CHAPTER VII

THE _EUROPEANISCHE PETROLEUM UNION_:

A German Trust for the Control of European Oil, which Foundered in the Great World Conflict

The adoption of oil for general use coincided with the half-century of prosperity which preceded the great catastrophe, the great world War. Between 1865 and 1914, mazut, kerosene, petrol, vaseline and paraffin made their appearance, and spread throughout Europe.

And yet Europe consumed foreign oil almost exclusively. For a long time, this oil came entirely from the United States. It was the golden age of the _Standard Oil_ in Europe. Its influence ruled over British distributing companies and French refiners, over the governments of Germany, Italy, Rumania and Spain.

But the appearance of oil from the Caucasus and Eastern Europe rapidly broke up the _Standard's_ monopoly. The Rothschilds and the Nobels, the _Deutsche Bank_ and the _Disconto Gesellschaft_; the banks of Lille and Roubaix, exploiting the oil in Galicia; the cartel of French refiners founding the Polish company, _Limanowa_ and the _Aquila Franco-Romana_ in Rumania, and lastly, the _Royal Dutch_ through the _Astra Romana_ and the _Black Sea Company_--all multiplied their efforts between 1900 and 1914 to create various independent oil concerns on both sides of the Caucasus and the Carpathians.

Parallel with these private efforts of manufacturers and bankers, the governments of Europe were engaged in safeguarding the independence of their States in this complex question of oil. In 1903, the French Chamber voted for the principle of monopoly in oil. From 1908 onwards, the British Government, through the d'Arcy group, encouraged the formation of the _Anglo-Persian_. And, while appearing to fear the remarkable growth of the _Shell_, it surreptitiously assisted it, and tried to guarantee supplies from Mexico through Pearson, from India through the _Burmah Oil_, and from Mesopotamia through the _Turkish Petroleum_ in agreement with Germany.

In 1911 the Reichstag was on the point of adopting the same course as the French Chamber. Under the influence of the Kaiser, important companies such as the _Deutsche Erdol Aktien Gesellschaft_ and the _Deutsche Petroleum Verkaufs Gesellschaft_ were formed to gain control of Austrian, Rumanian and Caucasian oil. The powerful _Steaua Romana_, with a capital of 100 million francs, owed its existence to the latter, which had succeeded in acquiring a monopoly of the whole output of the Galician companies, _Schodnika_, _David Fanto_, and _Galizische Karpathen_, and had also obtained an interest in the _Danube Navigation Company_, _Bayerischer Lloyd_. In Rumania, the _Deutsche Erdol_ controlled the _Konzern_ group, which included the _Vega_, _Concordia_, and _Credit Petrolifer_. The oil of Pechelbronn in Alsace was also in its hands.

In 1906 the _Deutsche Bank_ and the _Disconto Gesellschaft_ took under their control the great company of _Nobel Brothers_, in Russia. They founded, at Bremen, the _Europeanische Petroleum Union_, a trust which amalgamated the principal European oil interests, and was to give Germany the certainty of European preponderance. They absorbed the _Akverdoff_ company at Grosny, created the _Spies Petroleum_, and undertook the conquest of the oil industry in the Caucasus and in Apsheron. From 1911 to 1914, German capital and German interest predominated in the whole of Central and Eastern Europe, in Scandinavia, and even in Turkey, for the _Deutsche Bank_ became an associate of Great Britain in the _Turkish Petroleum_, the sole concessionnaire of the Sultan for the oil of Mosul and Bagdad. This was the time when Sir Ernest Cassel, a little Frankfurt Jew, who became one of the lords of British finance and whose grand-daughter and heiress married a cousin of the King of England in July 1922, was striving to avert the impending world War by bringing French, British and German interests into association wherever possible. An agreement was arrived at. The capital of the _Turkish Petroleum_ was provided by the _Royal Dutch_, the _Anglo-Persian Oil_, and the _Deutsche Bank_.

But for the catastrophe of 1914, Germany would have ended by dominating European oil. Probably the United States and Great Britain would not to-day share between them the lordship over oil.