, years, and months leading up to World
War One. Basil continued to blissfully sell arms all around
the world. Prior to World War One, when war broke
out between Greece, Turkey, and some of the Ottoman Empire's

(26:16):
rebellious European possessions, this is a nineve Basil took the
extraordinary step of funding the Greek war effort to the
tune of two and a half million francs in order
to ensure a Greek victory. Um it's not clear if
there was like a financial motivation to this as well,
or if he was like just patriotic, but the Ottoman
Empire's embarrassing defeat helped push them closer to Germany and

(26:36):
contributed to the ratcheting up of global tensions. Now, stoking
global war was not the only thing Basil got up
due during this period. In eighteen eighty nine, during a
tour around Europe. Uh, he met Maria del Pillar Antonia,
Angela Pato Sino, Simona de Muguero. I'm just printing the
Duchess of Villa Farca. He meets this Spanish noblewoman with

(26:58):
so many fucking names, um, and Basil strikes up a
romantic relationship with her that allowed him to sell millions
of dollars and guns to the Spanish army as well. Um. Now,
this was not purely a mercenary end ever, though, Zaharov
seems to have legitimately fallen in love with the duchess,
and he begged her to divorce her husband, arguing that
since her husband was dying and suffering from dementia, like,

(27:19):
what did it really matter if they got divorced. But
the Duchess was Catholic and she was not willing to
get divorced, although she was willing to cheat on her husband.
So I guess do the moral math. There's a much
looser out there. Yeah, I can't divorce my husband because
it'll make God angry, but we can suck for thirty years. Yeah. Um,

(27:41):
So Basil and the Duchess were together for decades. Um
and everyone kind of knew it, but just like agreed
not to talk about it because I guess that's just
how you did things back then. Um. Her husband was
declared insane and locked up in a mental asylum. He
survived thirty five years um, which none of them expected
um and really frustrated Basil because he and his missed
had to like hide their relationship at least a little

(28:03):
bit for most of this period. Um. But to Basil's credit,
he seems to have actually loved this woman and the
tour together for the rest of their lives. UM. So
that's cool. She's like, yeah, yeah, he doesn't steal from her,
so that's nice. Um yeah. So um yeah Basil, Yeah,

(28:27):
I mean he he's he's a big part of why
World War One starts and kind of the impact of
his like the ship that he pulls prior to the war,
like the particularly that the fact that Russia winds up
in like tremendous debt to France, um, winds up having
an impact beyond just the First World War. UM. So

(28:50):
like Russia by the time, like you know, World War one,
nineteen seventeen, Like there's a big revolution in Russia and
the Czars very soon out of power. And one of
the reasons that this happens is because of all of
the debt that Russia owed to France. Like that was
one of the big talking points of the Bolsheviks and
the Socialists when they like overthrew the government. Is like

(29:10):
the czar had mortgaged their company to France to buy
better guns, and that had forced them to get involved
in this war that had killed hundreds and thousands of
their young men. Um and you can kind of trace
a lot of that to Zaharov um. So. Like as
far back as nineteen o five, the Bolshevik counsels had
demanded repudiation of all of Russia's foreign debts UM and
this demand formed a centerpiece for the strikes in St.

(29:32):
Petersburg that happened in nineteen o five UM and those
strikes spread around the empire along with the demand for
debt repudiation, and then they were crushed brutally by the
Russian government, which was again one of the major causes,
you know, one of the things that helped inspire the
Russian Revolution. Uh So, on December third, nineteen o five,
Czarist authorities arrested the entire Soviet leadership for publishing a

(29:53):
manifesto urging debt repudiation. The revolution that sparked off in
nineteen seventeen was based on a lot of grievances and
crime by the Tsarist regime, but the fact that the
future of the Russian people had basically been like sold
to France for pointless guns for a stupid war was
a big part of them. And it also played a
role in the fact that like the most extreme faction

(30:13):
wound up winning the Civil War. The Czar initially like
gave up power to a moderate socialist movement led by
a guy named Kerensky, and this provisional government was crippled
by the fact that it both had to carry on
World War One and it had to pledge to repay
the debts contracted by the Czarist regime. So because Kerensky
had to agree that Russia was going to keep paying
off its debts to France, um like, that's a big

(30:35):
part of why there's a revolution against him in October
of nineteen seventeen, which leads to the takeover of the Bolsheviks,
who in nineteen eighteen repudiated all Russian debt to its
foreign creditors. Now, the fact that the Bolsheviks in charge
had decided they're just not going to pay France back.
Pisces off a lot of people, particularly France, and this
contributes to the French decision to blockade Russia and back

(30:58):
up the white Russian forces. This prolongs the Russian Civil War,
killing more Russians than World War One actually did, and
it also ensures that the Bolsheviks who remain, who emerged
victorious from the war, were like even more pissed at
these Western countries because they were like, well, you guys
extended this horribly brutal war, um, and like like, just
so we'd pay you back for these guns that like

(31:19):
you condescendto buying in the first place. Um, isn't that
How like isn't the America, oh, China a bunch of money,
not necessarily weapons? But are we kind of themselves into
that too? I mean, we owe more money to our
own people, Like it's I guess it. I think it's like,
but we have a it's different. They did it deficit.

(31:42):
They lent us a bunch of money. I remember, like
it was in high school, and it's so much that
we're never going to pay them back. And I think
it's kind of understood that at some point it'll just
be fair or we're just going to have to do
what they say because it's so much that we can't
pay back. Yeah, I think it a bit different now
because like money is not real now. It was like

(32:04):
back then, everything's like that by god, civil yeah my country.
I guess No, it's like it isn't really real, like you,
like you'll notice nobody even talks about the deficit anymore.
Like it used to be like our national debt was
this big deal, and now we just pretend it's not
a thing. Yeah. It's like if you go to the

(32:26):
hospital and wind up owing ten million dollars in medical debt,
and it's just like, well, I'm never paying this, like
I work at the sparrow, Like what do you what
do you want? Um? But like back then, like all
of the the all of these like currencies are back
are are like based on gold and silver and stuff,
so like there is like an expectation of real repayment um.

(32:48):
And like it's a horrible burden to the Russian peasantry
because like the rich people of Russia aren't going to
pay all of that money, Like they're the ones who
made these deals so that they could get more money
because these arms coming, you're bribing them. Um. So like, yeah, Basil,
when you try to trace out like the impact of
this guy, like it's in a bunch of stuff. He
helps lead the world into World War Two, which like

(33:09):
twenty million people die in. But he also plays a
significant role in helping to inspire at least parts of
the Russian Civil War, and helping to inspire like like
the debts that Russia owes lead to like protests and
stuff that are cracked down on brutally by the czar,
which is one contributing factor to the civil war. And
then once the civil war happens, they help to ensure

(33:32):
that the most extreme people get into power, um, and
then help also ensure that like the European powers, Russia
owes money to back up the other side in the
civil war, which kills hundreds of thousands of people, and
like Basil had a huge impact on that, but he
also got to completely ignore it because he's just a
rich guy living in Europe. He already made his fucking money,
doesn't give a shit like he made his he made

(33:52):
he got his cut of the deal already that he
doesn't lose anything because Russia is not paying back his debts.
Like he's fucking fine. Um. And he was fine with
World War One. He made a funkload of money in
World War One. Um. And he basically got to not
really work all that hard during the war. Um, because
you don't have to work hard to sell guns to
countries in the middle of the biggest war history. It's

(34:14):
really easy to sell guns there. Um. So what you're
saying is he almost wanted a war. Um. Yeah. And
in fact, once the war was going, it was very
much in his interest to prolong the blood letting and yeah,
make the war happen even longer. So at the start
of hostilities, the Imperial German Army had captured a place

(34:35):
called the bri A basin um and they routed to
French armies to do it. For good reason, Brier included
massive quantities of iron ore and Germany didn't have a
whole lot of iron and like its own borders, so
Brier became a lynchpin of the German war effort. Without
the iron there, they would not have been able to
fight World War One more than about six months. So
they capture all of this like iron or in these

(34:56):
blast furnaces and stuff, but all of it's within the
range of French artillery. So what would you think of
your France. Oh, Germany's got this place that like they
cannot fight the war if they can't get iron out
of it, and we can blow it all up, you'd
think they'd blow it all up, right, seems like kind
of a no brainer from a military point of view.
They don't shell it at all during the war and

(35:17):
the reason they don't shell it at all is Basil
zahar Off because Basil's like, well, this is a bunch
of money, Like, once the war is over, I could
make a lot of money from the iron foundries here,
Like I don't want you guys blowing that stuff up.
So he basically finds himself in this position of having
to convince France not to do the thing that could
allow them to win the war in six months. And

(35:39):
when we come back, we're going to talk about how
he did that. But first, if you need to win
a war against Germany in six months, the only way
to do it is with the products and services that
support this podcast. We're back. So um yeah, uh Basil

(36:03):
zaharrof um So Basil is trying to convince like find
himself in this position of like needing to convince franch
not to blow up this place that would allow them
to win the war and make Germany's effort basically impossible. Um.
And the way he does this is through a friendship
he has with a guy named Robert Pinot, who's one
of the leaders of like the French government's armament's effort,
so he's like one of the people responsible for arming

(36:24):
the French military during this war. Uh Pineau warns him
that French generals were agitating to bomb brill A m
because they're like, we want to win this war, because
we're generals and this is the easiest way to do it.
Um And yeah, Basil, Basically, I'm going to read a
quote from the book Man of Arms that describes what
he did next. At Pino's requests, Zaharov took informal soundings

(36:46):
from the German industrialists and Theonville we at the same
time putting up an alternative blockade plan to French headquarters.
This was that the installations that Brier should be left intact,
but that attack should be launched and said on the
railways general military immediately and finely contested this option. The
preference may have reflected the special interests of the committee.
The ultimate decision, however, lay with the ministers individually and

(37:07):
the cabinet collectively. After taking into consideration the advice of
their military advisors and service chiefs. They neither pressed it
nor resigned in disagreement. The same French source put another
gloss on this affair. Towards the end of nineteen sixteen,
Lloyd George sought Zaharov's advice on the chance of securing
a token withdrawal of troops on both sides of the
front on New Year's Day, an appeal which Zaharov, with
his customary agility, distorted into a mutual agreement between the

(37:30):
Allies and the Central Powers to respect each other's arms factories.
Lloyd George, according to this version, finally concurred with Zaharov's
viewpoint and agreed it would be senseless to destroy industrial
plants and too in the war with derelict factories and
mass unemployment. So yeah, um, so it's like yeah, so
he not only like basically like tries to push this

(37:50):
plan to have France like send thousands of young men
to their deaths, trying to attack German railways instead of
just shelling these iron foundries. Um. But like later in
the war, in like nineteen sixteen, when he's like asked
to try and secure like a withdrawal from both sides
on New Year's Day to give like the soldiers, like
to ratchet down tensions and give the soldiers a break.

(38:12):
He's like, no, no, no, no, no, they should keep
shooting at each other. But like what we should really
do is make an international agreement to not destroy any
arms factories, because I yeah, that's yeah, he's a real
piece of shit, um. So yeah. While millions of young
men were like dashing themselves to death against machine gun
nests and artillery emplacements, Basil Zaharov dedicated himself to protecting

(38:35):
what really mattered, the industrial facilities that made those weapons.
He was deeply trusted by men at the heights of
power on the Allied side, and he acted as a
go between for King George the Fifth Lloyd George, who
was like the guy in charge of England, and the
French Prime Minister clemenso Um, the Earl of Derby, the
British ambassador to France, wrote that there is no man
living in whom more people can fight and than him,

(38:56):
and well it's impossible to say exactly what impact his
personal it's had on the war. Lord Derby was convinced
that Basil Zaharov had a vested interest in making the
war go on as long as possible in June of
nineteen seventeen. Yeah, in June of nineteen seventeen, he wrote
in his journal, Zaharov is all for continuing the war
to the end. So, like we don't know exactly what

(39:18):
he did, and this is part of the frustrating thing.
It's like hard to say, like he said to the king,
you know, do this or that, because like nobody keeps
track of these conversations between these world leaders and their friend.
But we know he really wants the war to go
on long and he's a voice in all these people's ears. Um. Yeah, so, uh,
he did make one attempt to secure peace in nineteen seventeen. Uh,

(39:40):
he kind of. He was sent by Lloyd George to
try and bring Greece into the war on the Allied
side and to try to convince the Ottoman Empire to
effect from Germany. He was given ten million pounds worth
of solid gold to try to bribe this into being.
But unfortunately for Basil, he only made it as far
as Switzerland, and I'm gonn quote from Smithsonian Magazine. Now,
his reputation preceded him intercepting at the border, he was

(40:02):
humiliatingly strip searched and left standing in sub zero temperatures
for more than an hour by the border police. In
the end, his intrigues came to nothing, but that did
not stop him writing to the British government to demand
chocolate for z Z, his coy reference to the major
honor he craved. So let's say he's asking for like
an award. He's like, I would like zed Z for
like some chocolate. Yeah, So this really discussed King George

(40:26):
the Fifth, who like, at this point is at least
enough of a human being to be like, millions of
young men have died and like, look at the kind
of like the kind of ship you're saying. But he
grudgingly recommends z Z for a Grand Night Cross, which
finally enabled Zaharov to style himself Sir Basil for the
first time in his life, some sort of justification. He's

(40:48):
just like it to be. He's just like a little
child whining, like I want to prize like you didn't
say good job to me after I failed at that
thing you wanted me to do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I
want a prize for like failing to secure peace and
helping to start it. Yeah. Um. So obviously, World War
One ends in nineteen eighteen, and this is good news

(41:09):
for human beings, but bad news for weapons companies because
you're gonna buy a lot of fewer guns after this war. Um.
And when the fighting ended, the arms industry contracted massively. Basil, though,
was still very wealthy and influential, and he bought his
way into being part owner of Monte Carlo, the famous
resort and casino. However, his chief interest continued to be

(41:30):
and the movement and destinies of the nations. From nineteen
twenty to nineteen twenty two, Basil got deeply involved in
the Greco Turkish war over smyrna Um. And this is
we talked about this a little bit in the Savitri
Devi episode. But basically, like Greece in a treaty, in
the Treaty Versailles is given this like chunk of land
on the Turkish coast and they have to send in

(41:53):
troops to actually take it. In Turkey fights, back and
eventually the Allies like abandoned Greece and grease like lou
As the war and there's a horrible genocide. Um. And
there are rumors that Basil himself entirely funded the Greek
war effort, their attempt to invade Turkey. Um. There's no
hard evidence of this, but it's one of the stories.
Everyone will say is that like he funded this war

(42:14):
that Greece fights against Turkey. We just really don't know.
The war was a disaster for Greece though, and it
was a disaster for Zakharov's political backers, like Lloyd George,
so he had he like Zaharov was a major part
of the reason that like they got this land than
the Treaty of Versailles, and he was like pushing the
English and want not to back Greece in this war.
And when it ends badly for Greece, it's really bad

(42:36):
for all of like the people that give zaharof his influence.
And it's bad for his influence too, because he's made
a big funk up. In the mid nineteen twenties, Vickers
began to encounter increasing financial difficulties in the Europe. Exhausted
by war nations just weren't buying guns at the same
apocalyptic level they once had. Krupp had been killed by
Allied demands that they destroy all of their arms producing equipment,

(42:58):
but the death of Vickers greatest competit did not help
the company out. Uh They were forced to massively reorganize
and cut costs just to stay in business. Their stock
price dropped by two thirds, and since Basil was the
largest stockholder in Vicars, this severely impacted his net worth,
and he was slowly shuffled out of any position of
power within the company by nineteen five. In nineteen seven,

(43:19):
the managers of the reorganized firm presented Basil with an
award for his fifty years of service with the company.
It was a bomb designed to hide the fact that
they'd removed him from any position of influence. On September
have this fucking award? You like awards? You're some chocolate
for z z Yeah. So on September two, nineteen twenty four,

(43:40):
Basil Zaharov had married his duchess after nearly forty years
together because her husband died in that asane asylum, but
she didn't outlive him for very long. At eighteen months later,
she died, and this basically spelled the end for Basil. Yeah,
he was never the same after his wife died. He
does seem to have loved this woman, um and in
nineteen twenty seven he burns all of his papers and
note books and all of the evidence of his long

(44:01):
and bloody career. Is the most successful arms dealer in
world history goes up in smoke. The King of Armaments
survived until nineteen thirty six, but over the next decade
he grew sicker and less mobile, eventually being wheeled around
by servants as he did his rounds at Monte Carlo.
He died sick and marginalized, with his vast fortune much depleted.
There's no way to know how much money he was
really worth, but his liquid known assets at death were

(44:24):
only around a million modern dollars. Only a billion dollars.
What a fucking million? A million? A million with a million? Wow?
I mean, like wow, that's just what a fucking loser.
I mean, who doesn't have a million dollars? Right? Am? I? Right? Yeah? Yeah,
yeah yeah? I mean you don't feel sorry for this
guy that he only dies with a million dollars? Robert

(44:45):
All I hear, is this is a rom com that
ended in a very happy marriage, and that he you
said he loved her, So you know, that's all I
need to hear. Most romcoms, people funk up, and it
doesn't matter how they funk up, as long as there's
a kiss at the end. So that's what I heard.
I mean, if there's one thing I've learned from modern politics,
it's that just because somebody starts a couple of wars

(45:06):
and gets a couple of million people killed, doesn't mean
you shouldn't root for them to be have friends and
live a happy life. You know. It's like, like, so
what if basils at her off, like got all those
people killed, Like, don't you want him to I don't know,
take up painting and and meet paintings of like world

(45:27):
leaders or something like isn't that shouldn't we forgive people
like this? M hmm yeah, for the record, because I
feel like people don't know me as well as they
know you do. Not do not think that, um, but
you know, but I do think. Uh, I do think
this guy is bad, and I think he's burning in
hell if you believe in hell. But if you don't,

(45:48):
then he's just um, he's just dust. Then he completely won. Yeah.
If you don't believe in hell like, then he's he
got away scott free basically with uh millions and millions
contributing to millions of deaths. So on that happy note.
You know who won't contribute to millions of deaths? Are

(46:10):
you gonna say me recently? Yeah? Exactly? Time to plug?
Oh wow? Okay, well I promised to not strip you
of millions. I promise I'll never have a million dollars
as a promise I can keep. Um. I you can
follow me at Larissa t l e r e Esa
t E on Instagram and Twitter. Yeah, and my call

(46:31):
to all of you is to prove Teresa wrong and
give her a million dollars um, and then she will
sell armaments and spark the next great World War. I
feel confident of that. Okay, if you give me a
million dollars, I will do my best to sell start
to war. So, um, we are back or we're done.

(46:53):
We're not back, We're about to go away. What he
means is he's doing a live show with Billywayne Davis
and Lass Angeles on March eighth at Dinasy Typewriter by tickets.
If you haven't already. He also means that he is
I right okay on Twitter, you should follow him, and
you should follow our podcast Adbaster Spot on Twitter, on
Instagram doesn't get anything. Let's I forget anything, Robert, Oh,

(47:16):
we have a t public ser What else? Yes? By
Raytheon's fine Missiles with knives the only missiles filled with knives?
Anythink else? You still should? Anything else? Great episodes over
podcast