Lieut.-Colonel Philippe Bunau-Varilla
From a bust by Malvina Hoffman (1919)
The Great Adventure
of Panama
Wherein Are Exposed Its Relation to the Great
War
and also the Luminous Traces of
The German Conspiracies
Against France and
the United States
By
Philippe Bunau-Varilla
Former Chief Engineer of the French Panama Canal Company
(1886-1886)
First Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary of the
Republic of Panama to Washington (1903-1904)
Doubleday, Page & Company
Garden City-- New York-- London
1920
Lieut.-Colonel Philippe Bunau-Varilla
From a bust by Malvina Hoffman (1919)
.
DEDICATION
I dedicate this book to the great FERDINAND DE LESSEPS and to his eminent coadjutor, CHARLES DE LESSEPS, the Creators of the Panama Canal; to the great THEODORE ROOSEVELT and to his eminent coadjutors, JOHN HAY and FRANCIS B. LOOMIS, the Resurrectors of the Panama Canal, whose Franco-American work has been the cradle of the Victory won through the Franco-American Union over the treacherous Boches*, the Destructors of the Panama Canal Enterprise.
PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA.
Paris, September, 1919.*Note: In this book, it has been thought justified to emply the word "Boche," instead of the word "German," when speaking of the brutal, immoral, and treacherous acts of Germany toward her friends or her neighbours.
For a long time, in France, there has been a definite line drawn between the meanof "Prussian" and that of "German," the difference being about the same as between "evil" and "good."
It is the sincere hope of the author that Germany will understand how completely she has been dishonoured, not by her defeat, but by her participation in the Prussian infamies committed in the preparation for and in the conduct of the Great War.
In the expectation that the new German generations shall redeem their nation's good name, the word "Boche" has been used instead of "German," whenever the German criminal methods in diplomacy and in war are exposed.
.
PREFACE
ON THE first page of his book, "Face to Face with Kaiserism," the Hon. James W. Gerard, former Ambassador of the United States to Germany, wrote on April 1, 1918:
What I want especially to impress upon the people of the United States is that we are at war because Germany invaded the United States-an invasion insidiously conceived and vigorously prosecuted for years before hostilities began.
My purpose in writing this present book is to show that the German invasion was not limited to the United States, that the Boche insidious conspiracies are and were always built up in all the countries of the earth; that in these conspiracies a constant use is made of the internal strifes about purely domestic affairs in order to prepare the ways of German military aggressions.
In the diplomatic laboratories of the Wilhelmstrasse, the political opinions, religious divergencies, economic conflicts of the various nations have been for many years carefully analyzed and systematically combined for the military use of Germany, just as in the chemical laboratories of the General Staff the various hydrocarbides have been carefully analyzed and systematically combined with oxygen and nitrogen for the same military use of Germany.
The moral poisoned gases of the diplomatic laboratories have not been less efficient, nor less dangerous for Germany's victims, than the physical ones of her chemical laboratories.
I am going to expose to light a sector of this universal Boche system for utilizing the internal political passions of the various nations, in the interest of the German plans of aggression and conquest.
I hope in doing this to call the vigilance of these various nations to the dangers of such German conspiracies in the future.
It would be the greatest folly to think that an apparent change of government in Berlin really' means the cessation of these dastardly plots. They form part of Prussia's policy since centuries; they will not be abandoned for what is thought by her to be a temporary reverse; they are in progress to-day and they will be in progress to-morrow everywhere, just with the same activity and brazen perfidy as they were before and during the World War. Is it not a sufficient demonstration of that statement to show Bernstorff, the Boche arch conspirator and German Ambassador in the United States during the war, placed, after the so-called German revolution, in a leading and preponderant situation at the German Foreign Office in Berlin?
I also hope, in publishing these extracts of the notes taken during my life's activities, to show to Colombia that the Boche conspiracies were the real origin of her sufferings in the Panama question; that Germany had succeeded in making her the catspaw during the Boche attempts to treacherously acquire the political and economical control of the great highway between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
I hope that it will be the origin of a reaction in the Colombian mind and that Bogota will at last find out who has been her arch enemy, Germany, and who has always been her sincere friend, the United States. If Colombia was to be finally brought to stigmatize as traitors the Boche intriguers who have led her blindly to obstruct the generous and civilizing undertaking of the United States at Panama, it would be the most felicitous event for the moral peace of this hemisphere.
If Colombia could extend loyally her hand to the United States and to Panama and renew the cordial relations of old days, without accepting a sum of money which it does not behoove her dignity to receive, this would be the beginning of a new era in Central America.
The capital and energy of American enterprise would soon develop in Colombia the hidden wealth of her gifted territory, and give a hundred times more than the amount of an unjustified indemnity for the secession of Panama.
The writer of this book, who never ceased to be a sincere friend of Colombia, though having openly helped, as was his duty, the legitimate rebellion of Panama against Colombia, would greet with intense joy such a reconciliation. It would be permanent and stable because it would not be based on the grant of a sum of money which, in the future action of the Boche at Bogota, would form a solid base for renewed calumnies against the United States.
The Colombian statesmen who have served an anti-American policy in the Panama affair, when they believed sincerely that policy to be inspired by the most patriotic principles, owe to their country and to the world to condemn it now that it is demonstrated to have been "made in Germany," for the preparation of the greatest crime against Humanity.
In acknowledging the error of the past and in opening the highway for inter-American friendship in the future, they will well serve the moral and substantial interests of their noble and beautiful country.
No doubt shall remain, in the mind of a disinterested reader, about the criminal conspiracies grafted by Germany on the financial and political questions raised by the Panama Canal enterprise, both against France and the United States.
No doubt shall remain either about the fatal influence these conspiracies would have had on the end of the World War if they had not been strenuously fought.
The Great Adventure of Panama, which is the history of the struggle for the triumph of the French Panama Canal idea, is also that of the efforts to checkmate these conspiracies. It is, therefore, intimately linked with the glorious war of 1914-1919.
It forms its antechamber, as the boche-inspired Mexican Adventure of Napoleon the Third formed the ante-chamber of the disastrous war of 1870-71.
To understand well the bearing which the great Adventure of Panama had on the final defeat of Germany, it is necessary to examine first, minutely, what weapons Germany had prepared to assault France, and what weapons France had prepared to preserve her liberty and integrity.
It is also necessary to examine, minutely, the main factors which decided the victory of civilization.
The first chapters of this book deal almost exclusively with these preponderant factors of the great victory. They also show the always-menacing "Occult Power of Germany." This obvious danger demonstrates the necessity of organizing to-morrow a powerful barrier against the recurrence of German crimes: the intimate defensive union of the three great western democracies, the United States, Great Britain, and France.
PHILIPPE BUNAU-VARILLA.
November, 1919.
.
| THE TOOLS OF VICTORY | |
| THE ENCIRCLEMENT OF GERMANY'S ENEMIES THE DYE INDUSTRY | |
| PANAMA AND THE INFLUENCE OF AMERICA | |
| THE OCCULT POWER OF GERMANY | |
| THE BOCHE CONSPIRACY IN MEXICO (1861-63) PREPARING THE PROVOCATION OF 1870 | |
| THE BOCHE CONSPIRACY IN FRANCE, (1888-92), TO WRECK THE PANAMA CANAL, IN ORDER TO CREATE THE DEPRESSED STATE OF MIND NECESSARY FOR THE PREMEDITATED AGGRESSION | |
| CAMPAIGN IN AMERICA AGAINST THE NICARAGUA CANAL TO COUNTERCHECK THE BOCHE CONSPIRACY TO ANNIHILATE THE PANAMA CANAL | |
| AMERICAN CONGRESS BETWEEN PANAMA AND NICARAGUA | |
| THE BOCHE INTRIGUES IN BOGOTA IN 1902 TO PREVENT THE ADOPTION OF PANAMA BY THE UNITED STATES | |
| VARIOUS TRACES OF BOCHE INTRIGUE IN BOGOTA FOR DEFEATING IN 1903 THE ADOPTION OF THE PANAMA CANAL BY THE UNITED STATES AFTER SHE HAD RESOLVED TO DO SO AND SIGNED THE HAY-HERRAN TREATY | |
| PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT'S TESTIMONY RELATIVE TO THE BREAKDOWN---THANKS TO A VERBAL ULTIMATUM TO GERMANY AT THE END OF 1902---OF THE BOCHE-CAMOUFLAGED NAVAL AND DIPLOMATIC OPERATIONS TO OBTAIN ON THE VENE ZUELAN SHORES A MILITARY BASE COMMANDING THE PANAMA CANAL | |
| THE AUTHOR'S TESTIMONY CONCERNING THE BREAKDOWN---THANKS TO THE PANAMA REVOLUTION IN NOVEMBER, 1903---OF THE CONCEALED BOCHE DIPLOMATIC OPERATIONS TO OBTAIN FROM COLOMBIA: FIRST, THE REJECTION OF ANY TREATY WITH THE UNITED STATES; SECOND, THE CONFISCA TION IN THE AUTUMN OF 1904 OF THE FRENCH PANAMA CANAL COMPANY'S PROPERTIES AND CON CESSIONS; THIRD, THE TRANSFER OF THESE PROPERTIES AND CONCESSIONS TO THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT MASQUERADING UNDER THE DISGUISE OF A "STRICTLY COLOMBIAN CORPORATION | |
| CONCLUSION |