GERMAN PLOTS IN INDIA

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 89, 9 January 1919, Page 6

GERMAN PLOTS IN INDIA

CONSPIRACIES THAT DID NOT SUCCEED German plots against the British rule in India are described in the report of Mr. Justice Kowlatt's Committeo (published recently) which has investigated revolutionary couspiracics in that country. That the Germans failed in their scliemes for' arming Indian revolutionaries was duS, in the 'conimitte&'s opinion, to the fact that tho revolutionaries concerned were far too sanguine, and that tho Germans with whom they got in touch were very ignorant of the movement of which they attempted to take advantage. The Schemes. The German General Staff had definite schemes aimed directly against India/. The scheme which depended on Moslem disaffection was 4 directed against the North wttdtern Frontier, but the other schemes, which relied upon co-operation with the Ghadr Party of San Francisco and the Bengali revolutionaries, centred in Bangr kok and Batavia. The Bangkok acherno depended chiefly on returned Sikhs of the Ghadr Party, the Batavian scheme upon the Bengalis. ■ Both the schemes were under the general direction of the Consul-General for Germany in Shanghai, acting under orders from the German Embassy iit Washington. "Early in 1915," it is stated, "certain of the Bengal revolutionaries met and decided to organise and put the whole scheme of raising a rebellion in India, with tho help of Germans, upon a proper footing, establishing co-operation between revolutionaries in Siam and other places with Bengal, and getting into touch with the Germans, and that funds should be raised by lacoities." Ships and Cargoes. : A Bengal revolutionary named Naren Bhattacharji (who called himself "C. Martin") went- to Batavia in April, 1915, to discuss plans with the Germans there; and at the same time another Bengali, Abulia Mukharji, went to Japan. In the same month the e.s. Maverick, an old oil-tank of the Standard Oil Company, sailed from St. Pedro, in California, without cargo. She had a crew of 25 officers and men and five so-called Persians who signed on as waiters. They were all Indians, and had been shipped by Von Brincken, of the German Consulate at San Francisco, and an Indian named, Ran Chandra. Subsequently, at the island of Socorro, 600 miles west of Mexico, the Maverick sought a 6chooner called the Annie Larsen, which- had a cargo of arms and ammunition purchased in New York by a German named Tauscher. , , ' The master of the Maverick had been instructed to stow the 'rifles in one of tho empty oil tanks and flood them with oil, to etow the ammunition in another tank, and in case, of urgent necessity to sink, the-ship..' But the. two ships never met.- The Maverick was afterwards searched by tho Dutch authorities in J Java, and the Annie Larsen getting into Washington territory, was seized by the United States authorities—who disallowed Count Bernstorff's claim that she belonged to Germany. . , To Hojd Up Railways'. Thus the cargo which, according to tho information Thoodor Helfferich gave the conspirator "Martin" at Batavia, n-as on its way to assist the Indians in a revolution, never reached its destination. The cargo was said to consist of 30,000 riHes, with 400 rounds of ammunition each,- and two lakhs of rupees. The conspirators mnde elaborate arrangements for receiving and distributing the cargo. "They considered that tliu.v were numerically strong enough to deal with. . the . troops in Bengal, but .they feared reinforcements from outside. Willi this idea in view they decided to hold up the three main railways into Bengal by blowing up the principal bridges. : ■■ ■ Tho Calcutta party, under Naren Bhattacharji ('Martin') and Bepin buuguli, were first to take possesison of all the arms and arsenals around Calcutta, then to take Fort William, and afterwards to sack the town' of Calcutta. The German officers arriving in tho Maverick were to stay 'in Eastern : Bengal to raiso and train armies." There is reason to believe that when tho scheme connected with the Maverick failed the German Consul-General at Shanghai arranged to send two other ships with arms to the Bay of Bengal. The first was' to carry 20,000 rifles, 8,000,000 cartridges, 2000 pistols, and - hand grenades, explosives, and,two lakhs of rupees; the othur was to carry 10,000 ritlos. a million cartridges, and grenades and explosives. "Martin's" nativities ceasi;d when he went'on the Maverick from Batavia to America, where he