In the late 19th – early 20th centuries the rapidly growing market of munitions produced a host of brightest personalities in the trade, one of which was Basil Zaharoff, an international armaments dealer and financier, whose successes in the business earned the arms dealers the name “merchants of death”. 
                                                  
Basil Zaharoff was born into the family of a poor Greek with Russian roots in Turkey in 1849. He was born with a remarkable flair for picking up foreign languages. Zaharoff spoke 14 languages and had the knack of taking life easy and adapting to it under any circumstances. But his major innate gift was the gift of a trader, which was first tested out on the markets of Constantinople. Working in the currency exchange Basil learned languages and polished his diplomatic skills. The boy’s bent for commerce was immediately spotted by his uncle, and Basil started to work in the clothes trade for his uncle. 

Accounts of young Basil’s further moves are contradictory. On some records he ran off to Britain with a hefty sum from his uncle’s safe. Allegedly, Basil’s uncle filed a suit against him, the case was heard in a London court and ended with the acquittal of the young prodigy, who managed to convince the jury that he had actually taken what was his share in the partnership. Acquitted but with the reputation of a phony and his uncle’s wrath looming over him Zaharoff chose to leave London for Athens. In Athens he fell under the protective wing of Stefan Skuludis, the future prime minister and a fairly influential figure in Greece. On Skuludis’s recommendations Zaharoff got a position that determined the rest of his life: he became the Athens representative for the Swedish Firearms Making Company “Nordenfeldt”. From then on arms trade was his lifework.  

The time for joining the arms trade could not be better. The Greek policy makers had resolved to strengthen the army and were planning to increase the numerical strength of the armed forces by five times and earmark two thirds of the budget for buying armaments. Turkey, Greece’s oldest enemy responded with a decision to renew its military arsenals with modern weaponry, including submarines assembled in the shipyards of Sweden. Zaharoff was lucky to sell one submarine to Greece and two – to Turkey. By the time the First World War broke out Zaharoff had interest in dozens of European countries. He never felt any uneasiness over trading with potential enemies, which became clear from the sale of submarines to Greece and Turkey. In his circle Zaharoff would boast that he programmed wars so that he could sell weapons to either side. Practically person No 1 in the British Company “Wikkers” and a French citizen from 1933, Zaharoff owned the stocks of several military plants in Austria and the German Concern “Krupp”. With the start of the World War I, however, dealers like Zaharoff had to recognize the need to go cautious about their trade. Naturally the returns seemed colossal, but the resentment from the warring parties could pass all limits. It could be for that very reason that the French government put Zaharoff’s house under guard. One of the biographers wrote that gravestones of millions killed in the war should serve a memorial to Zaharoff and their last agony moans should serve the epitaph. On some calculations, Basil Zaharoff’s proceeds from the war divided by the number of killed soldiers equaled six dollars worth of revenue per each death. 

Outside business or politics Zaharoff’s generous nature revealed the better side. For nearly half a century lasted his romance with a Spanish duchess, who slipped away to spend the night with him on the Orient Express on the day of her marriage to a Bourbon. Zaharoff left his wife in London and spent all his spare time in Madrid. In 1923 the lovers were able to get married at last after the duchess’s husband who had been suffering from a mental disorder, died. He was 74, she was 65. 

Even though Zaharoff’s profits came from arms trade, he invested in peaceful projects and other praiseworthy campaigns. So conflicting and mysterious a character attracted public interest. For years Zaharoff would not allow anyone to take a photo of him. For 50 years he kept a personal journal of which he had 53 volumes but which he ordered destroyed after his death. He systematically traced and eliminated whatever evidence of his past he could get hold of, lived under false passports and had several look-alikes. If in his younger days he lived in a house without windows, slept on the floor and went without food, at the peak of his day he ate with gold knives and forks from gold tableware and influenced the fates of Europe. In his advanced years he kept a casino in Monte Carlo and grew roses. His motto for success in life was “Do not what you love but love what you do”. The power of such a personality is akin to a Balzac’s character only, so it is no wonder then that Zaharoff founded the Balzac Prize in Literature. 
 
 
 
 
 

10/03/2005