Sir Basil Zaharoff and Sir Vincent Caillard as Instruments of British Policy towards Greece and the Ottoman Empire during the Asquith and Lloyd George Administrations, 1915–8

Abstract

The notorious arms trader Sir Basil Zaharoff is remembered as the archetypal ‘merchant of death’. During the First World War, he is alleged to have exercised a malign influence over statesmen in London and Paris. Recently released Foreign Office files now allow us to document Zaharoff's wartime activities on behalf of the British government as an agent of influence in the Levant. The new sources reveal that Sir Vincent H.P. Caillard, the financial director of the arms-maker Vickers, played a key role in making Zaharoff's services available to prime ministers Asquith and Lloyd George. While Zaharoff has often been portrayed as a sinister force, manipulating statesmen into pursuing his financial and political interests, the reality was the reverse. Zaharoff was a convenient tool of two prime ministers rather than a powerful political manipulator in his own right.