Bolo Pacha, who was convicted by a French court-martial of treason, was
executed at Vincennes April 17 by a firing squad. The chaplain, after
the execution, found lying over Bolo's heart two embroidered
handkerchiefs, which had been pierced by the bullets. One was given to
Bolo's brother and the other to his widow.
A few days before the execution the condemned man sent for the public
prosecutor, and, it is stated, made important revelations regarding
former Premier Caillaux and Senator Humbert, against whom similar
charges are pending.
It was proved that Bolo Pacha, whose real name was Paul Bolo, was a poor
man before the war, a pensioner of his brother, Mgr. Bolo, a prominent
French prelate. The testimony revealed that $1,683,000 had been
transferred by the Deutsche Bank at Berlin on the recommendation of
Ambassador Bernstorff to Bolo's credit in New York for the purchase of
Senator Humbert's newspaper, the Paris Journal; Bolo made an offer of
$400,000 for Le Figaro, bought 1,500 shares in Le Rappel for $34,000,
and even approached Clemenceau's Homme Enchainé. Papers he got control
over included Paris-Midi, Le Cri de Paris, a satirical weekly, and La
Revue, of which Jean Finot is editor. The curious thing about the method
employed to make these newspapers serve German interests was that under
Bolo's control they became exponents of "defeatism" carried to the
extreme of ultra-French militarism. The explanation is that the German
war party could use quotations from the Bolo papers to persuade the
German people that their existence was threatened by the French, thereby
justifying the German Government and rekindling in the people the war
fervor which was fast oozing out of them. Then, when the opportune
moment came, the same ultra-patriotic papers, so it was expected, would
suddenly turn pacifist and thereby stir up dissension in the nation and
destroy the efficiency of its war measures.