HINDU-GERMAN CONSPIRACIES
The Society for Advancement in India--"Gaekwar Scholarships"--Har
Dyal and _Gadhr_--India in 1914--Papen's report--German and
Hindu agents sent to the Orient--Gupta in Japan--The raid on von
Igel's office--Chakravarty replaces Gupta--The _Annie Larsen_
and _Maverick_ filibuster--Von Igel's memoranda--Har Dyal in
Berlin--A request for anarchist agents--Ram Chandra--Plots against
the East and West Indies--Correspondence between Bernstorff and
Berlin, 1916--Designs on China, Japan and Africa--Chakravarty
arrested--The conspirators indicted.
As far back as 1907 a plot was hatched in the United States to promote
sedition and unrest in British India. The chief agitators had the
effrontery in the following year to make their headquarters in rooms in
the New York Bar Association, and to issue from that address numerous
circulars asking for money. The late John L. Cadwallader, of the
distinguished law firm of Cadwallader, Wickersham and Taft, was then
president of the Bar Association, and when he learned of the Hindu
activities under the roof of the association he swiftly evicted the
ringleaders. Their organization, chartered in November, 1907, was
called The Society for the Advancement of India. One of its officers
was a New York man to whom the British have since refused permission to
visit India. Its members included several college professors.
The presence of several educators in the list may be accounted for
by the fact that the society existed apparently for the purpose of
supplying American college training to selected Hindu youths. Many of
them were sent to the United States at the expense of the Gaekwar of
Baroda, one of the richest and most influential of the Indian princes;
the Gaekwar's own son was a student in Harvard College in the years
1908-1912. Considerable sums of money were solicited from worthy folk
who believed that they were furthering the cause of enlightenment in
India; others who sincerely believed that British rule was tyrannical
gave frankly to the society to help an Indian nationalist movement for
home rule; others contributed freely for the promotion of any and every
anti-British propaganda in India. The source of the latter funds may be
suggested by the understanding which long existed between the Society
for the Advancement of India and the Clan-na-Gael, an understanding
witnessed by the frequent quotation in the disaffected press of India
of articles from the _Gaelic-American_. Another successful solicitor
was a contemptible Swami, Vivekahanda, who discussed soul matters to
New York's gullible-rich to his great profit until the police gathered
him in for a very earthly and material offense. But the students were
the best material for revolt, whether it was to be social or military,
and we shall see presently how they were made use of.
The Gaekwar of Baroda came to America in the first decade of the new
century and expressed freely at that time his dislike for the British.
At the time of the Muzaffarpur bomb outrage, in which the wife and
daughter of an English official were killed, the police found in the
outskirts of Calcutta a Hindu who had been educated at an American
college at the Gaekwar's expense and who was at that time conducting a
school of instruction in the use of explosives and small arms; he even
had considerable quantities of American arms and ammunition stored in
his house. The youths who held "Gaekwar scholarships" in America were
under the general oversight of a professor attached to the American
Museum of Natural History, and the accumulation of evidence of the
activities of the students finally caused his removal.
The Society established branches in Chicago, Denver, Seattle, and even
in St. John, New Brunswick, and it thrived on the Pacific Coast. Within
the purlieus of the University of California, there lived in 1913 one
Har Dyal, a graduate of St. John's college at Oxford. Har Dyal in that
year founded a publication called _Gadhr_, which being translated means
"mutiny," its main edition published in Urdu, other editions published
in other vernaculars, and appealing not only to Hindus, but to Sikhs
and Moslems. The publication and the chief exponents of its thought
formed the nucleus of a considerable system of anti-British activity.
Whatever was anti-British found a warm reception in Berlin. England, in
August and September, 1914, was wrestling heroically with the problem
of supplying men to the Continent before the German drive should reach
the Channel. Her regulars went, and the training of that gallant "first
hundred thousand" followed. She combed her colonies for troops, and
having an appreciable force of well-trained native soldiers under arms
in India, she brought them to France, and the chronicles of the war
are already full of stories of the splendid fighting they did, and the
annoyance they caused to the grey troops of Germany. From the German
standpoint it was good strategy to incite discontent in India, both as
tending to remove the Hindu and Sikh regiments from the fighting zone,
and as distracting England's attention from the main issue by making
her look to the preservation of one of her richest treasure lands;
there was the further possibility, after the expected elimination of
Russia, of German conquest of India, and a German trade route from the
Baltic to the Bay of Bengal, through the Himalayan passes. Germany
seized upon the opportunity. The Amir of Afghanistan had trained his
army under Turkish officers, themselves instructed by Germany through
the forces of Enver Pasha. The Afghans were told that the Kaiser
was Mohammedan, and by the faith prepared to smite down the wicked
unbeliever, England. The Amir himself spoiled Germany's designs among
his people, however, for upon the outbreak of the war he pledged his
neutrality to the British Government, and he kept his word.
A report found on the war correspondent Archibald and written by
Captain von Papen to the Foreign Office in the summer of 1915, outlines
the German version of the situation in India:
"That a grave unrest reigns at the present time throughout India is
shown by the various following reports:
"Since October, 1914, there have been various local mutinies of
Mohammedan native troops, one practically succeeding the other. From
the last reports, it appears that the Hindu troops are going to join
the mutineers.
"The Afghan army is ready to attack India. The army holds the position
on one side of the Utak (?) River. The British army is reported to hold
the other side of the said river. The three bridges connecting both
sides have been blown up by the British.
"In the garrison located on the Kathiawar Peninsula Indian mutineers
stormed the arsenal. Railroads and wireless station have been
destroyed. The Sikh troops have been removed from Beluchistan; only
English, Mohammedans and Hindu troops remain there.
"The Twenty-third Cavalry Regiment at Lahore revolted, the police
station and Town House were stormed. The Indian troops in Somaliland in
Labakoran are trying to effect a junction with the Senussi. All Burma
is ready to revolt.
"In Calcutta unrest (is reported) with street fighting. In Lahore a
bank was robbed; every week at least two Englishmen killed; in the
northwestern district many Englishmen killed; munitions and other
material taken, railroads destroyed; a relief train was repulsed.
"Everywhere great unrest. In Benares a bank has been stormed.
"Revolts in Chitral very serious, barracks and Government buildings
destroyed. The Hurti Mardin Brigade, under Gen. Sir E. Wood, has been
ordered there. Deputy Commissioner of Lahore wounded through a bomb in
the Anakali Bazaar.
"Mohammedan squadron of the cavalry regiment in Nowschera deserted over
Chang, southwest Peshawar. Soldiers threw bombs against the family of
the Maharajah of Mysore. One child and two servants killed, his wife
mortally wounded.
"In Ceylon a state of war has been declared."
In February, 1915, Jodh Singh, a former student of engineering in the
United States, was in Rio de Janeiro. He was directed by a fellow
Hindu to call upon the German Consul, and the latter gave him $300
and instructions to proceed to the German consul in Genoa, Italy,
for orders. Thence he was forwarded to Berlin, where he attended the
meetings of the newly formed Indian Revolutionary Society and absorbed
many ideas for procedure in America. Supplied with more German money he
came to New York and was joined by Heramba Lal Gupta, a Hindu who had
been a student at Columbia, and Albert H. Wehde, an art collector. The
three went to Chicago, and Singh called at once upon Gustav Jacobsen,
the real estate dealer who will be recalled in the Kaltschmidt bomb
plots in Detroit. Jacobsen assembled a group of German sympathizers
which included Baron Kurt von Reiswitz, the consul, George Paul Boehm
(mentioned in instructions to von Papen to attack the Canadian Pacific
Railway) and one Sterneck. At the conference Jodh Singh, Boehm,
Sterneck and Gupta were detailed to go to the far East: Singh to Siam,
to recruit Hindus for revolutionary service; Gupta to China and Japan
to secure arms; Boehm to the Himalayas, to attack the exploring party
of Dr. Frederick A. Cook, the notorious, to impersonate Dr. Cook, and
thus travel about the hills spreading sedition. Wehde, with $20,000
of von Reiswitz's money, Boehm and Sterneck sailed for Manila, and
apparently escaped thence to Java, to meet two officers from the
_Emden_, for the three are at this writing fugitives from justice;
Jodh Singh was arrested in Bangkok and turned over to the British
authorities.
In the diary of Captain Grasshof of the German cruiser _Geier_,
interned in Honolulu, appears the following entry, establishing
Wehde's call in Hawaii, and the complicity of the Consulate there in
his plans:
"At the Consulate I met Mr. A. Wehde from Chicago, who is on way to
Orient on business.
"One of the Hindoos sent over by Knorr (naval attaché of German Embassy
at Tokio) left for Shanghai on the 6th. In Hongkong there are 500
Hindoos, 200 officers and volunteers, besides one torpedo boat and two
Japanese cruisers.
"K-17 (A. V. Kircheisen) was almost captured in Kobe. The first
officer of the _China_ warned him and he immediately got on board
again as soon as possible. K-17 informed me that the Japs have sold
back to the Russians all the old guns taken from the latter during the
Russo-Japanese war."
Reiswitz in June added $20,000 more to the fund for revolution in
India. Gupta, to whom von Papen had paid $16,000 in New York, went on
to Japan with Dhirendra Sarkar, a fellow conspirator.
The presence of the two plotters in Japan became known to the
authorities and soon thereafter to the public. They were shadowed
everywhere, and a complete record was kept of their activities; the
newspapers discussed them, and it was common property that they gave
a banquet on the night of November 9, 1915, to ten other Hindus, to
toast a plot for revolution in India. On November 28 they were ordered
by the chief of police to leave Japan before December 2, which was
tantamount to a delivery into the hands of the British, as the only two
steamers available were leaving for Shanghai and Hong Kong, both ports
well supplied with British officers. On the afternoon of December 1 the
two plotters escaped in an automobile to the residence of a prominent
pro-Chinese politician (a friend of Sun Yat Sen) and were concealed
there, between false walls, until May, 1916, when they stowed away on
a ship bound for Honolulu. Sarkar returned to India, Gupta to America.
When the round-up came, in 1917, Jacobsen, Wehde and Boehm were each
convicted of violation of section 13 of the Federal Penal Code, and
sentenced to serve five years in prison and pay $13,000 fines; Gupta's
sentence was three years, his fine $200.
The scene shifts for a moment from the Orient to the Occident, and
the twenty-fifth floor of the building at 60 Wall Street, New York,
on the morning of April 19, 1916. There von Papen had had his office;
there when he was sent home in December, 1915, he had left in charge
a sharp-eyed youth named Wolf von Igel as his successor. Von Igel, at
eleven o'clock, was surveying the result of several hours' work in
sorting and arranging neat stacks of official papers for shipment to
the German Embassy at Washington, for he had got word that trouble was
brewing, and that the documents would be safer there. An attendant
entered. "A man wants to see you, Herr von Igel," he announced. "He
won't tell his business, except that he says it is important."
Von Igel was gruffly directing the attendant to make the stranger
specify his mission when the door burst open, and in dashed Joseph
A. Baker, of the Department of Justice, and Federal Agents Storck,
Underhill and Grgurevich.
"I have a warrant for your arrest!" shouted Baker. Von Igel jumped for
the doors of the safe, which stood open. Baker sprang simultaneously
for von Igel, and the two went to the floor in battle. The German was
overpowered, and the attendant cowed by a flash of revolvers.
"This means war!" yelled von Igel. "This is part of the German Embassy
and you've no right here."
"You're under arrest," said Baker.
"You shoot and there'll be war," said von Igel, and made another
frantic attempt to close the safe doors. A second skirmish ended in
von Igel's removal to a cell, while the agents took charge of the
documents. The collection was a rare catch. It contained evidence which
supplied the missing links in numerous chains of suspected German
guilt, and the matter was at once placed in the safe keeping of the
Government.
One letter was dated Berlin, February 4, 1916, and addressed to the
German Embassy in Washington. It reads:
"In future all Indian affairs are to be exclusively handled by the
committee to be formed by Dr. Chakravarty. Dhirendra Sarkar, and
Heramba Lal Gupta, which latter person has meantime been expelled
from Japan," ...
(Gupta was at that moment between the walls of the Japanese
politician's house.)
... "thus cease to be independent representatives of the Indian
Independence Committee existing here.
"(Signed) ZIMMERMANN."
The Embassy on March 21, 1916, wrote von Igel as follows:
"The Imperial German Consul at Manila writes me:
"'Unfortunately the captured Hindus include Gupta, who last was
active at Tokio. The following have also been captured: John
Mohammed Aptoler, Rulerhammete, Sharmasler, No-Mar, C. Bandysi,
Rassanala. Apparently the English are thoroughly informed of all
individual movements and the whereabouts at various times of the
Hindu revolutionists.'
"Please inform Chakravarty."
The name "Chakravarty" occurring in these two memoranda makes it
necessary here to turn back the calendar to 1915, in order to outline
another conspicuous Hindu-German activity. Not only were the East
Indian students and sympathetic educators in America prolific in their
verbal advocacy of revolt in India, but with German assistance they
attempted at least one clearly defined bit of filibustering, which if
it had been successful would have supplied the would-be mutineers in
the Land of Hind with the arms they so longed to employ against the
British.
The reader will recall the mention of a large quantity of weapons and
cartridges which Captain Hans Tauscher had stored in a building in
200 West Houston Street, New York, and which he said he had purchased
for "speculation." The speculation was apparently the project of
Indian mutiny, which in the eyes of the Indian Nationalist party was
to equal in grandeur the infamous mutiny of 1857. For those arms
were shipped to San Diego, California, secretly loaded aboard the
steamer _Annie Larsen_, and moved to sea. The plan provided for their
transshipment off the island of Socorro to the hold of the steamship
_Maverick_, which was to carry them to India. The two ships failed to
effect a rendezvous, and after some wandering the _Annie Larsen_ put
in at Hoquiam, Washington, where the cargo was at once seized by the
authorities. The _Maverick_ sailed to San Diego, Hilo, Johnson Island,
and finally to Batavia.
Count von Bernstorff had sufficient courage, on July 2, to inform
the Secretary of State "confidentially that the arms and ammunition
... had been purchased by my government months ago through the Krupp
agency in New York for shipment to German East Africa." On July 22,
he wrote again, asking that the arms be returned as the property of
the German Government, and offering to give the Department of Justice
"such further information on the subject as I may have" if they
cared to push an examination of the cargo. On October 5 he threw all
responsibility for the movements of the _Maverick_ upon Captain Fred
Jebsen, her skipper--by this time a fugitive from justice--and stating
"the German Government did not make the shipment, and knows nothing of
the details of how they were shipped"--which was a rather shabby way of
discrediting his subordinates.
It developed later that the arms were purchased--sixteen carloads of
them--by Henry Muck, Tauscher's manager, for $300,000, made payable
by von Papen through G. Amsinck & Co. to Tauscher. A part of the
shipment was sent to San Diego; the balance was to have gone to India
via Java and China, but never left on account of the protests of the
British Consul. Instead, a number of machine guns and 1,500,000 rounds
of ammunition were sold to a San Francisco broker who was acting as
agent for Adolphi Stahl, financial agent in the United States for the
Republic of Guatemala. When Zimmermann cabled to von Bernstorff on
April 30, 1916 (through Count von Luxburg in Buenos Aires), "Please
wire whether von Igel's report on March 27, Journal A, No. 257, has
been seized, and warn Chakravarty," he had grave concern over the
betrayal of German influences in the Hindu conspiracies. This was fully
justified when a correspondence notebook of von Igel's disclosed, among
other entries, the following transactions:
August 12, 1915--Captain Herman Othmer inclosed documents about
the _Annie Larsen_ and von Igel forwarded charter to Consul at San
Francisco.
September 2--The embassy forwarded papers from San Francisco about the
_Annie Larsen_ and von Igel returned them.
September 7--The embassy sent a telegram from San Francisco about the
_Maverick_.
September 9--The consulate, San Francisco, sent a letter for
information and von Igel replied with a telegram about _Maverick_
repairs.
September 9, 1915--The Embassy sent a letter from the consulate at
San Francisco about shipment and von Igel replied to embassy that the
proposals were impracticable.
October 1--The embassy sent a cipher message to Berlin about the
_Maverick_.
October 9--The Consulate, San Francisco, sent a letter about the
_Maverick_ negotiations.
October 20, 1915--Von Igel received a report about a shipment of arms
from Manila.
January 27, 1916--The embassy forwarded copies of telegrams to San
Francisco in the matter of the _Maverick_.
August 28--The Consulate, Manila, sent a cipher letter about the
transport of arms.
November 8, 1915--AAA 100 sent a report from or concerning Ispahan arms.
The peaceful Har Dyal, Oxford graduate, lecturer at Leland Stanford,
denizen of the University of California, and editor of _Gadhr_, had
laid down the following rules for the guidance of members of the group
of revolutionaries which he headed: each candidate for membership must
undergo a six months' probationary period before his admission; any
member who exposed the secrets of the organization should suffer death;
members wishing to marry could do so without any ceremony, as they
were above the law. Under such amiable rules of conduct he accumulated
a number of followers of the faith, and more swarmed to the tinkle
of German money. In August, 1914, the "first expeditionary force" of
revolutionists set sail for India in the _Korea_. A few months later,
Har Dyal left for Berlin, where he organized the Indian Revolutionary
Society, leaving Ram Chandra as his successor to edit _Gadhr_ in
Berkeley.
The avowed object of this society was to establish a Republican
government in India with the help of Germany. They held regular
meetings attended by German officials and civilians who knew India,
among them former teachers in India. At these meetings the Germans were
advised as to the line of conduct to be adopted. The deliberations
were of a secret nature. Har Dyal and Chattopadhay had considerable
influence with the German Government and were the only two Indians
privileged to take part in the deliberations of the German Foreign
Office.
Besides these societies there were in Berlin two other associations
known as the Persian and Turkish societies. The object of the first
named was to free Persia from European influences in general, and
create ill feeling against the British in particular, and to assist
the natives to form a republic. The object of the Turkish society
was practically the same. They established an Oriental translating
bureau which translated German news and other literature selected by
the Indian Revolutionary Society into various Oriental languages and
distributed the translations among the Hindu prisoners of war.
Har Dyal continued in close touch with American affairs. On October
20 and 26, 1915, he wrote to Alexander Berkman, a notorious anarchist
imprisoned in 1918 for violation of the draft law, urging Berkman to
send to Germany through Holland comrades who would be valuable in
Indian propaganda, and asking for letters of introduction "from Emma
or yourself" (Emma Goldman) to important anarchists in Europe; these
communications are unimportant except as they betray the Prussian
policy of making an ally of anarchy, although anarchy as a social
factor is the force from which Germany has most to fear. "Perhaps you
can find them," wrote Dyal, "in New York or at Paterson. They should
be real fighters, I. W. W.'s or anarchists. Our Indian party will make
all the necessary arrangements."
Ram Chandra went on with the work until he was stopped by the
Foreign Office. He printed anti-Britannic pamphlets quoting Bryan
for circulation in India; he printed and delivered to Lieutenant von
Brincken at the German Consulate in San Francisco some 5,000 leaflets,
which were to be shipped to Germany and dropped by the Boche aviators
over the Hindu lines in France: the handbills read, "Do not fight with
the Germans. They are our friends. Lay down your arms and run to the
Germans." Chandra and his crew supplied the _Maverick_ with quantities
of literature, but most of it was burned when the Hindu agents aboard
feared that there were British warships near Socorro Island. In the
same group were G. B. Lal and Taraknath Das, two former students at the
University of California, the latter a protégé of a German professor
there himself engaged in propaganda work.
Throughout the fall of 1915 the Hindus in America awaited word
of Gupta's success in Japan. They heard nothing but news of his
disappearance. Accordingly in December, Dr. Chakravarty, a frail little
Hindu of light chocolate complexion, sailed from Hoboken for Germany,
traveling as a Persian merchant, on a false passport. He made a good
impression on the Foreign Office, as may be judged by the following
letter, dated January 21, 1916, addressed to L. Sachse, Rotterdam:
"Dr. Chakravarty will return to the United States and form a
working committee of only five members, one of whom should be
himself and another, Ram Chandra. In addition to sending more
Indians home the new American committee will undertake the
following:
"1--An agent will be sent to the West India islands, where there
are nearly 100,000 Indians, and will organize the sending home of
as many as possible.
"They have not yet been approached by us and there are no such
difficulties in the way of their going to India as are encountered
by our countrymen from the United States.
"2--An agent will be sent to British Guiana with the same object.
"3--A very reliable man will be sent to Java and Sumatra.
"4--It is proposed to have pamphlets printed and circulated in
and from America. The literature will be printed secretly and
propaganda will be carried on with great vigor.
"5--An effort will be made to carry out the plan of the secret
Oriental mission to Japan. Dr. Chakravarty is in a position to get
letters of introduction to important persons in Japan, as well as
a safe-conduct for himself and other members of mission."
After conferring with Dyal, Zimmermann, and Under-secretary Wesendonk
of the Foreign Office, he was given money and sent back to the United
States, arriving in February, 1916. He at once sent H. A. Chen to
China to purchase arms and ship them to India. He then reported to
Wolf von Igel, who paid him $40,000 for the purchase of a house in
120th Street and one in 17th Street. There he held forth for more than
a year, working in conjunction with von Igel, and the latter with
the Embassy in Washington. His activities may be indicated, and the
complicity of the German Government again established, in the following
communications:
_From von Igel to von Bernstorff_
"New York, April 7, 1916--A report has been received here that
Dr. Chakravarty was taken Monday, the 3d of April, to the
Providence Hospital with concussion of the brain in consequence
of an automobile accident. His convalescence is making good
progress. A certain Ernest J. Euphrat has been here and he came
from the Foreign Office and had orders with respect to the India
propaganda. He could not identify himself, but made a very good
impression. He told us Herr von Wesendonk told him to say that
Ram Chandra's activity in San Francisco was not satisfactory.
This person should for the time being suspend his propaganda
activities."
"In re No. 303: Euphrat was sent by me to India in October of
last year, and is so far as known here reliable. He was, indeed,
recommended at the time by Marcus Braun. Please intimate to him
cautiously that he should not speak too much about his orders he
received in Berlin. San Francisco is being informed."
"For Prince Hatzfeld."
_From New York to von Bernstorff_
"New York, April 15, 1916--Mr. E. J. Euphrat has asked that the
inclosed documents be forwarded to his excellency in a safe way.
He asks for a reply as quickly as possible, because if he does not
receive the desired allowance he will have to change the plans for
his journey.
"(Signed) K. N. ST."
_To H. Eisenhuth, Copenhagen, from New York, and unsigned_
"May 2, 1916. We have also organized a Pan-Asiatic League, so that
some of our members can travel without arousing any suspicion.
Also everything has been arranged for the 'mission to Japan.'
Please let me know when your men can come, so that we can approach
the party more definitely. I had talks with one of the directors
of the _Yamato Shimbun_ of Tokio and _Chinvai Dempo_ of Kyoto. It
would not be necessary to buy off these papers, as they understand
it is to mutual interest. But they ask for certain considerations
to help their financial status. They are also decided to attack
Anglo-Japanese treaty as antagonistic to national interest. To
carry on work it will be necessary to place at the disposal of the
committee here $25,000."
_Cablegram from Zimmermann, Berlin, to van Bernstorff, via von
Luxburg, Buenos Aires_
"To Bernstorff, May 19, 1916: Berlin telegraphs No. 28 of May 19.
Answer to telegram 23. Your excellency is empowered to give the
Indians $20,000. No. 29 of May 19 in continuation of telegram No.
16. Please, in making direct payments to Tarak Nath Das, avoid
receipts. Das will receipt own payment through a third party as
Edward Schuster.
"(Signed) ZIMMERMANN."
_Zimmermann to Peking, transmitted by Luxburg, to Bernstorff for Peking
legation_
"The confidential agent of the Nationalists here, the Indian,
Tarak Nath Das, an American Citizen, is leaving for Peking by the
Siberian Railway. Please give him up to 10,000 marks. Das will
arrange the rest.
"ZIMMERMANN."
"Ambassador at Washington: Please advise Chakravarty.
"LUXBURG."
_From Bernstorff, mailed at Mt. Vernon, N. Y., to Z. N. G. Olifiers, a
German agent in Amsterdam_
"June 16, 1916--Referring to my letter A275 of June 8, Chakravarty
reports: Organization has been almost completed, and many of our
old members are active and free. Only they are afraid if arms
are not available soon there may be premature uprising in Madras
and the Punjab as well as in Bengal. The work in Japan is going
unusually well, more than our expectations."
_From Berlin to Chakravarty_
"July 13, 1916--In organizing work in the United States and
outside, remember our primary object is to produce revolutions at
home during this war. Trinidad, British Guiana and East Africa,
including Zanzibar, should be particularly tapped for men.
"We wired your name to Francis E. M. Hussain, Bachelor of
Arts, Barr. at Law, Port of Spain, Trinidad. Through messenger
communicate full programme desired in Trinidad to him, and mention
the name 'Binniechatto.' He can be trusted. If, after some secret
work, you think revolution can be organized in island itself, then
we may try to smuggle arms, and our men will seize Government and
set up independent Hindustani Republic. Do not let such plan be
carried out if our prospects for work at home are likely to be
ruined."
_A report from Chakravarty, written July 26, 1916_
"I am going to Vancouver next week to see Bhai Balwant Singh
and Nano Singh Sihra, who have asked me to go there to arrange
definite plan of action for group of workers there, and then to
San Francisco to induce Ram Chandra to plan our committee here,
and to include him and his nominees in the said committee, so
that our work does not suffer in the East by placing enemies on
their guard and right track by his thoughtless, enthusiastic
writings.... Gupta is back in New York and has seen me, but has
not submitted any report. We need $15,000 more for the next six
months to carry out the new plan and to continue the previous work
undertaken."
_From von Bernstorff, at Rye, N. Y., to Olifiers, transmitting
Chakravarty's report_
"August 5, 1916--Our organization has been well perfected in
the West Indies and Houssain has been approached. We have also
enlisted the sympathy of the Gongoles party, a strong fighting
body of colored people, who have ramifications all over Central
America, including British Guiana and Guatemala. Arms can be
easily smuggled there and if we can get some of the German
officers in this country to go there and lead them there is every
possibility that we can hold quite a while. But the question
is--ask the Foreign Secretary whether it is desirable, for it
might simply create a sensation and nothing more. As soon as we
hold there the Governmental power the island would be isolated
by the British navy, and the attitude of the United States is
uncertain, and we may be compelled to surrender sooner or later;
but if it serves any purpose either as a blind or otherwise, and
after due consideration of its advantages and disadvantages, wire
at once the authorities here to give us a few officers, as we need
them badly, and other help necessary to carry out the plan, and it
can be done without much difficulty. I believe if a sensation is
desired something also can be done in London, at least should be
tried. If we can get a few men from the Pacific Coast we can send
them easily as a crew with a Dutch passport.
"We are sending arms in small quantities through Chinese coolies
over the border in Burmah, but in big quantities we do not find
possibility. However, we are on the lookout. We have been trying
our best with a Japanese firm who have a business affiliation
in Calcutta, whether they will undertake to transmit some arms
through their goods.
"To complete the chain we are sending Mr. Chandra to London as a
medical student in the university, and he will send men and other
informations to you via Switzerland. We are also sending a few
Chinese students to China to help us in the work, and if you want
it can also be arranged they give you a personal report through
Russia and Sweden.
"We need $15,000 more, as I return from the Pacific Coast, to
carry out these plans, excepting that of Trinidad operations,
which, if you approve, wire at once the military agent here to
arrange to buy and ship arms to us, before the enemy can be on
guard."
_To H. Eisenhuth, Copenhagen, in cipher_
"September 5, 1916--Arms can no more be safely sent to India
through Pacific, except through Japanese merchandise or through
China merchants, shipped to Chinese ports and then to our border.
Responsible men are willing to take the risk and they are willing
to send their confidential agents to Turaulleur."
_Chakravarty to Berlin, Foreign Office_
"September 5, 1916--Li Yuan Hung is now President of China. He
was formerly the southern revolutionary leader. W. T. Wang was
then his private secretary. He is now in America and starting
for China. He says Li Yuan Hung is in sympathy with the Indian
revolution and would like English power weakened. Some of the
prominent people are quite eager to help India directly, and
Germany indirectly, without exposing themselves to any great risk,
on three conditions:
"The first--Germany to make a secret treaty with China, that
in case China is attacked by any power or powers, Germany will
give her military aid. It will be obligatory for five years
after the discontinuance of the present war and there will be
an understanding that China shall get one-tenth of all arms
and ammunition she will receive for and deliver to the Indian
revolutionaries and the Indian border.
"In return, China shall prohibit the delivery of arms and
ammunition in the name of the Chinese Government and from China
through private sailing boats and by coolies to any nearby
point or any border place as directed. She will help Indian
revolutionaries as she can, secretly and in accord with her own
safety.
"But this is to be regarded as a feeler through a third party,
and, if it is acceptable to the German Government, then they will
send one of their trusted representatives to Berlin to discuss
the details and plan of operations, and if it is settled, then
negotiations should take place officially and papers signed
through the embassies in Berlin and Peking. They want to know the
attitude of the German Foreign Office as soon as possible so that
they can set the ball rolling for necessary arrangements."
_Von Bernstorff to Zimmermann_
"October 13, 1916--Chakravarty's reply is not sent; too long.
Require at end of October a further $15,000. According to news
which has arrived here Okechi has not received the $2000 and in
the meantime left Copenhagen. Please withhold payment until
Polish National Committee provides therefor.
"BERNSTORFF."
_To Olifiers, Amsterdam, postmarked Washington_
"November 21, 1916--Rabindranath Tagore has come at our suggestion
and saw Count Okuma, Baron Shimpei Goto, Masaburo Suzuki, Marquis
Yamanouchi, Count Terauchi and others; Terauchi is favorable
and others are sympathetic. Rash Behari Bose is still there to
see whether they can be persuaded to do something positive for
our cause. S. Sekunna and G. Marsushita are doing their best.
Yamatashimbun is strongly advocating our cause. D. Pal has not
come. Benoy Sarkar is still in China. Lala is willing to go, but
this passage could not be arranged. As soon as Tilak arrives he
will be approached. Bapat is still free and writes that he has
been trying his best, but for want of arms they have not been able
to do anything. Received a note from Abdul Kadir and Shamshar
Singh from Termes-Buchare that they are proceeding on slowly to
their destination. Barkatullah is in Kabul; well received, lacks
funds. Mintironakaono is here. Isam Uhiroi is in Pekin. Tarak
has safely reached there. Our publication work is going on well.
We have brought out seven pamphlets and one in the press. We are
waiting for definite instructions as to the work in Trinidad and
Damrara.
"Wu Ting Fang has been now made the Foreign Minister. He has
always been sympathetic with our cause. But the influence of Sun
Yat Sen still persists in opposing us in that direction."
_Zimmermann to Bernstorff_
"December 20, 1916--According to Chakravarty, the Indians were
paid up to September 30 $30,000. Total credit for Indians, $65,000.
"ZIMMERMANN."
_Zimmermann to Bernstorff_
"January 4, 1917--very secret. The Japanese, Hideo Nakao, is
traveling to America with important instructions from the Indian
Committee. He is to deal exclusively with Chakravarty. Please,
after consultation with Chakravarty, inform Imperial Minister
at Peking and the Imperial Consulate at Shanghai that they are
to send in Nakao's reports regularly. I advise giving Nakao in
installments up to fifty thousand dollars in all for the execution
of his plans in America and Eastern Asia. Decision as to the
utility of the separate payments is left to your excellency and
the Imperial Legation at Peking. Despatch follows.
"(Signed) ZIMMERMANN."
On March 7, 1917, Guy Scull, deputy police commissioner in New York,
with eight detectives, called at 364 West 120th Street, found Dr.
Chakravarty clad in a loin cloth, and arrested him on a charge of
setting afoot a military enterprise against the Emperor of India.
With Sekunna, a German who had been writing tracts for him, he was
later transferred to San Francisco to stand trial. The typewriter in
the 120th Street house, whose characteristics--all typewriters are
as individual and as identifiable as finger-prints--had betrayed
the conspirators, lay idle for many months, but as late as March
18, 1918, a Hindu, Sailandra Nath Ghose, who had collaborated with
Taraknath Das in writing a propaganda work called "The Isolation
of Japan in world politics," was arrested there in company with a
German woman, Agnes Smedley. The two were accused of violating the
espionage act by representing themselves to be diplomatic agents of
the Indian Nationalist Party, and of having sent an appeal for aid in
the establishment of a democratic federated republic in India to the
Brazilian Embassy in Washington, to Leon Trotzky in Russia, and to the
Governments of Panama, Paraguay, Chile and other neutral nations.
In the course of the years 1916 and 1917 the Government built up an
unusually exhaustive and troublesome case for nearly one hundred
defendants, including the personnel of the San Francisco consulate,
the German consul at Honolulu (who had supplied the _Maverick_ in Hilo
Harbor[5]), a large group of Hindu students, a smaller group of war
brokers, and numerous lesser intermediaries. Their trial was one of
the most cumbersome and interesting cases ever heard in an American
court. It began on November 19, 1917, in San Francisco, with Judge
Van Fleet on the bench. Witness after witness recited his story of
adventure, each stranger than the last, and all stranger than fiction.
Lieutenant von Brincken, one of the San Francisco consulate, pleaded
guilty within a few weeks; his sentence was long deferred by the
prosecution on account, presumably, of evidence which he supplied the
Government. George Rodiek, the German consul in Honolulu, followed
suit and was fined heavily; Jodh Singh turned state's evidence and
presently his mind became diseased and he was committed to an asylum;
the procedure was interrupted from time to time with wrangles among the
defendants, and on one occasion Franz Bopp, the San Francisco consul,
shouted to one of his fellows, "You are spoiling the whole case!" When
the Government, through United States Attorney Preston, introduced
evidence from the Department of State, the Hindus attempted to subpoena
Secretary Lansing; when Bryan's pacifist tracts were introduced the
defendants sought Bryan. On April 18, 1918, Chakravarty confessed,
to the irritation of the other defendants. The climax in melodrama
occurred on the afternoon of April 23, 1918, when, with the case all
but concluded, Ram Singh shot and killed Ram Chandra in the courtroom.
A moment later Ram Singh lay dead, his neck broken by a bullet fired
over the heads of the attorneys by United States Marshal Holohan. That
afternoon Judge Van Fleet delivered his charge to the jury; that night
a verdict of guilty was returned against twenty-nine of the thirty-two
defendants who had not been dismissed as the trial proceeded.
Judge Van Fleet, on April 30, 1918, pronounced the following sentences:
Franz Bopp, German consul in San Francisco, two years in the
penitentiary and $10,000 fine; F. H. von Schack, vice-consul, the same
punishment; Lieutenant von Brincken, military attaché of the consulate,
two years' imprisonment without fine; Walter Sauerbeck, lieutenant
commander in the German navy, an officer of the _Geier_ interned in
Honolulu, one year's imprisonment and $2,000 fine; Charles Lattendorf,
von Brincken's secretary, one year in jail; Edwin Deinat, master of the
German ship _Holsatia_, interned in Honolulu, a term of ten months in
jail and a fine of $1,500; Heinrich Felbo, master of the German ship
_Ahlers_, interned in Hilo, Hawaii, six months in jail and a fine of
$1,000. These men may be described as the loyal German group.
Robert Capelle, agent in San Francisco of the North German Lloyd line,
fifteen months' imprisonment and a fine of $7,500; Harry J. Hart, a
San Francisco shipping man, six months in jail and a fine of $5,000;
Joseph Bley of the firm of C. D. Bunker & Co., customs brokers, fifteen
months in prison and a fine of $5,000; Moritz Stack von Goltzheim, a
real estate and insurance broker, six months in jail and $1,000 fine;
Louis T. Hengstler, an admiralty lawyer and professor in the University
of California and in Hastings Law College, a fine of $5,000; Bernard
Manning, a real estate, insurance and employment agent in San Diego,
nine months in jail and a fine of $1,000; and J. Clyde Hizar, a former
city attorney in Coronado and assistant paymaster in the United States
Navy, one year's imprisonment and a fine of $5,000. These gentlemen
constituted the so-called "shipping group" which was intimately
concerned with the affairs of the _Annie Larsen_ and the _Maverick_.
Dr. Chakravarty, who had been delegated by no less a personage than
Zimmermann of Berlin to handle all Indian intrigue in America, received
a crushing sentence of sixty days in jail and a fine of $5,000.
Bhagwan Singh, the "poet of the revolution," was sentenced to eighteen
months in the penitentiary; Taraknath Das, the author and lecturer, to
twenty-two months' imprisonment; Gobind Behari Lal, the University
of California student, to ten months in jail. The smaller fry of the
University of California-_Ghadr_ group were disposed of as follows:
Nandekar to three months in jail, Ghoda Ram to eleven months, Sarkar,
who had been in Japan with Gupta, to four months, Munshi Ram (of the
_Ghadr_ staff) to sixty days, Imam Din to four months, Nerajan Das to
six months, Singh Hindi to nine months, Santokh Singh to twenty-one
months in the penitentiary, Gopalm Singh to one year and a day, and
Nidhan Singh to four months.
[Illustration: _Copyright, International Film Service_
Dr. Chakravarty (on the right), the accredited agent of Germany in the
Hindu-German intrigues in America. With him is Ernest Sekunna, also a
German agent, arrested with Chakravarty]
Those defendants who remained had not been allowed at large on bail,
thanks to the vigilance of Preston. Yet in spite of all precautions,
the proceedings frequently threatened to get out of control. The United
States had been at war for a year; the Federal Court was trying both
alien enemies of military status and alien enemies who had engaged in
and stood convicted of conspiracy, as well as conspirators against the
rule of Britain in India who had revolution quite definitely in mind.
Great Britain, for six months before the trial began, had been our
ally and, in spirit at least, a traitor to Great Britain was a traitor
to the United States. In spirit, but not in the letter of the law:
the worst punishment which any existing statutes could impose on any
single defendant found wholly and completely guilty of the charge was
_two years' imprisonment and a fine of $10,000_. For such conviction,
and for such punishment of the United States' military enemies, the
prosecution clambered about through the tangle of civil procedure; we
had been six months at war and laws had not been supplied to facilitate
the swift justice due such enemies, nor have laws been supplied as
this is written. More than eighty "court days" were consumed, the
shorthand reporting alone cost more than $35,000. A court commissioner
released four important witnesses "for want of evidence." (One of them
was indicted in New York and the commissioner was himself dismissed.)
Gupta, arrested in New York, was released on bail and swiftly fled
across the Mexican border to continue his propaganda. Trying as the
case was to all who were concerned in it, expeditiously as it was
handled by the authorities, and informative as it proved to be, it was
monumental in its confession that civil courts cannot act with the
warning vigor and speed made necessary by war conditions.
The evidence introduced pointed clearly to the conclusion that the
German-Hindu plot, complex as it is to us as critics, was unfruitful
even to Berlin. Perhaps its very breadth made it awkward to manage.
Nearly four years of war passed, and there was no mutiny in India. The
stewards of the Indian domain knew anxious moments, but they found some
solace in the realization that half way around the world, in the United
States, there was a pair of eyes to watch every pair of mischievous
hands, and that the conspiracy directed against the Orient could not
take effect while those eyes were open.
It requires no special gift of prophecy to predict that secret
conspiracies will continue unless those eyes are more vigilant than
ever. The United States Attorney announced as the conspirators were
being sentenced that he felt that the court might well instruct their
dark associates to "cut out their propaganda," and that their _Gahdr_
presses were even then turning out "barrels and bales of seditious
literature." To this Judge Van Fleet gravely responded:
"The people are going to take the law into their own hands, as much
as we regret it. The citizens of this country are going to suppress
manifestations hostile to our allies."
FOOTNOTE:
[5] The _Maverick_ was lost in a typhoon off the Philippines in August,
1917.