Basil Zaharoff - Arms Dealing

Arms Dealing

As a salesman for the Swedish inventor Thorsten Nordenfelt, Zaharoff was known for his crafty, aggressive and corrupt business tactics. These included selling arms to both sides of conflicts, selling fake or faulty machinery to clients, and sabotaging demonstrations. Zaharoff sold munitions to many nations of his day, including Great Britain, Germany, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Greece, Spain, Japan, and the United States. Despite his reputation for corruption, he helped popularize a number of famous weapons and vehicles, such as the Maxim gun (one of the first fully automatic machine guns) and the first true submarine.

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