Though he may not have been a conspicuous success as a spy, Gustav
Constantin Alvo von Alvensleben had a very decided record as a wrecker.
Through his directive genius many concerns, industrial and financial,
went to utter smash, involving the loss of an unknown but huge number
of millions of dollars and causing a suicide or two. In the brief span
of years between 1904 and 1911 Alvo rose from the precarious state of a
hobo to the lofty plane of millionairedom. That is a performance that
requires some doing, and indicates a mental aptitude for the peculiar
office of “playing your fellow man” considerably above the ordinary.
And Gustav, or, as he was more commonly named, Alvo, played with no
mean counters. Among his clients was Kaiser Wilhelm himself, who,
through Alvo, invested two and a half million dollars in British
Columbia timber. Other clients were the ex-Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg,
Gen. von Mackensen, the conqueror of Rumania; Emma von Mumm, the
champagne queen; Bertha Krupp, the gun woman, and others of equal
prominence in Germany. The companies he organized or coupled up
with his enterprises—nearly all of which collapsed when the shadow
of war blighted Alvo’s golden prospects—included the Alvensleben
Canadian Finance and General Investment Company, the Standard Fish and
Fertilizer Co., the Vancouver Timber and Trading Co., the Piercite
Powder Co., the German-Canadian Trust Co., etc. Also with these
went several of the Pacific Coast’s largest financial and industrial
concerns, including the Bank of Vancouver, the Issaquah and Superior
Coal Mining Company of Seattle, and the Dominion Trust Company, whose
failure following the alleged suicide of its managing director, W. R.
Arnold, was one of the greatest scandals in the history of the Dominion
of Canada.
Two private banks of Seattle closed their doors as a result of their
connection with the I. and S. Coal Company, one of the projects of the
gambler-financier. The final liquidation of his original real estate
and financial company in Vancouver disclosed liabilities of over one
and a half millions, with assets of about $3,000, insufficient to
satisfy the liquidator’s fees.