Sir Basil Zaharoff, known to his friends as Zedzed, was called many things prior to his death as one

Sir Basil Zaharoff, known to his friends as Zedzed, was called many things prior to his death as one of the richest men in the world in 1936: an industrialist, a confidence trickster, an arsonist, a bigamist, a “mystery man of Europe“, but it’s in his capacity as the “Merchant of Death“ that he really made his name, as arguably one of the most impactful arms dealers in history, who included the likes of British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II among his many clients.Originally Greek, Basil was born around 1845 in what is now Turkey, in a province of the Ottoman Empire. After a brief spell in Russia, where his family were forced to flee due to a pogrom targeting the Greek community (it being here where they changed their name to Zaharoff) Basil’s first job was as a tour guide in the Galata district in Istanbul… the job he took afterwards being that of being an arsonist, where he worked with firefighters to burn down the homes of wealthy people so they could split the fee the rich would pay the firemen to rescue their expensive possessions.After a brief time working for his uncle’s form in London (after which he had to flee back to Greece under an assumed name due to accusations of embezzlement), he befriended a Greek political journalist by the name of Stefanos Skouloudis, who put him touch with a Swedish sea captain who acted as an agent for the arms manufacturer Thorsten Nordenfelt. As the sea captain was leaving that line of work, they suggested that Nordenfelt hire Basil, and in 1877 he signed up with the organisation…In a career he didn’t fully commit to initially, despite the unstable political situation in the Balkans proving lucrative for his new business. Instead he got an additional job selling railway cars in America as well as posing as a fake Greek prince, “Prince Zacharias Basileus Zacharoff, under the guise of which he married Philadelphia heiress, Jennie Billings… Only to have to go on the run from Dutch police after a British man recognised Basil as having already gotten married to a woman in Bristol back in the early 1870s.Once finally actually focusing on his career as an arms dealer, Basil would go on to sell weapons to Britain, German, Japan, the United States, the Russian and Ottoman Empires, Spain, and Greece. Despite his reputation for corruption and for selling weapons to both sides in a conflict (conflicts he often had a hand in starting in the first place), a move he called “the Systeme Zaharoff“, he nonetheless became an instrumental figure in international politics due to his connections to the arms trade.For one such example, of this allegedly being the case of the faulty Nordenfelt I steam-powered submarine. Now, this instance seems to involve sources referencing each other, but his scam basically went like this. Despite the submarine having a reputation for not working correctly, Basil sold one to the Greeks under the agreement of special payment terms. He then turned to the Ottomans, and told them that the Greeks were buying submarines, so they better buy some as well to defend themselves from their increased threat… And then turned to the Russians after that sale concluded to get them to buy some subs from him too, as the increased threat of Turkish submarines in the Black Sea meant that Russia needed to buy some from Basil as well to defend themselves too from this OBVIOUS sign of aggression.As time progressed and his influence grew (helped by his purchasing several newspapers, such as the French paper Excelsior, to print editorials about how great the arms industry was), Basil would eventually make millions selling weapons and equipment to the Allies. Additionally he was eventually called upon to use his by now considerable influence to first get Greece to enter the war on the Allies side and then to establish peace talks with the Ottomans to get them to exit the war (he paid them £10 million in gold to leave on the authorisation of the British Prime Minister, in negotiations that would eventually lead to the establishment of Israel decades later). Following the war, France recognized his services by making him a grand officer of the Legion of Honour, and Britain honoured him with a knight grand cross of the Order of the Bath (the King of England knighted him on the insistence of the prime minister, Lloyd George, despite George V’s vocal disgust at Basil entire deal). In the 1920s, he personally funded a Greek war to occupy territory from a badly weakened Turkey, a move that ultimately proved to be unsuccessful. What was ultimately more successful was his moving into the oil and gas industry, something he saw a lot of potential in, resulting in the incorporation of the company that would eventually become British Petroleum.Now, you’d think that after a lifetime of evil Basil would be aware that he had something of a public relations problem… And you’d be right, with his attempting to use his literal billions to try and whitewash his legacy with some philanthropy, most of which tying into his fascination with the newly created field of aviation, but others including bizarrely more whimsical things. Such as his donation of £20,000 to refurbish Paris Zoo’s monkey house (initially treated as a hoax by Zoo staff who left the cheque in a drawer for two months).This did nothing to lesson his negative reputation, however, with his being cited as a direct inspiration for the James Bond supervillain Ernst Stavro Blofeld, among many other depictions in pop culture. Another such example being in the Tintin comic The Broken Ear, which has weapons trader Basil Bazaroff, who sells to both parties of a single conflict that he helps provoke in South America. Tintin creator Herge notable drew his fictional Basil to mirror his inspiration just to make it clear who he was based on, with the company he worked for being a play on Vickers, one of the arms firms the real Basil also worked for.In 1924, at the age of 74, Basil married yet again, to María del Pilar Antonia Angela Patrocinio Fermina Simona de Muguiro y Beruete, 1st Duchess de Villafranca de los Caballeros, former wife of the cousin of King Alfonso XII of Spain. Reportedly one of the richest women in Spain, she promptly died of an infection 18 months into their marriage.Following Maria’s death, Basil moved into semi-retirement in Monte Carlo, having purchased the debt-ridden public company that ran the Casino Monte Carlo, the main source of income for the principality. This arrangement seemingly being agreed upon through his association with Prince Louis II of Monaco, the understanding that Basil could get the Casino in exchange for him using his influence to prevent the French from eroding the tiny nation’s rights in the Treaty of Versailles.He would also insist that people address him as Sir Basil, which was technically against the rules as he was by this point a naturalised French citizen (his previously also having been British, his marriage to the woman in Bristol having been suggested by some as a means of obtaining a passport), but he was evidently a snob on top of everything else.Basil would eventually die in Monte Carlo at the age of 84 of a heart attack. Curiously, despite being incredibly wealthy at the time of his death (he had made $1.2 billion from the Great War alone, and his assets including a palace outside of Paris formerly owned by the infamous Prince Leopold II of Belgium that he filled with art and statues), Zaharoff’s will was proved at just £193,103, rather less than $1 million at the time. Considering his death prompted his servants to quickly burn a ton of his documents, it’s curious to think where all of his ill-gotten gains disappeared to.Personally? I hope that his servants stole it from him on the downlow. Was no less than he deserved. -- source link
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