CHAPTER X

THE GERMAN-HINDU CONSPIRACY

The German-Hindu plot to foment revolution in India is an international drama with touches of “Treasure Island” adventure in the South Seas. The characters include Zimmermann, many German agents in the United States (among them Bernstorff), some venal Americans, and a horde of Hindus--some of them ardent fanatics and some plain grafters. The climax produced several executions, one suicide, two cases of insanity, and a murder. The production cost the Germans more than a million dollars, and the net receipts were a deficit. The scenes were laid in Berlin, Constantinople, Switzerland, New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Socorro Island, Honolulu, Manila, Java, Japan, China, Siam, and India. The last act was laid in a Federal penitentiary.

Writing from San Francisco, on November 4, 1916, Wilhelm von Brincken, the military attaché of the German Consulate, addressed a letter to his father to be “transmitted through the submarine _Deutschland_ on its second voyage from the United States.” The letter was never delivered; its boastful first paragraph and its later candid text were read only by agents of the United States Government. Von Brincken began:

MY DEAR FATHER: At last an opportunity presents itself to send an uncensored letter to all of you. May the carrier, Germany’s pride, have a happy voyage and reach the home shore unscathed.

He then launched into bitter criticism of his treatment at the Consulate, complaining especially of its niggardly support of his work. Then he wrote (the italics are mine):

As you know, _I am the head and organizer of the Hindu Nationalists on the Pacific_. Revolutionary and propaganda work costs money--much money. Berlin knows that and does not economize. _The Consul General_ [Franz Bopp] _also is under instructions to support the movement to the best of his ability and to further it financially_. However, there is a shortcoming in this respect. Whenever money is urgently needed and I report to that effect, I invariably meet with the same opposition. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the required amount is refused. As a result, the work suffers, is delayed, good opportunities are missed, and my people--the Hindus--are frequently exposed to danger of their lives. Just how many fell into the hands of the English and were hung, owing to unnecessary lack of funds, is, of course, wholly beyond our calculation. The “old man” evidently dislikes this type of work and, therefore, has no understanding for it. The other day a Hindu was here, who came directly from Switzerland, as messenger from _Mr. Von Wesendonck, of the Foreign Office (who has charge of Hindu matters there)_. This Hindu wondered why work in San Francisco dragged in such a manner and I told him quite frankly that if the Hindu work were not reorganized from the ground up, and made independent of the Consulate, the work would not only suffer but half of it would be harmful.

Later in the letter he says:

My Hindu described Wesendonck as a particularly pleasing and fine person.

These extracts were written in November of 1916. They illuminate an earlier cable from Von Wesendonck’s chief, Zimmermann (the German Foreign Minister in Berlin) written in February of 1916 to Bernstorff at Washington, which was “transmitted respectfully for your information” to Von Papen in New York, and which reads as follows:

Berlin, Feb. 4, 1916.

THE GERMAN EMBASSY, Washington.

_In future_ all Indian affairs are to be exclusively handled by the Committee to be formed by Dr. Chakravarty. Dhriendra Sarkar and Heramba Lal Gupta, which latter person has meantime been expelled from Japan, thus cease to be independent representatives of _the Indian Independence Committee existing here_.

ZIMMERMANN.

In other words, before February, 1916, the German Government had been plotting with Hindus in the United States for the national independence of India. Indeed, they had begun the work before 1914, and they had become active in it in July of that year--before they started the World War, but after they had decided to start it. By December, they were directing Indian plots from Berlin with ramifications in nearly every neutral country in the world. Two of these plots were hatched in the United States--one in San Francisco and one in Chicago. They were conspiracies to organize military expeditions to India. Our Government spoiled both of them, and the day after we went into the war, or on April 7, 1917, the United States’ authorities arrested thirty-four German-Hindu plotters in half a dozen cities and subsequently convicted them all but one of conspiracy.

The story begins in San Francisco. In 1911, a fanatical Indian agitator named Har Dayal came to this country. He worked among the large colonies of turbaned Hindu labourers on the Pacific Coast who had succeeded the Chinese and Japanese coolies in the orchards and gardens and on the railroad tracks in that region of abundant climate and scarce labour. Dayal organized the Hindu Pacific Coast Association and established its headquarters in San Francisco, to which these men came looking for a job or a night’s lodging, and where they were fed on rice and revolution. Dayal next established a printing plant and began to publish a paper called _Ghadr_, which means _The Revolution_. The _Ghadr_ was out for blood. It preached Hindu uprising in terms of assassination and dynamite.

The first number of the _Ghadr_ was published in November, 1913. At once it disclosed a German influence. In the issue of November 15, 1913, it printed these sentences: “The Germans have great sympathy with our movement, because they and ourselves have a common enemy (the English). In the future Germany can draw assistance from us, and they can render us great assistance also.”

As the World War approached, this German influence became more manifest. On July 21, 1914, two days before Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia, the _Ghadr_ said:

“All intelligent people know that Germany is an enemy of England. We also are mortal enemies of England. So the enemy of our enemy is our friend.”

A week later, the _Ghadr_ welcomed the approach of war:

“If this war does not start to-day, it will to-morrow. So welcome! India has got her chance.... Hasten preparations for meeting with the speed of wind and storm, and no sooner the war starts in Europe, you start a mutiny in India.”

And on August 4th it declared:

“O Warriors! The opportunity that you have been searching for years has come ... there is hope that Germany will help you.”

In all this the United States had no interest. We were neutral, and what Germany did to England was (we thought) England’s lookout. Also, we were “the asylum of the oppressed” and “the home of free speech”--and if the Hindus thought they ought to talk revolution we were not concerned. It was not until the Hindus and the Germans started “gun running” from our West Coast that we took a hand.

Har Dayal, nevertheless, was too ferocious even for the home of free speech. Early in 1914, he made speeches so villainously offensive to common decency and order that he was arrested and held for deportation on the ground of being an undesirable alien. He jumped bail in March and fled--to Berlin. He arrived there about the time the war clouds began to darken the skies of Europe, and found a sympathetic haven in the German Foreign Office. In company with other Hindu revolutionists, and under the fostering care of Von Wesendonck, he organized that “Indian Independence Committee existing here” of which Zimmermann spoke affectionately in his cable to Bernstorff, already quoted.

In Har Dayal’s place in San Francisco arose another Hindu revolutionary leader, one Ram Chandra. He succeeded to the management of the Hindu Pacific Coast Association, to the editorship of the _Ghadr_, and to the sympathetic understanding with the German agents in San Francisco. These German agents were Bopp, the consul-general, and his staff, of whom Von Brincken, the military attaché, was the agent with whom all personal dealings were carried on. Of the scores of Hindus with unpronounceable names and of their noisy speeches and noisome writings, there is no need to make record. But the warlike activities of the Hindus and their German friends were important, dangerous, and interesting.

On January 9, 1915, W. C. Hughes, of 103 Duane Street, New York, shipped ten carloads of freight to San Diego, Cal. The freight bill was heavy--$11,783.74--and it was prepaid by a check on the Guaranty Trust Company, signed by a German named Hans Tauscher. This German was the well-known American agent of Krupps, and it later developed that the ten carloads of freight were eight thousand rifles and four million cartridges. They were sent to “Juan Bernardo Bowen,” in care of M. Martinez & Company, ship brokers of San Diego.

This same “Bowen,” whose home address was given as Topolobampo, Mexico, acting through the same Martinez & Company, on January 19th, chartered a sailing vessel for a round trip from San Diego to Topolobampo. This vessel was the _Annie Larsen_. The charter price was $19,000, and this money was paid by J. Clyde Hizar, of San Diego, “Bowen’s” attorney. Hizar got the money by wire from a bank in San Francisco, which in turn got it from a woman depositor, who in turn got it from Von Brincken, who in turn got it from the German Consulate’s funds. This roundabout method was, of course, designed to conceal the German source of the money.

At about the same time, a company was organized in San Francisco to buy the oil tanker _Maverick_ from the Standard Oil Company. Fred Jebsen, former lieutenant in the German Navy, put up the money. The _Maverick_ was commanded by Captain H. C. Nelson, and her movements were directed by a young American adventurer, J. B. Starr-Hunt, whom Jebson put aboard as super-cargo (“super-cargo” is an agent put aboard ship by the owner of the merchandise to have charge of the cargo). Parts of a statement subsequently made by young Starr-Hunt tell the rest of the story of the _Maverick_ and the _Annie Larsen_:

“I was born in San Antonio, Texas, in November, 1892. I went to a German school in Mexico for nine years. Then I was at Dr. Holbrook’s school for four years at Ossining-on-Hudson, New York. I was then for a year at the University of Virginia; three months at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. Besides this I always had private tutors. After leaving the last-named college I joined my father’s law office in Mexico City. This was in the latter part of 1912. My father is one of the leading foreign lawyers in Mexico. In December, 1912, I started for San Francisco to join F. Jebsen & Co., a German firm of shipping agents. I worked in Jebsen’s office from February, 1913, to April, 1915; that is, up to the time I joined the _Maverick_. I was not actually in Jebsen’s office all this time; I made several trips to various parts of the U. S. A. and Mexico.

“About 1st April, 1915, while I was at Chihuahua, I got a telegram from Jebsen asking me to proceed at once to Los Angeles. I met Jebsen there. He asked me if I cared to proceed to San José del Cabo on the _Maverick_ and then transfer to another ship, the _Annie Larsen_, either at San José del Cabo or at any other point on the Mexican coast. He told me that the _Annie Larsen’s_ cargo consisted of war material, which was to be transhipped to the _Maverick_ at whatever point they should meet in Mexican or Central American waters; that a man named Page (I do not remember his initials, but perhaps they were A. W.) who would be on the _Annie Larsen_, was to take charge of the _Maverick_, and that I myself was to take over the _Annie Larsen_ and proceed to trade with her in whatever manner I might wish to, for six months, between Mexican or Central American ports, but I was not to return to any American port until after the expiration of six months. He did not tell me why the _Annie Larsen_ was not to return to an American port for six months, but the reason was quite clear to me. As a matter of fact, I had heard while I was in Chihuahua that the _Annie Larsen_ had departed from San Diego with a cargo of war material, presumably for some belligerent faction in Mexico. She had cleared from San Diego for Topolobampo. This fact had given rise to considerable comment and notoriety. American papers had taken the matter up, and the several arrests of Americans and Mexicans made by the Government in San Diego at the time were popularly believed to have been in connection with the _Annie Larsen_ and her cargo. Evidently Jebsen, therefore, thought that, if the _Annie Larsen_ returned immediately to an American port, complications might arise. Jebsen was not explicit as to either the destination, or the purpose, of the cargo. One thing I was, however, sure of was that it was not intended for the Mexican rebels. All that Jebsen told me was that the cargo was intended for the Orient, and in the course of conversation he once mentioned Borneo.

“On the (?) of April, the _Maverick_ finally sailed from Los Angeles. On the morning of that day Jebsen gave me a sealed letter, addressed to nobody, with verbal instructions to hand it over to Page on the _Annie Larsen_ immediately after I met him. Jebsen seemed to be anxious regarding this letter, and warned me to be careful and to see that it fell into no other hands. He also handed me another unaddressed letter to be given to the same man. This was an open letter which I read soon after leaving Los Angeles. There were two enclosures which were printed. One was a circular or memorandum of instructions as to how to work the machine gun or a small Hotchkiss, the diagram of which was given on the second enclosure. I am not quite certain of the type of weapon drawn on that second enclosure, but I think it was one of the two I have mentioned. The printed circular was evidently from the makers of that arm, but the manufacturer’s name was carefully cut out from it. Jebsen also handed me a third letter, without address, for Page, and open. It contained typewritten instructions as to how to stow the cargo to be transhipped from the _Annie Larsen_. It was just a short note, more in the nature of a suggestion than instructions. It said that the cases containing rifles were to be stowed in one of the two empty tanks of the _Maverick_ and flooded with oil. The ammunition cases were to be stowed in the other empty tank, which was not to be flooded except as a last resort. This note, too, was intended for Page. There was a fourth open note for myself which contained suggestions as to what I should do in future with the _Annie Larsen_. Jebsen, at the same time, made over to me a bundle, consisting of about ten letters, with instructions to hand it over to Page. All these letters were addressed to Captain Othmann. Although Jebsen did not tell me so, I concluded that ‘Page’ and ‘Othmann’ were one and the same man, and that ‘Page’ was an assumed name.

“The day before sailing Jebsen introduced me to a man named B. Miller, who, he said, was a Swedish mining engineer, and who was going on the _Maverick_ as far as San José del Cabo, to proceed thence to the mines near La Paz. Jebsen asked me to assist Miller in taking five ‘Persians’ from Los Angeles to San Pedro, and in finding quarters for them there for the night as they were to go on board the _Maverick_ the following day. Jebsen told me nothing about these five Persians except that they were going with the _Maverick_ as passengers right through to her destination, and were to be signed on the articles as anything. Accordingly I met Miller again the same evening at the Los Angeles railway station. I found five black men with him. On seeing me, he said: ‘Here are my men.’ He purchased tickets for them, and we all left by train for San Pedro, where I found lodgings for them in a cheap boarding-house for the night.

“The next morning I went on board the _Maverick_ at San Pedro, where I met the Port Commissioner and the crew, who were already on board signed on. Captain Nelson was present. Miller signed on as ‘store-keeper’ and the five Persians as ‘waiters.’

“One of the five Persian waiters, named Jehangir, was evidently the leader and generally kept himself away from the rest. As far as I remember, the names of the others were Khan, Dutt, Deen, and Sham Sher. Later on I discovered that all these were false names. Jehangir’s real name, I believe, was Hari Singh; he signed his accounts and receipts as Hari Singh. I have no idea of the real names of the others.

“Five days after leaving Los Angeles we arrived at San José del Cabo, 27th April, I think. There Miller left us, and there, at Nelson’s instance, I applied for and got fresh clearance for ‘Anjer, Java, via Pacific Islands.’ This is the first time that any definite port was mentioned to me as the _Maverick’s_ destination. There were evidently two reasons for not obtaining this clearance from the original port of departure; first, they did not want the American authorities to know the precise destination of the _Maverick_, which already had roused a certain amount of suspicion; and, secondly, because, I am sure, such a clearance as we desired would not be granted by any American port. According to it the _Maverick_ could have touched at every island in the Pacific before arriving at Anjer. Jebsen had given me to understand that we might meet the _Annie Larsen_ at San José del Cabo, but she was not there; so we left that port on the 28th of April and proceeded to Socorro Island where we arrived at 9 P. M. on the 29th and anchored in a bay some thirty yards off the shore. As we anchored, Nelson informed the crew that he was expecting to meet at that place the schooner _Annie Larsen_ and asked them to be on the lookout for her. Altogether we were twenty-nine days at that island waiting for the schooner, which did not turn up after all. By the time we had anchored it was very dark and the first sign of life on the island was as camp fire close to the shore. Shortly after, a small boat pulled alongside with two American sailors in it. One of them came on the bridge and saw the captain, and after putting the question ‘Are you the people who are looking for the _Annie Larsen_?’ and getting a reply in the affirmative, he said that the _Annie Larsen_ had been at the island, and being short of water, had left some thirteen days before. He delivered a note to Nelson stating that it was left by the _Annie Larsen’s_ super-cargo, Page. Nelson passed the note over to me to read. It was a short note in English, saying: ‘This will be delivered to you by a member of the crew of the schooner _Emma_, who will explain his own position. I have been waiting for you a month, and am now going to the Mexican West Coast for supplies and water. I will return as soon as possible. Please await my return.’ (Signed) ‘Page.’

“The sailor man then told the following story: that he and his companion in the boat and two Mexican customs-house officials, who were in camp ashore, had left San José del Cabo some time before on the small American schooner _Emma_, with a cargo of bark for the Mexican port of Loreto; that the captain had proven himself incompetent, and they had lost their bearings, and after sailing for many days had eventually arrived at this island, which the master declared was a point close to Manzanillo, but which they discovered to be an island. The mate had died at sea; the master’s name was Clarke. These four men declined to go any farther with the captain of that ship and preferred to be left on the island on the off chance of being picked up by a passing vessel. The captain and the cook, the only other members of the crew, had left some days earlier for the Mexican coast. At the same time the _Emma_ touched the island the _Annie Larsen_ was there, and she provided the castaways with three empty water tanks, a rifle, and a few provisions. Since the departure of the _Annie Larsen_ they were hoping for assistance being sent to them from the Mexican coast. We subsequently discovered that these castaways had rigged up a sort of condenser with the aid of their tanks and some old piping.

“The castaway who came on the _Maverick_ at Socorro further told us that Page had told him that he had left another letter buried somewhere on the island close to the shore by the bay, which could be easily found if we would make a search for it. Assisted by some of the castaways I made a search for the second note left by Page and found it buried in a bottle under a sign which read: ‘Look Here.’ The second note was a lengthy repetition of the first. Page asked us to help the castaways but cautioned us not to take them aboard our ship. He said he would return as soon as he could get water and that we were to wait for him. I returned to the ship with the note and read it out to Nelson. Disregarding Page’s warning not to take the castaways aboard, he immediately asked them to come aboard, if they cared, which they did. They remained on the _Maverick_ till the 6th of May when the American collier (Government ship) _Nanshan_ arrived and took them off.

“The following Thursday, 13th May, H. M. S. _Kent_ arrived; two officers boarded us immediately and examined our papers. They returned and came on again the next morning accompanied by several marines. They made a thorough search of the vessel this time and returned to their ship. Nelson returned the call. On his return Nelson told me that the _Kent’s_ commander had questioned him rather closely as to what the _Maverick_ was doing there and that in reply he had told him that he could not disclose his real purpose but in a roundabout sort of way hinted that she was there in connection with the Mexican troubles. The _Kent_ remained there for about forty hours, during which I struck up an acquaintance with several of the officers. I directed them where good fishing and shooting were to be had and provided them with a few supplies. Although there was no water to be had on that island there were plenty of wild sheep. I am unable to say how they existed without water outside the rainy season.

“The _Annie Larsen_ not turning up, we left about the 26th of May. Just before we left I went ashore and left there two notes in bottles for the _Annie Larsen_ addressed to Page in case the ship should turn up after we had left. I put one of the bottles in a conspicuous place in the castaways’ camp. This note read as follows: ‘Consult our Post Office.’ by ‘our Post Office’ I meant the place where Page himself had buried his note for us. The other bottle I buried where I had found Page’s, and put up another signboard saying ‘Look again.’ This note told Page all that had occurred during our stay at the island and that we were going somewhere where we could get further instructions.

“Immediately after the first boarding party from H. M. S. _Kent_ had left the _Maverick_ after going through our papers, I was sent for by Captain Nelson on the bridge. When I got up there I found him in conversation with Jehangir. I gathered from Nelson that Jehangir had aboard two sacks and six suitcases full of literature which he was very anxious to hide from the _Kent_. We were expecting another visit from the _Kent_ for the purpose of searching the ship, and Jehangir said he would not like the literature to fall into the hands of the _Kent_ party. Jehangir did not like the idea of destroying the literature and suggested that it should be quietly taken ashore and buried there, pending the departure of the _Kent_. Neither Nelson nor myself fell in with the suggestion and were of opinion that it should be destroyed straight away, if it were dangerous to retain it. Jehangir eventually agreed to this and said he would just keep a sample of the various papers and pamphlets he had. Nelson grumbled even at that. I am not sure whether Jehangir did really preserve any specimens, but I think he