Zaharoff the Armaments King PDF
Preview Zaharoff the Armaments King
ZAHAROFF THE ARMAMENTS KING "Zaharoff the Armaments King" was first published in England in 1935 and a new impressionfollowed in 1936. RobertNeumann has,for Readers'Unionedition(1938),brought his Zaharoff "legend" up to date and revised various parts of the text. To Readers' Union edition has been added a portrait of Zaharoff. ZAHAROFF ZAHAROFF THE ARMAMENTS KING by Robert Neumann TRANSLATED BY R. T. CLARK READERS' UNION LIMITED GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD POINT This edition, for Readers' Union membersonly, is possible by co-operativereader demandand bythe sacrificeofordinaryprofit margins by all concerned. Such conditions cannot apply under the normal hazardsofbook productionand distribution. Reader commentaries on Zaharoffthe Armaments Kingwill be found in July 1938issue of Readers'News given free with this volume. Membership ofReaders' Union can be made at any booksellers' shop. MADE 1938 IN GREAT BRITAIN. PRINTED BY C. TINLING AND CO., LTD., LIVERPOOL, LONDON AND PRESCOT, FOR READERS' UNION LTD. REGISTERED OFFICES: CHANDOS PLACE BY CHARING CROSS, LONDON, ENGLAND. CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE THE DIFFICULTIES OF A BIOGRAPHER 9 1. ON THE TRACK OF A YOUNG MAN FROM THE EAST 19 A PieceofUniversal History-APieceofFamily History-The Child is Father ofthe Man-The Case of Haim Sahar of Wilkomir-Sir Basil Casanova-The Detective at Work-The First Conquest of Athens n. DEAD MEN OVERTURE 79 The Duel with Mr. Maxim-A Stay in Russia Cherchez lafemme-Clouds over South America -In the Prime of Life-a portrait-Maxims for Budding Armament Kings-The Duel with a Gentleman from Le Creusot-The Noise of Battle-In the Paris Press-Spring Interlude, 1914 Ill. ALMOST A MYTHOLOGICAL FIGURE 162. Chance and mischance-The Second Conquest ofAthens-MerelyFiction IV. THE VOICE BEHIND THE THRONE 194 A Little Studyin Human Nature-TheInvasion ofFrance-BloodversusOil-UnknownMotives -The Private War ofa Millionaire-Retreat V. NATIONS AS PAWNS 2.41 Divide etimpera-And Germany?-One Father- land less-The milliard-pound Peace VI. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF AN OLD GENTLE- MAN 2.65 APrincipalityfor aWoman-LiesaboutZaharoff -The end ofZaharoff SOURCES INDEX THE DIFFICULTIES OF A BIOGRAPHER PROBLEM: To writethe biography ofa man who was still alive not somany months ago. He is justasmoral, justasimmoralas any other, neither devil nor saint, and if there is a something which makeshim different from othercreatures whoare greedy for food and plunder, it is no more than this-that he has done hisgatheringofbootymore successfullyand more cleverly. His plunderhasbeen won on the grand scale,and it isonly because hissuccesshasbeen on thatscalethat hiscunning,trickery,and unscrupulousness seem to have something of grandeur about them. His life is an adventurous one, but not a whit more adventurous than the times in which it was lived. His biographer is faced with extraordinary difficulties. The archives of ministries and embassies and those of the great armaments firms as well are kept sternly under lock and key, and to describe how this or that documentprintedin this book came into the hands ofthe biographer would need a book in itself. Add to this that the victimofthis biography will not "stand still"likethe victim ofthephotographer. He did, and somehow stilldoesevenafterhisdeath,everythinghe couldtoconfusethe picture. You ask for his birth certificate. Alas Ia fire destroyed the church registers. You search for a document concerning him in the archives of the Vienna War Office. The folder is there, but it is empty; the document has vanished. After all sorts ofdifficultiesyou obtain permission to inspect the papers ofalaw case.The papers are requested,but, alasIno one in the officecan find them. He buys a chateau in France and-how does the story of the editor ofthe Documentspolitiques go ? "Sir BasilZaharoffat once buys up all the picture postcards in the villages ofBalincourt,Avrincourt,andthe rest which show the chateau, and strictly prohibits any more photographs being taken." His desire to avoid publicity goes as far as that. And again add this, that at a certain epoch in his career Sir Basil himselfput outthe mostamazing stories ofhisadventures that 10 ZAHAROFF: THE ARMAMENTS KING you could imagine-in order to attract attention and arouse interest(aprocess not inimical to business) and alsoin orderto confuse the trail. Can one say more? There are lies told to Zaharoff's discredit; there are lies told to his credit; and there are also lies for which there is no other explanation than the vanity ofthe man who told them. The result was that to write this book a new procedure had to be found, a method very different from the usual methods of the ordinary literary biographer. To track down the facts required the diligence not so much ofawriterasofadetective. Wheredocuments were obtainable they have been reproduced. Where witnesses had to be questioned their evidence is given as far as possible in their own words, so that the reader can himself make up his own mind about their trustworthiness; and that is the more necessary as a whole series of witnesses only gave evidence on the strict understanding that their names would not be mentioned in this book. As to the wit nesses themselves, two types may be distinguished: those who knew something and did not wish to tell, and those who knew little or nothing at all and wanted to tell a lot-from sheer communicativeness, from a desire to play a part in the drama, or simply out ofpuregood naturein orderto make the task of the wretchedauthorwho had to write abookaseasyaspossible. As an example ofthe first type, take a short extract from the conversation with a former Prime Minister of Greece, a man who for twenty years has been one of the leading figures in Greek politics, and to whose evidence I shall return time and again. (This man who in this book is called "Witness D." is notM. Venizelos, and I may as well say this at once and so avoid misunderstandings. The interview took place, as, by the way,did agooddealofthe interviews reproducedin this book, before Zaharoff's death.) Like all conversations, this one began with his expressing the wish that his name should not be mentioned, and with my assurance that it would not be mentioned. Then it went on :
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