Zaharoff is believed to have had a hand in the events surrounding Maxim's attempts to demonstrate his invention between 1886 and 1888.

It is reported that, on the occasion of one visit with Briand, Zaharoff quietly left an envelope on Aristide Briand ’ s desk ; the envelope contained a million francs for war widows.

* In the Tintin album The Broken Ear, Zaharoff is parodied as the weapon trader Basil Bazarov, who sells to both parties of a single conflict that he helps provoke.

* In his novel A Coffin for Dimitrios, Eric Ambler is claimed to have patterned Dimitrios on Sir Basil Zaharoff, although Ambler denied having first-hand knowledge of him.

is: Basil Zaharoff

Arms dealer Basil Bazarov, who sells weapons to both sides, is based on the real-life Basil Zaharoff.

He is a recognisable example of this ' type ', and specifically based on Basil Zaharoff.

Although the novel is set in the present, it revolves around a plot initiated in 1917 by Britain's King George V and the nefarious Sir Basil Zaharoff to rescue Czar Nicholas from the hands of the Bolsheviks.

The arms dealer Basil Bazarov, who sells weapons to both sides, is based on the real life Basil Zaharoff.

In " the Broken Ear " both San Theodoros and its warring neighbour Nuevo Rico buy arms from the same arms dealer, a character based on Basil Zaharoff.

Most of the key elements for Arkadin's character come from real life arms dealer, Basil Zaharoff, the mysterious birth place, the French Riviera property and the Spanish castle for example.

* Zaharoff appears in Thomas Pynchon novel Against the Day.

Eisenstein proposed a biography of munitions tycoon Sir Basil Zaharoff and a film version of Arms and the Man by George Bernard Shaw, and more fully developed plans for a film of Sutter's Gold by Jack London, but on all accounts failed to impress the studio's producers.

Once there the 24-year-old Zaharoff was befriended by a political journalist Etienne Skouloudis.

One of the most notorious sales by Zaharoff was that of the Nordenfelt I, a faulty steam-driven submarine model based on a design by the English inventor and clergyman Rev.

Although very little could be documented, Zaharoff was viewed as a master of bribery and corruption, but the few incidents that did become public, such as the large bribes received by Japanese Admiral Fuji, suggested that a lot more was going on behind the scenes.

These French newspaper articles were read into the record of the Reichstag and were followed by a vote to increase military spending, all of which worked to the advantage of Zaharoff.

Zaharoff ’ s war adventures were not well received by the press in Paris and London.

Zaharoff was fascinated by aviation, and gave money and other support to pioneers in Great Britain, France and Russia.

* Zaharoff was portrayed by Leo McKern ( of Rumpole of the Bailey fame ) in the 1983 ITV series Reilly, Ace of Spies.

* Zaharoff was depicted in the " Lanny Budd " series by reformer Upton Sinclair.

With arms sales led by Basil Zaharoff, variants of the Maxim gun were bought and used extensively by both sides during World War I.

Andrew Undershaft was loosely inspired by a number of figures, including the arms dealer Basil Zaharoff, and German armanents tycoon Siegfried Krupp.

Basil Zaharoff, GCB, GBE ( October 6, 1849 – November 27, 1936 ), born Zacharias Basileios Zacharoff, was an arms dealer and financier.

The name Zaharoff was adopted when the family was in exile in Russia as a result of the anti-Greek " Easter pogroms " of 1821.

Zaharoff appeared in London in the midst of a controversy that had him in court over irregular commercial actions involving the export of certain goods from Constantinople to London.

The eloquent Zaharoff succeeded in convincing Skouloudis of the rightness of his case in the London legal conflict.

Skouloudis meanwhile had risen in politics and was able to recommend Zaharoff to fill the vacancy.

Zaharoff was hired on October 14, 1877, beginning a spectacular career.

As a salesman for the Swedish inventor Thorsten Nordenfelt, Zaharoff was known for his crafty, aggressive and corrupt business tactics.

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.

Nordenfelt and Zaharoff had won.

Maxim, who knew he had a good product, successfully sought a merger with Nordenfelt, with Zaharoff as the principal salesman with a fat commission rate.

From 1886 to 1889, at the same time that Zaharoff got the machine gun Maxim, he managed to appropriate Isaac Peral's submarine ; although these facts are less well known.

Zaharoff and Nordenfelt tried, over those years, to develop a submarine to increase their business.

It was thus that, with a promise of liberal payment terms, Zaharoff sold the first model to the Greeks.

Zaharoff had knowledge, with astonishing speed, of the young inventor and Spanish Navy officer's works.

Zaharoff has his own evil skills to operate.

In spite of it, Zaharoff used perverted methods, well-known later on, and was able to made controversy between the inventor and his own government and obtained, in the end, the Spanish government's disapproval of the invention of the submarine, which would have been a formidable weapon in the conflict with the United States, several years after.

Zaharoff traveled to Spain on several occasions from 1886 to 1890 with three objectives: boycott Peral's submarine, sell weapons to the Spanish armies and acquire a Spanish factory of weapons.

During one of these trips, the presence of Zaharoff was detected in the shipyard where the Spanish submarine was built, but the Spanish authorities " covered " the matter.

In 1890, the Maxim-Nordenfelt association broke up and Zaharoff chose to go with Maxim.

With his commissions, Zaharoff bought shares in Maxim ’ s company until he was able to tell Maxim that he was no longer an employee but an equal shareholder.