His last fight it is with the Iran of Dr

In oil, Calouste Gulbenkian was unavoidable. Since the beginning of the century, it was all great "deals". The creation of the Iraq Petroleum Company, it was him; the entry of the French and Americans in Iraq, he also... With time, its scope was extended to much of the world. Rich, he was, to the point of accumulating residences: Paris, avenue d ' Iéna and the Ritz Hotel, where his friend Cézar Ritz him reserved year-round une Royal suite, London une in the heart of Hyde Park, and even in Istanbul, where it had its roots. But what he loved most of all, it was negotiating with the powerful of this world, set up business, bargain, talking... without forgetting, of course, to defend its interests. This game, he was dazzling. In many Oriental was, Calouste Gulbenkian was initially a trader. "A rug Merchant", encircled his opponents. And he was proud...

Its wealth and its position in the world, it is in large part to his father that Calouste Gulbenkian was. Of Armenian origin, this trader of the bazaar of Caesarea in Palestine, had indeed made a fortune the day where, in the 1870s, he had had the idea to the sultan of Turkey in kerosene Russian. The Sublime Porte had rewarded him by appointing him Governor of Trebizond on the Black Sea. He had the opportunity to invest in the oil fields in the Russian Caucasus, located not far from there. In the 1880s, installed in a beautiful home overlooking the Bosphorus, it was a rich and respected man.

World expert on reputation

Born in 1869, Calouste Gulbenkian had a golden child. Eduqué by English and French nurses, he was sent to Marseille learn French and then the prestigious King's College London, where he came in 1889 with a diploma of engineer in the oil. His return in Turkey, his father had shipped him to Baku complete his training. Fascinated by what he saw, he had written several articles on the Russian oil industry. At the age of twenty, Calouste Gulbenkian was crowned a reputation for world expert in the sector. A boon for this young man looking forward to a position in the world. To do so promptly, it was very skilfully distilled, in his writings, blandishments: to the sultan, whose portrait was pleasantly with the Czar of Russia; to the head of the Armenian community of Istanbul, a wealthy business man he wanted to marry the girl, and how he described the envi's pioneering role in the emergence of the Russian oil industry. Dividends were soon: in 1891, the Sublime Porte had appointed him a study on the possibility to exploit the oil in Mesopotamia (present Iraq). Without even going on the spot and using largely existing work, it was found in the affirmative. A year later, he had married one after which he sighed over the years. The husband she had not chosen, Nevarte Gulbenkian would never love him. Once married, Calouste indeed proved a dreadful domestic tyrant. Suspicious, he was monitoring his wife by his servants and called at any time of day and night to ensure his presence. Nevarte was soon tired of the peculiarities of her husband, as that was, evening receptions, to serve sumptuous exotic fruits and to offer to its guests of many poor desserts. She eventually take a lover.

For years, Calouste Gulbenkian was the greatest evil to break into the world. If they had allowed him to make a name and win a beautiful party, writings, indeed, does not reported it a penny. For three years, depending only on subsidies only of his father, he had to lead to Istanbul a life without relief. For fortune, he is was tried unsuccessfully to trade of carpet and stock market speculation, engulfing in case revenues and the dowry of his wife, he had purely and simply confiscated. It was then that the anti-Armenian pogroms of 1895 offered him an unexpected chance to rebound. Forced to flee to Egypt, he managed to get essential to Alexander Mantachoff, a businessman Armenian exile which had a very large interest in Russian oil. Not backing before nothing, Calouste him had made all kinds of services, since the drafting of his mail until its meal preparation through the Organization of fine parts... It is Mantachoff that he truly put the foot in the Stirrup introducing from influential English businessmen.

That is why in 1897, Calouste Gulbenkian came to London, determined to get a place in the Sun. He had to do this from a position of strength: Alexandre Mantachoff and his father had appointed him to represent their interests to Western companies. It is this mandate which finally permitted him to live up to his rank that Calouste Gulbenkian was able to slip, from 1900, in the great game diplomatico-industrial then led the Rothschilds, Marcus Samuel the founder of the Shell and Henri Deterding the patron of the Royal Dutch and which led to the creationin 1903, the Asiatic Petroleum Company. Founded to exhibit with the Almighty Standard Oil, the Asiatic included the activities of the three partners and marked a first step towards the merger, four years later, the Shell and the Royal Dutch Company. In the case, Calouste Gulbenkian had fully played its role: with arguments, he managed to convince his father, and Alexandre Mantachoff to integrate their assets in the Asiatic. He there won a big commission and shares in the new set. In the beginning of the 20th century, Calouste Gulbenkian had reached his goal: he became someone...

Twenty years of negotiations

He could now tackle another piece of choice: the Mesopotamian oil. Since the study written in 1891 for the Sublime Porte, Calouste Gulbenkian had ceased to think about. In 1900, he had a brief contact with the Special Envoy of the shah of Iran in the West, General Kitagbi. It was to him that it had proposed, first, an oil in concession

Persian. Without being reached an interest in the project Henri Deterding and Marcus Samuel, Calouste Gulbenkian had to give up and the concession had finally been attributed to a certain William Knox D'Arcy. In this episode who had injured him a nice Commission, Calouste Gulbenkian had reached a conclusion: throughout the region was rich in oil. Without being in Iran, he would play a key role in the creation of a petroleum industry in Mesopotamia.

The realization of this ambition was to occupy for nearly twenty years. Twenty years marked by interminable negotiations and the payment of substantial bakchichs to Turkish officials. Man of shadow, Calouste Gulbenkian was the stay to the end, leading its negotiations from London or Paris, taking advantage of the very close links with the founders of the Royal Dutch Shell Group and contacts available to Istanbul to advance his pawns, keeping well to place he did never go into Iraq , and always fiercely defending its own interests. Everything began in 1910 when Calouste Gulbenkian became administrator of the National Bank of Turkey, created in the aftermath of the young Turkish revolution. This privileged position enabled him to be directly responsible for the creation, in 1912, the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC). Prodigy diplomacy! The PWC, indeed, was not a single oil company. She was one of the countless fields of the rivalry between the major Western powers on behalf of the strategic character of oil. Once more, the great policy had, behind the scenes, from the strings. Calouste Gulbenkian had to preserve the interests of the industrial sector, those of Britain, anxious to strengthen its presence in this part of the world, those of the Germany, wishing to preserve its traditional influence in Turkey, not to mention his own. Final assembly was a masterpiece of balance: the PWC was in fact the Royal Dutch Shell, the Anglo Persian, and Deutsche Bank. Of the new set, Calouste Gulbenkian himself was granted life 5 of the capital, without any operational function. He won for posterity, the nickname of Mr. "five percent".

The war threw completely flat this learned scaffolding. But it meant that the businessman to the evidence of his negotiating skills. At the outset of the war, the English seized the part of Deutsche Bank in the PWC. At the end of the conflict, the question asked of the fate of this participation. A new player then began on the ranks: the France, wishing it also to have access to the fabulous deposits of the Middle East. With its many relations in London and the quai d'Orsay, Calouste Gulbenkian played an essential role in the timeline which leads, in 1921, at the entrance of the France, via the company Française des Pétroles (PSC, the current Total), in the capital of the Turkish Petroleum Company. It is still him, a little later, convinced its English and French partners to make room for the Americans, eager to them also to force the door of the Middle East, on the express condition that its 5 are preserved. In 1929, at the end of this great mechanical, the former Turkish Petroleum Company became the Iraq Petroleum Company. Exploiting several fields around Kirkuk, North of the current Iraq, it included, in addition to the French PSC, the main English and American companies. Fifty-seven years, Calouste Gulbenkian had to sign his greatest masterpiece.

A lavish lifestyle

In the early 1930s, Calouste Gulbenkian is at the peak of his wealth and power. Known in oil environments and corporate hallways, essential to any large-scale operation, official Advisor to the Iraqi and Iranian Governments, it is all the large manoeuvres of the oil industry in the Middle East but also in the United States and South America. Immensely rich, he settled in a particular avenue of Jena hotel, leaving his wife their home located quai d'Orsay. In his new home, the businessman collects works of art: carpets and Oriental objects there alongside paintings by Turner, Manet, Gauguin, and Degas, all at a value of nearly 2 million. But most of his time, Calouste Gulbenkian passes in its suite of the Ritz, which serves as his Office and private residence. Travelling low and rarely beyond London , is receiving much. Starting with his countless mistresses. Because the businessman has excessive sexual appetites! A Lady of confidence, real Procuress who will remain at his service nearly thirty years, he entrusted the care to find, every night or almost, a new companion, preferably minor to awaken her hard in bed. The most interesting have even the right to a formal presentation in the world. Dressed foot in Cape Town, covered with jewels, they have the privilege to accompany the master on its output... and keep these small trinkets when the time has come to give way to a new elected. Paris to London, this behavior of oriental potentate is chat.

The second world war just disrupt this lavish lifestyle to the scent of scandal. Residing in France, Calouste Gulbenkian was unpleasantly surprised to see its shares in the Iraq Petroleum Company confiscated by the English. Perish for that, since 1892, benefiting from citizenship English! In 1942, he left the France to the Portugal and settled in a suite of the Hotel Aviz in Lisbon. He saw as in Paris, surrounded by a few domestic servants and mistresses more young. In 1948, at the end of an epic battle of procedure, Calouste Gulbenkian receives compensation of 500,000 pounds, forgoing in Exchange to any participation in the Iraq Petroleum Company. His last fight, it is with the Iran of Dr. Mossadegh as the book. When he nationalized the Anglo-Persian, in 1950, it seeks to promote a compromise. He did to win to be relieved of his duties as Advisor of the Iranian Government official... More than eighty years, Mr "five percent" weighs little on an oil industry in full reconstruction. He died five years later, in 1955, not without taking care to create previously, in Lisbon, a foundation in his name for its fabulous collections of art. With him is one of the largest intermediaries in the history of the oil.