Amazon Rubber Company
Leopold II had thrashed about, desperate to shove his spoon into the Congo pie—but Waldemar paid him no mind whatsoever.
If the German government truly meant to secure the Congo, not even France, let alone Belgium, could have stood in its way.
"How is the rubber project progressing?"
"The cast has been fully assembled, Your Highness."
John Connor had recruited a large contingent of Transylvanian Saxons for the operation. Nearly all of them were ardent German nationalists, more than willing to lend their aid to a venture that served the Empire's interests—which is to say, Waldemar's. Waldemar, for his part, had promised them a fortune large enough to reinvent themselves as wealthy men in Argentina under new identities.
According to plan, a "chemist" operating under the alias Otto Hahn set the scheme in motion.
The real Otto Hahn, born in 1879, would become the father of nuclear chemistry.
Otto Hahn wrote to Europe's three great chemical journals—Britain's Journal of the Chemical Society, Germany's Berichte der deutschen chemischen Gesellschaft, and Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie—claiming that isoprene could be distilled from crude oil.
"Isn't the polymer of isoprene none other than natural rubber?"
British and German chemists were stunned by the claim. Those who had already obtained isoprene by thermally decomposing natural rubber and turpentine swallowed hard, fully aware of what such a discovery would mean.
"How on earth? How could some complete unknown make a discovery of this magnitude?"
"If you're so confident, come forward and explain yourself in public!"
Faced with the chemistry community's furious reaction, Otto Hahn declined to attend any academic conferences. Instead, he sent letters to the journals explaining his "private research."
"When crude oil is distilled, a substance called naphtha is produced. As you all know, thermally cracking this naphtha at high temperatures yields ethylene and propylene."
Otto Hahn then outlined a method for extracting isoprene by means of solvents after the naphtha process. There was, to be sure, not a single lie in what he said.
He simply neglected to mention two critical facts to the chemists.
First: the substances mixed within the C5 fraction—isoprene, piperylene, cyclopentadiene, and the rest—all share nearly identical boiling points, making separation virtually impossible with present technology.
Second: given the modest scale of the petrochemical industry today, synthetic rubber would be hard-pressed to turn a profit.
It was a classic con of the "I never actually lied" variety.
The chemists, however, found Otto Hahn's reasoning entirely plausible.
"Theoretically, it does seem possible."
"If they can achieve mass production on an industrial scale, the profitability would follow."
They believed it would take a decade at least for Otto Hahn's theory to be verified and appear in actual industry. Their expectations proved wrong.
Barely two weeks after Otto Hahn's announcement, an obscure capitalist emerged and declared his intention to invest in the synthetic rubber theory.
"Hjalmar Schacht? Who the devil is this fellow?"
Born in 1877, the real Hjalmar Schacht was a German economist famous for devising the Mefo bills that rearmed the Third Reich.
Hjalmar Schacht made the following claim:
"I am a man who made his fortune in Far Eastern trade."
"Ah. The Far East."
People understood the suspicious capitalist's true nature at once. No doubt he had been peddling Chinese opium into Europe. Whatever his background, he clearly had money to spare.
How could they be so sure?
Immediately after recruiting Otto Hahn, Hjalmar Schacht bought up vast tracts of land in Romania. The Romanian authorities, delighted by a man who promised to purchase land and build factories, extended him every courtesy.
"Is that—is that for real?"
Hjalmar Schacht also placed massive orders for materials to construct his factory.
"The age of Brazil's natural rubber monopoly is over. Once our factory is complete, Europe's entire rubber demand will be met right here."
This shocking declaration reached the interested parties at once—Britain's rubber capitalists. The English, already so keen on rubber that they were preparing rubber futures trading on the London Stock Exchange, fretted over a collapse in prices.
"What are we supposed to do about this? If those Romanian bumpkins start churning out synthetic rubber, the price will hit rock bottom."
"If prices fall, the rubber merchants of the Amazon will abandon harvesting altogether."
"Should we try making contact with this Hjalmar Schacht fellow?"
If the English fretted over falling rubber prices, the rubber barons of the Amazon nearly fainted dead away.
"This has to be a joke. Rubber from a factory?"
"It's a fraud! A trick to drive down the rubber price!"
The rubber barons could not conceal their agitation at the shocking news. They sent men to Europe to verify the facts. The results shattered their hopes.
"They're really—they're really building a factory?"
"Ah, and a theory for producing synthetic rubber has been published in the chemistry journals as well."
The published theory alone was not enough to manufacture synthetic rubber, but they could chalk up that discrepancy to deliberate information control—the kind of know-how one guards for one's own business.
"Good God. Then our rubber is finished."
The rubber barons scrambled for ways to cut their losses. That was when a few "foolish" Europeans appeared in the Amazon. They proposed to buy the rubber harvesting rights from the barons.
"Why would you buy harvesting rights that will be worthless the moment synthetic rubber arrives?"
"Even so, we would rather take natural rubber over synthetic."
"That is a truly sensible view."
The rubber barons were pleased that these Europeans offered surprisingly decent prices. The mysterious Europeans moved swiftly up and down the Amazon River, buying harvesting rights from one rubber baron after another, and lobbied the Brazilian government until their acquired rights were officially recognized.
"Strange people, these."
The Brazilians found their conduct odd. Of course, the Europeans buying up the rubber rights were no less baffled by their client's instructions.
We're getting paid, so we do as we're told—but these gentlemen make no sense at all.
While they worked diligently, John Connor also established a company to handle all Amazon rubber transactions.
"Amazon. Quite a vigorous name, wouldn't you say?"
"I confess I cannot begin to understand Your Highness's meaning."
Before long, the Amazon Rubber Company held forty percent of all Amazon rubber harvesting rights. At that point, even the rubber barons who had hastily sold off their rights began to smell something fishy.
"Quietly. Grab those Europeans and find out what they're up to!"
In the lawless Amazon jungle, making a person disappear was nothing. The rubber barons kidnapped a couple of the Europeans they had dealt with and interrogated them about the scheme.
"I don't know! We were just ordered to buy rubber harvesting rights—that's all!"
The rubber barons tried torture. They killed people as examples to scare the others. The answers never changed.
Who the hell put them up to this?
The rubber barons decided they would not let the matter rest.
"The moment those Amazon Rubber Company bastards set foot in the Amazon, we finish them."
They also resolved to seek help from their British backers.
"No matter how you look at it, the timing of this Amazon Rubber Company's entry into the rubber industry is suspicious. Shouldn't we teach these people who have been toying with our industry a lesson?"
The British response was lukewarm. For one thing, there was no connection whatsoever between the Romanian synthetic rubber company and the Amazon Rubber Company. Not a single investor overlapped. The Amazon Rubber Company itself had already offered a perfectly rational explanation for its investment in rubber.
"We concluded that even if synthetic rubber is developed, demand for natural rubber will not vanish entirely. Our majority shareholder simply judged natural rubber prices to be at a low and bought up harvesting rights. What does that assessment have to do with synthetic rubber?"
Of course, such an explanation could not fully dispel suspicion—but the British chose to look the other way.
"The majority shareholder of the Amazon Rubber Company is the Prussian Crown Prince's household, you know."
"Ah. Then we're out."
The British backed off after learning the background, but the rubber barons were not so easily satisfied.
"So what if it's the Prussian royal family? Marrying a British princess means you can just walk off with Brazil's rubber?"
The rubber barons employed every means available to obstruct the Amazon Rubber Company's harvesting operations. They loosed private armies to shoot at workers; they leaned on local governments to disrupt the transport of supplies. Yet for all their efforts, they could not halt the company's business.
"Look here—the German government is starting to make some noise. Keep it reasonable."
Unlike the rubber barons, who saw nothing but pounds sterling, the Brazilian government had many considerations—not least the growing influence of Germans within Brazil itself.
"This is absurd. You think we're just going to hand over our profits to those bastards and walk away?"
"Well, word is the other side wants to negotiate."
"Negotiate?"
The Amazon Rubber Company offered the rubber barons equity stakes in exchange for their cooperation.
"Want a cut of the action, or do you just want to take the losses?"
Faced with the Amazon Rubber Company's carrot-and-stick approach, the rubber barons' ranks began to fracture.
"Do we really have to compromise with those bastards?"
"Ah, but if the talks go well, they say they'll share the profits from the rubber sold in Europe, too."
After a long struggle, a considerable number of rubber barons succumbed to the company's blandishments. From then on, the Amazon Rubber Company's business became remarkably easy.
"Hey—who said you could interfere with our company's rubber harvesting?"
Rubber barons who held shares and rubber barons who still meant to obstruct them—along with the Amazon's outlaws—began fighting each other for their own interests.
Using them against each other. Perfect.
Waldemar toasted the Amazon Rubber Company's successful foothold.