WHEN ZAHAROFF WAS CAPTURED BY GERMANS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 25

WHEN ZAHAROFF WAS CAPTURED BY GERMANS

Sidelights on the late Sir Basil Zaharoff, given by the London "Daily Telegraph":—

He acquired the second largest country house and estate in France, but during the war it came into the fighting zone and was ransacked by the Germans. Zaharofl and his servants escaped Just as Uhlans were entering the grounds.

As he thought he was too old to rebuild the residence, he acquired later the Chateau Balincourt, a. beautiful residence that had been occupied by Baroness Vaughan, the intimate friend of Kins Leopold II of the Belgians.

His escape from the Germans in France, however, was followed by another startling adventure when he was returning to Europe from America. The Germans, well aware of his influence, had tracked his movements and even knew the number of his cabin. ' A J submarine intercepted the ship and demanded a passenger named "Herr Zaharoff" from Cabin 24. Ingeniously, however, a substitute took Zaharoff's place, and it was not until he had been taken to • Germany, that the enemy discovered tney had captured. the wrong man. _ • Zaharoff's house in Paris during the war was more like that of a monarch or an omnipotent Minister than of a private individual. The ante-room was filled with people taking their turn for an interview. ' At the daily lunch it was not unusu nl to find some. Cabinet Minister from one of the Allied Powers sometimes a whole Cabinet. "The Big Three" —Wilson, Lloyd Ge.or.ge, and Clemenceau—once or twice met there to discuss some of their most ticklish problems. Living in intentional obscurity nearly all his life, Zaharoff towards the end of his career and of the war consented to accept some of the titles by which such gigantic services as his are recognised. The British Government conferred on him the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. His adopted country gave him the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour; he was the one civilian in France who enjoyed that

supreme distinction. His other honours came to an astonishing total.

In spite of his many wanderings and picturesque adventures, he remained an orthodox member of the Greek Church—the communion in which he had been brought up. Towards his later years he showed a certain leaning to the Church of Rome; but whether Orthodox or Catholic he retained all the little practices of his original faith. Whenever he heard any bad news—such as the death of a friend, especially in war time—his right hand instinctively and promptly went up to his forehead and shoulders in the sign of the Cross: and from left to right instead of right to left—that is to say, in the Greek and not the Roman fashion.

He had also his little vanities. They were quite harmless, but they were amusing. For instance, he regarded himself as such a master of all the arts of cookery that one might take him for a cordon bleu who had missed his real vocation. Before he gave a dinner to any large company in a hotel he had a long and serious consultation with the head waiter, and gave minute directions, even to the details of the particular sauces to be served with each of the dishes.

This was one of tfre reasons why he insisted on doing the small services of the domestic table; not merely carrying the joint, but peeling the cucumber, mixing the salad, and distributing the cheese. He was always served at table by English servants; the other duties he left to the French.

It was perhaps the reaction after incessant voyagings to and fro in the world, but in his later years he had lost much of his original gusto for business. And yet the old passion would return to him whenever any enterprise came before him which had the glamour of a big combination. Oil, when it advanced with such great rapidity, attracted some of his attention, and he carried through a big deal between a French company and the Anglo-Persian Oil Company.

Sir Basil Zaharoff did not marry until the evening of his life. It was in 1924 that he married the Duquesa de Villafranca de los Caballeros, and she died two years after the marriage.