Germans -- United States; World War, 1914-1918 -- Secret service -- Germany
At the time of the _Maverick_ enterprise, and after its failure,
the Germans engineered a half dozen plots with the Hindus, looking
toward revolution in India. Von Papen in New York directed a scheme
for an incursion into north-western India through Afghanistan.
The German Consul-General in Chicago shipped two German officers
and two Hindu agitators to the Orient to train Hindu soldiers in
upper Siam for an invasion of Burma. Wesendonck sent Har Dayal
from Berlin to Constantinople to act as chairman of a committee of
Mohammedans who were to incite the Mussulman population of India to
revolt. Ram Chandra, at the instigation of Von Brincken, sent Hindu
emissaries from San Francisco to organize revolutionary movements
among the Indians in Manila, Tokyo, Shanghai--even in Seoul and
Peking. Other emissaries, gathering men and money or transmitting
messages, worked in Panama, in Switzerland, in the Sinai Peninsula,
in Sweden--scarcely a country in the world but was touched by a
filament of this spider’s web of German intrigue.
And, like gossamer, it all came to airy nothingness. A few
dacoities [robberies accompanied by violence], a few vain attempts
to suborn loyal native troops in India, were the net results of
enormous labours, lengthy journeys, and huge expenditures of money.
By December, 1915, the German Government became impatient of this
much ado about nothing. But it did not abandon hope. Zimmermann
summoned a little, nervous, excitable Hindu from New York to
Berlin. Dr. Chakravarty left America on a false passport, and
in February, 1916, was appointed in Berlin to head the Indian
intrigues in America. Zimmermann’s cable to Bernstorff, quoted in
the first part of this article, notified the German authorities
here of his appointment. By August, Dr. Chakravarty was in San
Francisco, consulting with Ram Chandra and the Germans there.
Chakravarty and Ram Chandra had one thing in common--both knew
the value of real-estate. Out of their joint operations in the
insubstantial pursuit of Indian liberty, each emerged with some
perfectly sound investments in mundane property, paid for with
money subtracted from the German gold that passed through their
hands for the “freeing of the oppressed.” Chakravarty put about
forty thousand dollars into New York apartments, and Ram Chandra
several thousands into residence and business property in San
Francisco.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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