Editing Basil Zaharoff (section)

==Arms dealing==
Zaharoff did not make arms dealing his sole business at first. After [[Cyprus]] passed under British control in 1878 he returned to the United Kingdom; by 1883 he was working as a shipping agent in [[Galway]], Ireland, where he recruited local girls for work in American factories. He also had a spell in the United States where he worked as a [[Confidence trick|confidence man]], and later as a salesman for a [[St. Louis]] railcar business. In 1885, posing as "Prince Zacharias Basileus Zacharoff", he married a [[Philadelphia]] heiress, Jennie Billings, and was pursued to [[Rotterdam]] by detectives after his exposure as a [[bigamist]] by a Briton who recognised him as the same man who had married a British girl in [[Bristol]] in 1872.<ref name="Dash">Mike Dash, "The Mysterious Mr. Zedzed, the Wickedest Man in the World." [https://mikedashhistory.com/2012/02/16/the-mysterious-mr-zedzed-the-wickedest-man-in-the-world// A Blast From the Past, 16 February 2012.]</ref>

Zaharoff sold munitions to many nations, including Great Britain, Germany, the [[Russian Empire|Russian]] and Ottoman Empires, Greece, Spain, Japan and the United States. Despite his reputation for corruption, he was instrumental in marketing military equipment, including various famous weapons such as the [[Maxim gun]] (one of the first fully automatic machine guns) and the first working [[submarine]]. The British-Swedish Nordenfelt produced a range of anti-torpedo boat guns in [[Erith]], [[Kent]], [[Stockholm]] and Spain.

Zaharoff worked for [[Vickers Limited|Vickers]], the [[munitions]] firm, from 1897 to 1927.<ref name="ODNB">{{cite web|last=Davenport-Hines|first=Richard|title=Zaharoff, Basil (1849-1936)|date=January 2011|publisher=[[Dictionary of National Biography|Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]|edition=Online|url-access=subscription|url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/38270|accessdate=2024-11-25}}</ref>

===Maxim machine gun===
[[Hiram Maxim]]'s automatic machine gun was a significant improvement over the then-current hand-cranked rotary barrel models. Maxim's gun was better than anything that Nordenfelt sold at the time. Zaharoff is believed to have had a hand in the events surrounding Maxim's attempts to demonstrate his invention between 1886 and 1888. In the first, Maxim's and Nordenfelt's machine guns were to be demonstrated at [[La Spezia]], Italy, before a distinguished audience which included the [[Prince Thomas, Duke of Genoa|Duke of Genoa]]. Maxim's representatives did not show up; a person unknown had waylaid them with a tour of La Spezia's nocturnal establishments leaving them unfit for purpose the next morning.

Round two took place at [[Vienna]], where the exhibitors were instructed to modify their weapons to comply with Austrian Infantry-standard sized cartridges. After shooting a few hundred rounds, the [[Maxim gun]] became erratic before stopping altogether. When Maxim took one weapon apart to see what had happened, he discovered that they had been sabotaged, but it was too late to repair. A third demonstration also took place in Vienna, and here the gun worked perfectly but again an unknown person went through the gathering of senior officers, convincing them that the workmanship required to produce such a marvellous weapon could be achieved only by hand, one at a time, and that without the means for mass production, Maxim could never produce machine guns in sufficient quantities to satisfy the needs of a modern army. Nordenfelt and Zaharoff had won. Maxim, who knew he had a good product, successfully sought a merger with Nordenfelt, engaging Zaharoff as their principal salesman on a huge commission.

Under pressure from [[Rothschild banking family of England|Rothschild]] and [[Vickers]], Thorsten Nordenfelt merged with Maxim's in 1888 to form the [[Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Company]]. Two years later, a bankrupt Nordenfelt was forced out of the company.

===Submarines===
[[File:Nordenfelt submarine Abdülhamid.jpg|thumb|right|The ''Nordenfelt''-class [[Ottoman submarine Abdül Hamid|Ottoman submarine ''Abdül Hamid'']] (1886) was the first submarine in history to fire a [[torpedo]] whilst submerged. Two submarines of this class, ''Nordenfelt II'' (''Abdülhamid'', 1886) and ''Nordenfelt III'' (''Abdülmecid'', 1887) joined the [[Ottoman Navy|Ottoman fleet]]. They were built in pieces by Des Vignes ([[Chertsey]]) and [[Vickers]] ([[Sheffield]]) in England, and assembled at the Taşkızak Naval Shipyard in Istanbul, Turkey.]]

From 1886 to 1889, at the same time that Zaharoff got the Maxim machine gun, he managed to appropriate [[Isaac Peral]]'s submarine; although these facts are less well known. Zaharoff and Nordenfelt tried at this time to develop a submarine for their own business purposes.

One of the most notorious sales by Zaharoff was that of the ''Nordenfelt I'', a faulty steam-driven submarine model based on a design by the English inventor and clergyman [[George Garrett (inventor)|George Garrett]], which [[Office of Naval Intelligence|US Navy intelligence]] characterized as capable of "dangerous and eccentric movements." Thorsten Nordenfelt had already demonstrated his vessel at an international gathering of the military elite, and while the major powers would have none of it, smaller nations, attracted by the prestige, were a different matter.

It was thus that, with a promise of generous payment terms, Zaharoff sold the first model to the Greeks. He then persuaded the Turks that the Greek submarine posed a threat, selling them two. After that, he persuaded the Russians that there was now a new and significant threat on the Black Sea, and they bought another two.

None of these submarines ever saw action. The mechanics, driven by steam propulsion, were completely inadequate for underwater navigation, and failed demonstrably when undergoing sea trials by the respective navies. Besides the underlying problems of the faulty propulsion system, they were also chronically unstable. One of the Turkish Navy's submarines sank, capsizing during a [[torpedo]] firing test. The vessel reared in a vertical position, from which it sank by the stern.

At this time Spanish inventor Isaac Peral designed and built the first submarine capable of navigating underwater with a decent level of control and with the ability to launch torpedoes both submerged and on the surface. This was the first proper submarine, solving the problems of propulsion, stability and armament all at once. Peral's submarine was driven by electric propulsion, and had a periscope, target practice apparatus, compensating [[compass]] needle, [[gyroscope]], sliding electric torpedo tube launcher and [[servomotor]] (to maintain the stability and the trim of the ship in all circumstances).

Zaharoff found out quickly about this young Spanish Naval officer's invention. Previously in shipbuilding, he had already seen the plans and memorandum reports sent by Peral to the Spanish Navy's HQ at the Defence Ministry.

Later on, during Peral's visit to London, Zaharoff tried meeting with him unsuccessfully, with the help of one of Peral's Spanish Navy fellow officers. Peral refused twice, but after several attempts, he had a meeting with Thorsten Nordenfelt, the company owner, who offered him a deal to purchase the patent of the stability servomotor. Isaac Peral rejected both offers but signed his sentence in that same instant, without knowing it.

Zaharoff then got to work with his own Machiavellian plan. The Spanish inventor, as with Maxim, suffered four sabotages during the tests: the first of them, in the previous test, in the presence of the Head of the Spanish State, but, Peral, more cautious than the North American inventor, proved successful in all of them.

Despite this, Zaharoff used underhand methods, which came to light later, and was able to cause a controversy between the inventor and his own government leading to the Spanish Government's disapproval of this submarine invention, although it would have been a formidable weapon in the conflict with the United States, several years after.

Zaharoff traveled to Spain several times between 1886 and 1890 with three objectives: boycott Peral's submarine, sell weapons to the Spanish Army, and acquire a Spanish munitions factory. He was successful in all three objectives, mainly because his initiation of an amorous relationship with Pilar de Muguiro y Beruete opened many doors for him.

Pilar's father, influential banker Fermín Muguiro, Count of Muguiro, was a close friend of the King, and leader of the Spanish Conservative Party. She was a personal friend and niece of [[Segismundo Moret]], a leading Spanish progressive thinker and the Liberal Party Leader's right-hand man. Unhappily married to [[Alfonso XII of Spain|King Alfonso XII]]'s cousin, the Spanish Grandee, Francisco de Borbón, Duke of Marchena, she had unrestricted access to the Royal Palaces. During one trip, Zaharoff was spotted at the shipyard where the Spanish submarine was being built, but the Spanish authorities "covered up" the matter.

The acquisition of one of the best Spanish armament companies, [[Euskalduna]], located in north Spain and renamed "[[Soraluze-Placencia de las Armas|Placencia de las Armas Co. Ltd]]" was in large part thanks to his love affair (later attributing his professional success to his sexual prowess), and through establishing a powerful network among Spanish politicians, journalists and military commanders, who served his business interests well. This influential group of people took his side against the development of Isaac Peral's submarine, and the Spanish Government, despite the astounding success in sea trials, finally pulled the rug from the project.

After "Placencia de Armas Co. Ltd" swindled the Spanish Government by selling useless arms during the [[Spanish-American War|1898 War]] (also handing Maxim important and "sensitive" information, which reached his government during the conflict), the [[Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval|Sociedad Española de Construcciones Navales]] in Spain, a branch of Vickers were awarded, by the Spanish Government, exclusive naval construction rights for the [[Spanish Navy]].

In the aftermath of this scandal, accusations of bribery and manipulation flew in the direction of this dangerous trafficker of weapons. A Spanish Navy lawyer denounced the Spanish Government for two alleged crimes of "prevarication." The Spanish Government acted expeditiously and especially cruelly against any naval officers who went public with their discontent. The Central Chief of Staff and the head of the Armada Juridic Service were fired, and hundreds of officers were imprisoned and lost their jobs.

===Other corrupt business tactics===
Zaharoff's power and influence in Spain lasted until his death in 1936, the year in which the [[Spanish Civil War]] began.

Also, the 1934 United States Senate [[Nye Committee]] Memorandum shows that Zaharoff was paid considerable sums for transactions made between foreign companies and the Spanish Government (for example, he got paid between a 5 and 7% commission for the price of American submarines sold to Spain, throughout all these years).

Although very little could be proved, Zaharoff was viewed as a master of bribery and corruption, but the few incidents that did become public, such as the large bribes received by Japanese Admiral Fuji in the 1914 [[Siemens scandal]], indicated that a lot more was going on behind the scenes. In 1890, the Maxim-Nordenfelt association broke up, and Zaharoff chose to go with Maxim. Using his commissions, Zaharoff bought shares in Maxim's company until he was in a position to tell Maxim that he was no longer an employee, but an equal shareholder.

By 1897, the Maxim company had become important enough that it received a buyout offer from Vickers, one of the then giants of the armaments industry. This involved substantial settlements in both cash and shares for Maxim and Zaharoff. From then until 1911, while Maxim's business enthusiasm waned, Zaharoff's enthusiasm grew, and he expanded his portfolio of Vickers shares. After Maxim's retirement, Zaharoff was appointed to Vickers' board of directors.

The 1900s (decade) was a time for many European armies to rebuild and modernize. Germany and the United Kingdom both sought improved naval capability, and Vickers, with Zaharoff, were willing and able to service both sides. After its [[Russo-Japanese War|disastrous defeat by Japan in 1905]], the Russian Navy also needed new equipment, but Russia was handcuffed by a wave of protectionism that required domestic industry for the rebuilding. Zaharoff's response was to build a huge Russian arms production complex at [[Tsaritsyn]] as a subsidiary of Vickers.

The opening of Russian Tsarist archives after [[World War I]] led to some insights into the tactics of the arms industry. One 1907 letter, in particular, was written from the Paul von Gontard Factory (a secretly-controlled Vickers company in Germany) to a Vickers-associate in [[Paris]] recommending that [[press release]]s be sent out to the French press suggesting that the French improve their military to meet the threat posed by [[German re-armament]]. These French newspaper articles were recorded by the [[Reichstag (Weimar Republic)|Reichstag]], and instigated a vote to increase military spending, all of which worked to the advantage of Zaharoff.