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Author : Radziwill Catherine
Title : The firebrand of bolshevism The true story of the bolsheviki and the forces that directed them
Year : 1919

Link download : Radziwill_Catherine_-_The_firebrand_of_bolshevism.zip

Chapter 1. The SECRET SERVICE PREPARES FOR WAR. The facts presented in the following pages may perhaps not be accepted without surprise and wonder as to their authenticity. The world at large has not yet quite appreciated the full extent of the secret intrigues which were carried on in the former German Empire before and during the war that was to break its might and destroy it. And yet the whole fabric of German politics was built on these intrigues. From the time that Bismarck instituted his famous Bureau of Espionage, these machinations were steadily going on throughout the whole of Europe and in America as well, and it seems desirable that the activity of this bureau in its nefarious work in Russia be exposed in somewhat the same manner as has been done for the United States in that remarkable recent book “ The German Secret Service in America.” I cannot pretend to write anything so interesting as the volume in question, but nevertheless the story I am about to relate is also curious, the more so because at the present time Bolshevism, which only came to life thanks to the aid and cooperation of the German government, has invaded Germany in its turn and threatens to reduce it to the same condition to which it reduced Russia - a state of general chaos. Bismarck has been credited with establishing the Prussian Bureau of Espionage, for so it was called in Berlin where the French words were always used in connection with it. But in reality Bismarck had nothing to do with the idea of the organization of this special department of the vast machine over which he presided, though later on it became his pet institution. The man who first conceived the idea was a personage who for something like thirty years was the most powerful being in the German Empire, though few people had met him and fewer still knew the extent of the might he wielded. This personage was Baron von Holstein, known to a small circle who surrounded Bis marck as the “ Grey Eminence.” This circle considered the Baron so dangerous that even statesmen like Prince Hohenlohe, whose position ought to have put him beyond the fear of any attack, dreaded him and did their best to propitiate him and win his favor. Baron von Holstein was a remarkable man. For one thing he was that rare being in this world, an absolutely disinterested individual, who cared only for power, and this for power's sake alone, without the slightest desire for personal advantages or personal grandeur. He only wanted to be the authority behind the throne ; to rule the world without the world even being aware of his existence. He had entered the Prussian diplomatic service immediately after the Prusso-Austrian campaign of 1866, and some people, who later on figured among his bitterest enemies, liked to relate a story concerning him, which I repeat without vouching for its authenticity, though, viewed in the light of subsequent events, it seems more than probable. According to this story Holstein, then quite a young man, had visited Madrid as a tourist early in the year 187o and became acquainted with a lady who was supposed to exercise a considerable influence over the mind of Marshal Prim, then the leading personage in Spain. The question of finding a successor to the recently deposed Queen Isabella was agitating public opinion in the Spanish Peninsula, and Holstein's friend spoke to him about the possible likelihood of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern being persuaded to accept the Spanish crown. ...