Christmas Day Plot - World War I - Autumn 1915

Autumn 1915

in the aftermath of the failed February mutiny, concerted efforts attempted to destroy the Indian revolutionary movement. Preoccupied by the increasing police activities to prevent any uprising, eminent Jugantar members suggested that Jatin move to a safer place. Balasore on the Orissa coast was selected as a suitable place, being very near the spot where German arms were to be landed for the Indian rising. To facilitate transmission of information to Jatin Mukherjee, a business house under the name "Universal Emporium" was set up, as a branch of Harry & Sons in Calcutta, created in order to keep contacts with revolutionaries abroad. Jatin therefore moved to a hideout outside Kaptipada village in the native state of Mayurbhanj, more than thirty miles away from Balasore. In the meantime, Papen, in Liaison with Chandrakanta Chakrabarti, the self-styled agent of the Berlin Committee in United States, arranged for the first shipment of arms aboard the schooner Annie Larsen under a successful cover set up to lead British agents to believe that the arms were for the warring factions of the Mexican Civil War. Under an elaborate deception, the schooner left San Diego sometime in March 1915 to rendezvous in secret with a second ship, the Oil Tanker SS Maverick off Socorro Island near Mexico. Maverick was to sail to Dutch East Indies. Disastrous coordination prevented a successful rendezvous off Socorro Island. After waiting for the Maverick for a month, Annie Larsen returned to San Diego to be told to return to the island and wait for the tanker. Maverick, in the meantime, reached the rendezvous a month late, having been held up at port by repair work. Unable to find the schooner, she set sail across the Pacific, hoping to pick up trail at Hawaii. Annie Larsens second voyage meanwhile failed when she ran into headstrong winds. Returning to Hoquiam, Washington, after a number of failed attempts, the Annie Larsen's cargo was promptly seized by US customs who were intimated by British intelligence. Maverick made across the Pacific for the Dutch East Indies, but her Captain had no way of forewarning the Germans there that she came not with the arms they expected, but only bales of revolutionary literature and a handful of Indian revolutionaries. In April 1915, unaware of the failure of the Annie Larsen plan, Papen arranged, through Krupp's American representative Hans Tauscher, a second shipment of arms, consisting of 7,300 Springfield rifles, 1,930 pistols, 10 Gatling guns and nearly 3,000,000 cartridges. The arms were to be shipped in mid June to Surabaya in the East Indies on the Holland American steamship SS Djember.