An Ottoman Greek Who Developed The World Arms Industry: Basil Zaharoff

Basil Zaharoff was born in 1849 in Mu？la. The information about Zaharoff’s identity is various, but it is known that he spent his youth in Istanbul, Tatavla (Kurtulu？). He learned foreign languages in his youth and completed his education in English School with a scholarship. While working his uncle’s shop, Zaharoff stole the money he thought belonging to him and escaped to London to start his new life. After working several gun companies and getting into partnerships, he became rich in a short period of time. The reputation that he acquired in gun industry provided him to contact with the politicians of the period. The period when militarism was on the rise, he became the baron of the gun industry. Zaharoff supported his homeland, Greece, economically and militarily. He, as a financier, supported the participation of Greece to the World War I and the Greek soldiers’ attempt to capture ？zmir. Zaharoff who did not reveal the details of his identity was called “Mysterious European” began to work as an advisor for the great powers’ politicians. In addition to the gun industry, he made his reputation in petrol and casino fields and died in 1936 in Monte Carlo.In this paper, the Ottoman non-Muslim Basil Zaharoff, who fueled militarism, supported Greece economically and had an influence on the world order during the period of wars will be examined in the light of archives, The New York Times newspaper and secondary sources