Christmas Day Plot
Encyclopedia
The Christmas Day plot was a conspiracy made by the Indian revolutionary movement
to initiate an insurrection in Bengal
in British India during World War I with German arms and support. Planned for Christmas Day, 1915, the plan in Bengal was led by the Jugantar group under the Bengali Indian revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee and was planned to be coordinated with simultaneous uprising in the British colony of Burma and Kingdom of Siam under direction of the Ghadar Party
, along with a German raid on the South Indian city of Madras and the British penal colony in Andaman Islands
. The aim of the plot was to isolate Bengal and capture the capital city of Calcutta, which was then to be used as a staging ground for a pan-Indian revolution. The Christmas Day plot was one of the later plans for pan-Indian mutiny during the war that were coordinated between the Indian revolutionary underground, the Indian independence committee in Berlin, the Ghadar Party
in North America, and the German Foreign office. The plot was ultimately thwarted after British intelligence uncovered the plot through German and Indian double agents in Europe and South-East Asia.
, led to a growing sense of "Indian" identity. The refinement of this perspective fed a rising tide of nationalism in India in the last decades of the 19th century. Its speed was abetted by the creation of the Indian National Congress
in India in 1885 by A.O. Hume. The Congress developed into a major platform for the demands of political liberalisation, increased autonomy and social reform. However, the nationalist movement became particularly strong, radical and violent in Bengal
and, later, in Punjab
. Notable, if smaller, movements also appeared in Maharashtra
, Madras and other areas in the South. Political terrorism begun taking an organised form in Bengal at the beginning of the 20th century. By 1902, Calcutta had three societies working under the umbrella of Anushilan Samity, a society earlier founded by a Calcutta barrister by the name of Pramatha Mitra. These included Mitra's own group, another led by a Bengalee lady by the name of Sarala Devi, and a third one led by Aurobindo Ghosh- one of the strongest proponents of militant nationalism of the time. By 1905, the works of Aurobindo and his brother Barin Ghosh allowed Anushilan Samity to spread through Bengal. The controversial 1905 partition of Bengal had a widespread political impact: it stimulated radical nationalist sentiments in the Bhadralok
community in Bengal, and helped Anushilan acquire a support base amongst of educated, politically conscious and disaffected young in local youth societies of Bengal. The Dhaka
branch of Anushilan was led by Pulin Behari Das
and spread branches through East Bengal and Assam. Aurobindo and Bipin Chandra Pal
, a Bengali politician, began in 1907 the radical Bengali nationalist publication of Jugantar
(Lit:Change), and its English counterpart Bande Mataram. Among the early recruits who emerged noted leaders where Rash Behari Bose
, Jatindranath Mukherjee, and Jadugopal Mukherjee
.
Anushilan, notably from early on, established links with foreign movements and Indian nationalism abroad. In 1907, Barin Ghosh arranged to send to Paris one of his associates by the name of Hem Chandra Kanungo (Hem Chandra Das), he was to learn the art of bomb making from Nicholas Safranski, a Russian revolutionary in exile in the French Capital. Paris was also home at the time Madam Cama who was amongst the leading figures of the Paris Indian Society
and the India House
in London. The bomb manual later found its way through V.D. Savarkar to the press at India House for mass printing. In the meantime, in December 1907 the Bengal revolutionary cell derailed the train carrying the Bengal Lieutenant Governor Sir Andrew Fraser. Anushilan also engaged at this time in a number of notable incidences of political assassinations and dacoities
to obtain funds. This was, however, the crest for Anushilan. In 1908, two young recruits, Khudiram Bose
and Prafulla Chaki
were sent on a mission to Muzaffarpur
to assassinate the Chief Presidency Magistrate D.H. Kingford. The duo bombed a carriage they mistook as Kingsford's, killing two English women in it. In the aftermath of the murder, Khudiram Bose was arrested while attempting to flee, while Chaki took his own life. Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, then a member of the group, shot dead Nandalal Bannerjee, the officer who had arrested Kshudiram. Police investigations into the murders revealed the organisations quarters in Manicktala suburb of Calcutta and led to a number of arrests, opening the famous Alipore Conspiracy trial. Some of its leadership were executed or incarcerated, while others went underground. Aurobindo Ghosh himself retired from active politics after serving a prison sentence, his brother Barin was imprisoned for life.
Jatindra Nath Mukherjee escaped arrest in the Alipore case, and took over the leadership of the secret society, to be known as the Jugantar
Party. He revitalised the links between the central organisation in Calcutta and its several branches spread all over Bengal, Bihar
, Orissa
and several places in U.P.
, and opened hideouts in the Sunderbans for members who had gone underground The group slowly reorganised guided Mukherjee's efforts of aided by an emerging leadership which included Amarendra Chatterjee
, Naren Bhattacharya and other younger leaders. Some of its younger members including Taraknath Das left India. Through the next two years, the organisation operated under the covers of two seemingly detached organisations, Sramajeebi Samabaya (The Labourer's cooperative) and Harry & Sons. At around this time, Jatin began attempts to establish contacts with the 10th Jat Regiment
then garrisoned at Fort William in Calcutta. Narendra Nath carried out through this time a number of robberies to obtain funds . In the meantime, However, a second blow came in 1910 when Shamsul Alam, a Bengal Police officer then preparing a conspiracy case against the group, was assassinated by an associate of Jatindranath by the name of Biren Dutta Gupta. The assassination led to the arrests which ultimately precipitated the Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy Case.
and subsequently Punjab. At Punjab, Niralamba established links with Sardar Ajit Singh
and Bhai Kishen Singh (the latter's son was an Indian revolutionary of later fame, Bhagat Singh). Through Kishen Singh, the Bengal revolutionary cell was introduced to Lala Har Dayal when the latter visited India briefly in 1908. Har Dayal himself was associated with the India House
, a revolutionary organisation in London then under V.D. Savarkar. By 1910, Har Dayal was working closely with Rash Behari Bose
. Bose was a Jugantar member employed at the Forest institute at Dehra Dun, who worked, possibly independent of Jatin, on the revolutionary movement in UP and Punjab since October 1910. The India House itself was liquidated in 1910 in the aftermath of Sir W.H. Curzon Wyllie
's assassination in the hands of Madanlal Dhingra, a member of the London group. Among the India House group who fled Britain was V.N. Chetterjee
, who left for Germany. Har Dayal himself moved to San Francisco after working briefly with the Paris Indian Society
. In the United States, nationalism among Indian immigrants, particularly students and working classes, was gaining grounds. Taraknath Das, who had left Bengal for the United States in 1907, was among the noted Indian students who engaged in political work. In California, Har Dayal's arrival bridged a gap between the intellectual agitators in the west coast and the lower classes in the Pacific coast. He emerged a leading organiser of Indian nationalism amongst the predominantly Punjabi immigrant labour workers, founding the Ghadar movement
.
Meanwhile, in 1912, Jatin met in the company of Naren Bhattacharya the Crown Prince of Germany during the latter's visit to Calcutta in 1912, and obtained an assurance that arms and ammunition would be supplied to them. The October of the same year, Rash Behari visited Lahore
, rallying Har Dayal's group and beginning a campaign of revolutionary violence marked most dramatically by an attempt on the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge in December 1912. Jatin was intimated of Rash Behari's work through Niralamba Swami while on a pilgrimage to the holy Hindu city of Brindavan. Returning to Bengal, Jatin began reorganising his group. Rash Behari had gone into hiding in Benares after the 1912 attempt on Hardinge, but he met Jatin towards the end of 1913, outlining the prospects of a pan-Indian revolution.
. Germany nurtured links with India nationalists before the war, seeing India as a potential weakness for Britain. In the immediate period preceding the war, Indian nationalist groups had used Germany as a base and a potential support. As early as 1913, revolutionary literature referred to the approaching war between Germany and England and the possibility of obtaining German help for the Indian movement. In the early months of the war, German newspapers also devoted considerable coverage to Indian distress, social problems, and colonial exploitation by Britain. The Indian situation featured in the German war strategy. The German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg finally authorised German activity against India in the early weeks of the war, and decision taken to offer active support to the Indian Nationalists. Through the newly formed Intelligence Bureau for the east
, headed by prominent archaeologist and historian Max von Oppenheim
, Germany contemplated plans for nationalist unrest in India. Oppenheim helped the formation of the Berlin committee
formed by C.R. Pillai
. Among the members of this group was V.N. Chatterjee of London India House. Har Dayal himself had fled United States for Switzerland after he was arrested on charge of being an Anarchist. He left the Ghadar party in charge of Ram Chandra Bharadwaj
, and from Switzerland he agreed to support the Berlin Committee. Through Indian emissaries and through staff of the German consulate at San Francisco, contacts were established with the Ghadar Party. Germany offered aid in finances, arms, and military advisors to plans considered between the German foreign office, Berlin Committee
, and the Indian Ghadar Party
in North America to clandestinely ship arms and men to India from United States and the Orient
with which they hoped to trigger a nationalist mutiny in India in 1914-15, on the lines of the 1857 uprising .
At the time the war broke out, Jugantar, in a hurriedly convened meeting, elected Jatin the supreme commander. The German consulate in Calcutta was at this time able to establish contacts with Jatin through Naren, who had met D. Thibault, the Registrar of Calcutta University. The Consul General reported back to Berlin that the Bengal revolutionary cell was significant enough to be considered for active support in undermining the British war effort. Jugantar began a campaign of politically motivated armed robberies to obtain funds and arms in August. On 26 August, the Calcutta store of Rodda & co, one of the biggest arms stores in Calcutta, was looted. The raiders made off with ten cases of arms and ammunition, including 50 Mauser Pistols and 46,000 rounds of ammunition.
through Krupp
agents, and arranged for its shipment to India through San Diego, Java, and Burma. The arsenal included 8,080 Springfield rifle
s of Spanish-American War
vintage, 2,400 Springfield carbines, 410 Hotchkiss
repeating rifle
s, 4,000,000 cartridge
s, 500 Colt revolvers with 100,000 cartridges, and 250 Mauser pistols along with ammunition. Sen had also introduced to Jatin and Naren Bhattacharya a Ghadarite leader, Kartar Singh Sarabha, who had returned to India to coordinate the plans for the proposed revolt with the Indian underground. Ghadarites, most of them Indian expatriates from Punjab, were pouring into India, tasked to mobilise Sepoy
s of the Indian army, preparing for mutiny in the army centres in the North Indian region of Punjab. Jatin's group was to coordinate with this to draw on the Indian army in the east, in Bengal. The whole plot was being coordinated by Rash Behari from United Provinces, and was ably supported by Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
, another Ghadarite who too returned to India in November 1914 from the United States, ow and by Sachindra Nath Sanyal
(of the Dhaka Anusilan Samiti) who worked from Benares. Bose coordinated with Jatin, and the latter himself was to lead Bengal into mutiny. The mutiny was scheduled for late February 1915, beginning with Indian army units in Punjab, followed by units in Bengal. The Bengal cell was to look for the Punjab Mail entering the Howrah Station
the next day (which would have been cancelled if Punjab was seized) and was to strike immediately. Units as far as Rangoon and Singapore were part of the Rash Behari's plan.
However, Rash Behari's plans for mutiny failed when, in February 1915, in a situation simmering in Punjab, Ghadar rose prematurely even before Papen had arranged to ship his arsenal. Set for 21 February 1915, details of the date and places found their way to Punjab CID through a spy, Kirpal Singh, recruited at the last minute. Sensing infiltration, a desperate Rash Behari brought forward the D-Day to the 19th, but incautiousness allowed Kirpal to report back to Punjab police in the nick of time. Mutiny in Punjab was crushed on the 19th, followed by suppression of smaller revolts throughout North India. The Singapore garrison managed to revolt openly and held out for sometime before it was crushed six days later. Mass arrests followed as the Ghadarites were rounded up in Punjab and the Central Provinces
. Key leaders of the conspiracy, including Kartar Singh, Pingle, Kanshi Ram
, Bhai Bhagwan Singh
and others were arrested. Rash Behari Bose escaped from Lahore and in May 1915 fled to Japan. Other leaders, including Giani Pritam Singh, Swami Satyananda Puri
and others fled to Thailand
. Jatin and the rest of the Bengal cell went underground.
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, 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 Ghadar party 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 Duth 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 gun
s 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.
. Through a Jugantar member named Jitendranath Lahiri, the Helferrichs had been able to establish links with Jatin Mukherjee in March 1915. In April Jatin sent to Batavia
Jitendra Nath and Narendranath Bhattacharya, the latter by then his chief lieutenant. Through the German Consul, Narendranath met with the Helfferichs brother in Batavia and was informed of the expected arrival of the Maverick with arms. The duo were to guide the Maverick, when she arrived, to the coast of the Bay of Bengal. In April, 1915, following instructions from Chatto
passed on through, in order to make a deal with the German authorities concerning financial aid and the supply of arms. Although these were originally intended for Ghadar use, the Berlin Committee modified the plans, to have arms shipped into India to the eastern coast of India, through Hatia on the Chittagong
coast, Raimangal in the Sunderbans and Balasore
in Orissa
, instead of Karachi
as had been originally decided. From the coast of the Bay of Bengal, these were to be collected by Jatin's group. For this purpose, Ashwini Lal Roy was sent to Raimangal to receive the maverick. Jugantar also received funds (estimated to be Rs 33,000 between June and August 1915) from The Helfferich brothers through Harry & sons in Calcutta.
and was finally concluded in January 1915. Ghadarites from branches in China and United States, including leaders like Atma Ram
, Thakar Singh, and Banta Singh from Shanghai and Santokh Singh and Bhagwan Singh from San Francisco, attempted to infiltrate Burma Military Police in Thailand, which was composed mostly of Sikh
s and Punjabi Muslim
s. Early in 1915, Atma Ram had also visited Calcutta and Punjab and linked up with the revolutionary underground there, including Jugantar
. Herambalal Gupta
and the German consul at Chicago
arranged to have German operatives George Paul Boehm, Henry Schult, and Albert Wehde sent to Siam through Manila
with the purpose of training the Indians. Santokh Singh returned to Shangai tasked to send two expeditions, one to reach the Indian border via Yunnan
and the other to penetrate upper Burma and join with revolutionary elements there. The Germans, while in Manila, also attempted to transfer the arms cargo of two German ships, the Sachsen and the Suevia, to Siam in a schooner
seeking refuge at Manila harbour. However, US customs stopped these attempts. In the meantime, with the help of the German Consul to Thailand Remy, the Ghadarite established a training headquarters in the jungles near the Thai-Burma border for Ghadarites arriving from China and Canada. German Consul General at Shanghai, Knipping, sent three officers of the Peking Embassy Guard for training and in addition arranged for a Norwegian agent in Swatow to smuggle arms through.
in the Andaman
islands. This was to be carried out with a German volunteer force raised from East Indies which would release the political prisoners to raise an expeditionary Indian force that would threaten the Indian coast. The plan was proposed by Vincent Kraft
, a German planter in Batavia who had been wounded fighting in France. It was approved by the foreign office on 14 May 1915, after consultation with the Indian committee, and raid was planned for Christmas Day 1915 by a force of nearly one hundred Germans led by a former naval officer von Müller was raised. Knipping made plans for shipping arms to the Andaman islands. However, Vincent Kraft was a double agent
, and leaked details of Knippings plans to British intelligence. His own bogus plans for the raid were in the meantime revealed to Beckett by "Oren
", but given the successive failures of the Indo-German plans, the plans for the operations were abandoned on the recommendations of both the Berlin Committee and Knipping.
". The Maverick was seized and alerts were sounded to British Indian police. Another source was the German double agent Vincent Kraft, a planter from Batavia, who passed information about arms shipments from Shanghai to British agents after being captured. Maps of the Bengal coast were found on Kraft when he was initially arrested and he volunteered the information that these were the intended landing sites for German arms.
As soon as the information reached the British authorities, they alerted the police, particularly in the delta region of the Ganges, and sealed off all the sea approaches on the eastern coast from the Noakhali–Chittagong
side to Orissa. Harry & Sons was raided and searched, and the police found a clue which led them to Kaptipada village, where Jatin was staying with Manoranjan Sengupta and Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri; a unit of the Police Intelligence Department was dispatched to Balasore.
The police had announced a reward for the capture of five fleeing "bandits", so the local villagers were also in pursuit. With occasional skirmishes, the revolutionaries, running through jungles and marshy land in torrential rain, finally took up position on September 9, 1915 in an improvised trench in undergrowth on a hillock at Chashakhand in Balasore. Chittapriya and his companions asked Jatin to leave and go to safety while they guarded the rear. Jatin refused to leave them, however.
The contingent of Government forces approached them in a pincers movement. A gunfight ensued, lasting seventy-five minutes, between the five revolutionaries armed with Mauser
pistols and a large number of police and army armed with modern rifles. It ended with an unrecorded number of casualties on the Government side; on the revolutionary side, Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri died, Jatin and Jatish were seriously wounded, and Manoranjan Sengupta and Niren were captured after their ammunition ran out. Bagha Jatin died, killed by police bullets, in Balasore hospital on 10 September 1915.
chargé d'affaires
. Thailand, although officially neutral, was allied closely with Britain and British India. On July 21, the newly arrived British Minister Herbert Dering presented Foreign Minister Prince Devawongse with the request for arrest and extradition of Ghadarites identified by the Indian agent, ultimately resulting in the arrest of leading Ghadarites in August. Only a single raid into Burma was launched by six Ghadarites, who were captured and later hanged.
Indian independence movement
The term Indian independence movement encompasses a wide area of political organisations, philosophies, and movements which had the common aim of ending first British East India Company rule, and then British imperial authority, in parts of South Asia...
to initiate an insurrection in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
in British India during World War I with German arms and support. Planned for Christmas Day, 1915, the plan in Bengal was led by the Jugantar group under the Bengali Indian revolutionary Jatindranath Mukherjee and was planned to be coordinated with simultaneous uprising in the British colony of Burma and Kingdom of Siam under direction of the Ghadar Party
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
, along with a German raid on the South Indian city of Madras and the British penal colony in Andaman Islands
Cellular Jail
The Cellular Jail, also known as Kālā Pānī , was a colonial prison situated in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India. The prison was used by the British especially to exile political prisoners to the remote archipelago...
. The aim of the plot was to isolate Bengal and capture the capital city of Calcutta, which was then to be used as a staging ground for a pan-Indian revolution. The Christmas Day plot was one of the later plans for pan-Indian mutiny during the war that were coordinated between the Indian revolutionary underground, the Indian independence committee in Berlin, the Ghadar Party
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
in North America, and the German Foreign office. The plot was ultimately thwarted after British intelligence uncovered the plot through German and Indian double agents in Europe and South-East Asia.
Background
The growth of the Indian middle class during the 19th century, amidst competition among regional powers and the ascendancy of the British East India CompanyEast India Company
The East India Company was an early English joint-stock company that was formed initially for pursuing trade with the East Indies, but that ended up trading mainly with the Indian subcontinent and China...
, led to a growing sense of "Indian" identity. The refinement of this perspective fed a rising tide of nationalism in India in the last decades of the 19th century. Its speed was abetted by the creation of the Indian National Congress
Indian National Congress
The Indian National Congress is one of the two major political parties in India, the other being the Bharatiya Janata Party. It is the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties in the world. The party's modern liberal platform is largely considered center-left in the Indian...
in India in 1885 by A.O. Hume. The Congress developed into a major platform for the demands of political liberalisation, increased autonomy and social reform. However, the nationalist movement became particularly strong, radical and violent in Bengal
Bengal
Bengal is a historical and geographical region in the northeast region of the Indian Subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. Today, it is mainly divided between the sovereign land of People's Republic of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal, although some regions of the previous...
and, later, in Punjab
Punjab (British India)
Punjab was a province of British India, it was one of the last areas of the Indian subcontinent to fall under British rule. With the end of British rule in 1947 the province was split between West Punjab, which went to Pakistan, and East Punjab, which went to India...
. Notable, if smaller, movements also appeared in Maharashtra
Maharashtra
Maharashtra is a state located in India. It is the second most populous after Uttar Pradesh and third largest state by area in India...
, Madras and other areas in the South. Political terrorism begun taking an organised form in Bengal at the beginning of the 20th century. By 1902, Calcutta had three societies working under the umbrella of Anushilan Samity, a society earlier founded by a Calcutta barrister by the name of Pramatha Mitra. These included Mitra's own group, another led by a Bengalee lady by the name of Sarala Devi, and a third one led by Aurobindo Ghosh- one of the strongest proponents of militant nationalism of the time. By 1905, the works of Aurobindo and his brother Barin Ghosh allowed Anushilan Samity to spread through Bengal. The controversial 1905 partition of Bengal had a widespread political impact: it stimulated radical nationalist sentiments in the Bhadralok
Bhadralok
Bhadralok is a Bengali term used to denote the new class of 'gentlefolk' who arose during colonial times in Bengal. It is still used to indicate members of the upper middle and middle classes of Bengal.-Caste and Class makeup:...
community in Bengal, and helped Anushilan acquire a support base amongst of educated, politically conscious and disaffected young in local youth societies of Bengal. The Dhaka
Dhaka
Dhaka is the capital of Bangladesh and the principal city of Dhaka Division. Dhaka is a megacity and one of the major cities of South Asia. Located on the banks of the Buriganga River, Dhaka, along with its metropolitan area, had a population of over 15 million in 2010, making it the largest city...
branch of Anushilan was led by Pulin Behari Das
Pulin Behari Das
Pulin Behari Das was an Indian revolutionary and the founder-president of the Dhaka Anushilan Samiti.- Early life :...
and spread branches through East Bengal and Assam. Aurobindo and Bipin Chandra Pal
Bipin Chandra Pal
Bipin Chandra Pal was an Indian nationalist. He was among the triumvirate of Lal Bal Pal.-Early life and background:...
, a Bengali politician, began in 1907 the radical Bengali nationalist publication of Jugantar
Jugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence.This association, like Anushilan Samiti started in the guise of suburban fitness club. Several Jugantar members were arrested, hanged, or deported for life to the Cellular Jail in...
(Lit:Change), and its English counterpart Bande Mataram. Among the early recruits who emerged noted leaders where Rash Behari Bose
Rash Behari Bose
Rashbehari Bose was a revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India and was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar conspiracy and later, the Indian National Army.-Early life:...
, Jatindranath Mukherjee, and Jadugopal Mukherjee
Jadugopal Mukherjee
Jadu Gopal Mukherjee was an eminent Bengali Indian revolutionary who, as the successor of Jatindranath Mukherjee or Bagha Jatin, led the Jugantar members to recognise and accept Gandhi’s movement as the culmination of their own aspiration.-Early life:Jadugopal or Jadu was born at Tamluk in the...
.
Anushilan, notably from early on, established links with foreign movements and Indian nationalism abroad. In 1907, Barin Ghosh arranged to send to Paris one of his associates by the name of Hem Chandra Kanungo (Hem Chandra Das), he was to learn the art of bomb making from Nicholas Safranski, a Russian revolutionary in exile in the French Capital. Paris was also home at the time Madam Cama who was amongst the leading figures of the Paris Indian Society
Paris Indian Society
The Paris Indian Society was an Indian nationalist organisation founded in 1905 at Paris under the patronage of Madam Bhikaji Rustom Cama, B.H. Godrej and S. R. Rana...
and the India House
India House
India House was an informal Indian nationalist organisation based in London between 1905 and 1910. With the patronage of Shyamji Krishna Varma, its home in a student residence in Highgate, North London was launched to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britain...
in London. The bomb manual later found its way through V.D. Savarkar to the press at India House for mass printing. In the meantime, in December 1907 the Bengal revolutionary cell derailed the train carrying the Bengal Lieutenant Governor Sir Andrew Fraser. Anushilan also engaged at this time in a number of notable incidences of political assassinations and dacoities
Dacoity
Dacoity is a term used for "banditry" in India. The spelling is the anglicized version of the Hindi word and as a colloquial Anglo-Indian word with this meaning, also appears in the Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases Banditry is criminal activity involving robbery by groups of...
to obtain funds. This was, however, the crest for Anushilan. In 1908, two young recruits, Khudiram Bose
Khudiram Bose
Khudiram Bose was a Bengali revolutionary, one of the youngest revolutionaries early in the Indian independence movement...
and Prafulla Chaki
Prafulla Chaki
Prafulla Chaki was a Bengali revolutionary associated with the Jugantar group of revolutionaries who carried out assassinations against British colonial officials in an attempt to secure Indian independence.- Early life :...
were sent on a mission to Muzaffarpur
Muzaffarpur
Muzaffarpur Town is a town in Muzaffarpur district in the Indian state of Bihar. It serves as the headquarters of Muzaffarpur district and Tirhut division....
to assassinate the Chief Presidency Magistrate D.H. Kingford. The duo bombed a carriage they mistook as Kingsford's, killing two English women in it. In the aftermath of the murder, Khudiram Bose was arrested while attempting to flee, while Chaki took his own life. Narendra Nath Bhattacharya, then a member of the group, shot dead Nandalal Bannerjee, the officer who had arrested Kshudiram. Police investigations into the murders revealed the organisations quarters in Manicktala suburb of Calcutta and led to a number of arrests, opening the famous Alipore Conspiracy trial. Some of its leadership were executed or incarcerated, while others went underground. Aurobindo Ghosh himself retired from active politics after serving a prison sentence, his brother Barin was imprisoned for life.
Jatindra Nath Mukherjee escaped arrest in the Alipore case, and took over the leadership of the secret society, to be known as the Jugantar
Jugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence.This association, like Anushilan Samiti started in the guise of suburban fitness club. Several Jugantar members were arrested, hanged, or deported for life to the Cellular Jail in...
Party. He revitalised the links between the central organisation in Calcutta and its several branches spread all over Bengal, Bihar
Bihar
Bihar is a state in eastern India. It is the 12th largest state in terms of geographical size at and 3rd largest by population. Almost 58% of Biharis are below the age of 25, which is the highest proportion in India....
, Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
and several places in U.P.
Uttar Pradesh
Uttar Pradesh abbreviation U.P. , is a state located in the northern part of India. With a population of over 200 million people, it is India's most populous state, as well as the world's most populous sub-national entity...
, and opened hideouts in the Sunderbans for members who had gone underground The group slowly reorganised guided Mukherjee's efforts of aided by an emerging leadership which included Amarendra Chatterjee
Amarendra Chatterjee
Amarendranath Chatterjee was an Indian independence movement activist. In charge of raising funds for the Jugantar movement, his activities largely covered revolutionary centres in Bihar, Orissa and the United Provinces....
, Naren Bhattacharya and other younger leaders. Some of its younger members including Taraknath Das left India. Through the next two years, the organisation operated under the covers of two seemingly detached organisations, Sramajeebi Samabaya (The Labourer's cooperative) and Harry & Sons. At around this time, Jatin began attempts to establish contacts with the 10th Jat Regiment
Jat Regiment
The Jat Regiment is an infantry regiment of the Indian Army and is one of the longest serving and most decorated regiments of the Indian Army. The regiment has won 19 battle honours between 1839 to 1947 and post independence 5 battle honours, Two Ashok Chakras, eight Mahavir Chakras, eight Kirti...
then garrisoned at Fort William in Calcutta. Narendra Nath carried out through this time a number of robberies to obtain funds . In the meantime, However, a second blow came in 1910 when Shamsul Alam, a Bengal Police officer then preparing a conspiracy case against the group, was assassinated by an associate of Jatindranath by the name of Biren Dutta Gupta. The assassination led to the arrests which ultimately precipitated the Howrah-Sibpur Conspiracy Case.
Pre-war developments
While incarcerated during the Howrah-Sibpur conspiracy trial, a nucleus emerged within the party comprising the most militant of the nationalists. These developed from early ideas initially mooted by Barin Ghosh. This nucleus foresaw the possibilities of an Anglo-German war in the near-future, and around this the revolutionaries intended to launch a guerilla war with assistance from Germany. The trial brought to attention the direction the group headed, moving away from the efforts of the early revolutionaries which aimed to merely terrorise the British administration. The nucleus that arose during the trial held deeper political motives and aspirations, and built on this nucleus to develop an organisational network throughout Bengal and other parts of India. The Howrah-Sibpur case ultimately collapsed due to lack of evidence. Released in February 1911, Jatin Mukherjee suspended his political activities in public. Suspended from his government job, Jatin began a business, working in contractor for the railway network in Bengal, a work which allowed him to roam the Bengal countryside identifying suitable spots for the revolutionary projects he was planning. In 1906, an early Anushilan member Jatindranath Bannerjee (different Jatin) had left Bengal in the guise of a Sanyasi and under the adopted name of Swami Niralamba, making his way to the United ProvincesUnited Provinces of Agra and Oudh
The United Provinces of Agra and Oudh was a province of India under the British Raj, which existed from 1902 to 1947; the official name was shortened by the Government of India Act 1935 to United Provinces, by which the province had been commonly known, and by which name it was also a province of...
and subsequently Punjab. At Punjab, Niralamba established links with Sardar Ajit Singh
Sardar Ajit Singh
Sardar Ajit Singh Sindhu was an Indian dissident and nationalist during the time of British rule in India. He was an early protester in the Punjab region of India who challenged British rule, and openly criticized the Indian colonial government...
and Bhai Kishen Singh (the latter's son was an Indian revolutionary of later fame, Bhagat Singh). Through Kishen Singh, the Bengal revolutionary cell was introduced to Lala Har Dayal when the latter visited India briefly in 1908. Har Dayal himself was associated with the India House
India House
India House was an informal Indian nationalist organisation based in London between 1905 and 1910. With the patronage of Shyamji Krishna Varma, its home in a student residence in Highgate, North London was launched to promote nationalist views among Indian students in Britain...
, a revolutionary organisation in London then under V.D. Savarkar. By 1910, Har Dayal was working closely with Rash Behari Bose
Rash Behari Bose
Rashbehari Bose was a revolutionary leader against the British Raj in India and was one of the key organisers of the Ghadar conspiracy and later, the Indian National Army.-Early life:...
. Bose was a Jugantar member employed at the Forest institute at Dehra Dun, who worked, possibly independent of Jatin, on the revolutionary movement in UP and Punjab since October 1910. The India House itself was liquidated in 1910 in the aftermath of Sir W.H. Curzon Wyllie
William Hutt Curzon Wyllie
Sir William Hutt Curzon Wyllie KCIE was an Indian army officer, and later an official of the British Indian Government. Over a career spanning three decades, Curzon Wyllie rose to be Lieutant Colonel in the British Indian Army and occupied a number of administrative and diplomatic posts...
's assassination in the hands of Madanlal Dhingra, a member of the London group. Among the India House group who fled Britain was V.N. Chetterjee
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya
Virendranath Chattopadhyaya alias Chatto was a prominent Hindu Indian revolutionary who aimed to overthrow the British Raj in India by using violence as a tool...
, who left for Germany. Har Dayal himself moved to San Francisco after working briefly with the Paris Indian Society
Paris Indian Society
The Paris Indian Society was an Indian nationalist organisation founded in 1905 at Paris under the patronage of Madam Bhikaji Rustom Cama, B.H. Godrej and S. R. Rana...
. In the United States, nationalism among Indian immigrants, particularly students and working classes, was gaining grounds. Taraknath Das, who had left Bengal for the United States in 1907, was among the noted Indian students who engaged in political work. In California, Har Dayal's arrival bridged a gap between the intellectual agitators in the west coast and the lower classes in the Pacific coast. He emerged a leading organiser of Indian nationalism amongst the predominantly Punjabi immigrant labour workers, founding the Ghadar movement
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
.
Meanwhile, in 1912, Jatin met in the company of Naren Bhattacharya the Crown Prince of Germany during the latter's visit to Calcutta in 1912, and obtained an assurance that arms and ammunition would be supplied to them. The October of the same year, Rash Behari visited Lahore
Lahore
Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab and the second largest city in the country. With a rich and fabulous history dating back to over a thousand years ago, Lahore is no doubt Pakistan's cultural capital. One of the most densely populated cities in the world, Lahore remains a...
, rallying Har Dayal's group and beginning a campaign of revolutionary violence marked most dramatically by an attempt on the Viceroy, Lord Hardinge in December 1912. Jatin was intimated of Rash Behari's work through Niralamba Swami while on a pilgrimage to the holy Hindu city of Brindavan. Returning to Bengal, Jatin began reorganising his group. Rash Behari had gone into hiding in Benares after the 1912 attempt on Hardinge, but he met Jatin towards the end of 1913, outlining the prospects of a pan-Indian revolution.
World War I
In response to Britain's entry to the war on the side of France, Germany had begun actively considering efforts to weaken the British war efforts by targeting her colonial empireBritish Empire
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom. It originated with the overseas colonies and trading posts established by England in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At its height, it was the...
. Germany nurtured links with India nationalists before the war, seeing India as a potential weakness for Britain. In the immediate period preceding the war, Indian nationalist groups had used Germany as a base and a potential support. As early as 1913, revolutionary literature referred to the approaching war between Germany and England and the possibility of obtaining German help for the Indian movement. In the early months of the war, German newspapers also devoted considerable coverage to Indian distress, social problems, and colonial exploitation by Britain. The Indian situation featured in the German war strategy. The German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg finally authorised German activity against India in the early weeks of the war, and decision taken to offer active support to the Indian Nationalists. Through the newly formed Intelligence Bureau for the east
Intelligence Bureau for the East
The Intelligence Bureau for the East was a German intelligence organisation established on the eve of World War I dedicated to promoting and sustaining subversive and nationalist agitations in the British Indian Empire and the Persian and Egyptian satellite states...
, headed by prominent archaeologist and historian Max von Oppenheim
Max von Oppenheim
Max Freiherr von Oppenheim was a German ancient historian, and archaeologist, "the last of the great amateur archaeological explorers of the Near East."....
, Germany contemplated plans for nationalist unrest in India. Oppenheim helped the formation of the Berlin committee
Berlin Committee
The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany in 1914 during World War I by Indian students and political activists residing in the country. The purpose of the Committee was to promote the cause of Indian Independence...
formed by C.R. Pillai
Champakaraman Pillai
Chempakaraman Pillai was an Indian revolutionary during the Indian Independence Movement, who went abroad to organise an army to declare war against the British for India's freedom.-Early life:...
. Among the members of this group was V.N. Chatterjee of London India House. Har Dayal himself had fled United States for Switzerland after he was arrested on charge of being an Anarchist. He left the Ghadar party in charge of Ram Chandra Bharadwaj
Ram Chandra Bharadwaj
Ram Chandra Bharadwaj, also known as Pandit Ram Chandra was the president of the Ghadar Party between 1914 and 1917. As a member of the Ghadar Party, Ram Chandra was also one of the founding editors of the Hindustan Ghadar and a key leader of the party in its role in the Indo-German Conspiracy...
, and from Switzerland he agreed to support the Berlin Committee. Through Indian emissaries and through staff of the German consulate at San Francisco, contacts were established with the Ghadar Party. Germany offered aid in finances, arms, and military advisors to plans considered between the German foreign office, Berlin Committee
Berlin Committee
The Berlin Committee, later known as the Indian Independence Committee after 1915, was an organisation formed in Germany in 1914 during World War I by Indian students and political activists residing in the country. The purpose of the Committee was to promote the cause of Indian Independence...
, and the Indian Ghadar Party
Ghadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
in North America to clandestinely ship arms and men to India from United States and the Orient
Orient
The Orient means "the East." It is a traditional designation for anything that belongs to the Eastern world or the Far East, in relation to Europe. In English it is a metonym that means various parts of Asia.- Derivation :...
with which they hoped to trigger a nationalist mutiny in India in 1914-15, on the lines of the 1857 uprising .
At the time the war broke out, Jugantar, in a hurriedly convened meeting, elected Jatin the supreme commander. The German consulate in Calcutta was at this time able to establish contacts with Jatin through Naren, who had met D. Thibault, the Registrar of Calcutta University. The Consul General reported back to Berlin that the Bengal revolutionary cell was significant enough to be considered for active support in undermining the British war effort. Jugantar began a campaign of politically motivated armed robberies to obtain funds and arms in August. On 26 August, the Calcutta store of Rodda & co, one of the biggest arms stores in Calcutta, was looted. The raiders made off with ten cases of arms and ammunition, including 50 Mauser Pistols and 46,000 rounds of ammunition.
Ghadar
Jatin's cousin Dhan Gopal Mukherjee, then a student at UC, Berkley, had already been in United States for sometime. In 1914, Jatin sent to San Francisco a party member by the name of Surendra Mohan Sen with the purpose of contacting the Ghadar party. Sen returned in November 1914, with information on the plans being implemented by Ghadar and the German consulate to smuggle a huge cache arms into India by sea. $200,000 worth of small arms and ammunition were acquired by the German military attaché Captain Franz von PapenFranz von Papen
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...
through Krupp
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
agents, and arranged for its shipment to India through San Diego, Java, and Burma. The arsenal included 8,080 Springfield rifle
Springfield Rifle
The term Springfield Rifle may refer to any one of several types of small arms produced by the Springfield Armory in Springfield, Massachusetts, for the United States armed forces....
s of Spanish-American War
Spanish-American War
The Spanish–American War was a conflict in 1898 between Spain and the United States, effectively the result of American intervention in the ongoing Cuban War of Independence...
vintage, 2,400 Springfield carbines, 410 Hotchkiss
Hotchkiss et Cie
Société Anonyme des Anciens Etablissements Hotchkiss et Cie was a French arms and car company established by United States engineer Benjamin B. Hotchkiss, who was born in Watertown, Connecticut. He moved to France and set up a factory, first at Viviez near Rodez in 1867, then at Saint-Denis near...
repeating rifle
Repeating rifle
A repeating rifle is a single barreled rifle containing multiple rounds of ammunition. These rounds are loaded from a magazine by means of a manual or automatic mechanism, and the action that reloads the rifle also typically recocks the firing action...
s, 4,000,000 cartridge
Cartridge (firearms)
A cartridge, also called a round, packages the bullet, gunpowder and primer into a single metallic case precisely made to fit the firing chamber of a firearm. The primer is a small charge of impact-sensitive chemical that may be located at the center of the case head or at its rim . Electrically...
s, 500 Colt revolvers with 100,000 cartridges, and 250 Mauser pistols along with ammunition. Sen had also introduced to Jatin and Naren Bhattacharya a Ghadarite leader, Kartar Singh Sarabha, who had returned to India to coordinate the plans for the proposed revolt with the Indian underground. Ghadarites, most of them Indian expatriates from Punjab, were pouring into India, tasked to mobilise Sepoy
Sepoy
A sepoy was formerly the designation given to an Indian soldier in the service of a European power. In the modern Indian Army, Pakistan Army and Bangladesh Army it remains in use for the rank of private soldier.-Etymology and Historical usage:...
s of the Indian army, preparing for mutiny in the army centres in the North Indian region of Punjab. Jatin's group was to coordinate with this to draw on the Indian army in the east, in Bengal. The whole plot was being coordinated by Rash Behari from United Provinces, and was ably supported by Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle
Vishnu Ganesh Pingle was an Indian revolutionary and a member of the Ghadar Party who was one of those executed in 1915 following the Lahore conspiracy trial for his role in the Ghadar conspiracy.-Early life:...
, another Ghadarite who too returned to India in November 1914 from the United States, ow and by Sachindra Nath Sanyal
Sachindra Nath Sanyal
Sachindra Nath Sanyal was a famous Indian revolutionary and the founder of Hindustan Republican Association that was created to carry out armed resistance against the British Empire in India. He was the mentor for revolutionaries like Chandrashekhar Azad and Bhagat Singh...
(of the Dhaka Anusilan Samiti) who worked from Benares. Bose coordinated with Jatin, and the latter himself was to lead Bengal into mutiny. The mutiny was scheduled for late February 1915, beginning with Indian army units in Punjab, followed by units in Bengal. The Bengal cell was to look for the Punjab Mail entering the Howrah Station
Howrah station
Howrah Station is one of the four intercity train stations serving Howrah and Kolkata, India; the others are Sealdah Station, Shalimar Station and Kolkata railway station in Kolkata. Howrah is situated on the West bank of the Hooghly River, linked to Kolkata by the magnificent Howrah Bridge which...
the next day (which would have been cancelled if Punjab was seized) and was to strike immediately. Units as far as Rangoon and Singapore were part of the Rash Behari's plan.
However, Rash Behari's plans for mutiny failed when, in February 1915, in a situation simmering in Punjab, Ghadar rose prematurely even before Papen had arranged to ship his arsenal. Set for 21 February 1915, details of the date and places found their way to Punjab CID through a spy, Kirpal Singh, recruited at the last minute. Sensing infiltration, a desperate Rash Behari brought forward the D-Day to the 19th, but incautiousness allowed Kirpal to report back to Punjab police in the nick of time. Mutiny in Punjab was crushed on the 19th, followed by suppression of smaller revolts throughout North India. The Singapore garrison managed to revolt openly and held out for sometime before it was crushed six days later. Mass arrests followed as the Ghadarites were rounded up in Punjab and the Central Provinces
Central Provinces
The Central Provinces was a province of British India. It comprised British conquests from the Mughals and Marathas in central India, and covered parts of present-day Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra states. Its capital was Nagpur....
. Key leaders of the conspiracy, including Kartar Singh, Pingle, Kanshi Ram
Pandit Kanshi Ram
Pandit Kanshi Ram was an Indian revolutionary who, along with Har Dayal and Sohan Singh Bhakna was one of the three key members in founding the Ghadar Party. He served as the treasurer of the party from its foundation in 1913 to 1914...
, Bhai Bhagwan Singh
Bhai Bhagwan Singh
Bhai Bhagwan Singh Gyanee was an Indian Nationalist and a leading luminary of the Ghadar Party. Elected the party president in 1914, he was extensively involved in the Ghadar Conspiracy of 1915 during World War I and in the aftermath of its failure fled to Japan...
and others were arrested. Rash Behari Bose escaped from Lahore and in May 1915 fled to Japan. Other leaders, including Giani Pritam Singh, Swami Satyananda Puri
Swami Satyananda Puri
Swami Satyanda Puri may refer to:*Bhavabhushan Mitra- a Bengali Indian revolutionary intricately involved with the Jugantar Party and the Indo-German Conspiracy....
and others fled to Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. Jatin and the rest of the Bengal cell went underground.
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 JugantarJugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence.This association, like Anushilan Samiti started in the guise of suburban fitness club. Several Jugantar members were arrested, hanged, or deported for life to the Cellular Jail in...
members suggested that Jatin move to a safer place. Balasore
Balasore
Balasore is a strategically located city in the state of Orissa, about north of the state capital Bhubaneswar, in eastern India. It is the administrative headquarters of Balasore district. It is best known for Chandipur beach. It is also the site of the Indian Ballistic Missile Defense...
on the Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
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, 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 Ghadar party 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
Oil tanker
An oil tanker, also known as a petroleum tanker, is a merchant ship designed for the bulk transport of oil. There are two basic types of oil tankers: the crude tanker and the product tanker. Crude tankers move large quantities of unrefined crude oil from its point of extraction to refineries...
SS Maverick
SS Maverick
SS Maverick was an oil tanker built in 1890 for the Standard Oil of New York, later Mobil Oil. After the ship had changed hands sometime between 1910 and 1915, it was used during World War I as part of the Hindu–German Conspiracy to foment rebellion in India and overthrow the British Raj...
off Socorro Island near Mexico. Maverick was to sail to Duth East Indies. Disastrous coordination prevented a successful rendezvous off Socorro Island
Socorro Island
Socorro Island is a small volcanic island in the Revillagigedo Islands, a Mexican possession lying some 600 kilometers off the country's western coast at 18°48'N, 110°59'W. The size is 16.5 by 11.5 km, with an area of 132 km².- Geology :...
. 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
Krupp
The Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
's American representative Hans Tauscher, a second shipment of arms, consisting of 7,300 Springfield rifles, 1,930 pistols, 10 Gatling gun
Gatling gun
The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. It is well known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat...
s and nearly 3,000,000 cartridges. The arms were to be shipped in mid June to Surabaya
Surabaya
Surabaya is Indonesia's second-largest city with a population of over 2.7 million , and the capital of the province of East Java...
in the East Indies
East Indies
East Indies is a term used by Europeans from the 16th century onwards to identify what is now known as Indian subcontinent or South Asia, Southeastern Asia, and the islands of Oceania, including the Malay Archipelago and the Philippines...
on the Holland American
Holland America Line
The Holland America Line is a cruise shipping company. It was founded in 1873 as the Netherlands-America Steamship Company , a shipping and passenger line. Headquartered in Rotterdam and providing service to the Americas, it became known as Holland America Line...
steamship SS Djember.
Christmas day plot
German agents in Thailand and Burma included Emil and Theodor Helferrich— brothers of the German Finance minister Karl HelfferichKarl Helfferich
Karl Theodor Helfferich was a German politician, economist, and financier from Neustadt an der Weinstraße in the Palatinate.-Biography:...
. Through a Jugantar member named Jitendranath Lahiri, the Helferrichs had been able to establish links with Jatin Mukherjee in March 1915. In April Jatin sent to Batavia
Jakarta
Jakarta is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Officially known as the Special Capital Territory of Jakarta, it is located on the northwest coast of Java, has an area of , and a population of 9,580,000. Jakarta is the country's economic, cultural and political centre...
Jitendra Nath and Narendranath Bhattacharya, the latter by then his chief lieutenant. Through the German Consul, Narendranath met with the Helfferichs brother in Batavia and was informed of the expected arrival of the Maverick with arms. The duo were to guide the Maverick, when she arrived, to the coast of the Bay of Bengal. In April, 1915, following instructions from Chatto
Chatto
Chatto may refer to:* Chatto , Chiricahua Apache chief* Beth Chatto , plantswoman, garden designer and author* Virendranath Chattopadhyaya , prominent Bengali Indian revolutionary...
passed on through, in order to make a deal with the German authorities concerning financial aid and the supply of arms. Although these were originally intended for Ghadar use, the Berlin Committee modified the plans, to have arms shipped into India to the eastern coast of India, through Hatia on the Chittagong
Chittagong
Chittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...
coast, Raimangal in the Sunderbans and Balasore
Balasore
Balasore is a strategically located city in the state of Orissa, about north of the state capital Bhubaneswar, in eastern India. It is the administrative headquarters of Balasore district. It is best known for Chandipur beach. It is also the site of the Indian Ballistic Missile Defense...
in Orissa
Orissa
Orissa , officially Odisha since Nov 2011, is a state of India, located on the east coast of India, by the Bay of Bengal. It is the modern name of the ancient nation of Kalinga, which was invaded by the Maurya Emperor Ashoka in 261 BC. The modern state of Orissa was established on 1 April...
, instead of Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
as had been originally decided. From the coast of the Bay of Bengal, these were to be collected by Jatin's group. For this purpose, Ashwini Lal Roy was sent to Raimangal to receive the maverick. Jugantar also received funds (estimated to be Rs 33,000 between June and August 1915) from The Helfferich brothers through Harry & sons in Calcutta.
Bengal
The date of insurrection was fixed for Christmas Day of 1915. Jatin estimated that he would be able to win over the 14th Rajput Regiment in Calcutta and cut the line to Madras at Balasore and thus take control of Bengal.Burma
To provide the Bengal group enough time to capture Calcutta and to prevent reinforcements from being rushed in, mutiny was planned for Burma with arms smuggled in from Neutral Thailand. This Siam-Burma plan originated early in October 1914 from the Ghadar PartyGhadar Party
The Ghadar Party was an organization founded by Punjabi Indians, in the United States and Canada with the aim to liberate India from British rule...
and was finally concluded in January 1915. Ghadarites from branches in China and United States, including leaders like Atma Ram
Atma Ram
Atma Ram was a Hindu minister in Afghanistan during the early 1800's. He was said to have dominated trade between India and Turan in this period.-References:*Levi, Scott Cameron. The Indian Diaspora in Central Asia and Its Trade, 1550-1900. BRILL, 2002....
, Thakar Singh, and Banta Singh from Shanghai and Santokh Singh and Bhagwan Singh from San Francisco, attempted to infiltrate Burma Military Police in Thailand, which was composed mostly of Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
s and Punjabi Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
s. Early in 1915, Atma Ram had also visited Calcutta and Punjab and linked up with the revolutionary underground there, including Jugantar
Jugantar
Jugantar or Yugantar was one of the two main secret revolutionary trends operating in Bengal for Indian independence.This association, like Anushilan Samiti started in the guise of suburban fitness club. Several Jugantar members were arrested, hanged, or deported for life to the Cellular Jail in...
. Herambalal Gupta
Herambalal Gupta
Heramba Lal Gupta was an Indian Nationalist linked to the Berlin Committee and the Ghadar Party extensively involved in the Hindu-German Conspiracy, who later turned a British agent and passed in intelligence on Mahendra Pratap's Kabul Government....
and the German consul at Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
arranged to have German operatives George Paul Boehm, Henry Schult, and Albert Wehde sent to Siam through Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
with the purpose of training the Indians. Santokh Singh returned to Shangai tasked to send two expeditions, one to reach the Indian border via Yunnan
Yunnan
Yunnan is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the far southwest of the country spanning approximately and with a population of 45.7 million . The capital of the province is Kunming. The province borders Burma, Laos, and Vietnam.Yunnan is situated in a mountainous area, with...
and the other to penetrate upper Burma and join with revolutionary elements there. The Germans, while in Manila, also attempted to transfer the arms cargo of two German ships, the Sachsen and the Suevia, to Siam in a schooner
Schooner
A schooner is a type of sailing vessel characterized by the use of fore-and-aft sails on two or more masts with the forward mast being no taller than the rear masts....
seeking refuge at Manila harbour. However, US customs stopped these attempts. In the meantime, with the help of the German Consul to Thailand Remy, the Ghadarite established a training headquarters in the jungles near the Thai-Burma border for Ghadarites arriving from China and Canada. German Consul General at Shanghai, Knipping, sent three officers of the Peking Embassy Guard for training and in addition arranged for a Norwegian agent in Swatow to smuggle arms through.
Andaman
At the same time that Jatin's group was to strike in Bengal, a German raid was planned for the penal colonyPenal colony
A penal colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general populace by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory...
in the Andaman
Andaman Islands
The Andaman Islands are a group of Indian Ocean archipelagic islands in the Bay of Bengal between India to the west, and Burma , to the north and east...
islands. This was to be carried out with a German volunteer force raised from East Indies which would release the political prisoners to raise an expeditionary Indian force that would threaten the Indian coast. The plan was proposed by Vincent Kraft
Vincent Kraft
Vincent Kraft was a German double agent in South-East Asia during World War I who was extensively involved in British counter-intelligence in the Hindu-German Conspiracy. Kraft was sent to South-East Asia during the war by the German high command as a part of the larger Indo-German Conspiracy and...
, a German planter in Batavia who had been wounded fighting in France. It was approved by the foreign office on 14 May 1915, after consultation with the Indian committee, and raid was planned for Christmas Day 1915 by a force of nearly one hundred Germans led by a former naval officer von Müller was raised. Knipping made plans for shipping arms to the Andaman islands. However, Vincent Kraft was a double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...
, and leaked details of Knippings plans to British intelligence. His own bogus plans for the raid were in the meantime revealed to Beckett by "Oren
Oren (spy)
Oren was the codename assigned to a Baltic-German double agent in South-East Asia by British Intelligence during World War I. Although his true identity is unknown, he is believed to be a man of Swedish descent...
", but given the successive failures of the Indo-German plans, the plans for the operations were abandoned on the recommendations of both the Berlin Committee and Knipping.
Culmination
The Christmas Day plot was ultimately leaked out through a number of sources. The earliest information was received on the details of the cargo being carried by the Maverick and of Jugantar's plans that were leaked to Beckett, the British Consul at Batavia, by a defecting Baltic-German agent under the alias "OrenOren (spy)
Oren was the codename assigned to a Baltic-German double agent in South-East Asia by British Intelligence during World War I. Although his true identity is unknown, he is believed to be a man of Swedish descent...
". The Maverick was seized and alerts were sounded to British Indian police. Another source was the German double agent Vincent Kraft, a planter from Batavia, who passed information about arms shipments from Shanghai to British agents after being captured. Maps of the Bengal coast were found on Kraft when he was initially arrested and he volunteered the information that these were the intended landing sites for German arms.
As soon as the information reached the British authorities, they alerted the police, particularly in the delta region of the Ganges, and sealed off all the sea approaches on the eastern coast from the Noakhali–Chittagong
Chittagong
Chittagong ) is a city in southeastern Bangladesh and the capital of an eponymous district and division. Built on the banks of the Karnaphuli River, the city is home to Bangladesh's busiest seaport and has a population of over 4.5 million, making it the second largest city in the country.A trading...
side to Orissa. Harry & Sons was raided and searched, and the police found a clue which led them to Kaptipada village, where Jatin was staying with Manoranjan Sengupta and Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri; a unit of the Police Intelligence Department was dispatched to Balasore.
Jatin's death
Jatin was kept informed and was advised to leave his hiding place, but his insistence on taking Niren and Jatish with him delayed his departure by a few hours, by which time a large force of police, headed by top European officers from Calcutta and Balasore, reinforced by the army unit from Chandbali in Mayurbhanj State, had reached the neighbourhood. Jatin and his companions walked through the forests and hills of Mayurbhanj, and after two days reached Balasore Railway Station.The police had announced a reward for the capture of five fleeing "bandits", so the local villagers were also in pursuit. With occasional skirmishes, the revolutionaries, running through jungles and marshy land in torrential rain, finally took up position on September 9, 1915 in an improvised trench in undergrowth on a hillock at Chashakhand in Balasore. Chittapriya and his companions asked Jatin to leave and go to safety while they guarded the rear. Jatin refused to leave them, however.
The contingent of Government forces approached them in a pincers movement. A gunfight ensued, lasting seventy-five minutes, between the five revolutionaries armed with Mauser
Mauser
Mauser was a German arms manufacturer of a line of bolt-action rifles and pistols from the 1870s to 1995. Mauser designs were built for the German armed forces...
pistols and a large number of police and army armed with modern rifles. It ended with an unrecorded number of casualties on the Government side; on the revolutionary side, Chittapriya Ray Chaudhuri died, Jatin and Jatish were seriously wounded, and Manoranjan Sengupta and Niren were captured after their ammunition ran out. Bagha Jatin died, killed by police bullets, in Balasore hospital on 10 September 1915.
Siam Burma plan
In the meantime the Thai Police high command, which was largely British, discovered the plans for the Burmese insurrection, and Indian police infiltrated the plot through an Indian secret agent who was revealed the details by the AustrianAustria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
chargé d'affaires
Chargé d'affaires
In diplomacy, chargé d’affaires , often shortened to simply chargé, is the title of two classes of diplomatic agents who head a diplomatic mission, either on a temporary basis or when no more senior diplomat has been accredited.-Chargés d’affaires:Chargés d’affaires , who were...
. Thailand, although officially neutral, was allied closely with Britain and British India. On July 21, the newly arrived British Minister Herbert Dering presented Foreign Minister Prince Devawongse with the request for arrest and extradition of Ghadarites identified by the Indian agent, ultimately resulting in the arrest of leading Ghadarites in August. Only a single raid into Burma was launched by six Ghadarites, who were captured and later hanged.