The Zaharoff Commission

By Andre Jute

“The information which Zaharoff secured in Germany for Lloyd George was the most important piece of intelligence of the whole war,” said Georges Clemenceau, Premier of France in World War One.

“They say that the information I brought ended the war,” Sir Basil Zaharoff told the journalist Rosita Forbes in 1933 in a statement not for publication until after his death.

So crucial was this mission that David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain, persuaded his King to knight the sometime Constantinople brothel tout Zaharoff for the information he brought out of the chaos of Germany.

This is the true story of how Basil Zaharoff, the greatest armaments manufacturer the world has ever seen, the notorious Pedlar of Death himself, the hated enemy of the Left, in June 1918 risked death to enter Germany like a common spy to determine whether the Germans should be offered an honorable peace by the reluctant Allies before the triumphant Bolsheviks took over Germany and brought chaos to all Europe.

Peopled by the heroes and villains of history — including a cameo by the young Hermann Goering — THE ZAHAROFF COMMISSION is a literally true thriller. Historically, it shatters the century-old myth that Germany was defeated in World War One by military force.

“Jute’s work of fiction is, once again, bang on target.” — Donald McCormick, author of PEDLAR OF DEATH: THE LIFE OF SIR BASIL ZAHAROFF.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andre Jute
• Release date: Apr 7, 2016
• ISBN: 9781311081179

Andre Jute

André Jute is a novelist and, through his non-fiction books, a teacher of creative writing, graphic design and engineering. There are about three hundred editions of his books in English and a dozen other languages.He was educated in Australia, South Africa and the United States. He has been an intelligence officer, racing driver, advertising executive, management consultant, performing arts critic and professional gambler. His hobbies include old Bentleys, classical music (on which for fifteen years he wrote a syndicated weekly column), cycling, hill walking, cooking and wine. He designs and builds his own tube (valve) audio amplifiers.He is married to Rosalind Pain-Hayman and they have a son. They live on a hill over a salmon river in County Cork, Eire.

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CONTENTS

Dustjacket

Title Page

Start Reading THE ZAHAROFF COMMISSION

Author’s Note

Highlights from the Life of Sir Basil Zaharoff

Abbreviated List of Sources

Dedication & Copyright

More books by André Jute & friends

THE ZAHAROFF COMMISSION

André Jute

The information which Zaharoff secured in Germany for Lloyd George was the most important piece of intelligence of the whole war, said Georges Clemenceau, Premier of France in World War One.

They say that the information I brought ended the war, Sir Basil Zaharoff told the journalist Rosita Forbes in 1933 in a statement not for publication until after his death.

So crucial was this mission that David Lloyd George, Prime Minister of Britain, persuaded his King to knight the sometime Constantinople brothel tout Zaharoff for the information he brought out of the chaos of Germany.

This is the true story of how Basil Zaharoff, the greatest armaments manufacturer the world has ever seen, the notorious Pedlar of Death himself, the hated enemy of the Left, in June 1918 risked death to enter Germany like a common spy to determine whether the Germans should be offered an honorable peace by the reluctant Allies before the triumphant Bolsheviks took over Germany and brought chaos to all Europe.

Peopled by the heroes and villains of history — including a cameo by the young Hermann Goering — THE ZAHAROFF COMMISSION is a literally true thriller. Historically, it shatters the century-old myth that Germany was defeated in World War One by military force.

"Jute’s work of fiction is, once again, bang on target." — Donald McCormick, author of PEDLAR OF DEATH: THE LIFE OF SIR BASIL ZAHAROFF.

THE ZAHAROFF COMMISSION

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André Jute

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CoolMain Press

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PROLOGUE 1

... a matter as important, if not indeed more so. I humbly beg to stress again to Your All-Highest that Basil Zaharoff is the Chief Munitions Agent of the Forces aggressively aligned against the victorious Fatherland. The capture of Zaharoff will be worth the surrender of a whole Allied Army division.

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach

in a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in August 1914

FRANCE/August 1914

Basil Zaharoff took nothing and nobody on faith.

It was natural for him to want to test his new motor car. It was equally natural to wish it driven in the direction of the fighting only ten miles away. Basil Zaharoff earned the cost of the car, and much else, as a supplier of armaments and munitions.

While the chauffeur brought the car to the front of the château, Zaharoff sat in the downstairs study off the main salon, reading the dispatches Nadel brought him in a sealed pouch. The documents themselves were secured with wax bearing the seals of various ministries and important men in Paris. One document Zaharoff burned after reading it twice, not a flicker of expression crossing his aquiline features during the whole performance. He held the burning paper between thumb and forefinger over the large ashtray on his desk and listened to the conversation of the two men standing in front of the desk.

You look remarkably like your master, Nadel said to the secretary.

Zaharoff’s secretary was an impoverished young English nobleman, the Hon. Nigel ffolkes-Northrop. He inclined his head ever so slightly to Nadel, resenting the Sûreté agent’s imputation of his servant-status. It was the Hon. Nigel’s contention that, after only three weeks of war, servants were already showing a marked decline in respect for their masters.

You and I, Nadel continued, could go to Switzerland and draw money from your master’s accounts. We would both be rich.

In his outrage, the Hon. Nigel looked Nadel full in the face. As a servant the man was impertinent, as a policeman, an incitement to violence. Nigel shuddered: the short, broad Russian Jew’s face was pockmarked, his skin of a darker hue than Nigel thought trustworthy, and his hair was greased. Besides, Nadel insisted on looking Nigel straight in the eye in the rudest possible fashion and grinning evilly, showing tobacco-stained teeth. No, Nadel did not compare favorably with Nigel’s own aristocratic appearance and bearing. Nigel glanced at Zaharoff, who could not but have heard Nadel’s loud voice. Zaharoff said nothing and returned to his papers.

Once again Nigel wondered what threat Nadel held over Zaharoff, what basis for a special relationship, for Zaharoff was not one to stand for impertinence unless he gained or protected something through his forbearance.

Ask if the duchess is ready and escort her to the car, Zaharoff told Nigel when he finished with the documents. Nigel left. Zaharoff gazed steadily at Nadel. You talk too much, Nadel, Zaharoff said.

Only when it profits me. Nadel reached for a cigar from the box on the corner of Zaharoff’s desk.

Zaharoff slammed the heavy teak lid on Nadel’s fingers. You talk too much. It could be dangerous.

Like Jaurés? Nadel showed no sign of the considerable pain he was in. On the night of 31 July, Jaurés, Zaharoff’s most implacable opponent in the French Chamber of Deputies, was shot dead by a young student.

On the same day I was made Commander of the Legion of Honor, Zaharoff said casually, letting go the lid.

The highest honor the President of the Republic can bestow. Nadel took a cigar from the box, bit the end, spat the piece into his hand and dropped it into the ashtray on top of the ashes of the burnt document. The Jaurés file is closed. Killed by a fanatic.

Zaharoff selected a cigar, trimmed the end with a gold clipper, breathed through it into the long match Nadel held for him. I knew that from the beginning. So you want something for Mouchliou. Once again.

Nadel nodded his head reluctantly. When the French Government investigated Zaharoff in 1912, Nadel handled the enquiries. He went to Asia Minor to verify a birth certificate Zaharoff supplied. The certificate was suspect, signed on hearsay evidence by people long since dead, but Nadel put the most favorable interpretation on it. As a result of Nadel’s report, Zaharoff was accepted in the French body politic; it could be said that the whole of Zaharoff’s considerable wealth and prestige — and his self-respect, but only Nadel knew that — rested like an upside down pyramid on the one sharp point of the Mouchliou birth certificate.

Zaharoff put one document in his pocket and carried the rest from his desk to the bulky safe hulking behind a rich tapestry in the corner of the room. It’s not money you want.

No. A small thing. I do not see why a man of my seniority should be a messenger-boy.

It is because you are trusted that you are asked to carry important documents.

With my languages—

Nadel, my little Nadel! You know too much to be allowed to go fighting. You are too valuable.

There are other trustworthy men.

Zaharoff spread his hands. Please. I will ask but I promise nothing. Others were involved in the decision that you should be the trusted messenger.

That is all I ask, Nadel said, smiling around his cigar.

You will not be allowed to go anywhere that you might be shot, you understand?

Yes. You have use for me. But almost anything will be better than courier work.

Zaharoff chuckled. Come, I will show you the war.

In the hall a liveried servant waited to hand Zaharoff his hat, a domed and wide brimmed concoction of felt, vaguely clerical in aspect.

You should have your secretary grow an imperial such as yours, Nadel said. He should also cut his hair like yours.

Why should I need a double?

You may be respectable now. Nadel could speak very softly when he chose. But it is wartime. You never know.

And then you and he can go around the Swiss banks and draw my money.

Nadel laughed heartily. I am too clever to try that. And he is too stupid. Talk of the devil.

The Hon. Nigel descended the grand staircase that swept up to the mezzanine and the balconies. On his arm was Maria del Pilar Antonia Angelina Patrocinio Simona de Muguiro y Beruete, Duquesa de Villafranca de los Caballeros. She was married to Don Francisco de Bourbon y Bourbon, Duke of Marchena, homosexual son of the Infant Sebastian of Spain, with whom Zaharoff once fought a duel because he objected to the sadistic way Don Francisco treated her. It was whispered that Zaharoff was instrumental in having her mad husband confined to a lunatic asylum. Even then, as a devout Catholic, she would not contemplate divorcing Don Francisco to marry Zaharoff. Such time as she could spare from the children’s care and her official duties at the Spanish Court, she spent overseeing Zaharoff’s several large households. Only Nadel guessed that it was to gain her respect that Zaharoff went to such lengths to provide himself with a reputable background: the Mouchliou birth certificate.

To Nigel’s surprise, the duchess offered her hand to Nadel who bowed deeply over it, but said nothing. They walked down the two flights of stairs to the driveway. The chauffeur brought the car from Paris the previous day. They walked around it.

It is a Daimler, Nigel told the duchess. The King has one.

He means the King of England, Nadel said softly to Zaharoff but the duchess overheard and laughed, a clear sound in the bright chill sunshine. Nigel blushed. He was enamored of the duchess’s exquisite beauty and delicately chiseled features, though she was his senior by a considerable margin; Nigel blushed easily, being only twenty-three. To forget, even momentarily, that the duchess was a close relative of the King of Spain was unforgivably rude; to have the transgression pointed out by Nadel, devastating.

The chauffeur, as well as the two liveried footmen on the running boards, thought their master mad to stay so near the fighting when he possessed several other pleasant country homes on the far side of Paris or even in England, safely across the Channel. But none voiced an objection. Basil Zaharoff’s servants were well trained and very well paid indeed. Zaharoff gave his half-smoked cigar to a servant to finish or dispose of before he climbed into the car. The chauffeur settled Zaharoff and the duchess into the Bedford cord seats of the tonneau and turned down the occasional seats for Nadel and Nigel. He gave Zaharoff the maps and sat at attention behind the wheel, awaiting instructions. On the seat beside him stood a huge picnic hamper.

Drive east, Zaharoff said. Nigel relayed the order to the chauffeur. Zaharoff was almost ten feet from the driver’s seat; it was a very large car.

Nigel, still smarting, snapped at Nadel. A gentleman does not smoke in the presence of ladies.

I’m not a gentleman, Nadel said imperturbably but infuriatingly threw his cigar out just as the duchess said: Nadel has other qualities. And I like the aroma of cigar smoke.

Zaharoff asked the duchess Don’t you think Nigel’s hair, although it suits him well enough, could be cut to make him look rather more mature?

It is becoming but it could be more so. Yes, I agree.

Nigel was flattered at the interest. Next you’ll have me growing a beard.

What do you think, my dear? Zaharoff asked the duchess.

Hm. I really don’t know.

Boys with beards are usually hiding something, Nadel interposed. And that Eton haircut suits Nigel.

Nigel decided to call in Zaharoff’s barber to have his hair recut instanter instantis they returned.

Well, said the duchess loyally, imperials are not deceitful. Zaharoff wore an imperial.

Nadel said nothing. He scored all his points. Further effort would be wasted. He watched Zaharoff, whose face was impassive, as Nadel expected.

The car slowed to turn beyond the gate and the chauffeur brought it to a sudden halt. A massed group of horses and riders in colorful uniforms rode straight at them at a full gallop.

Lancers. Probably the Seventh from down the road. They’ll give way, Nigel opined.

Lancers, Nadel agreed. But German.

Uhlans, Zaharoff said with cool precision, then shouted at the chauffeur, Drive straight through them! To everyone else he said, Hold on tight.

The car jerked forward. One footman fell from the running board. The straining engine could not be heard over the thunder of the horses’ hooves. The car sped at the seemingly impenetrable wall of cavalry. Shots were fired at the car and its occupants from the front row of riders but none hit the car. Neither horses nor car slowed and a collision seemed imminent.

At the last moment the chauffeur eased his foot on the accelerator but Nadel struck him on the back of the head and the car gathered speed again. In that moment the galloping horses gave way and the car sped through. An officer with an ostrich plume in his helmet leaned into the car, pointing his revolver at Nigel but Zaharoff, grasping the man’s wrist, jerked him off his horse before he could fire. As the cavalryman pitched forward into the car, Nadel kicked him in the face, sending him sprawling to the road under the hooves of the oncoming horses. His revolver was still clenched in his fist. The second footman was impaled on a lance; his screams could be heard for several seconds above all the noise of men, horses and motor. The cavalrymen, fearful of hitting one another in the mêlée, held their fire.

Then the car was through and away. The cavalry reined in, turned and galloped in pursuit. After a few hundred meters it was clear the car was outdistancing them. They halted to regroup, then proceeded in their original direction.

Turn left here and stop on top of the hill, Zaharoff shouted at the chauffeur.

I didn’t realize the war was as close as this, the duchess remarked conversationally as the car climbed the hill.

It’s not, Zaharoff replied. The fighting is ten miles from here.

They came for a special purpose, Nadel said. He pointed at the château. The car came to a stop on top of the hill and they looked down at the château. A plume of smoke rose from the rear of the imposing building.

Uhlans chased the servants across the lawns, striking off heads with their sabres or impaling bodies on their lances. Cries arrived faintly through the air. The duchess sank back in her seat and turned her face away.

It wasn’t a joke, Zaharoff said.

What? Nadel asked.

Instead of answering, Zaharoff handed him the paper he put in his pocket earlier. While Nadel read it, Zaharoff said I was going to read it at our picnic for the duchess’s amusement.

Jesus, Nadel exclaimed. They warn you from Paris that the Germans are making up a party to capture you — and you organize a picnic!

I thought it was a joke, Zaharoff said, looking towards the château. They’ve discovered we’re not there. They’ll be after us as soon as the officers can stop the men burning the place down.

Which won’t be long. They look like a crack regiment, Nigel said. Sweat poured from his face but his voice held only the faintest tremor. Nadel shot him a look of reappraisal.

A group of thirty or forty horsemen streamed around the corner of the château at a gallop, led by an officer in a colorful uniform. As the detachment cut across the lawns the other cavalrymen fell in behind it, leaving behind only a small number to set fire to the château.

They’re not interested in secret papers or looting, Zaharoff said. They came for people.

One person, Nadel corrected him bluntly. You.

Drive on, Zaharoff told the shivering chauffeur, who obliged instantly.

They’ve seen us, Nigel shouted. The officer leading the charge pointed his sabre in the direction of the hill, having seen the sun glinting on the car’s polished brasswork. The car crested the hill and started the descent, jolting the occupants as it took the rough road at high speed.

In the valley the road forked. The chauffeur turned left towards Paris and Nigel shouted No! but it was too late — the road was too narrow for the big car to turn. The horsemen thundered across the crest of the hill on the car’s left and ahead of it, by-passing the roads to race across the fields.

Can we go into the fields? Zaharoff shouted at Nigel.

No! Horses can jump ditches but the car can’t.

The duchess fed her rosary through her fingers and her lips moved quietly as she said prayers for the souls of her dead servants. The chauffeur hunched over the wheel, trying to hold the huge swaying car on the road at a speed it was not designed for: it was a dignified carriage for gentry, not a racing car.

A gun! Do you have a gun? Nadel shouted at Zaharoff.

Of course not! The suggestion outraged Zaharoff. Do you?

No. We are not allowed—

I’ll have that changed when we return to Paris, Zaharoff shouted and pushed the duchess down on the floor of the car. Sorry, my dear, but it is necessary. The galloping horsemen were now sixty yards away on their left, slightly ahead of them, firing wildly. A bullet ripped through the folded top behind them.

The driver slowed for a bend just as the leading horsemen came to the road only yards behind the speeding car. As the car turned into the corner, swaying alarmingly, the horsemen gained on it. The frightened chauffeur saw a bullet glance off the gear lever outside the car to his right. Panic-stricken, he scrambled onto the seat, jumped over the side and ran towards the fields. The car, with the manual throttle on the steering wheel set to half open, crashed through a high hedge beside the road and shot at an angle across the field beside the road. Nadel scrambled across the back of the driver’s seat to take the controls. The cavalrymen crashed against each other at the narrow gap in the hedge and one horse threw a rider who attempted to jump the hedge. An officer shot the running chauffeur in the back of the head at pointblank range.

Zaharoff leant across the front seat to lift the picnic hamper. Help me! he shouted at Nigel. They manhandled the heavy basket onto the folded top.

Nadel brought the car around to run across the field parallel to the fence. A ten foot stone wall loomed ahead of them. Nadel shouted something they could not hear and set the car at an angle to the hedge. There was a tearing, scraping noise, and they were through. The impact threw Zaharoff and Nigel on top of the duchess on the floor of the car. Zaharoff scrambled up frantically and pushed the picnic hamper from the rear of the car just as the first horsemen rode through the gap in the hedge. A horse went down over the hamper, and another and then several more, the riders coming upon their fallen comrades without enough warning to pull up or jump over them. Behind the car the road was blocked by the tangled mass of broken horseflesh and men.

Two miles further, on a high hill, Zaharoff told Nadel to pull up.

How?

Nigel leant over to pull the nickel plated brake lever next to Nadel. You don’t know how to drive?

I didn’t, Nadel said. Necessity is the mother of invention.

Zaharoff helped the duchess up from the floor. They stood in the car and watched the smoke rise from the burning château. On the crest of a hill beyond the burning château they could just make out through the smoke the remnants of the Uhlan force riding post haste for the safety of their own lines.

I wish I could have saved our servants, Zaharoff observed to the duchess, his clenched hands belying his mild tone. It was a mistake to think of the warning as a joke.

The duchess picked up the paper from the floor, where Nadel dropped it. She read it and said No, the context is humorous.

They all turned to look at her.

‘A rumor has reached us that the German High Command, on the advice of Gustav Krupp, intends to capture you’ the duchess read in her perfectly modulated voice. It goes on to say: ‘Another piece of gossip which might amuse you is this: The Kaiser, to show his fellow-feeling with the fighting men, has become coarse. The story is that, when in Berlin the toast is called Germany, healthy of body and sound of mind, the Kaiser replies, ‘I move my bowels twice a day and my conscience is clear.’

PROLOGUE 2

... discussions with the Chancellor and Members of the High Command have led to the same conclusion: The capture of the Warmonger Zaharoff will force the Western Powers to sue for Peace on Terms calculated to extend the Predominance of Your Majesty and Germany.

Gustav Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach

in a letter to Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany in April 1915

ATLANTIC OCEAN/May 1915

To the very few passengers who ever saw them they appeared to be father and son. Two tall gentlemen dressed alike in clothes of quiet distinction, gleaming last-made boots, full-cut trousers, short dustcoats worn buttoned up and with almost Byronic broad collars, semi-clerical hats with high round crowns and wide brims. Basil Zaharoff and his secretary, the Hon. Nigel ffolkes-Northrop, politely refused all invitations to social intercourse with the passengers, including the inevitable invitation to dine at the Captain’s table. They ate all their meals in the living room of Zaharoff’s suite and took their exercise by walking on deck while the other passengers dined. Indeed, few passengers expressed interest in them for, despite Zaharoff’s importance to the war effort, not more than two or three men on the liner could say exactly what he did. These knowledgeable men could tell the lineage of Zaharoff’s secretary to several generations and commented that a young Englishman ought not to ape a Greek, even down to the imperial with full mustache above, but they were by nature discreet and talked only among themselves.

Until now, Nigel told Zaharoff as they walked around the deck in the dark, I never believed that Nero fiddled while Rome burned. He indicated the dancers swirling around the elegant ballroom behind the blinds, casting grotesque shadows.

I have always believed it, Zaharoff said. A classical education seems to have taught you only skepticism. Cynicism, which is what life teaches, is a more valuable commodity.

They walked in silence while Nigel digested this. Nigel changed the subject. You seemed less than impressed with the uncouth Americans. He held his breath, waiting for Zaharoff to tell him to mind his own business or, worse, for Zaharoff to become freezingly, devastatingly silent.

Zaharoff walked to the rail and stared at the phosphorous wake behind the darkened ship. Politicians! In London and Paris — and for that matter in Berlin — they still think the war will be short and sharp. How wrong they are and how little they understand the situation! It will be a long and hard war and only because of this will the Central Powers be defeated. They cannot hope to last in a long war, so logic decrees that a long war it must be.

Both sides certainly seem dug into their trenches somewhat permanently, Nigel ventured.

That fact also seems more obvious to you and me than to the generals or the politicians, Zaharoff said approvingly.

"But if you think it will be a war of attrition,