The German-Hindu plot to foment revolution in India is an international drama with touches of “Treasure Island” adventure in the South Seas. The characters include Zimmermann, many German agents in the United States (among them Bernstorff), some venal Americans, and a horde of Hindus—some of them ardent fanatics and some plain grafters. The climax produced several executions, one suicide, two cases of insanity, and a murder. The production cost the Germans more than a million dollars, and the net receipts were a deficit. The scenes were laid in Berlin, Constantinople, Switzerland, New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Socorro Island, Honolulu, Manila, Java, Japan, China, Siam, and India. The last act was laid in a Federal penitentiary.

Writing from San Francisco, on November 4, 1916, Wilhelm von Brincken, the military attachÉ of the German Consulate, addressed a letter to his father to be “transmitted through the submarine Deutschland on its second voyage from the United States.” The letter was never delivered; its boastful first paragraph and its later candid text were read only by agents of the United States Government. Von Brincken began:

He then launched into bitter criticism of his treatment at the Consulate, complaining especially of its niggardly support of his work. Then he wrote (the italics are mine):

Later in the letter he says:

These extracts were written in November of 1916. They illuminate an earlier cable from Von Wesendonck’s chief, Zimmermann (the German Foreign Minister in Berlin) written in February of 1916 to Bernstorff at Washington, which was “transmitted respectfully for your information” to Von Papen in New York, and which reads as follows:

In other words, before February, 1916, the German Government had been plotting with Hindus in the United States for the national independence of India. Indeed, they had begun the work before 1914, and they had become active in it in July of that year—before they started the World War, but after they had decided to start it. By December, they were directing Indian plots from Berlin with ramifications in nearly every neutral country in the world. Two of these plots were hatched in the United States—one in San Francisco and one in Chicago. They were conspiracies to organize military expeditions to India. Our Government spoiled both of them, and the day after we went into the war, or on April 7, 1917, the United States’ authorities arrested thirty-four German-Hindu plotters in half a dozen cities and subsequently convicted them all but one of conspiracy.

The story begins in San Francisco. In 1911, a fanatical Indian agitator named Har Dayal came to this country. He worked among the large colonies of turbaned Hindu labourers on the Pacific Coast who had succeeded the Chinese and Japanese coolies in the orchards and gardens and on the railroad tracks in that region of abundant climate and scarce labour. Dayal organized the Hindu Pacific Coast Association and established its headquarters in San Francisco, to which these men came looking for a job or a night’s lodging, and where they were fed on rice and revolution. Dayal next established a printing plant and began to publish a paper called Ghadr, which means The Revolution. The Ghadr was out for blood. It preached Hindu uprising in terms of assassination and dynamite.

The first number of the Ghadr was published in November, 1913. At once it disclosed a German influence. In the issue of November 15, 1913, it printed these sentences: “The Germans have great sympathy with our movement, because they and ourselves have a common enemy (the English). In the future Germany can draw assistance from us, and they can render us great assistance also.”

As the World War approached, this German influence became more manifest. On July 21, 1914, two days before Austria’s ultimatum to Serbia, the Ghadr said:

“All intelligent people know that Germany is an enemy of England. We also are mortal enemies of England. So the enemy of our enemy is our friend.”

A week later, the Ghadr welcomed the approach of war:

“If this war does not start to-day, it will to-morrow. So welcome! India has got her chance.... Hasten preparations for meeting with the speed of wind and storm, and no sooner the war starts in Europe, you start a mutiny in India.”

And on August 4th it declared:

“O Warriors! The opportunity that you have been searching for years has come ... there is hope that Germany will help you.”

In all this the United States had no interest. We were neutral, and what Germany did to England was (we thought) England’s lookout. Also, we were “the asylum of the oppressed” and “the home of free speech”—and if the Hindus thought they ought to talk revolution we were not concerned. It was not until the Hindus and the Germans started “gun running” from our West Coast that we took a hand.

Har Dayal, nevertheless, was too ferocious even for the home of free speech. Early in 1914, he made speeches so villainously offensive to common decency and order that he was arrested and held for deportation on the ground of being an undesirable alien. He jumped bail in March and fled—to Berlin. He arrived there about the time the war clouds began to darken the skies of Europe, and found a sympathetic haven in the German Foreign Office. In company with other Hindu revolutionists, and under the fostering care of Von Wesendonck, he organized that “Indian Independence Committee existing here” of which Zimmermann spoke affectionately in his cable to Bernstorff, already quoted.

In Har Dayal’s place in San Francisco arose another Hindu revolutionary leader, one Ram Chandra. He succeeded to the management of the Hindu Pacific Coast Association, to the editorship of the Ghadr, and to the sympathetic understanding with the German agents in San Francisco. These German agents were Bopp, the consul-general, and his staff, of whom Von Brincken, the military attachÉ, was the agent with whom all personal dealings were carried on. Of the scores of Hindus with unpronounceable names and of their noisy speeches and noisome writings, there is no need to make record. But the warlike activities of the Hindus and their German friends were important, dangerous, and interesting.

On January 9, 1915, W. C. Hughes, of 103 Duane Street, New York, shipped ten carloads of freight to San Diego, Cal. The freight bill was heavy—$11,783.74—and it was prepaid by a check on the Guaranty Trust Company, signed by a German named Hans Tauscher. This German was the well-known American agent of Krupps, and it later developed that the ten carloads of freight were eight thousand rifles and four million cartridges. They were sent to “Juan Bernardo Bowen,” in care of M. Martinez & Company, ship brokers of San Diego.

This same “Bowen,” whose home address was given as Topolobampo, Mexico, acting through the same Martinez & Company, on January 19th, chartered a sailing vessel for a round trip from San Diego to Topolobampo. This vessel was the Annie Larsen. The charter price was $19,000, and this money was paid by J. Clyde Hizar, of San Diego, “Bowen’s” attorney. Hizar got the money by wire from a bank in San Francisco, which in turn got it from a woman depositor, who in turn got it from Von Brincken, who in turn got it from the German Consulate’s funds. This roundabout method was, of course, designed to conceal the German source of the money.

At about the same time, a company was organized in San Francisco to buy the oil tanker Maverick from the Standard Oil Company. Fred Jebsen, former lieutenant in the German Navy, put up the money. The Maverick was commanded by Captain H. C. Nelson, and her movements were directed by a young American adventurer, J. B. Starr-Hunt, whom Jebson put aboard as super-cargo (“super-cargo” is an agent put aboard ship by the owner of the merchandise to have charge of the cargo). Parts of a statement subsequently made by young Starr-Hunt tell the rest of the story of the Maverick and the Annie Larsen:

“I was born in San Antonio, Texas, in November, 1892. I went to a German school in Mexico for nine years. Then I was at Dr. Holbrook’s school for four years at Ossining-on-Hudson, New York. I was then for a year at the University of Virginia; three months at the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. Besides this I always had private tutors. After leaving the last-named college I joined my father’s law office in Mexico City. This was in the latter part of 1912. My father is one of the leading foreign lawyers in Mexico. In December, 1912, I started for San Francisco to join F. Jebsen & Co., a German firm of shipping agents. I worked in Jebsen’s office from February, 1913, to April, 1915; that is, up to the time I joined the Maverick. I was not actually in Jebsen’s office all this time; I made several trips to various parts of the U. S. A. and Mexico.

“About 1st April, 1915, while I was at Chihuahua, I got a telegram from Jebsen asking me to proceed at once to Los Angeles. I met Jebsen there. He asked me if I cared to proceed to San JosÉ del Cabo on the Maverick and then transfer to another ship, the Annie Larsen, either at San JosÉ del Cabo or at any other point on the Mexican coast. He told me that the Annie Larsen’s cargo consisted of war material, which was to be transhipped to the Maverick at whatever point they should meet in Mexican or Central American waters; that a man named Page (I do not remember his initials, but perhaps they were A. W.) who would be on the Annie Larsen, was to take charge of the Maverick, and that I myself was to take over the Annie Larsen and proceed to trade with her in whatever manner I might wish to, for six months, between Mexican or Central American ports, but I was not to return to any American port until after the expiration of six months. He did not tell me why the Annie Larsen was not to return to an American port for six months, but the reason was quite clear to me. As a matter of fact, I had heard while I was in Chihuahua that the Annie Larsen had departed from San Diego with a cargo of war material, presumably for some belligerent faction in Mexico. She had cleared from San Diego for Topolobampo. This fact had given rise to considerable comment and notoriety. American papers had taken the matter up, and the several arrests of Americans and Mexicans made by the Government in San Diego at the time were popularly believed to have been in connection with the Annie Larsen and her cargo. Evidently Jebsen, therefore, thought that, if the Annie Larsen returned immediately to an American port, complications might arise. Jebsen was not explicit as to either the destination, or the purpose, of the cargo. One thing I was, however, sure of was that it was not intended for the Mexican rebels. All that Jebsen told me was that the cargo was intended for the Orient, and in the course of conversation he once mentioned Borneo.

“On the (?) of April, the Maverick finally sailed from Los Angeles. On the morning of that day Jebsen gave me a sealed letter, addressed to nobody, with verbal instructions to hand it over to Page on the Annie Larsen immediately after I met him. Jebsen seemed to be anxious regarding this letter, and warned me to be careful and to see that it fell into no other hands. He also handed me another unaddressed letter to be given to the same man. This was an open letter which I read soon after leaving Los Angeles. There were two enclosures which were printed. One was a circular or memorandum of instructions as to how to work the machine gun or a small Hotchkiss, the diagram of which was given on the second enclosure. I am not quite certain of the type of weapon drawn on that second enclosure, but I think it was one of the two I have mentioned. The printed circular was evidently from the makers of that arm, but the manufacturer’s name was carefully cut out from it. Jebsen also handed me a third letter, without address, for Page, and open. It contained typewritten instructions as to how to stow the cargo to be transhipped from the Annie Larsen. It was just a short note, more in the nature of a suggestion than instructions. It said that the cases containing rifles were to be stowed in one of the two empty tanks of the Maverick and flooded with oil. The ammunition cases were to be stowed in the other empty tank, which was not to be flooded except as a last resort. This note, too, was intended for Page. There was a fourth open note for myself which contained suggestions as to what I should do in future with the Annie Larsen. Jebsen, at the same time, made over to me a bundle, consisting of about ten letters, with instructions to hand it over to Page. All these letters were addressed to Captain Othmann. Although Jebsen did not tell me so, I concluded that ‘Page’ and ‘Othmann’ were one and the same man, and that ‘Page’ was an assumed name.

“The day before sailing Jebsen introduced me to a man named B. Miller, who, he said, was a Swedish mining engineer, and who was going on the Maverick as far as San JosÉ del Cabo, to proceed thence to the mines near La Paz. Jebsen asked me to assist Miller in taking five ‘Persians’ from Los Angeles to San Pedro, and in finding quarters for them there for the night as they were to go on board the Maverick the following day. Jebsen told me nothing about these five Persians except that they were going with the Maverick as passengers right through to her destination, and were to be signed on the articles as anything. Accordingly I met Miller again the same evening at the Los Angeles railway station. I found five black men with him. On seeing me, he said: ‘Here are my men.’ He purchased tickets for them, and we all left by train for San Pedro, where I found lodgings for them in a cheap boarding-house for the night.

“The next morning I went on board the Maverick at San Pedro, where I met the Port Commissioner and the crew, who were already on board signed on. Captain Nelson was present. Miller signed on as ‘store-keeper’ and the five Persians as ‘waiters.’

“One of the five Persian waiters, named Jehangir, was evidently the leader and generally kept himself away from the rest. As far as I remember, the names of the others were Khan, Dutt, Deen, and Sham Sher. Later on I discovered that all these were false names. Jehangir’s real name, I believe, was Hari Singh; he signed his accounts and receipts as Hari Singh. I have no idea of the real names of the others.

“Five days after leaving Los Angeles we arrived at San JosÉ del Cabo, 27th April, I think. There Miller left us, and there, at Nelson’s instance, I applied for and got fresh clearance for ‘Anjer, Java, via Pacific Islands.’ This is the first time that any definite port was mentioned to me as the Maverick’s destination. There were evidently two reasons for not obtaining this clearance from the original port of departure; first, they did not want the American authorities to know the precise destination of the Maverick, which already had roused a certain amount of suspicion; and, secondly, because, I am sure, such a clearance as we desired would not be granted by any American port. According to it the Maverick could have touched at every island in the Pacific before arriving at Anjer. Jebsen had given me to understand that we might meet the Annie Larsen at San JosÉ del Cabo, but she was not there; so we left that port on the 28th of April and proceeded to Socorro Island where we arrived at 9 P. M. on the 29th and anchored in a bay some thirty yards off the shore. As we anchored, Nelson informed the crew that he was expecting to meet at that place the schooner Annie Larsen and asked them to be on the lookout for her. Altogether we were twenty-nine days at that island waiting for the schooner, which did not turn up after all. By the time we had anchored it was very dark and the first sign of life on the island was as camp fire close to the shore. Shortly after, a small boat pulled alongside with two American sailors in it. One of them came on the bridge and saw the captain, and after putting the question ‘Are you the people who are looking for the Annie Larsen?’ and getting a reply in the affirmative, he said that the Annie Larsen had been at the island, and being short of water, had left some thirteen days before. He delivered a note to Nelson stating that it was left by the Annie Larsen’s super-cargo, Page. Nelson passed the note over to me to read. It was a short note in English, saying: ‘This will be delivered to you by a member of the crew of the schooner Emma, who will explain his own position. I have been waiting for you a month, and am now going to the Mexican West Coast for supplies and water. I will return as soon as possible. Please await my return.’ (Signed) ‘Page.’

“The sailor man then told the following story: that he and his companion in the boat and two Mexican customs-house officials, who were in camp ashore, had left San JosÉ del Cabo some time before on the small American schooner Emma, with a cargo of bark for the Mexican port of Loreto; that the captain had proven himself incompetent, and they had lost their bearings, and after sailing for many days had eventually arrived at this island, which the master declared was a point close to Manzanillo, but which they discovered to be an island. The mate had died at sea; the master’s name was Clarke. These four men declined to go any farther with the captain of that ship and preferred to be left on the island on the off chance of being picked up by a passing vessel. The captain and the cook, the only other members of the crew, had left some days earlier for the Mexican coast. At the same time the Emma touched the island the Annie Larsen was there, and she provided the castaways with three empty water tanks, a rifle, and a few provisions. Since the departure of the Annie Larsen they were hoping for assistance being sent to them from the Mexican coast. We subsequently discovered that these castaways had rigged up a sort of condenser with the aid of their tanks and some old piping.

“The castaway who came on the Maverick at Socorro further told us that Page had told him that he had left another letter buried somewhere on the island close to the shore by the bay, which could be easily found if we would make a search for it. Assisted by some of the castaways I made a search for the second note left by Page and found it buried in a bottle under a sign which read: ‘Look Here.’ The second note was a lengthy repetition of the first. Page asked us to help the castaways but cautioned us not to take them aboard our ship. He said he would return as soon as he could get water and that we were to wait for him. I returned to the ship with the note and read it out to Nelson. Disregarding Page’s warning not to take the castaways aboard, he immediately asked them to come aboard, if they cared, which they did. They remained on the Maverick till the 6th of May when the American collier (Government ship) Nanshan arrived and took them off.

“The following Thursday, 13th May, H. M. S. Kent arrived; two officers boarded us immediately and examined our papers. They returned and came on again the next morning accompanied by several marines. They made a thorough search of the vessel this time and returned to their ship. Nelson returned the call. On his return Nelson told me that the Kent’s commander had questioned him rather closely as to what the Maverick was doing there and that in reply he had told him that he could not disclose his real purpose but in a roundabout sort of way hinted that she was there in connection with the Mexican troubles. The Kent remained there for about forty hours, during which I struck up an acquaintance with several of the officers. I directed them where good fishing and shooting were to be had and provided them with a few supplies. Although there was no water to be had on that island there were plenty of wild sheep. I am unable to say how they existed without water outside the rainy season.

“The Annie Larsen not turning up, we left about the 26th of May. Just before we left I went ashore and left there two notes in bottles for the Annie Larsen addressed to Page in case the ship should turn up after we had left. I put one of the bottles in a conspicuous place in the castaways’ camp. This note read as follows: ‘Consult our Post Office.’ by ‘our Post Office’ I meant the place where Page himself had buried his note for us. The other bottle I buried where I had found Page’s, and put up another signboard saying ‘Look again.’ This note told Page all that had occurred during our stay at the island and that we were going somewhere where we could get further instructions.

“Immediately after the first boarding party from H. M. S. Kent had left the Maverick after going through our papers, I was sent for by Captain Nelson on the bridge. When I got up there I found him in conversation with Jehangir. I gathered from Nelson that Jehangir had aboard two sacks and six suitcases full of literature which he was very anxious to hide from the Kent. We were expecting another visit from the Kent for the purpose of searching the ship, and Jehangir said he would not like the literature to fall into the hands of the Kent party. Jehangir did not like the idea of destroying the literature and suggested that it should be quietly taken ashore and buried there, pending the departure of the Kent. Neither Nelson nor myself fell in with the suggestion and were of opinion that it should be destroyed straight away, if it were dangerous to retain it. Jehangir eventually agreed to this and said he would just keep a sample of the various papers and pamphlets he had. Nelson grumbled even at that. I am not sure whether Jehangir did really preserve any specimens, but I think he did. The two sacks with their contents and the contents of the six suitcases were immediately burnt in the engine room. I personally saw some of this literature. It was all printed matter in a character unknown to me. Some of it was in newspaper form, some in leaflets, but most of it was in the form of pamphlets; the outside cover being mostly pink. The six empty suitcases were appropriated by various members of the crew, I took one of them myself, and it is with me at the present moment. Later I learned from Jehangir that the literature was printed in San Francisco and copies of it ‘existed’ in Constantinople and Berlin.

“After depositing the two notes on the shore, we weighed anchor. Nelson informed me that he intended proceeding to San Diego....

“After about thirty hours’ absence ashore at San Diego the party returned to the Maverick, bringing with them a few supplies. Nelson informed me that he was now going to Hilo, Hawaii, and when we were well under way he told me that from the Brewster Hotel, San Diego, he had rung up Jebsen at San Francisco on the long distance telephone and was told in reply to wait at the hotel until he heard from him (Jebsen) further. The following morning he got a wire from Jebsen instructing Nelson to proceed to Hilo, Hawaii, where he would receive further orders. Nelson said he had no word of the Annie Larsen.

“We left for Coronados Island on or about the 2d of June and arrived at Hilo on or about the 14th. Port officials came alongside and demanded who we were and what our business was. The captain told them what sort of clearance we had and that we had entered Hilo to communicate with his owners. At about 8 P. M., when it was dark, Captain Elbo, of the war-bound German merchantman Ahlers, came alongside in a small dinghy rowed by one German sailor and asked to be allowed aboard to speak to the captain. Nelson spoke to him over the rail, declining to take the German captain aboard as the health officer had not cleared the ship, but offered to see him the following morning. Before Elbo left, however, he passed a note up to Nelson, who showed it to me later on in his cabin. It read as follows: ‘Maverick is to proceed to Johnson Island and then await the arrival of the schooner Annie Larsen and the rest of the ship’s programme is to be just as settled before,’ namely, that after transferring the cargo to the Maverick, the Maverick was to proceed on her original voyage.

“Later Captain Elbo took us to the office of Hackfield & Company. There we met a young German named Schroeder who, Elbo gave us to understand, was the chief representative of the Maverick Company at Honolulu and had specially come down to Hilo to meet Nelson about Maverick’s future plans. It appeared that while we were still at the Collector’s office a war-telegrams slip had been out, and among other items of interest was mentioned the arrival in Hilo of the mysterious ship Maverick, whose captain had made a statement that he had been trading in the South Sea Islands and he intended leaving for Anjer, Java, stopping at Johnson Island on the way. Schroeder had seen this slip just before we called on him and was apparently highly indignant that Nelson should have disclosed the future movements of the Maverick to the press representative. Schroeder told Nelson that it would be impossible for him to permit him, Nelson, to go on to Johnson Island after the news had been made public and that he, Schroeder, would have now to recast his plans. He asked Nelson to wait at Hilo till he should hear from him from Honolulu, where he, Schroeder, must return to arrange for fresh plans. At Nelson’s request Schroeder authorized Hackfield to pay all bills ‘O. K.’d’ by Nelson and to give him such money as he might require.

“Thus we were at Hilo close on two weeks, during which time I personally attended to all the ship’s needs. I was assisted by Captain Elbo.

“A couple of days before we sailed from Hilo, Nelson and I met Elbo and another captain of a war-bound German merchantman in Honolulu, who, we were told, had specially come down to give Nelson final instructions. The Honolulu captain told us that the original plans of the Maverick were now finally abandoned, as it was impossible to use the Maverick any more for the purpose she was intended for, in view of the notoriety she had obtained. The Maverick was now to proceed to Anjer, Java, calling at Johnson Island; that on arrival at Anjer she was to clear for Batavia and report herself to Behn Meyers, the Maverick Company’s agents. Elbo and the Honolulu captain came aboard the Maverick. The Honolulu captain had a private talk with me alone in my cabin. He handed me a sealed packet which evidently contained a plate of something heavy. The letter was unaddressed. I was instructed to hand this over to Helfferich at Behn Meyers upon arrival in Batavia. I did not know then who this Helfferich was, nor did I ask who he was. I was merely told that he was the manager of Behn Meyers. I was asked to be careful of that letter, and I was not to give it to anybody else. Shortly after, the Honolulu captain and Elbo left, and we put to sea.

“When we were a couple or three days out of Hilo, Hari Singh, during a conversation, referred once more to the literature we had destroyed at Socorro, and said that it was the product of many of his countrymen who were in America and that he himself had contributed to it. He claimed to have the whole of it by heart and could repeat it without mistake. He was evidently an exile, for he said that ‘during the many years of his exile from India’ he had at various times written a good deal against the British rule in India. He gave me to understand that formerly he belonged to the Indian Army. He said his home was in the far interior of the country inhabited by ignorant classes, and that if he could only succeed in getting to them, he would easily incite them to revolt against the British Government by promising to provide them with arms and ammunition. He was still under the impression that we were on our way to India, and said that he knew the place we were bound for very well, and so did the other four, and that he could be of great assistance after we got there.

“We got to Johnson Island five days after our departure from Hilo. There was no Annie Larsen there. I went ashore together with the mate and left a bottle with a message as follows: ‘The American steamer Maverick entered and cleared here to-day.’ We left there the same afternoon and made for Anjer, Java. After over three weeks’ voyage we arrived at Anjer about the 20th of July. After examination we asked for and obtained permission to proceed to Batavia, and we set sail the same afternoon accompanied by a Dutch torpedo boat. Early next morning we arrived outside Batavia, and later we were taken into port by the harbour master.

“Two or three days outside Anjer I read the letter made over to me by Jebsen at Los Angeles for Page. Owing to Jebsen’s warning to be careful about it, I had always carried this letter on my person so as not to lose it. The result was that the envelope had almost fallen to bits; now and again I put the letter, together with the old cover, into a new envelope, but toward the end they, too, got broken up. So I had not to open it to read it. The contents were type-written in German, and were a sheet and a half of the ordinary square business paper. As far as I am able to recollect, the letter read as follows: ‘Upon the meeting of the Annie Larsen with the Maverick at ... (blank) the transhipment of the cargo must be commenced at once. The official reason to be given out was that the Maverick is going to Batavia or some other Oriental port to be sold or chartered. It may be suggested that she is good for oil trade on the China Coast. The cases containing rifles should be stowed in one of the two empty tanks and flooded, and the cases of ammunition should be placed in the other, but need not be flooded unless as a last resort. Maverick should then proceed to Anjer, Java. No attempt is to be made to escape from British warships, if encountered at sea, nor should she try to avoid meeting merchantmen or warships of other nationalities. In case of her meeting a warship she should act in a manner absolutely open and above suspicion. In case of her being boarded by enemy officers all cordiality should be shown to them, and, in fact, an inspection should actually be offered, to put them off their suspicion. Under no condition is the steamer or the cargo to be permitted to fall into their hands. Should the cargo be discovered, and should there be no escape from capture, the Captain is ordered not to hesitate to have recourse to the last resort, namely, to sink the ship. Upon arriving at Anjer the Maverick will be met in the Sunda Strait by a small friendly boat which will instruct you regarding further details. Should you not be met at Anjer you are to proceed to Bangkok, where you are to arrive toward dusk. Here you will be met by a German pilot who will give you further instructions; should you not be met here, also, you are to proceed to Karachi. Outside Karachi the Maverick is to be met by numerous small friendly fishing craft. The fishing craft, together with the five blacks aboard, will attend to the unloading and landing of the cargo. Two of the blacks should go ashore immediately on arrival and proceed inland to notify your arrival to “the people”. The remaining three blacks and the friendly natives will assist in burying the cargo. Should no friendly fishing boats meet you, two of the blacks should go ashore and do the notifying of the people.’

“After the mission was over, that is whether the Maverick was successful or not, she was to go to Batavia and report to Behn Meyers & Company. The last instruction in the letter was that all undelivered papers were to be handed over to Behn Meyers. In accordance with this I made over the letter to Helfferich on our arrival.

“After we had been in the harbour (Batavia) for about an hour or so a German came aboard and introduced himself as Kolbe, 2d Officer of the war-bound merchantman Silesia. Nelson signed me to leave them alone, which I did. After they had conversed for about twenty minutes, Kolbe, Nelson, and myself went ashore together and motored down to Helfferich’s residence at Konigsplein W. 8. On the way we stopped at the American Consulate; Nelson went in alone. While waiting for him outside in the car I had a talk with Kolbe. He knew all about the Maverick and her mission. When I told him that I should like to interview the manager of Behn Meyers to deliver the letter given to me by Dinart at Hilo, Kolbe replied that Helfferich, the man we were on our way to, was the manager and I could make the letter over to him. Dinart had not mentioned Helfferich by name at the time of handing the letter to me. He asked me just to deliver it to Behn Meyers. When Nelson joined us again we proceeded to Helfferich’s place where I met for the first time the brothers Theodore and Emile Helfferich. Kolbe and I retired to another part of the house while Nelson and the brothers held a conversation for half an hour or so. After Nelson had done, he left with Kolbe, leaving me with the brothers. I spent about an hour with them. I gave Theodore Helfferich Dinart’s letter which he opened in my presence. It was a typewritten sheet in code. Helfferich said it would take him some time to decode it. The ‘weight’ inside the letter I have spoken of was what looked like a thin slab of lead enclosed in another cover. Helfferich opened this cover and on seeing that it was a thin slab, threw it aside without taking the trouble of examining it closely. I have no idea what it was for, but I imagine that in case it had to be suddenly thrown overboard the weight inside the cover would sink the letter at once. I told them all about our trip, and showed them the letters I had brought with me. Helfferich read the letter intended for Page, and remarked that the arrangements made at this end were substantially the same as those indicated in the letter. He said the signals were the same, and password was the same, and the code was the same. Emile spoke up and said that he had waited for the Maverick for three weeks in the Sunda Strait. They deeply regretted the failure of the Maverick in not bringing the arms and said that their arrangements on this side were excellent and they were only waiting the arrival of the cargo when they could have easily put their whole scheme through. They observed that ‘the people’ in India were all ready and prepared and had only been waiting for the arms to turn up. They did not discuss their own scheme with me. Theodore Helfferich expressed his disgust at the Maverick being thrust upon him and could not understand the object of her being sent to Batavia when she was not carrying the cargo, and when she could have as easily returned to America. It was then arranged that I should take up my lodging in a hotel ashore and in the meantime Helfferich would decipher the code letter. Things were to be left alone until he had read that.

“A couple of days after, I was rung up by Helfferich and I went and saw him at his place in the evening. He had deciphered the letter which had ‘originated’ from San Francisco. Helfferich said that the letter directed the abandonment of the Maverick, which was either to be sold or chartered to anybody or that she could be used for any regular purpose if Helfferich so desired. She was, if not sold, to be retained in this part of the world and on no account to be returned to America.”

So fizzled the German-Hindu gun-running expedition to India. The Maverick had arrived, with five “Persians” and no guns, at a Dutch port in the Indies—not India. The Hindus and the crew scattered to the winds; Starr-Hunt started to return to Los Angeles but was detained by the British authorities at Singapore, and ultimately appeared in the Federal court-room at San Francisco as the chief witness for the Government in its case against the German consul and his staff, the complacent Americans, and the Hindu conspirators. The Annie Larsen wandered up and down the Pacific Coast, and finally put in at Hoquiam, Wash., where she was promptly seized and her cargo of arms and ammunition locked up by the United States Government.

Von Brincken bore bitter testimony to the failure of the Maverick expedition, in the course of a “Report Concerning My Activities at the Imperial Consulate in San Francisco, California”—a report written November 10, 1916, and intended for the eyes of the German Foreign Office. He said:

“I complied with that instruction and met Ram Chandra and other leaders of the Hindu Nationalists, and there laid the foundation for the entire Hindu work which has since then been carried out here on the Pacific.... Up to the present date, I have fulfilled this assignment absolutely alone.... Mr. Von Schack has seen Ram Chandra only a few times during the entire period—while Consul-General Bopp saw the man only once. I had nothing to do with the ship-matters in connection with the Hindu affair. Therefore, I am not responsible for the failure of the ‘Maverick Expedition.’ I had only planned the point of landing at Karachi. Besides, through messengers, I had prepared the populace of the Punjab for the arrival of the Maverick.”

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.

Ram Chandra’s real-estate ventures got him into trouble. They gave the needed opportunity to his rival for control of the Hindu organization in California. This rival was Bhagwan Singh, the poet and orator of the “Movement.” Late in 1916, he accused Ram Chandra of stealing Hindu funds. The directors of the Hindu Pacific Coast Association investigated the charge, and threw Ram Chandra out. Bhagwan Singh became president of the association and editor of the Ghadr. A few months later, when the United States entered the war, the whole crew was arrested, along with the German agents in San Francisco and Honolulu and with the Americans and German-Americans implicated in the Maverick enterprise.

The trial of these men was one of the most picturesque scenes ever enacted in an American court. In the prisoner’s dock aggressive blond German officers sat beside anaemic, swarthy, turbaned Hindus and plain American business men. To make the evidence intelligible to the jury, a map of half the world was painted on one wall of the court-room, showing America and Asia and the Pacific Ocean, splotched with red dots and routes of travel. Beside the map were printed the names of the defendants, so that their strangeness might be somewhat simplified. Among the polyglot evidence were Hindu publications in six Oriental languages, including Persian; cipher messages which, when deciphered, proved to be an Indian revolutionist’s letters which had to be translated by reference to page and line of an American’s book about “Germany and the Germans”; enciphered code, written in Berlin by the German Foreign Minister, transmitted to Stockholm and thence by the Swedish Government to Buenos Aires and thence by Count Luxburg to Bernstorff in Washington, telling him to pay an East Indian in New York money for use in San Francisco to send arms to revolutionists near Calcutta—besides other oddities of men and places and documents too numerous to mention.

The episode of the Maverick and the Annie Larsen occupied a large place in the trial. One of the humours of that fiasco was the proof that “Juan Bernardo Bowen,” of Topolobampo, Mexico, was a romantic imagining to conceal plain Bernard Manning of San Diego. There was no Juan Bernardo. The man who got Tauscher’s shipment of arms for the Annie Larsen was Manning.

The prosecution proved that the funds for the purchase of the Maverick and for the charter of the Annie Larsen were got from the German Consulate’s bank accounts in San Francisco, and were concealed by an elaborate jugglery through a chain of American lawyers and shipping agents in San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego.

The end of the story is briefly told in the following despatch to the New York Sun, dated San Francisco, April 24, 1918:

Twenty-nine men, charged with conspiring on American soil to start a revolution against British rule in India, were found guilty by a jury in Federal Court early to-day.

Just as court adjourned for the noon recess yesterday, the last day of the trial, Ram Singh, a defendant, shot and killed Ram Chandra, another defendant. United States Marshal James Holohan shot Ram Singh dead in his tracks.