The great adventure of Panama; wherein are exposed its relation to the great war and also the luminous traces of the German conspiracies against France and the United States

Front matter

Lieut. -Colonel Philippe Bunau-Varilla

From a bust by Malvina Hoffman (1919)

Wherein Are Exposed Its Relation to the Great War and also the Luminous Traces of

Dedication

I dedicate this book to the great FERDINAND DE LESSEPS and to his eminent coadjutor, CHARLES DE LESSEPS, the Creators of the Panama Canal; to the great THEODORE ROOSEVELT and to his eminent coadjutors, JOHN HAY and FRANCIS B. LOOMIS, the Resurrectors of the Panama Canal, whose Franco-American work has been the cradle of the Victory won through the Franco-American Union over the treacherous Boches,1 the Destructors of the Panama Canal Enterprise.

PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA, Paris, September, 1919.

1 Iii this book, it has been thought justified to employ the word "Boche," instead of the word "German," when speaking of the brutal, immoral, and treacherous acts of Germany toward her friends or her neighbours.

Preface

ON THE first page of his book, "Face to Face with Kaiserism," the Hon. James W. Gerard, former Ambassador of the United States to Germany, wrote on April 1, 1918:

What I want especially to impress upon the people of the United States is that we are at war because Germany invaded the United States — an invasion insidiously conceived and vigorously prosecuted for years before hostilities began.

My purpose hi writing this present book is to show that the German invasion was not limited to the United States, that the Boche insidious conspiracies are and were always built up in all the countries of the earth; that in these conspiracies a constant use is made of the internal strifes about purely domestic affairs in order to prepare the ways of German military aggressions.

In the diplomatic laboratories of the Wilhelmstrasse, the political opinions, religious divergencies, economic conflicts of the various nations

vii vin Preface

have been for many years carefully analyzed and systematically combined for the military use of Germany, just as in the chemical laboratories of the General Staff the various hydrocarbides have been carefully analyzed and systematically combined with oxygen and nitrogen for the same military use of Germany.

The moral poisoned gases of the diplomatic laboratories have not been less efficient, nor less dangerous for Germany's victims, than the physical ones of her chemical laboratories.

I am going to expose to light a sector of this universal Boche system for utilizing the internal political passions of the various nations, in the interest of the German plans of aggression and conquest.

I hope in doing this to call the vigilance of these various nations to the dangers of such German conspiracies in the future.

It would be the greatest folly to think that an apparent change of government in Berlin really means the cessation of these dastardly plots. They form part of Prussia's policy since centuries; they will not be abandoned for what is thought by her to be a temporary reverse; they are in progress to-day and they will be in progress to-morrow

Preface ix

eveiy where, just with the same activity and brazen perfidy as they were before and during the World War. Is it not a sufficient demonstration of that statement to show Bernstorff, the Boche arch conspirator and German Ambassador in the United States during the war, placed, after the so-called German revolution, in a leading and preponderant situation at the German Foreign Office in Berlin?

I also hope, in publishing these extracts of the notes taken during my life's activities, to show to Colombia that the Boche conspiracies were the real origin of her sufferings in the Panama question; that Germany had succeeded in making her the catspaw during the Boche attempts to treacherously acquire the political and economical control of the great highway between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

I hope that it will be the origin of a reaction in the Colombian mind and that Bogota will at last find out who has been her arch enemy, Germany, and who has always been her sincere friend, the United States. If Colombia was to be finally brought to stigmatize as traitors the Boche intriguers who have led her blindly to obstruct the generous and civilizing undertaking of the United x Preface

States at Panama, it would be the most felicitous event for the moral peace of this hemisphere.

If Colombia could extend loyally her hand to the United States and to Panama and renew the cordial relations of old days, without accepting a sum of money which it does not behoove her dignity to receive, this would be the beginning of a new era in Central America.

The capital and energy of American enterprise would soon develop in Colombia the hidden wealth of her gifted territory, and give a hundred times more than the amount of an unjustified indemnity for the secession of Panama.

The writer of this book, who never ceased to be a sincere friend of Colombia, though having openly helped, as was his duty, the legitimate rebellion of Panama against Colombia, would greet with intense joy such a reconciliation. It would be permanent and stable because it would not be based on the grant of a sum of money which, in the future action of the Boche at Bogota, would form a solid base for renewed calumnies against the United States.

The Colombian statesmen who have served an anti-American policy in the Panama affair, when they believed sincerely that policy to be inspired

Preface xi

by the most patriotic principles, owe to their country and to the world to condemn it now that it is demonstrated to have been "made in Germany," for the preparation of the greatest crime against Humanity.

In acknowledging the error of the past and in opening the highway for inter- American friendship in the future, they will well serve the moral and substantial interests of their noble and beautiful country.

No doubt shall remain, in the mind of a disinterested reader, about the criminal conspiracies grafted by Germany on the financial and political questions raised by the Panama Canal enterprise, both against France and the United States.

No doubt shall remain either about the fatal influence these conspiracies would have had on the end of the World War if they had not been strenuously fought.

The Great Adventure of Panama, which is the history of the struggle for the triumph of the French Panama Canal idea, is also that of the efforts to checkmate these conspiracies. It is, therefore, intimately linked with the glorious war of 1914-1919.

xii Preface

It forms its antechamber, as the boche-inspired Mexican Adventure of Napoleon the Third formed the ante-chamber of the disastrous war of 1870-71.

To understand well the bearing which the great Adventure of Panama had on the final defeat of Germany, it is necessary to examine first, minutely, what weapons Germany had prepared to assault France, and what weapons France had prepared to preserve her liberty and integrity.

It is also necessary to examine, minutely, the main factors which decided the victory of civilization.

The first chapters of this book deal almost exclusively with these preponderant factors of the great victory. They also show the always-menacing " Occult Power of Germany." This obvious danger demonstrates the necessity of organizing to-morrow a powerful barrier against the recurrence of German crimes: the intimate defensive union of the three great western democracies, the United States, Great Britain, and France.

PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA.

November, 1919.

Chapter IV ; 35 The Occult Power Of Germany

THE BOCHE CONSPIRACY IN MEXICO (1861-63)

PREPARING THE PROVOCATION OF 1870

THE BOCHE CONSPIRACY IN FRANCE, (1888-92), TO

WRECK THE PANAMA CANAL, IN ORDER TO CREATE

THE DEPRESSED STATE OF MIND NECESSARY FOR

THE PREMEDITATED AGGRESSION

xiii xiv Table of Contents

PAGE

CHAPTER VII 81

CAMPAIGN IN AMERICA AGAINST THE NICARAGUA CANAL TO COUNTERCHECK THE BOCHE CON- SPIRACY TO ANNIHILATE THE PANAMA CANAL

CHAPTER VIII ........ 104

AMERICAN CONGRESS BETWEEN PANAMA AND NICARAGUA

CHAPTER IX. 115

THE BOCHE INTRIGUES IN BOGOTA IN 1902 TO

PREVENT THE ADOPTION OF PANAMA BY THE

UNITED STATES

CHAPTER X 143

VARIOUS TRACES OF BOCHE INTRIGUE IN BOGOTA FOR DEFEATING IN 1903 THE ADOPTION OF THE PANAMA CANAL BY THE UNITED STATES AFTER SHE HAD RESOLVED TO Do so AND SIGNED THE HAY-HERRAN TREATY

CHAPTER XI 154

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S TESTIMONY RELATIVE TO THE BREAKDOWN — THANKS TO A VERBAL ULTI- MATUM TO GERMANY AT THE END OF 1902 — OF THE BOCHE-CAMOUFLAGED NAVAL AND DIPLO- MATIC OPERATIONS TO OBTAIN ON THE VENE- ZUELAN SHORES A MILITARY BASE COMMANDING THE PANAMA CANAL

Table of Contents xv

PAGE

CHAPTER XII 160

THE AUTHOR'S TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE BREAKDOWN — THANKS TO THE PANAMA REVOLU- TION, IN NOVEMBER, 1903 — OP THE CONCEALED BOCHE DIPLOMATIC OPERATIONS TO OBTAIN FROM COLOMBIA: FIRST, THE REJECTION OF ANY TREATY WITH THE UNITED STATES; SECOND, THE CONFISCA- TION IN THE AUTUMN OF 1904 OF THE FRENCH PANAMA CANAL COMPANY'S PROPERTIES AND CON- CESSIONS; THIRD, THE TRANSFER OF THESE PROPERTIES AND CONCESSIONS TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT MASQUERADING UNDER THE DIS- GUISE OF A "STRICTLY COLOMBIAN CORPORATION"

CHAPTER XIII 260

CHAPTER I The Tools of Victory

OF COURSE most people will think that the main cause of the Allies' victory was the heroism displayed by their troops on French soil. Others will put on the same plane the elastic plasticity of America, England, and France promptly adapting their physical and spiritual resources to the unexpected necessities of the war. It goes with-

(out saying that these two great moral and intellectual factors played the master part in the drama. But, alone, they would have been insufficient. Outside of heroism Victory needed certain tools without which the most admirable outbursts of patriotism and of the spirit of sacrifice would have been in vain.

We are living in a mechanical age in which the inventions of the engineer enormously extend the scope of man's action. However great and noble

\ Adventure of Panama

may be the share of the soldier's spirit in the result of the battle, it may be stated that it is only a small fraction of the part played by certain mechanisms, by what may be termed the "Tools of Victory."

THE "75" WHIPS THE GEKMAN MACHINE GUN

The principal tool that the Prussians had prepared to finish in 1914 the conquest of Europe, which they had begun in 1619, was the machine gun. To this deadly weapon they had assigned the task of wiping out the unprepared French legions. They relied on it to open to the triumphant Kaiser the highroad nach Paris, within a couple of weeks from the opening of hostilities.

The first clash between German and French troops entirely justified the hopes laid on the machine guns. In Alsace, in Lorraine, in Belgium — at Charleroi and at Mons — the French regiments were mown down as hay by a mowing machine. The perfection of the new weapon was equal to the perfection of the method with which it was employed in order to obtain the highest efficiency. On certain battlefields one could see dead French soldiers fallen in regular alignments, to all appearance as if lying down ready to spring to their feet and storm the enemy's lines. Prussia had the machine gun ready for her aggression of 1914, as she had the needle-gun ready for her aggressions of 1866 and 1870. But on the other side France had prepared a magnificent weapon of defence, the famous "75" gun, the saviour of humanity.

The military genius of Joffre inspired him to retire toward the Marne after the defeat of Charleroi, which was entirely due to the German machine gun. He withdrew the whole French army from contact with the deadly new weapon, and brought it back one hundred and fifty miles. He had resolved to meet the enemy in the valley of the Seine with an adequate volley of "75" shells.

During the progress of this monumental movement, however, he modified this decision. He decided to stop the Boche before he should reach the valley of the Seine and to throw him back when passing the plateaux between the Marne and the Seine. There, on a gigantic front such as never had been seen before in any war, took place the historic duel between the German machine gun and the French "75."

The French "75" won; the machine gun was thoroughly beaten. The German hordes were thrown back — not in one point but on all points: (a) east of Meaux, between the Marne and the Ourcq, by General Maunoury; (6) at Fere Champenoise, between the Marne and the Seine, by General Foch; (c) at Verdun, by General Sarrail; (d) at Nancy, by General de Castelnau.

The "75" was everywhere triumphant. . It saved France; it saved civilization. It had beaten and repulsed the most famous German divisions, whipped the most illustrious German generals. It forced the Chief of the Imperial Staff, Von Moltke, to exclaim to his master these fateful words: "Majesty, the war is lost!"

French heroism had obeyed Joffre's celebrated order of the sixth of September, 1914:

At the moment when a battle is engaged on the result of which rests the life of our country, it is important to remind all that it is no longer time to look behind.

All efforts must be employed to attack and drive back the enemy. A force which cannot advance any farther shall, no matter at what cost, retain the conquered ground and be killed on tlie spot rather than to fall back.

If every French soldier was not killed at his post; if, on the contrary, death mowed down the Germans and forced them to look behind, it was due to the "75." To this magnificent creation of French mechanical genius must go out the gratitude of the world. It was the great tool of the Victory in the First Battle of the Marne, the glorious mechanism that drove back the Boche from Meaux to Nancy in 1914. It was the great tool of Victory which held the Boche at bay before Verdun in 1916, before Amiens in 1918. It was the famous gun which finally drove back into Germany, broken and disrupted, the plague army which in 1914 had triumphantly violated the "scrap of paper," the very object of which had been the protection of Belgium by Germany.

HOW FRANCE ACQUIRED THE "75"

Toward the end of the decade following the war of 1870-71, French genius effected a radical transformation in the military value of the artillery. Turpin discovered melinite, the high explosive which was sufficiently stable to be employed in a shell. The high explosives hitherto known, such as dynamite, would have exploded in the gun, owing to the jerk caused by the impulsion transmitted by the combustion of the powder.

Turpin discovered that picric acid, otherwise termed melinite, was the ideal body. Its force at the moment of explosion equalled that of dynamite and its stability was such that it remained unchanged during the critical instant of its passage through the gun. It was found, too, that melinite could be handled with perfect security. No risk attended the filling of the shells which, when fired, acquired almost instantaneously a muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet per second. Turpin had solved the great military problem of showering on the enemy, by gunfire, unlimited quantities of high explosives enclosed in shells.

But another great problem remained to be solved.

Artillery without accuracy is the greatest of delusions. To accomplish a military result, to stop the advance of enemy troops, artillery must spray them, and the ground ahead of them, with shells. But these shells must spread death and terror not only by their explosion, but also by the rapidity and accuracy of their fall. And to discover a means to ensure such accuracy and rapidity of fire was the problem still to be solved.

Prior to 1890 all guns were entirely displaced by the recoil. They had to be put back again in approximately the same place after each shot, and this necessitated a series of movements that had to be effected by the gunners. It is hardly necessary to say that, even during peace manoeuvres, a gun could never be replaced precisely in its previous position; but that, during a battle, under the enemy's fire, such an operation was always a pure chimera.

Toward the end of the second decade following the war of 1870-71 various artillery staffs began to study the great problem of devising an automatic return of the gun to its original position after firing. The principle to be resorted to was soon devised. The solution consisted in establishing, between the gun proper and its carriage, as intermediary, an elastic appliance — a sort of shock absorber. This elastic system was to store, while bringing the gun to a standstill, the momentum of the gun during its recoil. The automatic return of the gun to its original position, thanks to the elasticity of the recoil absorber, naturally followed. It was a simple restitution of a part of the energy absorbed during the recoil, the remainder of the energy being expended in heat and friction.

This could be arrived at either by the employment of springs, or by a system consisting of a combination of air and of a fluid matter such as water. It was the system known by the name of " hydro-pneumatic brake."

In either case the carriage, which was to be anchored to the ground by a spade driven into it, was to remain immovable during the firing.

The spring system, being the simplest, was easier to devise and construct but was also a very inferior solution. The absorption of the momentum of the recoiling gun could not be effected so as entirely to avoid jerks — and, consequently, the slight displacement of the carriage and of the gun.*

The combination of air and water — the so-called hydro-pneumatic brake — on the contrary, was a much more satisfactory invention. But there were, on the other hand, great practical drawbacks in its construction and operation. The Krupp's works at Essen initiated the experiments but, after many efforts, found it impracticable and rejected this device.

French artillery officers, however, under the direction of Colonel Deport, conducted experiments along similar lines, and succeeded admirably.

*In fact, to obtain the desired result it was necessary both (a) to transform into heat by the use of brakes a part of the energy of the gun during its recoil, and (b> to absorb by an elastic appliance the rest of that energy.

The use of springs allowed only for the storage of energy but not for the elimination of a part of the momentum by the action of the brake.

They evolved slowly but surely the marvellous weapon which was to save France and the world from the horrible yoke of brutal Prussian tyranny. When the gun was ready the question was: How will it be put in use in the French army?

HOW PRESIDENT FAURE SAVED FRANCE, THANKS TO THE "75"

The expense involved for equipping the artillery with the new field gun was about $100,000,000. To spend such a sum, or even a much smaller amount, it was necessary to open a debate in the House and in the Senate in order to get the credits. Such a debate could not but expose to world-wide publicity the masterpiece evolved in the laboratories of the French Ordnance Department. To obey the precepts of the Constitution would have been to place in jeopardy the very life of the nation.

At that time the head of the French Government was not — as is almost invariably the case — a lawyer. He was a merchant, a business man, the head of a firm dealing in leather; he was President Felix Faure.

If the head of the State had been a lawyer he would certainly have been dominated by respect for the majesty of constitutional law. He would

K> The Oreat Adventure of Panama

have requested the Parliament to vote a statute authorizing the new artillery and to open the corresponding credits. His professional ethics would not have allowed him even to consider any other solution.

But Felix Faure's professional conscience did not conceal from his eyes, behind the majestic garb of the Law, the exceptional and high responsibility thrown upon him by circumstances. To preserve France he violated the constitutional law. To save France he broke his primary and essential obligation to protect the Constitution and to enforce its laws. And Felix Faure thus accomplished the act which, a quarter of a century later, saved France and the world.

No man deserves a greater tribute of gratitude from humanity than this one-time obscure merchant. The accidents of politics brought him to the highest office of France. His term of office at the Elysee was not conspicuous except for this single remarkable and extraordinary act. He violated his oath of ottkv in order to endow France with the weapon which later permitted her to beat back the German aggressor. Without that weapon — or with a Germany possessing an identical one — France and the world would have become the martyred slave of the Teutonic Knights.

In order to safeguard his honour F£lix Faure took as witnesses of his action the members of the Committee of Ways and Means of the House. He summoned them to the Elyseo and bound them by oath not to reveal to any one what was going to happen. He then unfolded before his astonished audience his determination to spend one hundred million dollars of the public money without any authorization of the Parliament. Thus, without attracting the enemy's attention, was France ensured the creation of that precious artillery which was eventually to be the safeguard of civilization. It may be added, to the honour of the members of the Committee of Ways and Means, that the secret was scrupulously kept, and only leaked out many years later — when the "75" was accomplishing its providential task.

The necessity to keep absolutely secret the decision to transform our field artillery is obvious, in view of the following facts :

1. Germany, a few years before, had reconstructed all her field artillery and created the 77- millimetre gun. It was mounted on the ordinary rigid carriage of old days.

2. The studies made in France and in Germany to obtain the elastic intermediary between the gun proper and the carriage could lead either to the inferior (but more simple) method of using steel recoil springs, or to the superior (and perfect) method of the hydro-pneumatic brakes.

3. As we know, the tentative application of the second method had failed at Essen but later succeeded in the French arsenals.

4. The public discussion of the credits necessary for the new guns would certainly have shown to our enemies our technical success in the solution of the problem. It would have whipped their vanity.

5. They would have made new experiments and possibly succeeded where previously they had failed. Following in our footsteps they would have remade all their field artillery and acquired a position of equality with the French army on this vital point.

The strict secrecy with which the "75" was adopted concealed the situation for a long time from the German eyes.

Simultaneously a very clever ruse de guerre was carried out in order entirely to mislead the constantly spying Boche.

A gun of our then-existing field artillery — a 90-millimetre calibre with rigid carriage — was transformed into a new type provided with steel recoil springs. It was the inferior system France wished Germany to adopt for her "77" field gun. The transformed field gun was carefully packed, covered with two successive strata of planks and cloth, all carefully sealed, and then shipped to the direction of the artillery at Nancy, France.

During the night a German spy, conveniently and properly misled by clever agents of our counter-espionage, attached the car to a train leaving Nancy for Metz. The car and its supposedly precious contents never were returned and some weeks later it became known that Germany had decided to transform her "77" field gun with the simple system of steel recoil springs.

The shark had swallowed the bait!

This is how, about a quarter of a century in advance, the result of the great war was predetermined! Thus France got her marvellous weapon the "75".

We shall speak later on of another creation of the French genius, the Panama Canal. It was begun approximately ten years before the "75"

began to be studied. It had a vital part in developing the political conditions which made it possible to feed the "75" hi powder and in high explosive shells.

This is how France was saved from the impending disaster of a German onrush.

This also explains how Germany, abused by her own method of espionage, was cleverly enticed to adopt the secondary, the faulty method.

CHAPTER II The encirclement of Germany's enemies by the dye industry

THE romantic story of the adoption of the hydro-pneumatic brake for the "75" by France, and of the steel spring for the "77" by Germany is typically French. Resourcefulness, quickness of decision, scientific spirit, cleverness of action, devotion to duty in the highest sense of the word, all that is to be found in the preceding lines.

In those that follow we shall see, on the opposite, the French faults. The incredible blindness of her administration, the complete lack of method, of system, and of initiative in a question of such capital importance is simply amazing. All the advance which the French genius, the spirit of selfsacrifice of her first magistrate had given her, was almost reduced to naught by the incredible torpidity of her government.

We have seen that the invention of Turpin had made it possible to fill the shells of the "75"

with a high explosive, melinite. France owed to the irradiating brains of her sons the possession of the best field gun and the best shell. She entered the war, which was unchained in 1914 by the criminal ambition of the Teutonic Knights, with about 4,000 "75" guns. She had some ammunition to begin with, but for the all-important melinite she had to get the greater part of her new supplies from sources outside of France. It may seem beyond belief, but this source was — Germany!

This seems incredible, but it is a fact!

The blindness of the French Administration, the deceiving songs of the pacifists as to the impossibility of a European war, had gradually led France to get engulfed in the methodic and devilish entanglement of the German dyestuff industry.

HYPOCRISY OF THE PEACEFUL DYE INDUSTRY

The terrible situation in which France, as well as Great Britain and Russia, was placed by the lack of ammunitions after the earlier battles of the war is explained thus:

"Who makes dyes to-day can to-morrow make high explosives — with the same men, with the same plant, with the same materials, provided he disposes also of oxidized nitrogen."

The dye industry and the high-explosive industry are so intimately connected as to be virtually one. In fact, melinite and trinitrotoluene are nothing but hydrocarbides, extracted from distilled coal tar, in which is incorporated oxidized nitrogen.

Germany had established all over the world the monopoly of her apparently innocent dye industry. It was the scientific noose which was going to strangle all her enemies after the first months of war owing to the famine of explosives.

The vile methods of warfare admirably condensed by the celebrated Count Luxburg, the minister of Germany to Argentina — suggesting neutral ships should be sunk "without leaving traces" — were also followed in peace. The same men who enjoyed the hospitality of the United States, while depositing bombs with time fuses in the ships leaving the American wharves, were active during peace times also.

The dye industry being for everybody, except Germany, a peaceful one, and, for Germany only, a war industry, it was protected against competition by German war methods.

Whenever a non-German dye appeared either in France, Great Britain or America, immediately it was stifled under an avalanche of German goods.

If, however, the competitor resisted the business pressure he was soon put out of commission by purely Boche trickery.

Suitable additions of nocuous substances were made by criminal hands in the mills of the users of non-German dyes. Everybody was soon convinced that non-German dyes did not possess the standard qualities necessary for their industrial use. By this double method in time of peace — dumping and sabotage — the Boche acquired the practical monopoly of the dye industry. Freetrade nations were glad of it. The innocent economists and the candid pacifists were conveniently misled while in fact the monopoly of the dye industry constituted the control of explosives by Prussia. She alone was capable of making the explosives on a large scale, when she should decide to let loose her dogs of war and to complete the task which she had begun in 1619. This monopoly was to ensure her conquest of the world.

Everybody remembers the universal complaints about the absence of dyes when the war was declared by Germany. Nobody, of course, remembers any complaint about the absence of explosives. It was, however, the very same question. The manufacture of dyes was the manufacture of explosives. The various nations abstained, naturally, from exposing their incredible blindness and the almost criminal neglect of their governments in not having taken, during peace, adequate protective measures. Their stock of material for providing their artillery with high-explosive shells was practically just sufficient for the first weeks of the war.

Germany alone was capable of the industrial effort necessary to furnish the large masses of explosives required for the war. She had of the plant, she had of the personnel, she had of the raw material.

She had also succeeded in freeing herself from the necessity of importing nitrates from Chili. Chili, on the contrary, was the only source open to Germany's blind enemies for obtaining the oxidized nitrogen which is the essential element of high explosive, or of gunpowder.

Thanks to supreme technical efforts she had succeeded in devising the proper scientific and industrial methods to extract from the atmosphere the oxidized nitrogen necessary for the manufaci