Among the numerous ways one can make
a living, dealing in arms (aside from legs and ears of course) is … well,
definitely one way to go about it. Naturally, there’s little good to be said about
a merchant of death, but it was without a doubt an eventful profession: which is why
you see it’s such a popular trope in fiction. But how did being an arms dealer come
about and what was it actually like? Well, weapons have been sold
since practically forever… - Get your caveman clubs, one
for a rock, two for a sabertooth. ...but prior to industrialization arms
dealing was a very low-volume affair. Guns were hard to make and expensive, so
there just weren’t that many to go around. I mean, of course, they were still traded:
the Portuguese and the Dutch (our usual suspects) had been selling a couple of thousand
firearms here and there since the 16th century. And yet arms dealing didn’t really take off until
the Industrial Revolution and that leads us (as always) to our dear Great Britain.
From the 1850s onwards we see a veritable explosion in the number
of private weapons manufacturers. Chief among them were the Armstrong, Nordenfelt,
and Maxim companies, which combined innovation with mass production… to deadly results.
Their biggest client was of course the Crown - what with empire building and
all that - yet beyond Her Majesty’s arsenal (pardon the expression) there
were more than a few eager customers. Obviously, selling weapons to rival powers like
France or Germany was no bueno (or however you say it), but - oh look, there’s a rebellion in China!
Ooh, and the Japanese are fighting the Russians! So unfortunately for… humanity in general, the
late 19th and early 20th centuries provided ample demand for weapons, and the rising British
arms industry was more than happy to oblige. Its agents were unscrupulous men, and none
was more unscrupulous than Basil Zaharoff. Originally from Greece, he toured the world
pretending to be a Russian aristocrat. He charmed his way into the global elite,
managing (among other things) to plunder a railroad company in St. Louis and to marry one
of the wealthiest bachelorettes in Philadelphia. Then, in the wake of the glorious British conquest
of - *ahem* I mean liberation - of Cyprus, where Zaharoff happened to be staying at
the time, he found a lucrative opportunity. You see, the old Ottoman arsenal on
the island was of no use to the Crown, but it could be sold at a considerable markup
to the right people… for example the Greeks, still yearning to reclaim their lost lands.
Conveniently, Zaharoff happened to be friends with one of the most renowned Greek diplomats at the
time (who would eventually become prime minister) and that definitely helped speed things along.
Now I mean one could easily imagine what Mr. Zaharoff would’ve thought back then: if peddling
old arms was this lucrative, imagine what it would be like selling the new stuff. Oh my.
Meanwhile, back in London, he found the biggest underdog
in the British arms industry: Thorsten Nordenfelt.
He was originally from Sweden and while he did have factories in England, he lacked
connections to the upper echelons of society, which was exactly what Zaharoff could help with.
They actually took the world by storm: Nordenfelt had a knack for inventing dangerous technology
with questionable safety standards and Zaharoff had the unmatched talent of hyping it up.
- Let’s get ready to rumble! (or whatever the equivalent was back then)
When Nordenfelt created the world’s first ever torpedo-bearing submarine in 1884,
Zaharoff made no delays in selling a prototype back home in Greece.
Then he told the Ottomans about it and promptly sold them two submarines.
But now that the Turks had submarines, well the Russian Black Sea navy was no longer
safe … so they bought three submarines, which reminds me of a book: Why You Need
Insurance by Justin Case (it’s a pun, get it?). Now, in reality, the Nordenfelt submarine was
a glorified human oven, prone to overheating and turning upside down, but why let such details
get in the way of such a profitable transaction? Of course, not all of Nordenfelt’s products
were shams: their machine gun was top of the line (for its time), capable of
firing 3,000 rounds in 3 minutes. It wasn’t the best - that honor went to the
Maxim gun - but that was no problem for Zaharoff: he simply sabotaged his opponent’s
demonstration whenever the two competed for the same contract.
Such lofty ethics. However, Maxim was backed by
powerful allies, I tell you. The company’s largest shareholder - and honorary
SideQuest board member - was Nathaniel Rothschild, a man not fond of losing money.
When he got wind of Zaharoff’s dealings, he called up Nordenfelt and made him an offer he couldn’t
refuse: he would merge his company with Maxim’s, retaining Zaharoff so he could
market their combined product line. After the deal went through, Nordenfelt would
suffer a string of “unfortunate” “accidents”... …ultimately going bankrupt and selling
all his shares for pennies on the dollar. Lord Rothschild would perfect his takeover
strategy over the next two decades, successfully merging with Vickers and Armstrong.
All the while, Zaharoff would continue selling weapons to the highest bidder, sometimes
even to the enemies of Britain itself! By 1914 he had supplied machine guns to nearly
every future participant in the Great War. And in the aftermath of Germany’s disarmament,
Zaharoff was instrumental in setting up a chain of affiliates through which
to funnel arms of questionable legality… and we all know how that went.
Ultimately, Zaharoff would not live to see the fruits of his efforts, though not before
spending his last two days on Earth burning all his notebooks and journals.
They shall never know about that weekend on the French Riviera.
Unlike Mr. Zaharoff, we here at SideQuest prefer earning our keep without plunging the world
into devastating conflicts (it’s our lot in life, it’s not a lot, but it’s a life).
If you’d like to see more of these little adventures of ours, consider supporting
us on Patreon, though of course we’ll also appreciate it if you share our videos with
your friends and loved ones (and of course any aspiring arms dealers you happen to know).
Anyhow, we shall discuss more lucrative business opportunities in the not-too-distant future in the
next competitively cutthroat episode of SideQuest.
