When the proposals took shape in Congress, there was one overarching flaw. Senator Aldrich insisted on appending his name to it, despite Paul Warburg’s warning that it would automatically be associated with Wall Street and prove an unnecessary obstacle. The ego prevailed, and Warburg’s concerns proved justified. The Aldrich proposals never went to a vote. President Taft refused to support his bill on the grounds that it would not impose sufficient government control over the banks. The money power decided that Taft had to go. Their support in the 1912 presidential election swung behind the little-known Democrat candidate, Woodrow Wilson. The speed with which Wilson was bounced from his post at Princeton University in 1910 to governor of New Jersey in 1911, then Democratic Party nominee for the presidency in 1912 made him the Solomon Grundy of US politics. Grass-roots Democrats in New Jersey were opposed to having Wilson imposed on them by ‘the big interests’ in New York,74 but they quickly caved in.
Rarely has there ever been such a concerted and focused effort to remove a Republican president from office and replace him with a Democrat party-puppet. Sponsored by Cleveland H. Dodge, director of Rockefeller’s National City Bank, and a friend of both Rockefeller and Morgan, Woodrow Wilson was thrust into the presidential race in 1912. The money power opened a campaign office for him at 42 Broadway, and over two-thirds of his campaign funds came directly from Wall Street.75 Wilson lied about his politics during the campaign and betrayed the Democratic heritage of Presidents Jefferson and Jackson by courting the bankers and representing their interests. His public utterances were a masterclass in hypocrisy.76 He campaigned in 1912 under the banner of ‘New Freedoms’ and opposition to monopoly powers, yet within a year had given the banks exactly that.
No matter the extent of financial backing, Wilson could never have defeated a popular president like Taft without devious tactics crafted by his political puppet-masters. Clear favourite for a second term in office, Taft’s chance of success was seriously undermined when another Republican, former president Theodore Roosevelt, entered the race. Financed by Morgan’s associates in Wall Street, Roosevelt created a third force, the ‘Bull-Moose’ Party, from thin air77 and effectively split the Republican vote. While the Morgan team were destroying Taft’s chance of victory, Paul Warburg and Jacob Schiff completed the pincer movement by backing Wilson78 and ensuring his election. Wilson won with 42 per cent of votes cast, Roosevelt took 27 per cent while Taft could only muster 23 per cent. The remainder went to the socialist candidate Eugene Debs. The Republicans were also routed in the Senate elections, where the Democrats emerged with a clear majority.79
Not only did the money power put their man in the White House, they also gave him a minder, Edward Mandell House, a ‘British-trained political operative’.80 Woodrow Wilson was president of the United States but this shadowy figure stood by his side, controlling his every move.
Like Esher, and to some extent Milner, House preferred to influence politics from behind the scenes, rather than take public office.81 He had been part-educated in England and was credited with swinging the Democratic Convention in Baltimore in 1912 behind Wilson.82 He became Woodrow Wilson’s constant companion from that point onwards, with his own suite of rooms in the White House. He was also in direct, sometimes daily, contact with J.P. Morgan Jr, Schiff, Warburg, and Democrat senators who sponsored the Federal Reserve bill.83 House guided the president in every aspect of foreign and domestic policy, chose his cabinet and formulated the first policies of his new administration.84 He was the prime intermediary between the president and his Wall Street backers.85 This president was not to be left to his own devices. The governance of America fell, step by step, under the juggernaut of investment bankers closely linked to the Rothschilds.
The original Aldrich Bill was revised, renamed and steered through both Houses of Congress with great speed. On Tuesday, 23 December 1913, the technically named Glass-Owen Bill (it was barely distinguishable from the Aldrich Bill rejected by Taft two years previously) was finally presented to the Senate. It provided for ‘the establishment of Federal Reserve banks, for furnishing an elastic currency, affording means of rediscounting commercial paper, and to establish a more effective banking system in the United States, and for other purposes’.86 Despite loud and constant protestations from senior Republican senators, the sub-committee that had been set up to find solutions to contentious points was usurped by the Democrat majority. Every contentious issue was decided in favour of the elite bankers.
What had started off as a proposal for public ownership of the stock and government control of the banks ended up as a system whose stock was owned by the banks and controlled by the banks. In impotent frustration, Senator Bristow of Kansas pointed out that ‘every provision in this bill that was in favour of the banks has been retained. The provisions that were struck out were provisions in the interests of the public.’87 After four hours of political sniping, the bill was formally passed through the Senate by 43 votes to 25, with a further 27 senators not voting.88 Later that day, in the House of Representatives, the lone voice of Representative Finlay H. Gray railed against the Wall Street bankers and their ‘deliberate plan and conspiracy to discredit the national bank currency [so] that there might be reared upon its ruins a central autocratic bank under private control’.89
Too late: the horse had well and truly bolted. The bill was rushed through on the Tuesday night before Christmas 1913, signed quickly by the compliant President Wilson, and legally in place as an act of Congress before the morning newspapers hit the streets. Most importantly, by clever sleight-of-hand political manoeuvring, it was precisely the opposite of what the public had been promised.
What impact did this have on the well-coordinated Secret Elite plans for war? What did it matter if the richest economy in the world gifted control of its money supply to its major private bankers? Wars require to be financed and cost immense sums of money. In Britain, France, Russia and Germany the national coffers were almost bare. Outrageous spending on armaments and growing indebtedness had left virtually every treasury in Europe dangerously close to empty. A new source of funding was required, a supply of money that could expand in line with the demand of desperate nations willing to pay handsomely for massive loans. Now that was something that a US central bank, unfettered by government control, responding to unlimited demand, could do. The Federal Reserve Act was passed in December 1913, and the seven-man board took office on 10 August 1914, by which time the war … but we are running ahead of ourselves.
Rhodes’ American dream took shape. Close links with the American Establishment had been cemented through the Round Table and the Pilgrims, and grew in strength behind the closed doors of private dinners in London and New York. The Anglo-centric money power had finally established its central bank in time for the Secret Elite’s war.
Consider the last two chapters and ponder this significance. By February 1913, two major powers, the United States and France, had new presidents who were elected to office through the machinations of the Secret Elite. Woodrow Wilson had been elevated to the presidency of America by the money power in the United States. Raymond Poincaré’s election was likewise paid for by bribery and corruption funded through bankers and financiers in London and Paris. The Secret Elite had positioned key players in the governments of Britain, France, Russia and the United States. Politics, money and power were the pillars on which the Anglo-Saxon elite would destroy Germany and take control of the world.
SUMMARY: CHAPTER 17 – AMERICA – A VERY SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP
Cecil Rhodes appreciated the importance of the United States in pursuit of a world dominated by the ‘Anglo-Saxon race’. More Rhodes Scholarships were awarded to the United States than anywhere else.
The real aristocracy in America was the money power that comprised the obscenely rich industrialists, financiers and oilmen who dominated politics and society.
The Pilgrims was an exclusive society founded in 1902 ostensibly to ‘promote goodwill and friendship’ between
Britain and the United States. It provided a pool of wealth and exclusivity through which the Secret Elite could spread its values and increase its power.
Secret Elite politicians and businessmen attended Pilgrim functions, but no records exist of the private discussions fostered in these exclusive gatherings.
Economic power was increasingly invested in a small number of New York-based family dynasties, including the houses of Morgan and Rockefeller. The Rothschilds were closely associated with Morgan and other emerging banks and bankers in New York, including Kuhn, Loeb & Co., Joseph Schiff and Paul Warburg, and did not withdraw from the American market.
The money power sought to convince politicians that the United States, like European nations, required a central bank to control the system of money. The 1907 banking crisis happened because the bankers wanted to prove their point that a central agency was required to bring stability to banking.
Corrupt politicians, in particular Senator Nelson Aldrich, fronted the drive to have congressional approval for a central bank.
He colluded with other banking conspirators representing Morgan and Rockefeller, most of whom were Pilgrims, to promote a Federal Reserve Bank for the United States.
It failed to pass into law and the money power turned against President Taft. They manipulated the presidential election of 1912 to have Taft replaced by a puppet president, Woodrow Wilson.
A Federal Reserve System passed into law in December 1913. It gave ownership and control of the money supply in America to private banks.
CHAPTER 18
The Balkan Pressure Cooker – 1912–13
BY 1912, THE SECRET ELITE had spent over a decade in pursuit of their ultimate aim to create a new world order through the destruction of the old. The Northcliffe press was steadfastly preparing the public for war against the ‘Evil Hun’, but no amount of propaganda would have the required impact if Britain or her allies were seen to be the aggressor. It had to be Germany. The question was: how? Both attempts at goading Germany to strike the first blow over Morocco had failed miserably because the kaiser and his government agreed diplomatic solutions.
The problem was complex. Britain could not enter into war with Germany without good cause, and the cause had to be close to home. There were no circumstances in which war against Germany could be declared in support of Russia. The British people despised czarist Russia. Would they be prepared to go to war on behalf of France if the German army moved on Paris? They might, but the possibility of war was not sufficient. The Secret Elite needed certainty. Britain could only be brought in once the Germans had been forced into a defensive retaliation by Russia or France. Germany had to appear to be the aggressor. The British cause for war would be manufactured by German reaction provided their army advanced through Belgium. British and French war plans had since 1905 assumed that the Germans would do so, but first and foremost they had to wait for a German response to provocation.
The answer lay in a strategy that encouraged Russia to be aggressive and fulfil her historic ambitions in the Straits, and brought Britain into play once Germany reacted to it. The cause for Russia would lie in the Balkans; for France it would always be Alsace-Lorraine. Britain had no just cause unless the Secret Elite could manufacture it.
Though the Balkans was a little-known, backward region in the south-east corner of Europe, fragmented by mountain ranges running in every direction, the Secret Elite recognised the explosive potential of Balkan nationalism and harnessed it. Many historians have cited Russia as the instigator and financier of the Balkan troubles in its drive to push the Ottomans from Europe and Austria from Bosnia-Herzegovina,1 but they have virtually ignored, or failed to recognise, the hidden British influence. The growth of national resentment across the Balkans against Turkey and Austria-Hungary was deliberately stirred by agents of the Secret Elite.
Left to their own devices, Balkan countries had neither the infrastructure nor investment capital to make the most of their natural resources. Romania and Serbia were particularly dependent on international bankers, and, as a consequence, real wealth flowed out of the Balkans into London, Paris and Vienna. European financiers sucked all they could from the Serbian national economy before taking serious steps to develop its industry. The banks used local agents, influential politicians, legislators and government ministers as intermediaries between the European stock exchange and Serbia. Leon Trotsky, at that juncture a correspondent in the Balkans for the Kiev newspaper Kievskaya Mysil,2 wrote caustically: ‘One and the same door here leads to a ministry and to a bank directorship.’3
Trotsky’s assessment was perfectly judged. Corruption blossomed. Government officials were bribed with directorships of banks and oil companies. Spending on armaments and the weapons of war outpaced genuine investment in Serbia’s future. Used and abused: that was the fate of the Balkans.
Serbia was groomed for a very special role. She was perfectly placed as the epicentre for a seismic explosion that would blow away the old order. With her many nationalist Pan-Slav and fiercely anti-Austrian secret societies, Serbia provided the perfect location from which the Secret Elite could activate the European war. Austria’s annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 generated a deep, bitter and lasting resentment amongst the Serbs, not least because it defied their ambition to bring all Serb peoples into a unified state called Yugoslavia.4 Serbia’s long-standing hatred of Austrian rule grew exponentially from the first day of the annexation in 1908 until it culminated in war.5 The Serbs could never have waged successful war against the might of Austria on their own but were assured of Russian support by Isvolsky, who actively encouraged Serbia to wrest Bosnia-Herzegovina from Austria as their rightful entitlement. Serbia’s finance minister, Milorad Draskovic, confidently claimed: ‘Our people have faith in Russia. It is said of us that we are merely Russia’s armed camp. We do not take that as an insult.’6
It was not by accident that Alexander Isvolsky played a significant role in creating these perilous conditions in the Balkans. The Secret Elite used him and their diplomatic and commercial agents in Serbia and Bulgaria to identify prominent individuals and organisations that they could influence. Far from being passive observers, the Secret Elite in London made certain that their agents influenced events at every opportunity. Received wisdom acknowledged that by 1912 Serbia was ‘completely an instrument of Russia’,7 and in one sense it was. The instructions, the finance and the promises of support all stemmed from St Petersburg to Russian diplomats in Belgrade, a state of affairs that seemed to underscore their commitment to Serbia. In reality, these Russian diplomats were taking their orders from men who we believe were controlled by the Secret Elite: Isvolsky and his puppet, Sazonov. Furthermore, the real sources for their slush funds could be traced to Paris and London. The complex chain of command that was established extended to include one of the most competent and influential of Russian diplomats, Nicholas Hartwig.
Hartwig was known and well respected in London. He had formerly been Russian ambassador at Tehran and was deeply involved in the successful rapprochement between Russia and Britain over their differences in Afghanistan. Hartwig was hailed as ‘a diplomatist of the Isvolsky School’8 and ‘the pupil and alter-ego of Isvolsky’.9 In 1906, he had been one of the favourites for the post of Russian minister of foreign affairs, but it was Isvolsky who triumphed, not least because King Edward influenced the czar on his behalf. Hartwig might have succeeded Isvolsky in 1909, but the weaker and more malleable Sazonov, whose father-in-law happened to be Prime Minister Stolypin, was favoured by the outgoing Isvolsky. Instead, Hartwig’s talents were recognised in a crucial posting to the Serb capital, Belgrade.
Bear in mind that, hitherto, Serbia had been viewed as a backwater: a small primitive country of pig farmers with a disgraceful history of regicides and little in the way of valuable resources.10 Strange, is it not, for such an important and highly considered diplomat to be relegated to a remote outpost in south-eastern Europe? Unless, of course, there was a significant tas
k ahead that he was uniquely qualified to accomplish.
Within a short time, Nicholas Hartwig held immense power in Belgrade and was considered by some to be the real ruler of Serbia.11 He stoked anti-Austrian ambition, raised nationalist expectations and indulged in warmongering by insisting that Serbia had to become the Slavic advance post in the Balkans and must annex Bosnia-Herzegovina and the South Slavic districts of Hungary.12 The Russian diplomat Eugenii Shelking noted that ‘shortly after his arrival in Belgrade, Hartwig had created an exceptional position for himself. The king, Prince Alexander, Prime Minister Paschitch [Pasic] – none of these made any decision without first consulting him.’13
Nicholas Hartwig controlled and directed the Serbian leaders, but that was insufficient to realise his ambition. He gathered round him a viper’s nest of Serbian mafiosi and Russian collaborators, plotters and schemers who stoked the fires under a pressure cooker of disillusion that was kept simmering near the boil. The Russian military attaché, Viktor Artamanov, and the Serbian chief of military intelligence, Colonel Dimitrijevic, regularly exchanged secret information gleaned from trusted agents in Austria-Hungary. Russian money covered the necessary ‘expenses’.14 These were unscrupulous men in unscrupulous times, whose place in history had yet to reach its nadir. The inflated expectations which they raised for a Greater Serbia stretched beyond sanity. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Bulgaria festered in bitter resentments. All could claim that they had suffered from broken promises, unrealised dreams and unachieved potential.
Hidden History: The Secret Origins of the First World War. Page 30