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Speaker 1: Welcome back, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, Sophie, Jesus Christ. No, no,

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Speaker 1: we're running all of this is the podcast, every single bit. Also,

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Speaker 1: it's not welcome back if it's a new episode that's

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Speaker 1: from an ad break hid Robert, Sophie. This is Behind

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Speaker 1: the Bastards easily our worst opening. Definitely our worst opening

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Speaker 1: because Hitler from like two weeks ago, that might have

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Speaker 1: been our best. Well for the five people who haven't

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Speaker 1: stopped listening to this episode, because if it's terrible, Sophie

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Speaker 1: chosen opening. Um, this is Behind the Bastards podcast where

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Speaker 1: we talk about the worst people in history. And this

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Speaker 1: is part two of our series on Basil Zaharov and Teresa.

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Speaker 1: How are you doing in this part too? Feeling you know,

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Speaker 1: I'm feeling a little scared about, you know, the inevitable

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Speaker 1: death of all these people in the story. But um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I'm a I'm a brave girl, So I

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Speaker 1: think I can. I think I can finish listening to

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Speaker 1: this story. Probably won't be able to go to sleep,

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Speaker 1: I mean, but it's a good thing. It's the middle

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Speaker 1: of the day. I feel like there's some lessons that

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Speaker 1: we can all learn in our own careers from the

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Speaker 1: career of Basil zahar Off. Um, like, maybe if you're

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Speaker 1: trying to sell a movie, you you, you, you should

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Speaker 1: first sell submarines to Turkey and Greece and Russia and

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Speaker 1: spark a naval arms race. I should first saw movies

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Speaker 1: to different countries and then sell one to one country,

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Speaker 1: then say do you want to of my movies. I

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Speaker 1: don't know if that would work the same way. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I mean I think, Uh, I don't. I don't know

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Speaker 1: what you're saying, that I should sail a rich woman

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Speaker 1: out of her money. Yes, absolutely, for years and everything

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Speaker 1: will be good. I did dye my hair blonde, so

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Speaker 1: I'm halfway to Russian prince. Do Russians half blond hair?

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Speaker 1: Very very close? Oh yeah, all of them, every single Russian. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Um No. That was one of the one of the

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Speaker 1: first things I ever said to you when we met,

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Speaker 1: was you should pretend to be a Russian prince and

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Speaker 1: marry a rich woman and steal her money and then

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Speaker 1: flee the continent. Yes, I remember that. That's not a

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Speaker 1: lie at all. Uh, Robert, I only see your like

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Speaker 1: mouth top of your face is kind of but it matters.

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Speaker 1: But I was just looking at your mustache. Thank you,

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Speaker 1: it's um a mustache. Uh. So, before we get back

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Speaker 1: into Basil Zaharov's career, I want to talk a little

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Speaker 1: bit about the way this man presented himself to the world.

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Speaker 1: He wore fine suits at all times, and he was

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Speaker 1: known for having a striking mustache. He spoke rarely in

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Speaker 1: public and confined himself mostly to shadowy back rooms and

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Speaker 1: salons of the great and good. He preferred to speak

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Speaker 1: in a whisper to and like talk to mainly powerful

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Speaker 1: people and never really like he was. Never guy was

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Speaker 1: like out in public like there there's no like big

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Speaker 1: addresses of this guy. He didn't have like um, a

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Speaker 1: very public life. Um. One writer at the time, Osbert Sitwell,

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Speaker 1: described him as evil and imposing, noting his quote beaky face, hooded,

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Speaker 1: I wrinkled neck, the impression of physical power, in the

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Speaker 1: capacity to wait. He was an outlook, merely a super croupier.

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Speaker 1: And once I heard him introducing himself to a millionaire

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Speaker 1: friend of mine with a startling phrase, I am sir

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Speaker 1: Basil Zaharov, I have sixteen millions, so like which I

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Speaker 1: am million dollars? Yeah? Frank Well, who wanted yeah? Uh?

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Speaker 1: To his friends, he went by z Z. To the

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Speaker 1: management at Vickers, he went by Okay, yeah, it was

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Speaker 1: his nickname. Is that who the dj Z is named after?

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Speaker 1: He doesn't. Yes, yes, that I'm yes, that is exactly

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Speaker 1: the story. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's just like I know,

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Speaker 1: I know who all of the musicians, my fans and

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Speaker 1: guests are formerly dated Selena Gomez very briefly, but we

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Speaker 1: who all these people are. You're very convincing, Robert, thank you.

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Speaker 1: UM to most other people. Yeah, So the management at

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Speaker 1: Vickers called him our general representative abroad, and to most

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Speaker 1: other people in the arms industry who we competed with,

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Speaker 1: he was called the Armaments King. And it was in

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Speaker 1: this last role that he would leave his most enduring

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Speaker 1: mark on the modern world. UH. Finance is boring, so

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Speaker 1: we often ignore matters of debt when we tell the

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Speaker 1: stories of the great wars of the past. But the

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Speaker 1: fact that the Russians are spent the early years of

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Speaker 1: the twentieth century signing loan after loan with the French

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Speaker 1: government to pay for his military build up went on

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Speaker 1: to be one of the most consequential decisions of the

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Speaker 1: twentieth century. UM. So like Russia's gotta like buy six

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Speaker 1: million dollars, which is like an enormous amount of money

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Speaker 1: back in those days, rebuilding its military, and they just

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Speaker 1: don't have the cash on hand, and the money comes

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Speaker 1: primarily from France. Um. And the money comes primarily from

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Speaker 1: France because like Frances, Russia's military ally in this period,

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Speaker 1: and they're kind of trusting that Russia will help them

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Speaker 1: fight Germany if they have to have a war with Germany. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: the fact that Russia a cruise hundreds of millions of

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Speaker 1: dollars in debt to France would prove really key to

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Speaker 1: the start of the First World War, and we can

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Speaker 1: thank Basil zahar Off for that. Uh. There were a

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Speaker 1: number of arms manufacturers trying to get these are to

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Speaker 1: give them his business, including Krupp, the German firm. But

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Speaker 1: Basil had spent half his life pretending to be a

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Speaker 1: Russian prince, and oddly enough this actually prepared him really

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Speaker 1: well for the job of selling guns to Russia. He

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Speaker 1: spoke perfect Russian. Uh. He was a member of the

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Speaker 1: Orthodox Church, and he's spent a lot of time in Russia.

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Speaker 1: And it didn't hurt that his dad had rucified the

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Speaker 1: family's last name. So at this point in time, France

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Speaker 1: and Germany were kind of like fighting over Russia's friendship

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Speaker 1: because like Germany had been Russia's ally before, and like

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Speaker 1: they all wanted Russia on their side because Russia is

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Speaker 1: like a sixth of the world's land mask so whoever

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Speaker 1: gets the Russian Empire to back them has a really

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Speaker 1: big advantage in any kind of war in Europe. UM.

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Speaker 1: So while there were a lot of factors that weighed

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Speaker 1: into Russia choosing to stay with France, um, the fact

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Speaker 1: that the country was deeply in debt to the French

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Speaker 1: Republic did not hurt, and Zaharov's firms wound up winning

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Speaker 1: the lion's share of the Czarist business and shining Basil

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Speaker 1: is the most successful arms dealer on the planet. But

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Speaker 1: the people of France didn't just decide to loan Russia

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Speaker 1: all of that money, um, because like they liked Russians

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Speaker 1: or anything. Um. Yeah, Zaharov convinced them to do it.

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Speaker 1: He owned newspapers in Paris, including one called Excelsior, which

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Speaker 1: he ordered to send out a steady stream of propaganda

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Speaker 1: supporting the cause of loaning more money to Russia. Um.

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Speaker 1: And he had a lot of like they were like,

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Speaker 1: this wasn't super easy to do because like about a

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Speaker 1: century before less uh, France had fought a big, bloody

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Speaker 1: war with Russia that had killed the shipload of their

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Speaker 1: young men. Um So there was like some bad blood there.

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Speaker 1: So he had to like put out a bunch of

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Speaker 1: propagandic had to convince them like, no, it's actually a

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Speaker 1: good idea to give all of your money to Russia

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Speaker 1: to buy a ton of guns. Um. So Basil found

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Speaker 1: himself in the position of simultaneously trying to convince the

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Speaker 1: French government to risk lots of money backing Russian rearmament

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Speaker 1: while also doing everything he could to stop French munitions

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Speaker 1: makers from selling any of their weapons to Russia. So like,

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Speaker 1: you've got to convince France to give Russia all this

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Speaker 1: money to buy guns, but you also have to convince

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Speaker 1: Russia not to buy any French guns because like you

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Speaker 1: want to sell them. Yeah. So it's kind of a

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Speaker 1: hard trick, hat trick to poll as a as a

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Speaker 1: gun salesman, but Zaharov pulls it off. Yeah, So he

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Speaker 1: succeeds in like making sure that Vicker's a firm founded

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Speaker 1: by an American and UH like a bunch of British

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Speaker 1: people and run by a Greek pretending to be a

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Speaker 1: Russian sold arms to the Russian Empire rather than the

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Speaker 1: country who was actually loaning them the money to buy guns.

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Speaker 1: His main competitor for Russia's business was a French firm

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Speaker 1: called Schneider Crusoe. Uh It's head, the eponymous Schneider, wound

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Speaker 1: up dueling Basil for their right to take all of

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Speaker 1: Russia's money. He had his own newspapers and he planted

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Speaker 1: a story in them that Russia was about to sign

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Speaker 1: a deal with krup to let them build factories inside Russia.

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Speaker 1: This was really scared of the people of France because

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Speaker 1: all of the gun plans that Russia had gotten were French.

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Speaker 1: So if Krupp started building Russian arms factories producing French guns,

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Speaker 1: that would effectively mean that Germany was gaining access to

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Speaker 1: all of France's military secrets. Um none of that was true.

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Speaker 1: It was just a bunch of lies that Schneider put

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Speaker 1: out in newspapers, but it scared French people enough that

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Speaker 1: a lot of them demanded their government loan Russia twenty

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Speaker 1: five million dollars to rebuild its railways in exchange for

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Speaker 1: letting Schneider Crusoe build arms factories in uh in Russia.

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Speaker 1: So all this kind of sketchy dealing is going on

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Speaker 1: with like all of the different companies in the arms trade.

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Speaker 1: And we really don't know much about what Zaharov it

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Speaker 1: or said exactly to Russia, but we know that Vickers

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Speaker 1: one of the vast majority of the different arms contracts

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Speaker 1: that went to Russia. So like, even with all this

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Speaker 1: facory from Schneider Crusoe um, most of the Empire's new

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Speaker 1: guns are provided by Vickers through Zaharov. Now, machine guns

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Speaker 1: and rivals and artillery pieces weren't the only thing that

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Speaker 1: modern armies needed at this point. The twentieth century saw

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Speaker 1: the advent of air travel and air war as things,

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Speaker 1: and Basil Zaharov knew straight away that he wanted to

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Speaker 1: sell planes to His first step was to use a

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Speaker 1: small chunk of his fortune to endow a share of

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Speaker 1: aviation at the Sorbonne. This presumably would give him a

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Speaker 1: highly placed flunkey when the French government decided to start

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Speaker 1: buying planes. Unfortunately for Basil, this move attracted controversy. And

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Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote an article by John T. Flynn, written

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Speaker 1: by from The mess Daily, which is a libertarian think

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Speaker 1: tank publications. These guys actually really like Zaharov. Um quote

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Speaker 1: Zaharov for all his pains to elude this spotlight found

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Speaker 1: that revealing beam playing upon him at intervals, and to

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Speaker 1: his discomfiture, who is this Mr Zaharov? What is he to?

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Speaker 1: What country does he owe allegiance? He was born in Turkey,

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Speaker 1: he is a Greek, he's a French citizen, he's an

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Speaker 1: English businessman. But what country does he serve? And what

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Speaker 1: sort of game is he playing? In France? These were

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Speaker 1: not pleasant questions for one who indeed had what Mr

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Speaker 1: Roosevelt calls a passion for anonymity. So he starts to

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Speaker 1: like get like like the fact that he's endowing chairs

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Speaker 1: at universities and stuff, and like owning newspapers in France

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Speaker 1: gets people really suspicious about his intentions. Uh, And so

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Speaker 1: he has to quiet those intentions by like buying. Basically,

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Speaker 1: he buys a convalescent home for old French soldiers and

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Speaker 1: donates to a bunch of French causes and becomes like

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Speaker 1: a philanthropist so that people don't think that there's something

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Speaker 1: shady about all the guns he's trying to get other

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Speaker 1: countries to buy. Wait, so he was more anonymous before,

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Speaker 1: but now he's putting his name on all these like

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Speaker 1: buildings and stuff. Yeah he has to in order to

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Speaker 1: like because they're starting. Yeah yeah, he does it to

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Speaker 1: bribe France into liking him. Yeah. Yeah, so that's cool. Um, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's cool. Yeah, it's fine. It's what you do. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's kind of what Rockefeller did. Like, that's what that's

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Speaker 1: That's what it is to like be a philanthropist is

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Speaker 1: you're usually trying to stop people from thinking too much

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Speaker 1: about how you made all the money that you can donate. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it just comes up. You just want a building that

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Speaker 1: tourists go take an elevator up to and look around.

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Speaker 1: That's when you know you've made it when your name

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Speaker 1: is on a building like that. Yeah, or all of

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Speaker 1: the wonderful public parks provided by the Raytheon Corporation. Yeah. So. Uh.

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Speaker 1: This sort of palm greasing accompanied Bezel's plotting in nations

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Speaker 1: around the world. Vicker's plants soon cropped up in Canada, Italy, Africa, Greece, Turkey, Russia,

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Speaker 1: New Zealand, Ireland, and Holland. They made machine guns and

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Speaker 1: cannons and ships, but also brand new warplanes, um, some

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Speaker 1: of the ones that were like just being bought up

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Speaker 1: by European powers. When sales would slump, Zaharov would use

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Speaker 1: his press organs to pump more stories into the media

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Speaker 1: out say France's rivals arming. So even notice the sales

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Speaker 1: are slumping, then he'll try to drum up fear that

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Speaker 1: there's a war in Europe happening or that's about to happen,

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Speaker 1: so like people will start demanding that their country buy

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Speaker 1: more guns. Now. Since Vickers was ostensibly a British company,

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Speaker 1: the British government was happy to help Zaharof by using

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Speaker 1: their own soft power to bribe and cajole foreign nations

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Speaker 1: into buying British guns. Sometimes the agreement to allow Vickers

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Speaker 1: came with direct military aid from the British Empire. The

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Speaker 1: Royal Navy itself was for sale provided that, like the

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Speaker 1: company buying guns from Vickers sent enough money back to

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Speaker 1: the English economy to make it worthwhile. So like he's

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Speaker 1: basically using the British like he gets to use the

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Speaker 1: British military as like um like like like like if

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Speaker 1: you buy enough guns from us, like, we'll send in

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Speaker 1: our boats to help you do ship like because there. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's a bunch of money for England. Yeah. So frustratingly,

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Speaker 1: there's very little specific information on individual acts of bribery

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Speaker 1: that Zaharov may or may not have carried out because

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Speaker 1: he burnt all of his records um when he was

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Speaker 1: an old man. Um and the British government isn't about

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Speaker 1: to correct the record. Um. But there were folks at

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Speaker 1: the time who paid attention to a Basil his fellow

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Speaker 1: arms dealers were doing to Europe and the rest of

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Speaker 1: the world, and some of them had the courage to

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Speaker 1: speak up. And I'm gonna quote now from Basil's biography

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Speaker 1: Man of Arms again. On March eighteenth, nineteen fourteen, on

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Speaker 1: the very brink of the coming disaster, Philip Snowden disease

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Speaker 1: racked crippled socialist labor leader Rosen Commons to make a speech.

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Speaker 1: When he had done, he had rocked the British empire

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Speaker 1: with his disclosures. For two years, a young Quaker socialist

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Speaker 1: named Walton Newbold had been tracing with infinite pains the

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Speaker 1: torturous trail of the international arms makers and Philip Snowdon

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Speaker 1: had in his possession the fruits of that long quest.

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Speaker 1: When he rose to speak, One by one, he pointed

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Speaker 1: out cabinet ministers, members of the House, and named high

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Speaker 1: ranking officials, and army and navy circles, persons of royal

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Speaker 1: position who were large holders and shares of Vickers and Armstrong,

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Speaker 1: and John Brown and Beard more shipbuilders. The profits of

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Speaker 1: Vickers and Armstrong had been enormous, and those powerful persons

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Speaker 1: in the state and church and the nobility had bought

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Speaker 1: into them to share in the profits. Vickers had among

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Speaker 1: its director two dukes, to marquesses too, family members of

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Speaker 1: fifty earls, fifteen baronets and five knights, twenty one naval officers,

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Speaker 1: to naval government architects, and many journalists. Armstrong had even more,

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Speaker 1: sixty earls or their wives, fifteen baronets and twenty knights,

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Speaker 1: twenty military or naval architects and officers. While there were

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Speaker 1: thirteen members of the House of Commons on the directorates

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Speaker 1: of Vickers, Armstrong or John Brown. It would be impossible,

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Speaker 1: said Snowdon, to throw a handful of pebbles anywhere upon

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Speaker 1: the opposition benches without hitting members interested in these arms firms, Ministers, officers,

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Speaker 1: technical experts moved out of the government, out of the Navy,

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Speaker 1: the Army, the War Office, the Admiralty, into the employee

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Speaker 1: of the munitions manufacturers. Snowden, quoted Lord Welby, head of

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Speaker 1: the Civil Service, who only a few weeks before had

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Speaker 1: denounced the arms conspirators. We are in the hands of

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Speaker 1: an organization of crooks, said Lord Welby. They are politicians, generals,

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Speaker 1: manufacturers of armaments and journalists. All of them are anxious

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Speaker 1: for unlimited expenditure and go on inventing scares to terrify

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Speaker 1: the public and terrify the ministers of the Crown. So

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Speaker 1: part of how Zaharov, and not just him, these other

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Speaker 1: arms companies get away with what they're doing um is

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Speaker 1: that they hire like they'll hire these like members of

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Speaker 1: the nobility, members of the government, or convince them to

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Speaker 1: buy stocks that these people profit too. And that's why

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Speaker 1: he can convince the British government to send the Royal

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Speaker 1: Navy into companies that buy from his firm, is because like,

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Speaker 1: these guys have a vested interest too, and so they're

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Speaker 1: basically spending public money to make themselves money. Um By,

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Speaker 1: like drumming up more arms sales. So that's cool. Dang,

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Speaker 1: that's like, uh, who is this informant? Like, uh was he?

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Speaker 1: How did he know all this? Like is he just

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Speaker 1: a guy who was like yeah part of it? Yeah?

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Speaker 1: It was this quaker. Yeah, this quaker like socialist activist

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Speaker 1: who just like slowly would start tracing like basically like

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Speaker 1: starting with like stock sales and stuff, like who's buying

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Speaker 1: up interest in all these firms? Snowden no relation to

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Speaker 1: Edward Snowden. No, No, Snowden's the Snowden is a socialist

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Speaker 1: labor leader who like makes this speech using this guy

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Speaker 1: the stuff that this other guy found. But yeah, it

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Speaker 1: is weird that like it is another Snowden. So yeah. Um.

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Speaker 1: From eighteen seventy seven to nineteen fourteen, a kadra of

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Speaker 1: arms dealers, spearheaded by Basil Zaharov, who was the most

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Speaker 1: successful of them, bribed a succession of admirals, generals, high

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Speaker 1: ranking politicians, um and nobility from all of the great

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Speaker 1: powers of Europe. Krupp employed hundreds of people who received

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Speaker 1: salaries without doing any actual work, provided they were willing

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Speaker 1: to put in a good word to their government ministries.

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Speaker 1: When Krupp needed it. One German armament maker at the

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Speaker 1: time admitted, for some families, Crupp factories are a great

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Speaker 1: sinecure where nephews and poor relations of officials whose influence

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Speaker 1: in war is great find themselves jobs. In nineteen thirteen,

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Speaker 1: the year before Snowden made that speech, Dr Carl Liebneck,

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Speaker 1: a socialist leader in Germany's Reichstag, gave a similar speech

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Speaker 1: uncoiling massive corruption within the German Ministry of War. It

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Speaker 1: resulted in the trial and conviction of several ministry officials

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Speaker 1: who were found to be agents of Krupp. In Japan,

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Speaker 1: another scandal was involved with the German arms firm Siemen Schuchert,

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Speaker 1: who was found to have paid out more than half

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Speaker 1: a million modern dollars in bribes to Japanese officials to

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Speaker 1: guarantee them the contract to build a massive battleship. And

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Speaker 1: these give us an idea of the kind of stuff

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Speaker 1: Basil himself would have engaged in um But in general

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Speaker 1: we only catch glimpses of him during this period. As

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Speaker 1: Smithsonian Magazine summarizes quote, he appears sporadically in the Vicar's papers.

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Speaker 1: Now at Cambridge University Library and increasingly in the British

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Speaker 1: Foreign Office archives. These sources allow us to trace z

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Speaker 1: Z's increasing wealth and status. Between nineteen o two and

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Speaker 1: nineteen o five, he was paid a hundred and ninety

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Speaker 1: five thousand pounds and commissions worth twenty five million dollars

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Speaker 1: today in By nineteen fourteen, he was active not only

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Speaker 1: in Istanbul and Athens, but in St. Petersburg, Buenos Aires

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Speaker 1: and Assuncion. Uh. He owned several banks, lived in a

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Speaker 1: French chateau, and was romancing the Duchess of Villa Franca,

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Speaker 1: a Spanish noblewoman who would become his third wife. They're

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Speaker 1: not that so yeah, like this is part of what's

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Speaker 1: frustrating by writing about this guy's like we don't know

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Speaker 1: specifically what he did. We know that, like because like

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Speaker 1: the people who the people who were like bribing public

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Speaker 1: of was that we know about in this time, we're

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Speaker 1: the ones who weren't as good as Zaharov because he

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Speaker 1: was doing more of this. Yeah, because they got caught.

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Speaker 1: But like what happens in Europe, and this is something

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Speaker 1: we don't talk about much when we talk about World

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Speaker 1: War One, but a big part of why that war

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Speaker 1: happened is that the leadership of every country involved like

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Speaker 1: had personal financial stakes and the mass sale of weapons

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Speaker 1: and armaments, which also led to them buying more guns

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Speaker 1: and scaring each other with all the guns they were buying,

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Speaker 1: which led them to get angrier at each other, which

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Speaker 1: increased the belligerence between the nations. And it was all

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Speaker 1: basically to sell a shipload of guns to profit. Like

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Speaker 1: these arms manufacturers and the people that they bribed in

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Speaker 1: government had like a powder kig. I went to middle school.

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Speaker 1: I remember the little diagram went to draw. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's like World War One is a powder kig. Oh

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Speaker 1: my god. Yeah, but it's a powder keg that like

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Speaker 1: I think it's usually put that, like there are these

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Speaker 1: like that. A huge part of it was like I

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Speaker 1: don't know, like right, they didn't uncover all this the yeah,

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Speaker 1: the sinister underneath. I mean some of it was known

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Speaker 1: at the time, like particularly like a lot of socialist

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Speaker 1: politicians at the time were like, the arms industry owns

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Speaker 1: all of our governments and are like clearly lurching us

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Speaker 1: towards a horrible war. Somebody should do something about this,

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Speaker 1: but nobody did anything about it. So that's I mean

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Speaker 1: that doesn't sound like anything familiar, like the world lurching

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Speaker 1: towards clear disaster? What that that reminds me of something?

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Speaker 1: But I can't put a finger on it. Yeah, thankfully

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Speaker 1: it never happened again. Does a general sense of dread?

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Speaker 1: What is? What is that of something going on today? No?

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Speaker 1: I can't think of it. You know what all assuage

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Speaker 1: your general sense of dread? To reason products and services,

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Speaker 1: Because I, if I know something that has nothing at

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Speaker 1: all to do with corrupt arms panies buying politicians and

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Speaker 1: using them to bring the world closer and closer to disaster,

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Speaker 1: it's beautiful, beautiful, sweet lady capitalism. So let's calm our

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Speaker 1: souls with a little bit more of that and we're back.

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Speaker 1: So we don't know exactly what Zaharov did in most cases,

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Speaker 1: but there is bits and pieces of it. There are

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Speaker 1: bits and pieces of evidence here, and the documentary evidence

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Speaker 1: that survives suggests that the chief value he brought to

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Speaker 1: Vickers was his instinctive understanding of when into whom he

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Speaker 1: should offer bribes. Um. So he was like one of

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Speaker 1: the guys who was basically getting members of parliament, getting

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Speaker 1: like all these royal people to like get involved with

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Speaker 1: Vickars and make themselves like have a financial interest in

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Speaker 1: the success of his company. Um he wrote gleeful memos

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Speaker 1: that told of doing the needful and administering doses of

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Speaker 1: vicars to various prominent people in England. Foreign Office records

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Speaker 1: showed that in nineteen twelve, Zaharov was instrumental in passing

390
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Speaker 1: a hundred thousand roubles to officers in Russia's Ministry of

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Speaker 1: the Marine in order to divert government contracts to a

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Speaker 1: local ship building group in which Vickers had an interest.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, for reasons that remain obscure but

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00:21:13,160 --> 00:21:15,600
Speaker 1: can be guessed at, Vickers also won a contract to

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Speaker 1: supply light machine guns to the Russian Army, despite the

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Speaker 1: fact that it's bid was fifty more expensive than one

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Speaker 1: submitted by a local Russian company. There is reason to

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Speaker 1: suppose that in the latter's case, Saharov's charm an easy

399
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Speaker 1: way with women was at least as helpful as his

400
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Speaker 1: money um One historian William Fuller suggests that he made

401
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Speaker 1: particularly effective use of his association with the ballerina Kashinskaya, who,

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Speaker 1: after losing her place as a mistress, took up with

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Speaker 1: Grand Duke Sergey Mikhaylovich, Inspector General of the Russian Artillery.

404
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Speaker 1: So some of like he succeeds in basically like getting

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Speaker 1: Russia to buy a bunch of guns from him for

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Speaker 1: way more money than a local Russian firm wants to

407
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Speaker 1: sell them. For ballerina, he's dating a ballerina who's also

408
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Speaker 1: fucking the Grand Duke of Russia. Um, which is you know, yeah,

409
00:22:04,359 --> 00:22:10,200
Speaker 1: poking again more. Pola is like a delicate ballet, mm

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Speaker 1: hmm exactly. Um. So the individual acts Basil took during

411
00:22:13,840 --> 00:22:16,159
Speaker 1: this period are less important than the impact of strategies

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Speaker 1: and tactics had on the broader climate in Europe. World

413
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Speaker 1: War One was most directly a product of the armament

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Speaker 1: schedules of various nations of Europe. UM. So like once

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Speaker 1: like Germany realized that, like, okay, there was a conflict

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Speaker 1: you know, happening over between Austria and Serbia, and it's

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Speaker 1: gonna pull in Russian, it's gonna pull in France. They

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Speaker 1: knew that they had like only a certain amount of

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Speaker 1: time to mobilize their troops and get their army ready,

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00:22:39,760 --> 00:22:41,600
Speaker 1: and everyone else in Europe knew that too. So it

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Speaker 1: was this kind of thing that like, once everyone starts

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Speaker 1: mobilizing for war, you really have to continue because any

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Speaker 1: delay can mean you lose the war because you don't

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Speaker 1: have your reserves and ship ready in time. UM and

425
00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:55,760
Speaker 1: the system Zaharov developed had ensured that each of these

426
00:22:55,760 --> 00:23:00,000
Speaker 1: great powers had obsessively scheduled updates for their weaponry, their ships,

427
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:03,040
Speaker 1: their cannons, and their aircraft. And the varying levels to

428
00:23:03,040 --> 00:23:05,720
Speaker 1: which all of these different militaries were updated played a

429
00:23:05,800 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 1: huge role in the war calculus that drove the decision

430
00:23:08,359 --> 00:23:13,680
Speaker 1: making in August nineteen fourteen. UM. So like basically he's

431
00:23:13,720 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 1: got like all of these different countries are being convinced

432
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:19,320
Speaker 1: to update their weapons and buy new fancier guns and

433
00:23:19,359 --> 00:23:21,959
Speaker 1: new fancier planes and stuff and new fancier canons at

434
00:23:22,000 --> 00:23:25,400
Speaker 1: different times, and all of the other powers know this.

435
00:23:25,560 --> 00:23:28,800
Speaker 1: So like Germany and nineteen fourteen is in this position

436
00:23:28,800 --> 00:23:33,080
Speaker 1: where they realize like they have the most advanced army

437
00:23:33,119 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 1: in Europe by their calculus, but Russia is rearming because

438
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 1: Zakharov has got them to buy a bunch of guns,

439
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:41,159
Speaker 1: and France is rearming, and so they're like, if we

440
00:23:41,280 --> 00:23:44,160
Speaker 1: don't get involved, like fight a war right now, with

441
00:23:44,160 --> 00:23:46,680
Speaker 1: both of these countries and another five or six years

442
00:23:46,960 --> 00:23:49,320
Speaker 1: they'll have bought new guns and their guns will be

443
00:23:49,320 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 1: better than ours, and then we won't have a chance

444
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:54,640
Speaker 1: of winning this war. So like, because of this this

445
00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 1: kind of armament schedule that Zaharov helps to create, Germans

446
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:01,840
Speaker 1: like if you look at the internal documents, like German

447
00:24:01,960 --> 00:24:04,280
Speaker 1: officers like von Moltke, who's in charge of their military

448
00:24:04,280 --> 00:24:06,720
Speaker 1: at the time, are writing each other during the July crisis.

449
00:24:07,200 --> 00:24:09,360
Speaker 1: They call it a preventative war, and the thing they're

450
00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,840
Speaker 1: trying to prevent is Germany getting losing a fight against

451
00:24:12,880 --> 00:24:16,679
Speaker 1: France and Russia, because like Russia's buying all these guns

452
00:24:16,680 --> 00:24:18,760
Speaker 1: from Vickers, and they're like soon they're going to actually

453
00:24:18,760 --> 00:24:20,439
Speaker 1: be able to beat us if we don't fight them

454
00:24:20,560 --> 00:24:23,440
Speaker 1: right now. It's like I feel like that's like when

455
00:24:23,440 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: I break up with someone because I don't want them

456
00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 1: to break up with me later. So I'm like, I'll

457
00:24:28,400 --> 00:24:30,640
Speaker 1: do it now even though things are good, but like

458
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: later I'll be sad if you break up with me. Yeah,

459
00:24:34,880 --> 00:24:38,680
Speaker 1: and I think we all remember that breakup you had

460
00:24:38,920 --> 00:24:43,320
Speaker 1: that led to thousands of French and yeah, exactly, yeah,

461
00:24:44,119 --> 00:24:51,639
Speaker 1: it's um so yeah, So that's cool, right, um. So

462
00:24:51,960 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: basically like von Moltke and the German general staff thought

463
00:24:55,560 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 1: that nineteen fourteen was like the last year they could

464
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:01,679
Speaker 1: beat both France and Russia in a war. Um. The

465
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:05,800
Speaker 1: Saxon military attache in Berlin in July nineteen fourteen noted

466
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:08,040
Speaker 1: this about the German commander quote, I had the impression

467
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:09,960
Speaker 1: that the general staff would be pleased if war were

468
00:25:10,000 --> 00:25:12,400
Speaker 1: to come about now, conditions and prospects would never be

469
00:25:12,400 --> 00:25:15,920
Speaker 1: better for us. Victor Naumann, a journalist writing in Germany

470
00:25:15,960 --> 00:25:18,480
Speaker 1: at the time, noted the same thing. There is considerable

471
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,640
Speaker 1: uneasiness in Berlin over Russian armaments and the test mobilization

472
00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:24,919
Speaker 1: of considerable Russian forces, not only an army and navy circles,

473
00:25:24,920 --> 00:25:27,560
Speaker 1: but also in the foreign ministry. The idea of preventative

474
00:25:27,560 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 1: war is regarded with less disapproval than a year ago.

475
00:25:30,840 --> 00:25:33,879
Speaker 1: There's like a really direct line between the fact that

476
00:25:33,960 --> 00:25:36,919
Speaker 1: Zaharov convinced it like, sells so many guns to Russia,

477
00:25:37,000 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: gets France to loan them all this money, and the

478
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: fact that World War One starts like it's it convinces

479
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:45,760
Speaker 1: the Germans that they have to fight right now. That

480
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:48,719
Speaker 1: wording to like less disapproval is also like a lot

481
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:52,119
Speaker 1: of propaganda because it's spinning like there's disapproval, but it's

482
00:25:52,200 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 1: less disapproval instead of just been like they approved. No,

483
00:25:54,720 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 1: it's just slightly less disapproval. Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. Um

484
00:26:00,600 --> 00:26:04,520
Speaker 1: so yeah, Well, Europe lurched from crisis to crisis in

485
00:26:04,560 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 1: the final week, years, and months leading up to World

486
00:26:07,640 --> 00:26:11,040
Speaker 1: War One. Basil continued to blissfully sell arms all around

487
00:26:11,040 --> 00:26:13,720
Speaker 1: the world. Prior to World War One, when war broke

488
00:26:13,720 --> 00:26:16,200
Speaker 1: out between Greece, Turkey, and some of the Ottoman Empire's

489
00:26:16,200 --> 00:26:20,200
Speaker 1: rebellious European possessions, this is a nineve Basil took the

490
00:26:20,240 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 1: extraordinary step of funding the Greek war effort to the

491
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,240
Speaker 1: tune of two and a half million francs in order

492
00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:28,439
Speaker 1: to ensure a Greek victory. Um it's not clear if

493
00:26:28,440 --> 00:26:30,640
Speaker 1: there was like a financial motivation to this as well,

494
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:33,320
Speaker 1: or if he was like just patriotic, but the Ottoman

495
00:26:33,320 --> 00:26:36,439
Speaker 1: Empire's embarrassing defeat helped push them closer to Germany and

496
00:26:36,440 --> 00:26:40,600
Speaker 1: contributed to the ratcheting up of global tensions. Now, stoking

497
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: global war was not the only thing Basil got up

498
00:26:42,640 --> 00:26:45,199
Speaker 1: due during this period. In eighteen eighty nine, during a

499
00:26:45,200 --> 00:26:48,720
Speaker 1: tour around Europe. Uh, he met Maria del Pillar Antonia,

500
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:54,200
Speaker 1: Angela Pato Sino, Simona de Muguero. I'm just printing the

501
00:26:54,280 --> 00:26:57,880
Speaker 1: Duchess of Villa Farca. He meets this Spanish noblewoman with

502
00:26:58,160 --> 00:27:01,480
Speaker 1: so many fucking names, um, and Basil strikes up a

503
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:04,280
Speaker 1: romantic relationship with her that allowed him to sell millions

504
00:27:04,280 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 1: of dollars and guns to the Spanish army as well. Um. Now,

505
00:27:07,560 --> 00:27:10,120
Speaker 1: this was not purely a mercenary end ever, though, Zaharov

506
00:27:10,200 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 1: seems to have legitimately fallen in love with the duchess,

507
00:27:13,040 --> 00:27:15,560
Speaker 1: and he begged her to divorce her husband, arguing that

508
00:27:15,640 --> 00:27:18,920
Speaker 1: since her husband was dying and suffering from dementia, like,

509
00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:21,359
Speaker 1: what did it really matter if they got divorced. But

510
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:24,320
Speaker 1: the Duchess was Catholic and she was not willing to

511
00:27:24,320 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: get divorced, although she was willing to cheat on her husband.

512
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:32,560
Speaker 1: So I guess do the moral math. There's a much

513
00:27:32,640 --> 00:27:35,880
Speaker 1: looser out there. Yeah, I can't divorce my husband because

514
00:27:35,880 --> 00:27:40,960
Speaker 1: it'll make God angry, but we can suck for thirty years. Yeah. Um,

515
00:27:41,040 --> 00:27:44,159
Speaker 1: So Basil and the Duchess were together for decades. Um

516
00:27:44,200 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: and everyone kind of knew it, but just like agreed

517
00:27:46,640 --> 00:27:48,199
Speaker 1: not to talk about it because I guess that's just

518
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,760
Speaker 1: how you did things back then. Um. Her husband was

519
00:27:50,800 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: declared insane and locked up in a mental asylum. He

520
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,920
Speaker 1: survived thirty five years um, which none of them expected

521
00:27:57,080 --> 00:27:59,960
Speaker 1: um and really frustrated Basil because he and his missed

522
00:28:00,520 --> 00:28:03,160
Speaker 1: had to like hide their relationship at least a little

523
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,560
Speaker 1: bit for most of this period. Um. But to Basil's credit,

524
00:28:06,600 --> 00:28:08,320
Speaker 1: he seems to have actually loved this woman and the

525
00:28:08,320 --> 00:28:11,280
Speaker 1: tour together for the rest of their lives. UM. So

526
00:28:11,320 --> 00:28:18,680
Speaker 1: that's cool. She's like, yeah, yeah, he doesn't steal from her,

527
00:28:18,760 --> 00:28:27,440
Speaker 1: so that's nice. Um yeah. So um yeah Basil, Yeah,

528
00:28:27,640 --> 00:28:29,600
Speaker 1: I mean he he's he's a big part of why

529
00:28:29,600 --> 00:28:33,320
Speaker 1: World War One starts and kind of the impact of

530
00:28:33,440 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: his like the ship that he pulls prior to the war,

531
00:28:37,200 --> 00:28:41,400
Speaker 1: like the particularly that the fact that Russia winds up

532
00:28:41,400 --> 00:28:45,040
Speaker 1: in like tremendous debt to France, um, winds up having

533
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: an impact beyond just the First World War. UM. So

534
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:54,360
Speaker 1: like Russia by the time, like you know, World War one,

535
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,000
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen, Like there's a big revolution in Russia and

536
00:28:57,040 --> 00:29:00,080
Speaker 1: the Czars very soon out of power. And one of

537
00:29:00,160 --> 00:29:03,000
Speaker 1: the reasons that this happens is because of all of

538
00:29:03,040 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 1: the debt that Russia owed to France. Like that was

539
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:07,640
Speaker 1: one of the big talking points of the Bolsheviks and

540
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:10,440
Speaker 1: the Socialists when they like overthrew the government. Is like

541
00:29:10,480 --> 00:29:13,280
Speaker 1: the czar had mortgaged their company to France to buy

542
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,120
Speaker 1: better guns, and that had forced them to get involved

543
00:29:16,120 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: in this war that had killed hundreds and thousands of

544
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 1: their young men. Um and you can kind of trace

545
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,680
Speaker 1: a lot of that to Zaharov um. So. Like as

546
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 1: far back as nineteen o five, the Bolshevik counsels had

547
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:29,959
Speaker 1: demanded repudiation of all of Russia's foreign debts UM and

548
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,640
Speaker 1: this demand formed a centerpiece for the strikes in St.

549
00:29:32,680 --> 00:29:36,040
Speaker 1: Petersburg that happened in nineteen o five UM and those

550
00:29:36,040 --> 00:29:38,800
Speaker 1: strikes spread around the empire along with the demand for

551
00:29:38,800 --> 00:29:41,280
Speaker 1: debt repudiation, and then they were crushed brutally by the

552
00:29:41,320 --> 00:29:43,760
Speaker 1: Russian government, which was again one of the major causes,

553
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:45,720
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that helped inspire the

554
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: Russian Revolution. Uh So, on December third, nineteen o five,

555
00:29:49,520 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 1: Czarist authorities arrested the entire Soviet leadership for publishing a

556
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:57,080
Speaker 1: manifesto urging debt repudiation. The revolution that sparked off in

557
00:29:57,160 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen was based on a lot of grievances and

558
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,120
Speaker 1: crime by the Tsarist regime, but the fact that the

559
00:30:02,120 --> 00:30:05,240
Speaker 1: future of the Russian people had basically been like sold

560
00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:08,040
Speaker 1: to France for pointless guns for a stupid war was

561
00:30:08,080 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 1: a big part of them. And it also played a

562
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:13,360
Speaker 1: role in the fact that like the most extreme faction

563
00:30:13,400 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 1: wound up winning the Civil War. The Czar initially like

564
00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 1: gave up power to a moderate socialist movement led by

565
00:30:19,760 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: a guy named Kerensky, and this provisional government was crippled

566
00:30:23,360 --> 00:30:24,920
Speaker 1: by the fact that it both had to carry on

567
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:27,560
Speaker 1: World War One and it had to pledge to repay

568
00:30:27,600 --> 00:30:30,920
Speaker 1: the debts contracted by the Czarist regime. So because Kerensky

569
00:30:31,040 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 1: had to agree that Russia was going to keep paying

570
00:30:33,120 --> 00:30:35,800
Speaker 1: off its debts to France, um like, that's a big

571
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 1: part of why there's a revolution against him in October

572
00:30:38,720 --> 00:30:42,080
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventeen, which leads to the takeover of the Bolsheviks,

573
00:30:42,080 --> 00:30:45,560
Speaker 1: who in nineteen eighteen repudiated all Russian debt to its

574
00:30:45,600 --> 00:30:49,560
Speaker 1: foreign creditors. Now, the fact that the Bolsheviks in charge

575
00:30:49,680 --> 00:30:51,720
Speaker 1: had decided they're just not going to pay France back.

576
00:30:52,000 --> 00:30:55,280
Speaker 1: Pisces off a lot of people, particularly France, and this

577
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 1: contributes to the French decision to blockade Russia and back

578
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,360
Speaker 1: up the white Russian forces. This prolongs the Russian Civil War,

579
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,560
Speaker 1: killing more Russians than World War One actually did, and

580
00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:07,200
Speaker 1: it also ensures that the Bolsheviks who remain, who emerged

581
00:31:07,320 --> 00:31:10,400
Speaker 1: victorious from the war, were like even more pissed at

582
00:31:10,440 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: these Western countries because they were like, well, you guys

583
00:31:13,240 --> 00:31:17,280
Speaker 1: extended this horribly brutal war, um, and like like, just

584
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: so we'd pay you back for these guns that like

585
00:31:19,360 --> 00:31:22,960
Speaker 1: you condescendto buying in the first place. Um, isn't that

586
00:31:23,000 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: How like isn't the America, oh, China a bunch of money,

587
00:31:26,640 --> 00:31:30,280
Speaker 1: not necessarily weapons? But are we kind of themselves into

588
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:33,520
Speaker 1: that too? I mean, we owe more money to our

589
00:31:33,560 --> 00:31:36,160
Speaker 1: own people, Like it's I guess it. I think it's like,

590
00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 1: but we have a it's different. They did it deficit.

591
00:31:42,640 --> 00:31:44,640
Speaker 1: They lent us a bunch of money. I remember, like

592
00:31:45,120 --> 00:31:47,320
Speaker 1: it was in high school, and it's so much that

593
00:31:47,360 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 1: we're never going to pay them back. And I think

594
00:31:48,960 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: it's kind of understood that at some point it'll just

595
00:31:52,760 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: be fair or we're just going to have to do

596
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,200
Speaker 1: what they say because it's so much that we can't

597
00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 1: pay back. Yeah, I think it a bit different now

598
00:32:01,200 --> 00:32:04,360
Speaker 1: because like money is not real now. It was like

599
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 1: back then, everything's like that by god, civil yeah my country.

600
00:32:10,720 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 1: I guess No, it's like it isn't really real, like you,

601
00:32:14,400 --> 00:32:17,440
Speaker 1: like you'll notice nobody even talks about the deficit anymore.

602
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:19,680
Speaker 1: Like it used to be like our national debt was

603
00:32:19,680 --> 00:32:21,560
Speaker 1: this big deal, and now we just pretend it's not

604
00:32:21,600 --> 00:32:26,120
Speaker 1: a thing. Yeah. It's like if you go to the

605
00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:29,000
Speaker 1: hospital and wind up owing ten million dollars in medical debt,

606
00:32:29,040 --> 00:32:31,240
Speaker 1: and it's just like, well, I'm never paying this, like

607
00:32:31,400 --> 00:32:33,640
Speaker 1: I work at the sparrow, Like what do you what

608
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:38,760
Speaker 1: do you want? Um? But like back then, like all

609
00:32:38,840 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: of the the all of these like currencies are back

610
00:32:42,440 --> 00:32:44,680
Speaker 1: are are like based on gold and silver and stuff,

611
00:32:44,720 --> 00:32:48,480
Speaker 1: so like there is like an expectation of real repayment um.

612
00:32:48,600 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 1: And like it's a horrible burden to the Russian peasantry

613
00:32:52,320 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 1: because like the rich people of Russia aren't going to

614
00:32:54,280 --> 00:32:56,640
Speaker 1: pay all of that money, Like they're the ones who

615
00:32:56,680 --> 00:32:58,920
Speaker 1: made these deals so that they could get more money

616
00:32:58,960 --> 00:33:03,479
Speaker 1: because these arms coming, you're bribing them. Um. So like, yeah, Basil,

617
00:33:04,560 --> 00:33:06,360
Speaker 1: when you try to trace out like the impact of

618
00:33:06,360 --> 00:33:07,760
Speaker 1: this guy, like it's in a bunch of stuff. He

619
00:33:07,760 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: helps lead the world into World War Two, which like

620
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:12,880
Speaker 1: twenty million people die in. But he also plays a

621
00:33:12,920 --> 00:33:16,400
Speaker 1: significant role in helping to inspire at least parts of

622
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:20,320
Speaker 1: the Russian Civil War, and helping to inspire like like

623
00:33:20,360 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: the debts that Russia owes lead to like protests and

624
00:33:24,040 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: stuff that are cracked down on brutally by the czar,

625
00:33:26,320 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 1: which is one contributing factor to the civil war. And

626
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:32,120
Speaker 1: then once the civil war happens, they help to ensure

627
00:33:32,160 --> 00:33:35,360
Speaker 1: that the most extreme people get into power, um, and

628
00:33:35,400 --> 00:33:38,080
Speaker 1: then help also ensure that like the European powers, Russia

629
00:33:38,120 --> 00:33:40,280
Speaker 1: owes money to back up the other side in the

630
00:33:40,320 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 1: civil war, which kills hundreds of thousands of people, and

631
00:33:43,040 --> 00:33:45,600
Speaker 1: like Basil had a huge impact on that, but he

632
00:33:45,680 --> 00:33:48,160
Speaker 1: also got to completely ignore it because he's just a

633
00:33:48,240 --> 00:33:50,120
Speaker 1: rich guy living in Europe. He already made his fucking money,

634
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:52,400
Speaker 1: doesn't give a shit like he made his he made

635
00:33:52,440 --> 00:33:54,360
Speaker 1: he got his cut of the deal already that he

636
00:33:54,360 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: doesn't lose anything because Russia is not paying back his debts.

637
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:00,840
Speaker 1: Like he's fucking fine. Um. And he was fine with

638
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:02,560
Speaker 1: World War One. He made a funkload of money in

639
00:34:02,600 --> 00:34:05,239
Speaker 1: World War One. Um. And he basically got to not

640
00:34:05,360 --> 00:34:08,720
Speaker 1: really work all that hard during the war. Um, because

641
00:34:08,800 --> 00:34:11,000
Speaker 1: you don't have to work hard to sell guns to

642
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:14,120
Speaker 1: countries in the middle of the biggest war history. It's

643
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:17,480
Speaker 1: really easy to sell guns there. Um. So what you're

644
00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:22,200
Speaker 1: saying is he almost wanted a war. Um. Yeah. And

645
00:34:22,280 --> 00:34:24,759
Speaker 1: in fact, once the war was going, it was very

646
00:34:24,840 --> 00:34:28,160
Speaker 1: much in his interest to prolong the blood letting and yeah,

647
00:34:28,400 --> 00:34:32,800
Speaker 1: make the war happen even longer. So at the start

648
00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:35,719
Speaker 1: of hostilities, the Imperial German Army had captured a place

649
00:34:35,760 --> 00:34:38,600
Speaker 1: called the bri A basin um and they routed to

650
00:34:38,760 --> 00:34:41,759
Speaker 1: French armies to do it. For good reason, Brier included

651
00:34:41,800 --> 00:34:44,759
Speaker 1: massive quantities of iron ore and Germany didn't have a

652
00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,080
Speaker 1: whole lot of iron and like its own borders, so

653
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:49,880
Speaker 1: Brier became a lynchpin of the German war effort. Without

654
00:34:49,880 --> 00:34:51,360
Speaker 1: the iron there, they would not have been able to

655
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:54,000
Speaker 1: fight World War One more than about six months. So

656
00:34:54,040 --> 00:34:56,640
Speaker 1: they capture all of this like iron or in these

657
00:34:56,640 --> 00:34:59,560
Speaker 1: blast furnaces and stuff, but all of it's within the

658
00:34:59,680 --> 00:35:02,080
Speaker 1: range of French artillery. So what would you think of

659
00:35:02,120 --> 00:35:04,839
Speaker 1: your France. Oh, Germany's got this place that like they

660
00:35:04,880 --> 00:35:07,399
Speaker 1: cannot fight the war if they can't get iron out

661
00:35:07,400 --> 00:35:10,359
Speaker 1: of it, and we can blow it all up, you'd

662
00:35:10,360 --> 00:35:12,799
Speaker 1: think they'd blow it all up, right, seems like kind

663
00:35:12,800 --> 00:35:14,839
Speaker 1: of a no brainer from a military point of view.

664
00:35:15,600 --> 00:35:17,920
Speaker 1: They don't shell it at all during the war and

665
00:35:17,960 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: the reason they don't shell it at all is Basil

666
00:35:20,680 --> 00:35:24,279
Speaker 1: zahar Off because Basil's like, well, this is a bunch

667
00:35:24,360 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 1: of money, Like, once the war is over, I could

668
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:28,560
Speaker 1: make a lot of money from the iron foundries here,

669
00:35:28,600 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 1: Like I don't want you guys blowing that stuff up.

670
00:35:31,160 --> 00:35:34,680
Speaker 1: So he basically finds himself in this position of having

671
00:35:34,680 --> 00:35:37,239
Speaker 1: to convince France not to do the thing that could

672
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:39,920
Speaker 1: allow them to win the war in six months. And

673
00:35:39,960 --> 00:35:41,960
Speaker 1: when we come back, we're going to talk about how

674
00:35:41,960 --> 00:35:45,239
Speaker 1: he did that. But first, if you need to win

675
00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:47,960
Speaker 1: a war against Germany in six months, the only way

676
00:35:47,960 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 1: to do it is with the products and services that

677
00:35:50,120 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: support this podcast. We're back. So um yeah, uh Basil

678
00:36:03,200 --> 00:36:06,480
Speaker 1: zaharrof um So Basil is trying to convince like find

679
00:36:06,520 --> 00:36:08,600
Speaker 1: himself in this position of like needing to convince franch

680
00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:11,200
Speaker 1: not to blow up this place that would allow them

681
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 1: to win the war and make Germany's effort basically impossible. Um.

682
00:36:15,200 --> 00:36:17,640
Speaker 1: And the way he does this is through a friendship

683
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: he has with a guy named Robert Pinot, who's one

684
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:22,560
Speaker 1: of the leaders of like the French government's armament's effort,

685
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:24,480
Speaker 1: so he's like one of the people responsible for arming

686
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:27,839
Speaker 1: the French military during this war. Uh Pineau warns him

687
00:36:27,880 --> 00:36:30,960
Speaker 1: that French generals were agitating to bomb brill A m

688
00:36:31,080 --> 00:36:33,359
Speaker 1: because they're like, we want to win this war, because

689
00:36:33,360 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 1: we're generals and this is the easiest way to do it.

690
00:36:36,080 --> 00:36:40,840
Speaker 1: Um And yeah, Basil, Basically, I'm going to read a

691
00:36:40,920 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: quote from the book Man of Arms that describes what

692
00:36:42,760 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 1: he did next. At Pino's requests, Zaharov took informal soundings

693
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:49,080
Speaker 1: from the German industrialists and Theonville we at the same

694
00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:52,000
Speaker 1: time putting up an alternative blockade plan to French headquarters.

695
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:54,600
Speaker 1: This was that the installations that Brier should be left intact,

696
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:56,480
Speaker 1: but that attack should be launched and said on the

697
00:36:56,560 --> 00:37:01,440
Speaker 1: railways general military immediately and finely contested this option. The

698
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: preference may have reflected the special interests of the committee.

699
00:37:04,520 --> 00:37:07,239
Speaker 1: The ultimate decision, however, lay with the ministers individually and

700
00:37:07,280 --> 00:37:10,200
Speaker 1: the cabinet collectively. After taking into consideration the advice of

701
00:37:10,239 --> 00:37:13,319
Speaker 1: their military advisors and service chiefs. They neither pressed it

702
00:37:13,360 --> 00:37:16,160
Speaker 1: nor resigned in disagreement. The same French source put another

703
00:37:16,160 --> 00:37:18,680
Speaker 1: gloss on this affair. Towards the end of nineteen sixteen,

704
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:21,440
Speaker 1: Lloyd George sought Zaharov's advice on the chance of securing

705
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:23,920
Speaker 1: a token withdrawal of troops on both sides of the

706
00:37:23,920 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: front on New Year's Day, an appeal which Zaharov, with

707
00:37:26,800 --> 00:37:30,360
Speaker 1: his customary agility, distorted into a mutual agreement between the

708
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:33,600
Speaker 1: Allies and the Central Powers to respect each other's arms factories.

709
00:37:34,080 --> 00:37:37,000
Speaker 1: Lloyd George, according to this version, finally concurred with Zaharov's

710
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:39,640
Speaker 1: viewpoint and agreed it would be senseless to destroy industrial

711
00:37:39,640 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 1: plants and too in the war with derelict factories and

712
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 1: mass unemployment. So yeah, um, so it's like yeah, so

713
00:37:46,640 --> 00:37:50,359
Speaker 1: he not only like basically like tries to push this

714
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 1: plan to have France like send thousands of young men

715
00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:56,040
Speaker 1: to their deaths, trying to attack German railways instead of

716
00:37:56,040 --> 00:38:00,239
Speaker 1: just shelling these iron foundries. Um. But like later in

717
00:38:00,280 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 1: the war, in like nineteen sixteen, when he's like asked

718
00:38:03,920 --> 00:38:07,040
Speaker 1: to try and secure like a withdrawal from both sides

719
00:38:07,080 --> 00:38:09,520
Speaker 1: on New Year's Day to give like the soldiers, like

720
00:38:09,600 --> 00:38:12,040
Speaker 1: to ratchet down tensions and give the soldiers a break.

721
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:14,279
Speaker 1: He's like, no, no, no, no, no, they should keep

722
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:16,960
Speaker 1: shooting at each other. But like what we should really

723
00:38:17,000 --> 00:38:19,560
Speaker 1: do is make an international agreement to not destroy any

724
00:38:19,640 --> 00:38:25,560
Speaker 1: arms factories, because I yeah, that's yeah, he's a real

725
00:38:25,560 --> 00:38:28,799
Speaker 1: piece of shit, um. So yeah. While millions of young

726
00:38:28,840 --> 00:38:31,359
Speaker 1: men were like dashing themselves to death against machine gun

727
00:38:31,400 --> 00:38:35,040
Speaker 1: nests and artillery emplacements, Basil Zaharov dedicated himself to protecting

728
00:38:35,040 --> 00:38:38,360
Speaker 1: what really mattered, the industrial facilities that made those weapons.

729
00:38:39,560 --> 00:38:41,440
Speaker 1: He was deeply trusted by men at the heights of

730
00:38:41,480 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: power on the Allied side, and he acted as a

731
00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:45,799
Speaker 1: go between for King George the Fifth Lloyd George, who

732
00:38:45,840 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: was like the guy in charge of England, and the

733
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:51,759
Speaker 1: French Prime Minister clemenso Um, the Earl of Derby, the

734
00:38:51,760 --> 00:38:54,239
Speaker 1: British ambassador to France, wrote that there is no man

735
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:56,840
Speaker 1: living in whom more people can fight and than him,

736
00:38:56,880 --> 00:38:59,320
Speaker 1: and well it's impossible to say exactly what impact his

737
00:38:59,400 --> 00:39:02,520
Speaker 1: personal it's had on the war. Lord Derby was convinced

738
00:39:02,560 --> 00:39:05,160
Speaker 1: that Basil Zaharov had a vested interest in making the

739
00:39:05,160 --> 00:39:07,840
Speaker 1: war go on as long as possible in June of

740
00:39:07,920 --> 00:39:12,240
Speaker 1: nineteen seventeen. Yeah, in June of nineteen seventeen, he wrote

741
00:39:12,280 --> 00:39:15,200
Speaker 1: in his journal, Zaharov is all for continuing the war

742
00:39:15,320 --> 00:39:18,040
Speaker 1: to the end. So, like we don't know exactly what

743
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:19,600
Speaker 1: he did, and this is part of the frustrating thing.

744
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,080
Speaker 1: It's like hard to say, like he said to the king,

745
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: you know, do this or that, because like nobody keeps

746
00:39:24,560 --> 00:39:27,840
Speaker 1: track of these conversations between these world leaders and their friend.

747
00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:30,440
Speaker 1: But we know he really wants the war to go

748
00:39:30,480 --> 00:39:36,399
Speaker 1: on long and he's a voice in all these people's ears. Um. Yeah, so, uh,

749
00:39:36,400 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 1: he did make one attempt to secure peace in nineteen seventeen. Uh,

750
00:39:40,600 --> 00:39:42,920
Speaker 1: he kind of. He was sent by Lloyd George to

751
00:39:42,920 --> 00:39:45,320
Speaker 1: try and bring Greece into the war on the Allied

752
00:39:45,360 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: side and to try to convince the Ottoman Empire to

753
00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,879
Speaker 1: effect from Germany. He was given ten million pounds worth

754
00:39:50,920 --> 00:39:53,120
Speaker 1: of solid gold to try to bribe this into being.

755
00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,719
Speaker 1: But unfortunately for Basil, he only made it as far

756
00:39:55,760 --> 00:39:59,279
Speaker 1: as Switzerland, and I'm gonn quote from Smithsonian Magazine. Now,

757
00:40:00,080 --> 00:40:02,799
Speaker 1: his reputation preceded him intercepting at the border, he was

758
00:40:02,880 --> 00:40:06,360
Speaker 1: humiliatingly strip searched and left standing in sub zero temperatures

759
00:40:06,400 --> 00:40:08,560
Speaker 1: for more than an hour by the border police. In

760
00:40:08,600 --> 00:40:10,719
Speaker 1: the end, his intrigues came to nothing, but that did

761
00:40:10,719 --> 00:40:12,920
Speaker 1: not stop him writing to the British government to demand

762
00:40:13,200 --> 00:40:16,440
Speaker 1: chocolate for z Z, his coy reference to the major

763
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:18,920
Speaker 1: honor he craved. So let's say he's asking for like

764
00:40:18,960 --> 00:40:21,480
Speaker 1: an award. He's like, I would like zed Z for

765
00:40:21,640 --> 00:40:26,320
Speaker 1: like some chocolate. Yeah, So this really discussed King George

766
00:40:26,360 --> 00:40:28,359
Speaker 1: the Fifth, who like, at this point is at least

767
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:31,040
Speaker 1: enough of a human being to be like, millions of

768
00:40:31,080 --> 00:40:33,080
Speaker 1: young men have died and like, look at the kind

769
00:40:33,080 --> 00:40:36,200
Speaker 1: of like the kind of ship you're saying. But he

770
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 1: grudgingly recommends z Z for a Grand Night Cross, which

771
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:44,600
Speaker 1: finally enabled Zaharov to style himself Sir Basil for the

772
00:40:44,640 --> 00:40:48,239
Speaker 1: first time in his life, some sort of justification. He's

773
00:40:48,320 --> 00:40:50,520
Speaker 1: just like it to be. He's just like a little

774
00:40:50,600 --> 00:40:53,520
Speaker 1: child whining, like I want to prize like you didn't

775
00:40:53,520 --> 00:40:55,880
Speaker 1: say good job to me after I failed at that

776
00:40:55,880 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 1: thing you wanted me to do. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I

777
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:02,319
Speaker 1: want a prize for like failing to secure peace and

778
00:41:02,400 --> 00:41:06,480
Speaker 1: helping to start it. Yeah. Um. So obviously, World War

779
00:41:06,520 --> 00:41:09,239
Speaker 1: One ends in nineteen eighteen, and this is good news

780
00:41:09,280 --> 00:41:13,120
Speaker 1: for human beings, but bad news for weapons companies because

781
00:41:13,480 --> 00:41:16,439
Speaker 1: you're gonna buy a lot of fewer guns after this war. Um.

782
00:41:16,520 --> 00:41:21,279
Speaker 1: And when the fighting ended, the arms industry contracted massively. Basil, though,

783
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:23,799
Speaker 1: was still very wealthy and influential, and he bought his

784
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 1: way into being part owner of Monte Carlo, the famous

785
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:30,319
Speaker 1: resort and casino. However, his chief interest continued to be

786
00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:34,080
Speaker 1: and the movement and destinies of the nations. From nineteen

787
00:41:34,120 --> 00:41:37,040
Speaker 1: twenty to nineteen twenty two, Basil got deeply involved in

788
00:41:37,080 --> 00:41:41,080
Speaker 1: the Greco Turkish war over smyrna Um. And this is

789
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 1: we talked about this a little bit in the Savitri

790
00:41:42,960 --> 00:41:47,520
Speaker 1: Devi episode. But basically, like Greece in a treaty, in

791
00:41:47,560 --> 00:41:50,240
Speaker 1: the Treaty Versailles is given this like chunk of land

792
00:41:50,360 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: on the Turkish coast and they have to send in

793
00:41:53,200 --> 00:41:55,799
Speaker 1: troops to actually take it. In Turkey fights, back and

794
00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:59,920
Speaker 1: eventually the Allies like abandoned Greece and grease like lou

795
00:42:00,000 --> 00:42:03,279
Speaker 1: As the war and there's a horrible genocide. Um. And

796
00:42:03,520 --> 00:42:07,240
Speaker 1: there are rumors that Basil himself entirely funded the Greek

797
00:42:07,239 --> 00:42:10,680
Speaker 1: war effort, their attempt to invade Turkey. Um. There's no

798
00:42:10,760 --> 00:42:12,560
Speaker 1: hard evidence of this, but it's one of the stories.

799
00:42:12,600 --> 00:42:14,480
Speaker 1: Everyone will say is that like he funded this war

800
00:42:14,600 --> 00:42:16,920
Speaker 1: that Greece fights against Turkey. We just really don't know.

801
00:42:17,360 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 1: The war was a disaster for Greece though, and it

802
00:42:19,400 --> 00:42:22,680
Speaker 1: was a disaster for Zakharov's political backers, like Lloyd George,

803
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:25,640
Speaker 1: so he had he like Zaharov was a major part

804
00:42:25,680 --> 00:42:28,399
Speaker 1: of the reason that like they got this land than

805
00:42:28,400 --> 00:42:30,759
Speaker 1: the Treaty of Versailles, and he was like pushing the

806
00:42:30,760 --> 00:42:32,879
Speaker 1: English and want not to back Greece in this war.

807
00:42:33,160 --> 00:42:36,200
Speaker 1: And when it ends badly for Greece, it's really bad

808
00:42:36,280 --> 00:42:39,600
Speaker 1: for all of like the people that give zaharof his influence.

809
00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:42,200
Speaker 1: And it's bad for his influence too, because he's made

810
00:42:42,200 --> 00:42:45,280
Speaker 1: a big funk up. In the mid nineteen twenties, Vickers

811
00:42:45,320 --> 00:42:48,760
Speaker 1: began to encounter increasing financial difficulties in the Europe. Exhausted

812
00:42:48,800 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 1: by war nations just weren't buying guns at the same

813
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,319
Speaker 1: apocalyptic level they once had. Krupp had been killed by

814
00:42:54,360 --> 00:42:57,960
Speaker 1: Allied demands that they destroy all of their arms producing equipment,

815
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:00,799
Speaker 1: but the death of Vickers greatest competit did not help

816
00:43:00,840 --> 00:43:04,120
Speaker 1: the company out. Uh They were forced to massively reorganize

817
00:43:04,120 --> 00:43:06,600
Speaker 1: and cut costs just to stay in business. Their stock

818
00:43:06,640 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 1: price dropped by two thirds, and since Basil was the

819
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:13,640
Speaker 1: largest stockholder in Vicars, this severely impacted his net worth,

820
00:43:13,840 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 1: and he was slowly shuffled out of any position of

821
00:43:15,840 --> 00:43:19,720
Speaker 1: power within the company by nineteen five. In nineteen seven,

822
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:22,640
Speaker 1: the managers of the reorganized firm presented Basil with an

823
00:43:22,680 --> 00:43:25,080
Speaker 1: award for his fifty years of service with the company.

824
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:27,080
Speaker 1: It was a bomb designed to hide the fact that

825
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:30,320
Speaker 1: they'd removed him from any position of influence. On September

826
00:43:33,560 --> 00:43:35,960
Speaker 1: have this fucking award? You like awards? You're some chocolate

827
00:43:35,960 --> 00:43:40,279
Speaker 1: for z z Yeah. So on September two, nineteen twenty four,

828
00:43:40,640 --> 00:43:44,040
Speaker 1: Basil Zaharov had married his duchess after nearly forty years

829
00:43:44,040 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 1: together because her husband died in that asane asylum, but

830
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: she didn't outlive him for very long. At eighteen months later,

831
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 1: she died, and this basically spelled the end for Basil. Yeah,

832
00:43:52,960 --> 00:43:54,880
Speaker 1: he was never the same after his wife died. He

833
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:57,200
Speaker 1: does seem to have loved this woman, um and in

834
00:43:57,320 --> 00:43:59,680
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty seven he burns all of his papers and

835
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:01,759
Speaker 1: note books and all of the evidence of his long

836
00:44:01,840 --> 00:44:04,239
Speaker 1: and bloody career. Is the most successful arms dealer in

837
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:07,840
Speaker 1: world history goes up in smoke. The King of Armaments

838
00:44:07,880 --> 00:44:10,840
Speaker 1: survived until nineteen thirty six, but over the next decade

839
00:44:10,880 --> 00:44:13,759
Speaker 1: he grew sicker and less mobile, eventually being wheeled around

840
00:44:13,760 --> 00:44:15,920
Speaker 1: by servants as he did his rounds at Monte Carlo.

841
00:44:16,360 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 1: He died sick and marginalized, with his vast fortune much depleted.

842
00:44:20,120 --> 00:44:21,759
Speaker 1: There's no way to know how much money he was

843
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:24,239
Speaker 1: really worth, but his liquid known assets at death were

844
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:28,280
Speaker 1: only around a million modern dollars. Only a billion dollars.

845
00:44:28,360 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: What a fucking million? A million? A million with a million? Wow?

846
00:44:33,120 --> 00:44:35,280
Speaker 1: I mean, like wow, that's just what a fucking loser.

847
00:44:35,320 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: I mean, who doesn't have a million dollars? Right? Am? I? Right? Yeah? Yeah,

848
00:44:40,680 --> 00:44:42,560
Speaker 1: yeah yeah? I mean you don't feel sorry for this

849
00:44:42,560 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 1: guy that he only dies with a million dollars? Robert

850
00:44:45,480 --> 00:44:47,560
Speaker 1: All I hear, is this is a rom com that

851
00:44:47,719 --> 00:44:51,000
Speaker 1: ended in a very happy marriage, and that he you

852
00:44:51,040 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 1: said he loved her, So you know, that's all I

853
00:44:52,920 --> 00:44:55,920
Speaker 1: need to hear. Most romcoms, people funk up, and it

854
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:57,959
Speaker 1: doesn't matter how they funk up, as long as there's

855
00:44:57,960 --> 00:44:59,520
Speaker 1: a kiss at the end. So that's what I heard.

856
00:44:59,560 --> 00:45:03,080
Speaker 1: I mean, if there's one thing I've learned from modern politics,

857
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:06,160
Speaker 1: it's that just because somebody starts a couple of wars

858
00:45:06,200 --> 00:45:09,200
Speaker 1: and gets a couple of million people killed, doesn't mean

859
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 1: you shouldn't root for them to be have friends and

860
00:45:11,960 --> 00:45:16,880
Speaker 1: live a happy life. You know. It's like, like, so

861
00:45:16,920 --> 00:45:19,480
Speaker 1: what if basils at her off, like got all those

862
00:45:19,520 --> 00:45:22,600
Speaker 1: people killed, Like, don't you want him to I don't know,

863
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:26,879
Speaker 1: take up painting and and meet paintings of like world

864
00:45:27,000 --> 00:45:30,400
Speaker 1: leaders or something like isn't that shouldn't we forgive people

865
00:45:30,480 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 1: like this? M hmm yeah, for the record, because I

866
00:45:34,560 --> 00:45:36,200
Speaker 1: feel like people don't know me as well as they

867
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:39,680
Speaker 1: know you do. Not do not think that, um, but

868
00:45:39,800 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 1: you know, but I do think. Uh, I do think

869
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:45,640
Speaker 1: this guy is bad, and I think he's burning in

870
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:48,680
Speaker 1: hell if you believe in hell. But if you don't,

871
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:54,040
Speaker 1: then he's just um, he's just dust. Then he completely won. Yeah.

872
00:45:54,160 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 1: If you don't believe in hell like, then he's he

873
00:45:57,760 --> 00:46:02,200
Speaker 1: got away scott free basically with uh millions and millions

874
00:46:02,200 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 1: contributing to millions of deaths. So on that happy note.

875
00:46:06,840 --> 00:46:10,120
Speaker 1: You know who won't contribute to millions of deaths? Are

876
00:46:10,120 --> 00:46:13,920
Speaker 1: you gonna say me recently? Yeah? Exactly? Time to plug?

877
00:46:14,200 --> 00:46:17,239
Speaker 1: Oh wow? Okay, well I promised to not strip you

878
00:46:17,280 --> 00:46:20,160
Speaker 1: of millions. I promise I'll never have a million dollars

879
00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:23,080
Speaker 1: as a promise I can keep. Um. I you can

880
00:46:23,080 --> 00:46:25,439
Speaker 1: follow me at Larissa t l e r e Esa

881
00:46:25,719 --> 00:46:31,160
Speaker 1: t E on Instagram and Twitter. Yeah, and my call

882
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:34,880
Speaker 1: to all of you is to prove Teresa wrong and

883
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 1: give her a million dollars um, and then she will

884
00:46:39,320 --> 00:46:41,920
Speaker 1: sell armaments and spark the next great World War. I

885
00:46:41,920 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: feel confident of that. Okay, if you give me a

886
00:46:44,000 --> 00:46:46,520
Speaker 1: million dollars, I will do my best to sell start

887
00:46:46,560 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: to war. So, um, we are back or we're done.

888
00:46:53,920 --> 00:46:57,279
Speaker 1: We're not back, We're about to go away. What he

889
00:46:57,360 --> 00:46:59,640
Speaker 1: means is he's doing a live show with Billywayne Davis

890
00:46:59,640 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: and Lass Angeles on March eighth at Dinasy Typewriter by tickets.

891
00:47:03,239 --> 00:47:05,480
Speaker 1: If you haven't already. He also means that he is

892
00:47:05,560 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 1: I right okay on Twitter, you should follow him, and

893
00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:11,200
Speaker 1: you should follow our podcast Adbaster Spot on Twitter, on

894
00:47:11,280 --> 00:47:16,440
Speaker 1: Instagram doesn't get anything. Let's I forget anything, Robert, Oh,

895
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:20,839
Speaker 1: we have a t public ser What else? Yes? By

896
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:26,480
Speaker 1: Raytheon's fine Missiles with knives the only missiles filled with knives?

897
00:47:27,719 --> 00:47:31,960
Speaker 1: Anythink else? You still should? Anything else? Great episodes over

898
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:33,719
Speaker 1: podcast