[Footnote 12: The _Mexican Petroleum Company of Delaware_ has control of a large number of companies in the United States and in Mexico, which include the following:-- _Mexican Petroleum of California_, _Huasteca Petroleum_, _Tamahua Petroleum_, _Tuxpan Petroleum_, _Mexican Petroleum Corporation_. ] CHAPTER VI THE OIL-WORLD'S NAPOLEON: HENRY DETERDING If the _Royal Dutch_ has succeeded in its amazing effort to reduce the power of the _Standard Oil_, it is because the former possessed a man who was worth millions, whom the Americans, in their outspoken admiration, have called the "Oil-World's Napoleon"--Henry Deterding. "Mr. Deterding is Napoleonic in boldness, and Cromwellian in depth," said Admiral Lord Fisher, the reorganizer of the British Navy in the twentieth century. The strongest personality in the oil-world is no longer Rockefeller, but Deterding. Supported by such men as Gulbenkian, the "Talleyrand of Oil"; Colijn, formerly War Minister to the Netherlands; Loudon, Cohen, Stuart, and Sir Marcus Samuel, the founder of the _Shell_ and a former Lord Mayor of London--Deterding dared to challenge the _Standard Oil_ and to keep up the war for twenty years in every part of the world, and even to establish himself on the latter's own ground, the United States. The _Royal Dutch_ was established in 1890, when the _Standard_ ruled as absolute sovereign over the markets of Europe and America. De Gelder was the first Chairman, but he was soon replaced by the more capable Kessler. "Old Kessler," as the _Royal Dutch_ people call him among themselves, fixed his head-quarters at Batavia. Needing an assistant, he engaged the young Deterding, who was then employed in a bank at Batavia. It was Kessler who guided the _Royal Dutch_ through the difficulties of its early years. But he died suddenly in 1900, and Deterding succeeded him. While the _Standard_ stuck to the formula, "American oil to light the world," Deterding set to work to acquire oil deposits as near as possible to all markets. The new policy extolled by Walter Teagle, Chairman of the _Standard Oil of New Jersey_, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the company in January 1920, is no other than that pursued by Deterding for fifteen years. For the _Standard Oil_, seeing to what a pass its former policy has brought it, has sought since 1919 to revise its methods and copy those of its rival. _Five factors have contributed to the world-wide expansion of the_ Royal Dutch. 1. Deterding's cleverness in associating the _Royal Dutch_ with the _Shell_, and in interesting the Rothschilds of Paris in his operations. Thanks to these connections, he surrounded himself with able personalities, such as Frederick Lane, Sir Marcus Samuel, Sir Waley Cohen, and Gulbenkian. 2. The support of the Dutch Government. 3. The support of the British Government.