A Tale of Oil, War, and Revolution: The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel (with Douglas Brunt)
Horsepower Heritage
A Tale of Oil, War, and Revolution: The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel (with Douglas Brunt)
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Term
war profiteers
“War profiteers” are people accused of making money because of war. The episode is explaining how people historically criticized businesses that benefited from conflict.
Term
merchants of death
“Merchants of death” is a harsh phrase people used to blame arms-and-war-related profiteers. The episode uses it to describe how people felt about companies making money from war.
Car
Buick Century
The Buick Century is a regular, everyday car made by Buick. It was designed to be comfortable for commuting and family use. It’s mentioned because the Century name has been used for different versions over many years.
Concept
military industrial complex
“Military industrial complex” means the system around making and buying military equipment. The episode uses it to connect wars with big business and fuel demand.
Company
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is a company that builds military equipment. In the episode, it’s brought up to illustrate how defense spending connects to industry.
Term
patent motor wagon
“Patent motor wagon” is basically the early name for Carl Benz’s first engine-powered vehicle. It emphasizes that the design was protected as an invention.
Term
tiller steering
Tiller steering uses a lever to steer, instead of a steering wheel. It was common in very early vehicles because it was easier to build and worked well at the time.
Term
single cylinder
A single-cylinder engine has one “power-producing” chamber. Early cars used this because it was simpler to make and maintain.
Term
internal combustion engine
An internal combustion engine is an engine that burns fuel inside the machine to make it move. The episode is saying this kind of engine changed how much oil people needed and what it was used for.
Term
combustion engines on ships
The episode is talking about ships switching from burning coal to using fuel in engines. That change increased how much oil was needed for transportation and war.
Term
diesel engine
A diesel engine is a kind of engine that runs on fuel by compressing air first, then igniting the fuel. The point here is that it increased the importance of petroleum for big industrial uses.
Term
gasoline
Gasoline is a fuel made from oil. The episode points out that, at first, it wasn’t considered very useful—then it became valuable once engines could use it well.
Term
compression
Compression is how tightly an engine squeezes the fuel/air mixture before it ignites. Early engines kept that squeeze low because the fuel at the time wasn’t good enough for higher compression.
Term
Legroin
Legroin is an old petroleum-derived liquid that the episode says was used as fuel in an early motor wagon. It was sold more like a chemical cleaner than a fuel, which highlights how experimental early engines were.
Term
naptha
Naphtha is an old type of fuel made from oil. The episode uses it to explain that early engines sometimes ran on different oil fractions before gasoline became the norm.
Concept
dieselize
“Dieselize” means switching over to diesel engines. Here, it’s describing converting ships so they run on diesel instead of older setups.
Term
marine diesels
Marine diesels are diesel engines made for boats and ships. The episode says Nobel’s operation helped advance diesel technology for naval use.
LIVE
This is Horsepower Heritage. I'm Maurice Merrick. Thanks for joining me once again and this
time I've got a very special and different episode for you.
Author Douglas Brunt returns to the show to talk about his new book, The Lost Empire of
Emanuel Nobel. It's a sweeping history of the rise and fall of a petroleum dynasty and
many of the events we discussed took place just as the internal combustion engine and
the automobile were beginning to change the world forever.
You might recall Doug was previously on the podcast in 2023 to talk about his last book,
The Mysterious Case of Rudolph Diesel. And that turned out to be a very popular episode.
In fact, I got so much great feedback that I just had to have him back again.
By the way, that was episode 101, the diesel episode. So if you haven't heard that, check it out.
It's an incredible story. Now, this latest book, The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel,
isn't about cars, of course, but I think it provides fascinating insights into how the
internal combustion engine and the fuel on which it depends transformed not just transportation,
but politics, wealth, war and peace, and society itself, all because of an aromatic black liquid
resting far beneath our feet. And finally, there is a full video version of this episode up on
YouTube. I think you'll enjoy that. It's got lots of great archival photos just to add more
context to this story. But anyway, let's get to it. Here's my conversation with Douglas Brunt. Enjoy.
Well, Doug, are you ready to do this?
I'm ready. Thank you for having me. This is great.
Well, I've been looking forward to it. And I have to tell you, this is going to be probably the most
unconventional episode of horsepower heritage ever, because there's going to be very little to do
with cars in this one. But I had to have you back on because when I had you on to talk about
diesel, it was one of the most popular episodes. I still am hearing how much people like that.
And I think it comes down to your abilities as a storyteller. It wasn't anything to do with me. It
was all about you. So
Oh, I think it had to do with diesel. And we can call back to diesel a ton. I mean, as you know,
there are tons of tie ins to diesel. He's in this book. He's the reason this book came to be. You
know, I only knew about Nobel through research on diesel. And, you know, we've got the fuel angle
covered here with all the Russian petroleum and current events and stuff. But thank you. Thank
you. You're welcome. And the new book, The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel, which I have here, it's
dog eared and beat up. And I got all sorts of highlights and underlines. It really adds context
to the mechanized age and to how important all of this was to the development of motor cars. But
also, there are so many things in this history that you've written that mirror what's going on even
today. And I know we'll get into some of that as well.
For sure. It's, you know, as I was, it was kind of haunting to be writing some of it. And you
realize, my gosh, this is the same dynamic at play 100 plus years later. Right. The more things
change, the more they say the same.
And like any Russian story, it's pretty vast, right? I mean, not just in terms of the events, but
also the landscape. I'm feeling the desolation when I read this book and the wide open spaces and
how enormous the Russian Empire was. I think, Doug, we should probably kind of begin sort of in the
middle of your story with the death of Ludwig Nobel. Who was he? And by the way, I should say he
died in 1888. And he was only 56 years old. But by that time, he had amassed a petroleum empire of
his own.
Right. Ludwig, one of three brothers, famous brothers, as it turns out, his older brother,
Robert was the sort of adventurer, a rassable, not the easiest to get along with, but a talented, a
talented man in his own right. Ludwig is the middle brother, who's a genius engineer and
entrepreneur. And then the youngest of the three brothers is Alfred Nobel, who is the one the world
has come to know, and was also very successful as a chemist, invented dynamite. And the three
brothers worked together in Russia. They basically grew up in Russia from the time they were single
digits moving from Sweden. Ludwig, he really kind of cleaned up the mess after the father's
bankruptcy. The father had been building munitions and undersea mines and rifles and engines and
things for the czar's military. Throughout the 1840s and 50s, many of the the bombs that the father
built were used in the Crimean War by the by the Russian Navy. Then that business went bankrupt
after the Crimean War. Ludwig cleaned up the mess and then established his own amazing munitions
factory near St. Petersburg. And they got this crazy order from the czar, we need 100,000 rifles.
And in order to build the rifles, they needed hardwood to build the shoulder stocks of the rifles. And
so Ludwig, who was really the boss, sent his older brother, Robert down to the Caucasus in
southern Russia, where they had these walnut trees, supposedly 80 feet high and great, great supply
of timber for the rifles. So Robert goes down there, which, you know, back then it was this was
more than 1000 miles to travel. It was you could either go by the Volga River or by, you know,
horse and carriage. This is in 1873. Down goes Robert. He passes through Baku in present day
Azerbaijan along the Caspian Sea, which is this ancient landscape. It's the site of Jason and
the Argonauts, you know, it's almost like mythological landscape. It's kind of a crossroad
of cultures, isn't it? Yes, it's right sort of on that hinge of east and west. So it's half Asian,
half European. It's been contested land between, you know, Muslim and Christian armies for centuries
and centuries. And as Robert passes through, he sees pools of oil on the ground in this area that
is a sacred fire worshiping area from these ancients who was sort of worshiped the eternal
flame. It's full of petroleum. And so he's like, you know, to cut a long story short, he's like,
screw this, we're not buying walnut trees and wood for rifles, we're buying land for oil. So he
takes this bag of silver rubles that his brother had given him to buy the wood and buys land instead.
And suddenly the nobles who have incredible technological know-how building engines and
munitions are in the oil game. And around there, the only way people were getting the oil was
skimming it off the surface of these pools or digging small wells with shovels. Then the nobles
come in with a lot of technical know-how, a lot of money. And they kind of mirror the playbook
that Rockefeller has established in America. Standard oil was founded in 1870. So these guys
buy land in the Caucasus, 1873. So Rockefeller's already sort of established the way to do this
well. And the nobles come in and suddenly they're head and shoulders above everybody and they build
one of the great petroleum concerns in the world. And they're about 20 years late to the game in a
sense. Oil in Pennsylvania, the oil boom started, I think, in about 1859. So we're talking 1873 when
he visits Baku. So Rockefeller is already a baron. Right. He's the global leader by far.
And so within Ludwig, fast forward 15 years, Ludwig dies, as you say, in 1888. His son,
the nobles are doing great. There are a number of other competitors in there, but nobody on the
level of the Nobel Company. It's called Brothers Nobel, the Nobel Brothers Petroleum Company.
And in 1888, Ludwig dies. Emmanuel takes over. But it's big enough that the Tsar wants to come
see. Traditionally, the only thing they're exporting out of the region is grain from
this sort of Ukraine and other parts of southern Russia. Now the Tsar realizes, I've got this
incredible oil natural resource in the Russian Empire. So he comes to sort of kick the tires
on the Nobel operation in 1888 at a time when standard is still the gorilla, still the global
market gorilla, but the nobles are coming for them. Yes. And there's another threat in Europe,
which is the Rothschild family who are also oil barons. That's just one of their businesses.
They're very diversified. So there was Meyer Rothschild from Frankfurt, Germany. He had five
sons. He sent one son to each of five different cities. Paris was one, London another. So the
Paris branch, the French branch of the Rothschild family, has enormous experience in owning and
trading commodities, nickel, copper, things like that. They've also built railroads. So they get
into the oil game as well. In southern Russia, they buy up some smaller refineries and drilling
operations and enter as a new competitor to the nobles thinking, well, we're this massive,
very wealthy family with expertise in this area. So we'll pretty much knock the nobles off the
pedestal at first place in no time, but doesn't happen. They never really approached the nobles
in any way and ultimately sort of wave the white flag of surrender and try to sell out to the nobles
who only increase their market share and dominance in the region.
And that potential competition from Rockefeller and the Rothschilds, that's just one obstacle
in Emmanuel's way. Constantly, he's trying to juggle external threats.
Another interesting fact is that he got Russian citizenship, which was very important because
someone in the company had to be Russian by law. Is that right?
Yeah. There were a couple of things that were in his favor and some not in his favor. For one thing,
the anti-Semitism in the region was, in Russia, was as bad as anywhere. There was legislation that
really hindered Jewish-owned businesses. And so that was a problem for the Rothschilds as a Jewish
family. So that actually gave Nobel a bit of an advantage. His main headquarters was in St.
Petersburg and he was closed with government ministers and with the royal court. So that
sort of played to his advantage. In 1888, after Ludwig had passed away and Emmanuel had taken over
the operation and the Tsar came to visit, he was so impressed that at the end of the visit in Baku,
he came down to Baku to sort of see the whole Nobel infrastructure, he offered Emmanuel citizenship,
which was a huge advantage. There were laws that were trying to develop a sort of bit of
self-reliance in the economy. So they insisted that there be Russian representation on the
board of directors and in the executive team of all the companies there. And so that gave
Emmanuel a big leg up to actually be considered a Russian citizen with establishing deals and
establishing his sort of control of at least the domestic market. And that helped them sort of then
have the strength to enter foreign markets. Ludwig had invented the world's first ever oil
tanker. As an engineer by trade, he did what others thought could not be done. He sort of had the
cisterns holding oil in the hull of the ship and designed a ship that could survive the waves,
not only of going up the river systems of the Volga, but out on open ocean voyages to transport
oil around the world, which was something that really shocked Rockefeller. All of a sudden,
the nobles were transporting oil around Europe and Asia and he was like, my gosh, who were these
nobles? And by 1900, so you know, Emmanuel's in the top job leading the company for 12 years,
by 1900, Nobel Brothers is actually putting more oil on the market than standard oil. They got bigger
than even standard oil by 1900. Incredible. There's a little anecdote you tell about when
Emmanuel's father, Ludwig, dies in 1888. And the press got the story wrong. They mistakenly
listed Alfred Nobel, his brother, as having passed away. And that led to
really what we know Alfred Nobel and the name Nobel by today, which is the, can you tell that
story? Yes, this is an amazing story. Ludwig Nobel passes away in 1888. And he's a huge name at
the time. I mean, for reasons we can get into later, the Nobel name has been erased from history,
just really sucked out of the history books by events in Russia later that we can talk about.
But at the time, Ludwig Nobel was a globally big name. And so was Alfred. So Alfred had moved back
to Paris, he'd invented dynamite and become a millionaire in his own right. But Ludwig had a
much bigger operation in Russia than Alfred did. When Ludwig died, it was a big enough deal that
it was covered around the world. But the newspapers in France, where Alfred lived,
mixed it up. So they thought Alfred had died. And so they printed the obituary and Alfred
having invented dynamite, which had many uses that was used for mining and construction of
railroads. You know, dynamite was important as an industrial matter, but it was also used as a
weapon of war. And so the Paris newspapers called him a merchant of death and that Alfred Nobel has
passed away, you know, the person responsible for more deaths than anyone in human history.
And so it was a pretty scathing obituary. But Alfred was alive and well to read this and thought,
my God, this is not how I wish to be remembered. And so he ended up changing his will based on,
you know, this terrible obit that he read of himself. And that led him to establish the Nobel
Prize. And so he left. And when he passed away, he had 33 million Swedish kronor, 31 of the 33 he
left to establish a prize for the person in the previous year who had done the most to benefit
mankind. And so this erroneous obit is what actually led to the Nobel Prize.
That was true of so many of these, whether you call them robber barons or magnets or whatever,
so many of them realized late in life that maybe their legacy would be a little bit shaded
by their business activities. And so they established all kinds of
nonprofits and charities and things like that.
Yeah, I mean, the Rockefellers did it too. They tried to guild the legacy a little bit,
knowing that they maybe cut a few corners along the way to get where they are.
And also that whole idea of war profiteers and as you say, merchants of death, which was a
pejorative, applied to a lot of people over the years, particularly in the late 19th century and
then up through World War One. Yeah, that was a very common sentiment with people. We are still
seeing that today. I mean, people complain all the time about the military industrial complex
and Lockheed Martin and what have you. So Emmanuel is fully in control. His uncles were
kind of doubtful, but he had learned well from his father and he took the reins quite adeptly,
I would say. This is also the advent of the era of the motor car. 1885, Carl Benz develops his
patent motor wagon. His wife, Bertha Benz, takes it on its first drive. I think it was 60 kilometers
between two cities and it's a tricycle. It's got tiller steering. It's a single cylinder,
pretty rudimentary, but it is revolutionary. It is. And it changes the nature of demand for
petroleum. When Standard Oil first incorporated in 1870, Nobel Brothers in 1873, the use of
petroleum was for illumination, which was very important. It extended the work day.
Centuries before, when the sun went down, you stopped working. But with illumination, you could
extend human productivity around the world. So it was key, but it was not like the combustion
engine. When that comes along and we have, as you say, cars, combustion engines on ships,
they switch from coal to fuel oil for the navies around the world by World War I.
The internal combustion engine, the diesel engine, changed the nature of the demand for
petroleum. And now it's actually, it's critically important for war and industry.
And by 1915, we're actually selling more gasoline for engines than we are kerosene
for illumination. It kind of crosses over right in that early war period.
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I don't know if you came across this in researching the book, but you know,
gasoline was originally considered a waste product from the distillation of other petroleum products.
Yeah, awfully convenient for these petroleum companies to suddenly, you know, to actually be
making something that all of a sudden goes from waste to incredibly valuable.
And gasoline was not like it is today. It was actually a pretty poor motor fuel for a long time.
Most engines were very low compression. And part of the reason for that was the poor nature of
gasoline. By the way, the patent motor wagon, the fuel that they used in that thing originally was
something called Legroin, also known as naptha or heavy naptha. And it was sold in pharmacies as
a cleanser, as a solvent, not as a fuel, but it worked out for Bertha Benz on her drive. So,
yeah, kind of an interesting side note. The United States and Russia are the dominant
producers at this time of petroleum products. As you say, it's now the era of the internal
combustion engine. The steam engine has had its day. Nobel sees the diesel engine as the way of
the future. Like you say, they developed the first tankers, and he rapidly moves to dieselize
all of his ships. It's remarkable. He took Emmanuel Nobel and Rudolph Diesel were friends and
colleagues. Emmanuel Nobel took the exclusive license to manufacture and market the diesel
engine in all Russia and did more with the diesel technology than any place else outside Germany.
By 1910, Russia was the most deslized country in the world outside of Germany. And his machine
factory up in St. Petersburg did a number of advances, particularly with the marine diesels.
They built diesels for the Russian Navy for submarines and surface ships of war. And he also
used inland diesel, stationary factory diesels for pumping oil and powering tram stations and
things like that. So, the Nobel expertise in the machine factory in St. Petersburg was remarkable.
And Rudolph Diesel often remarked on how far they had advanced the technology in Russia
under the nobles. And this is a great photo, actually, of Rudolph Diesel visiting St. Petersburg
and Emmanuel Nobel. He spoke in St. Petersburg at Emmanuel's invitation to all, you know,
sort of the Russian technology conference. And there's a great photo of those two side by side
at a conference in 1910. So, just a few years before Diesel disappeared in the North Sea,
visiting his friend, Emmanuel Nobel. And of course, that was the seed of this book, right?
In researching the mysterious case of Rudolph Diesel, you realize there was a big story
yet to be told about the nobles.
Absolutely. So, you know, I came into the Nobel story via the diesel license. And then I thought,
wow, this guy did amazing stuff. He achieved more with the diesel license than almost anyone
up, far more than Bush did in America, far more than any other licensee around the world.
Nobel was really the number one licensee in the world for diesel. Well, that's remarkable.
And then I looked more at him, and I realized that was only one of his businesses.
He had probably the two most important businesses in all of the Russian Empire.
He was building bombs and guns and diesel engines in the North in St. Petersburg,
and he had the world's largest oil concern in the south of Russia. By 1900, as I mentioned,
he was already bigger than standard oil. So, when Emmanuel takes over at the age of 29 in 1888,
he's running two of the empire's most important businesses, two. It was such a massive thing
to oversee, which is, you know, as you were suggesting earlier, Alfred Nobel and the other
brother Robert, kind of like, I don't know if Emmanuel is like, this might be too big for
any one person to take on. We've got two of our biggest companies in the empire,
and this one 29-year-old guy is going to come in here and run them both, seems a little nuts.
But he succeeded enormously with doing that. The diesel technology was great. The oil concern
became the largest in the world. There was a letter that Ludwig wrote to the brother Robert,
saying, you know, this was in the early mid-80s. As things were getting together,
they had all the infrastructure in place. You know, they had the storage silos and the wells
and the refining capability and the ships and the trains to deliver the oil. He said, you know,
everything's in place. The only thing that can take us out now is some change in the political
winds in which, you know, all private industry blows up. And he's like, you know, if it's just
down to business and technology, no one can touch us. The only thing that can touch us is like,
if the Russian empire suddenly explodes. Right. And I'm glad you made it there because we have
to talk about sort of the geopolitical landscape. At the time, Europe is largely still monarchies,
right? Royal houses. There are no social democracies or really constitutional
republics of any significance at that point. A constitutional republic seems like a totally
alien concept. You know, that's over in North America.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, France is kind of there, but you're right. Everyone else is a monarchy,
or at least a constitutional monarchy. You know, Britain has a king and a parliament and a prime
minister, but there were three nations in Europe that had no form of parliament whatsoever.
They were truly autocratic. It was the Ottoman empire, the Russian empire, and I think Montenegro
was the third. And so there was some dissent within the empire, like, hey, we need some
representation here. We're ruling like an evil Asian empire from centuries past.
And even more than that, really, the Tsar was viewed as almost a demigod. He was more than a
man. He was God's anointed leader on earth. So there was almost sort of a demigod status around
him beyond just being an autocrat. Much like in Japan, you know, kind of, he's a deity of sorts.
Yeah. And the Tsar is Nicholas II. Correct. His father was assassinated?
Let's see. Well, there were many assassinations. However, Nicholas II's father was Alexander III,
who died of kidney failure at the young age of 53. That's right. That's right. It's hard to keep it
all straight. Yeah. Yeah. But everyone else was basically assassinated. Right. And Nicholas
isn't, doesn't seem really up to the task. He's sort of taciturn and almost detached from events,
almost just like kind of a spectator to all the things that are happening in Russia. There's
great deal of unrest. And there are a couple of now very infamous names that are coming to
the 41 is Vladimir Lenin. The other is Joseph Stalin. And these are the guys that,
you know, the Nobel brothers really need to worry about.
It's fascinating. So the real sort of antagonist to Emmanuel in the book is Joseph Stalin,
who grew up in Georgia. He's down there in southern Russia, right by the Nobel and Rothschild
oil fields. Hard scrabble childhood, you know, he's growing up in street gangs in the streets of
Tieflis. And amazingly, his mother wants him to go into the priesthood. So he's in a seminary
studying to be a priest as a young kid. But he is sort of, in the beginning, I would characterize
it more as sort of a rebellious schoolboy. You know, he's Georgian. Georgia had been annexed by
the Russian Empire. Russia is really trying to Russianize Georgia. And he's outraged by having
to speak Russian in the schools and not speak as native Georgian. And so he has many nicknames
over the years. One is this fictional character in a novel named Koba K-O-B-A, who's sort of a
hero of Georgian independence in this novel that he reads. And so he wants everyone to call him
Koba and he calls himself Koba. He ends up obviously abandoning the priesthood. He comes
in contact with the Marxist ideas of social democracy that they're sort of fomenting in
Georgia at that time. He eventually, by late teens, early 20s, aligned behind Vladimir Lenin.
And the Bolshevik, what is not yet called the Bolshevik Party, but the Social Democracy,
Social Democratic Party. And he continues to operate as sort of a street thug gang member.
He's in order to raise money for Lenin. He's committing bank heists and stealing,
you know, rubles that have covered wagons headed for the bank. He's doing protection
schemes and racketeering. He's a criminal in Southern Russia. He also does work for a time
in the oil fields of Rothschild and Nobel. So these are the capitalists that he's got in his
sights more than anyone. You know, there's the Czar is number one, but Immanuel Nobel is number
two. This is the guy he'd like to take down. He's worked in the oil fields. He's agitated for strikes
of the oil workers against Rothschild and Nobel. There are diaries that have come to light since
the fall of the USSR in which Stalin says, we're going to take out the Czar and Immanuel Nobel.
So it's sort of this counterpoint thing happening in Southern Russia between Stalin and Nobel for
the future of Russia and its most valuable resource. Yeah. And he's all about seizing the means of
production. And he's very busy printing Marxist pamphlets to agitate anyone who will read them
or can read them aloud to those who are illiterate. He also commits arson, right, at one of the oil
fields. Yep. He commits all sorts of sabotage to the oil fields. And the one thing that he got
that was very useful for him out of the seminary school was he became a pretty good writer and
he learned to speak and write Russian, which he needed to do. You know, if you want to run the
Russian Empire, you got to speak Russian. And he used the distribution networks of the oil
companies against them. So he'd print all these pamphlets that were illegal. He had an illegal
underground printing press. He would write Marxist doctrine and pamphlets and then disseminate them
on the trains and the ships. He would sort of pack them away. And so the Czar and his secret
police are wondering, how are these pamphlets getting all around the empire and cities
everywhere? And it was because he was using the oil distribution network against the empire.
He would pack his pamphlets in there and send stuff out to cities all over the empire.
He's crazy like a fox, isn't he? That's right. Yeah. Now by 1905, there are some political reforms.
The Czar sees that there's a lot of unrest. He's kind of trying to appease
people. But Stalin is full revolutionary gangster. Lenin is the de facto leader of the coming
revolution. And Nicholas is totally unprepared for the changing political winds.
Yes. Nicholas is a full believer in the autocracy. He's not looking to reform as some of his
ancestors had. Alexander II, grandfather of Nicholas II, freed the serfs. Two years before
Lincoln freed the slaves. And he had very reform-minded policies. He was sort of going to open
up Russia and he was going to move to more of a constitutional monarchy, much in the way that
Western Europe had. He was looking to westernize and modernize the Russian empire.
And then there are all sorts of attempts on his life. He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
It's like, now I'm going to crack down. And so he sort of alternated between reform and repress.
Ultimately, he was assassinated. And then Alexander III came in in the wake of his father's
assassination. He cracked down and had a very repressive regime. Nicholas II believed in the
autocracy. But as you said earlier, he was kind of a feckless, weak leader. And he was recognized
as such by all of his ministers. In 1905, this is the era of a mini-revolution in Russia. It's
bloody Sunday in St. Petersburg where thousands are killed. There were insurrections all around
the empire, including in southern Russia and Baku, where the oil fields are. And as a result of that,
Nicholas had to give some ground. So this was the creation of the Duma, or the first parliamentary
system in Russia. And it was a bit of a sham. It was still Nicholas sort of gave it up to do this,
like, yeah, we'll have it. But it was really just sort of a name. It wasn't really affecting policy
or direction of the empire in any real way. But it was enough to calm things back down.
Lenin had been in exile at the time of the 1905 revolution. By the way, there was a lot of damage
in the oil fields and the refineries of Baku. Less so to Nobel because he was known to be a much
more enlightened employer. His employees were treated very well. He built schools and housing
and he built facilities for leisure time. And his employees were very loyal and they actually
proudly call themselves Nobelites. So it was a matter of pride to work for the Nobel operations
in Baku as opposed to the other oil companies, which were much more gruesome places to work.
And so when there was damage to the infrastructure in Baku in 1905,
Nobel kind of got off easy because his workers protected him and didn't damage it.
Everyone else, the Rothschilds, got really took a beating.
Yeah, you draw a really good contrast between the Nobel operation and their employees working
conditions and living conditions versus other people in the region who are just living in squalor,
working terribly long hours. And by the way, no matter where you work in the oil region of Baku,
it is an incredibly dangerous job. I mean, people are killed every day on the job.
It's like, I don't know if you've seen the show Landman with Billy Bob Thornton, but you know,
people die even in that show. I'm not spoiling anything with the show, which is terrific.
But it's 100 times more dangerous. People were lowered in on a rope into the well,
nine times out of 10, you're not coming back out. But people were doing that sort of thing.
Plus there was a lot of theft and murder. You know, a ton of murders happened there where they
just kill someone and throw them down a well, you know, never find them again. So that sort of
thing, there was a whole murder for hire scheme where it was like only a couple of rubles to
take someone out. And maybe if it was someone more significant, a doctor, lawyer, or a politician,
it might be more like eight rubles, which converts to, you know, like 100 bucks in present day value.
So it was a dangerous place to be. And by the early 20th century, petroleum is now a matter
of national security. It's, it's that important. We're coming to the eve of World War One.
A little car content here, Doug. Okay, this is interesting. I don't know if you know this one.
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated while riding in a
gruff and stiff touring car. This is an Austrian luxury car. An assassin approaches them, fires
shots, kills Franz Ferdinand and his wife. And that is the opening shot of the First World War.
Yeah, amazing stuff. I did not know the make of the car. I'd never heard that before.
The car still exists. It's in a museum in Europe.
Yes, and cars and trains and ships are critical at this point for war. And petroleum, of course,
is critical. And it was still sort of Russia and America. In 1914, it was Russian America.
Mexico didn't really come online until about 1910. And so by 1914, it was sort of barely coming in.
So they're evolving into a player, but we're not yet that big.
And the Middle East, Churchill had bought up some ownership stakes in Middle Eastern oil
capacity, but that was still coming online as well. It was still America and Russia's game,
for the most part. Yeah, isn't it weird to think of a world in which the Middle East is not a factor
in this yet? I mean... It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in my lifetime, and obviously a little bit
before, they've been completely associated with petroleum. And think like there was a time when
that was not at all it. That was not what they did at all. And all of the sort of geopolitical
machinations we see today, swirling in the Middle East, a lot of that has to do with oil.
That was true in Russia in the time period of the Nobles. It's certainly a factor when
the First World War breaks out. Everybody wants control of the oil.
And Stalin, having come from the region and worked in the oil fields of the region,
understood it better than anyone. He was always in Lenin's ear saying,
we got to get in there. We got to take that oil. It's critical. But everyone kind of knew it.
The German army was trying to get to Baku, the Ottoman Turks were trying to get there,
the Japanese, the British, the Americans, and both the red and the white forces of what
eventually became the Russian Civil War. They all were trying to get Baku such that Baku was
changing hands almost weekly. It was slaughter, blood in the streets constantly. There were ethnic
wars between the Armenians and the Azerbaijanis, the Turks, the British. There was this
British force led by General Lionel Dunsterville who inspired a character in the Rudyard Kipling
novels called the Dunster Force. But it was only a few thousand Brits. But they held Baku briefly
for a time until they were chased out by the Turks. Finally, of course, it lands in Soviet
hands due to Stalin's machinations. But it was just an impossible place for someone like Emmanuel
Nobel to run a business. He was in hiding for much of this, but the turmoil, the political
turmoil in Baku was incredible. The Dunster Force was a surprising detail. I had no idea that that
had happened, and I kind of think of them as sort of proto-commandos. They're really far from home.
They're not well supplied. It's a small force. They're kind of hitting where they can, controlling
what they can, but they're hanging way out there on their own. Yeah, their mandate initially,
again, it's just a few thousand British soldiers. They're there while the war,
the Great War, is still going on. And their initial mandate was like, just keep Germany
out. We're not really trying to take it for Britain, but we're trying to make sure Germany
doesn't get it because that will just completely resupply them and fire them back up on the Eastern
and the Western Front if the Kaiser and the German forces can get the oil of Southern Russia.
So that was their initial mandate. And then toward the end of the war, certain people like
Churchill were recognizing that the Bolshevik communist threat was perhaps the greatest threat
he now faced. And so he was already arguing, before the war was over, he was saying,
we think we're going to win this war, but we're going to have to keep Germany kind of strong
as a buffer against this growing communist threat in Russia, which is actually the greater threat.
And so there was an argument for sending a much larger British force and a much larger American
force in to just clean up Russia. The Tsar by this time was not only deposed, but was murdered.
And the new government was forming. The Bolshevik leadership was very shaky. People thought that
might fall. It was very unstable. But in the end, they decided to, as one diplomat called it, just
let Russia sort of stew in her own mix and just sort of stay out of it. But the case for intervention
was made by Churchill and others saying, with a 100000 troops, we can go in there,
we can clear out these crazy Bolshevik communists and get a more stable government in there
and make sure that they don't become a longer term threat. But on the heels of four years of brutal
war, no one had the appetite to extend things and send hundreds of thousands of troops into
Russia for yet another war. And so the communists managed to sort of thread this crazy needle where
they were the most unlikely group to take control of Russia. But they did. And of course,
as much as Churchill warned us about it, it all came to pass.
I haven't read enough Churchill, but I wonder if he ever expressed regret that he,
that they didn't go in and put down the Bolsheviks. You have an interesting quote in the book from
Lenin. There are decades when nothing happens and then there are weeks where decades happen.
And I think that really exemplifies what we're talking about here. The Great War and then
the Bolshevik rise to influence and power and the decision to assassinate the Russian royal
family, which he seems to almost make on the spur of the moment. Yes, he had sort of a backup plan.
So he had the Tsar in prison in Ekaterinburg on the eastern side of the Yuro Mountain,
sort of like early Siberia, not crazy out there Siberia, but Siberia under house arrest and
Bolshevik guards. And his idea was to gather all living Romanovs and not just Nicholas and
Alexandra and their children, but the uncles and the aunts and essentially the entire royal court
and then put them on trial for treason against the Russian people. And it would, of course,
be a rigged situation. They were going to be guilty, but it would be a sort of a rallying
thing that Lenin would do and a nice bit of theater. The problem was that the Czech legion
who opposed the Reds, Bolsheviks, were coming in from the east. They'd been out more
in the very eastern part of the empire in Vladivostok, but they were coming along the
Trans-Siberian railway and getting pretty close to Ekaterinburg. And Lenin feared that
if the Tsar were freed, he would be a banner around which everyone could rally. The one thing he
had going for him in the Civil War was that the Red Army of the Bolsheviks knew what they were
all doing. They were very disciplined. They were sort of on message. The White Army was really
a gathering of sub-armies that all had slightly different interests. The only unifying thing
among the White armies was that they hated the Bolsheviks, but some wanted to restore the Tsar,
some wanted a parliament, some wanted something else, some wanted independence of this other part
of the country. So they were sort of fighting the Bolsheviks, but they weren't really unified in any
other way. And Lenin feared that if Nicholas II actually reemerged, that people actually could
really unify around him, and that would pose a much bigger threat for him. So as the Czech Legion
was approaching Ekaterinburg, where Nicholas was under arrest, he sent the word like, take him out,
take him out. And so these drunk guards gathered Nicholas and Alexander and the kids at two in
the morning from their bed, took him down to the basement, and shot them and stabbed them with
the bayonets of their rifles, and then threw them in a pit and burned them with gasoline and then
buried them. Nicholas and his family weren't necessarily in fear for their lives. But again,
it's like this, this sense that he is just watching events unfold with absolutely no control, no
initiative to, to sort of steer what happens. Yeah, when the first, when the bread riots first
start in 1917, this is the February 1917 revolution starts with bread riots in the, in the Capitol.
Nicholas has made the mistake of going off to the front lines and trying to sort of lead the
army in the, in the Great War against Germany. Then he hears of these riots and his, his throne is
now in jeopardy. So he returns to the Capitol in a big rush, only to find like the generals are
saying, there's just no support for you at this point. Rasputin, who's such a fascinating character,
has been involved, this sort of undermining Nicholas and Alexander's credibility. Rasputin,
this crazy monk from Siberia, who was thought to be sort of influencing the czar to the point
where he was really an ineffectual ruler, even more so. Yeah, he's a sort of a, sorry, Rasputin
is a Svengali character, right? He's mesmerizing. Somehow he's enchanted them. Yes, yes. And, and
the thing that got him in the door was, you know, Russia has a, has a lot of mysticism and, and
superstition and yeah. Yeah, very, very superstitious. And so Rasputin comes in as this sort of godlike
monk who claims he can heal their son who, who has blanking on the, the blood.
Hemophilia.
He is a hemophiliac. Thank you. The czarevich, the only male child of the czar is Alexei,
who has hemophilia. And so, you know, which means that, you know, the tiniest cut and you can bleed
out and die or you bump yourself and the bruise won't stop the internal bleeding. So it swells.
It's very painful and generally people don't live past 13 or 14 years old. But Rasputin claims he
can heal the boy and through luck or who knows what, when he visits the palace, the boy is
very sick from a bruise and lying in bed in pain and Rasputin goes in and says the boy is going
to be fine. And the next morning he, he is. And so the czarina is convinced that Rasputin is this
mystical healer. And so he becomes very important to the czar and czarina because he seems to have
this ability to heal the child. But when the czar comes back to the capital to address these
riots, he doesn't take a very proactive role. He just sort of accepts and the general say,
you kind of lost support. You know, he could have gone out and spoken to the people and
taken a much more, you know, aggressive approach and proactive approach to save the monarchy.
But he just sort of acquiesced in the end. He sort of stayed in prison in the winter palace and,
you know, events really took control of him rather than the other way around.
And there was a provisional government under a guy named Kerensky, but that didn't last.
The Bolsheviks, they got the camel's nose under the tent in the Duma, right? And then they have
all these Duma seats, I think, and eventually Lenin comes to power. And, and that's, that's the
end of things. And, you know, Nicholas and family are murdered. The empire is no more. And critically
to your story, Emmanuel Nobel is at a crossroads. He knows that the Bolsheviks are going to seize
the means of production. He's kind of fluttering in the wind. Yes, he, he, he has gone in hiding in
this resort town in southern Russia that's kind of behind a buffer of white army. So he's a little,
he's safe there for now, but the Bolsheviks are succeeding in winning the Russian civil war.
So the white armies are getting weaker and weaker. And they have, the Bolsheviks are
nominally in charge. They control the capital, they control most of the major cities,
but they're still at war in the civil war, but they're operating the empire. And so they do
issue a decree of nationalization. So they, they in, in name take over all these businesses. They
don't fully control Baku yet in the oil fields. They've left the Nobel employees and executives
in charge there. But as they take it over, they don't really have the expertise to do what Nobel
has done. So they can say we have the oil fields, but they don't have the know-how to drill and
refine and transport the oil. They still need Nobel to make sure that the oil keeps flowing.
You know, they can take it over, but then it might just slow to a trickle because they don't
know what they're doing. So they issue a summons from Moscow. They've changed the capital from
St. Petersburg, St. Petersburg to Moscow because they're sort of running from the German army.
And to, they know where Nobel is in hiding. So they, by courier, they send a note to quote-unquote
citizen Nobel and ask him to come to Moscow to discuss getting his help with maintaining
the Russian oil industry, you know, at its, at its peak, because it's already starting to wane
a bit. And he of course says, there's no way I'm going there. Like, I know these guys want to kill
me. They'll be in prison and they'll, they'll get my help, but that's, it's not going to land
anywhere good for me. So he has to make this decision. Again, people are still wondering
if these Bolsheviks could possibly survive. They have no experience running a nation or a government.
People are still thinking that the West is going to be very opposed to them, which they are. I mean,
the communism, the whole idea was an international revolution. You know, the communist ambition is
to see a, a Bolshevik style revolution in every one of these European countries. And so these
European governments are thinking, well, we don't want these guys around. Worldwide domination, right?
They want a global communist takeover. That stated, I mean, that's, that's was no secret.
And so many thought the Bolsheviks couldn't possibly survive like the West wouldn't permit it.
And so Nobel was still hanging on for the hopes that somewhat the British, you know,
someone will come in and, and settle things down and he'll be able to return to Baku and Saint
the Bolsheviks keep gaining strength in large part because the West, you know,
the Allied powers didn't want to drive the Bolsheviks into the arms of Germany.
If an alliance between the Bolsheviks in Germany would be the worst possible outcome.
So they were kind of playing nice and Lenin was able to play Germany and the Allies off against
each other because he was, you know, in name, the custodian of all these natural resources that
everybody wanted. So everyone was afraid of Lenin creating an alliance with the other.
It's pieces on a chessboard, isn't it, Doug? I mean.
But so finally, Nobel is faced in the red armies are getting close to where he is in hiding.
And he finally says, you know, it's time to run. And again, his employees who were so loyal to him
over the years help him escape with disguises and covered wagons. They map out a route to escape
from Russia and get across the border. And he has this harrowing escape where he's briefly
arrested at one point. It's just a crazy story of how he gets out of Russia and ultimately back to
the nation of his forefathers back to Sweden. What was your research process for this? Did
you travel? Did you go to Russia? Did you go to Sweden? I was in Stockholm, Sweden. This is kind
of a funny thing. This happens a number of times with my family trips that I end up wrestling my
wife and sometimes the kids as well into some little side venture where I'm, you know, exploring
things. But there's an incredible archive in Stockholm, the Center for Business History Stockholm.
It has so much stuff that they've gotten from Azerbaijan and Baku, incredible photographs,
letters, documents of the Nobel family. Even still, though, I was amazed at how little the
Emmanuel Nobel story is known, even in Sweden. There are all sorts of Nobel museums and offices
and things, but it's all really geared around Alfred. And most people don't even know the name
Emmanuel, which is all because of Stalin. It's that whole George Orwell book, 1984, their
passage in there inspired by what Stalin did in the 20s and 30s and 40s to erase, you know,
that the names of streets were changed, the plaques were pulled down, the statues were torn down,
the history was changed. And in the case of Emmanuel Nobel, the Nobel Brothers Petroleum
company became the Russian oil company, the Ludwig Nobel manufacturing company became
Rusky diesel. And this happened not just with the Nobel, the Sony, the Ericsson telephone
and telegraph became red dawn. So they just renamed everything, they erased Emmanuel, they
turned him into a political unperson. So we don't really know about him. And even in Sweden,
to some extent, that's still the case. And yet he ran the two biggest, you know, enterprises in
all of the Russian Empire. It's amazing. Fascinating. Yeah, I mean, Stalin would even go
so far as to liquidate people he saw as a threat, you know, and literally airbrush them out of
photographs. Yes. Yes, it's funny, you see, there are a few interesting side by side photographs,
even Trotsky, who became an adversary, there was a rival for the succession.
When Lenin had three strokes and died, there was a at a young age, and this was in 1923,
he was still very young. And there wasn't a clear succession plan. Stalin, of course, worked
to, you know, develop secret alliances and oust Trotsky, who was really thought to be the number
two. And he does outmaneuver Trotsky in the end, he actually gave him the wrong, he gave Trotsky
the wrong information for Lenin's funeral. So Trotsky missed the funeral. By the time he showed
up, Lenin Stalin had already sort of engineered some alliances to be the successor. And Trotsky
became this exiled rival. And Stalin and his historians changed the history of Trotsky's
involvement. Trotsky had really been the leader of the Red Army. Not only did Stalin try to change
that history, but he'd take old photographs that had Lenin and Trotsky in there together,
and he'd, as you say, he'd airbrush Trotsky right out of the photograph.
Yeah, amazing. And Stalin, the name Stalin, it means Stoneheart, right? Or something like that.
I think it might be Man of Steel.
Man of Steel, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah, I mean, he really was, right? He
Stalin ruled until 1954, I think on, he finally, only death could take him out of power.
That's right. Yeah.
Well, it's a fantastic book, The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel. Douglas Brunt, thanks again,
man. I love talking to you. It's a wonderful story. I can't wait to see what you've, you got for us
next. So fun talking to you. There's another one coming up. And The Lost Empire of Emmanuel Nobel
is available now. It's published by Atria Books. Doug, thank you. Thank you.
That's all for this episode of Horsepower Heritage. Support the show by becoming a patron.
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About this episode
Douglas Brunt’s book on Emanuel Nobel traces how petroleum power, diesel, and the internal combustion engine reshaped society, politics, and war. The story follows the Nobel family from early oil decisions in the Caucasus to competition with Standard Oil and the Rothschilds, including Ludwig Nobel’s oil-tanker breakthrough. As revolution and civil war erupt—along with sabotage, propaganda, and Baku’s oil-field damage—Emanuel Nobel navigates shifting Bolshevik control. The episode ties it all to the wider scramble for oil around World War I.
Original notes
In his latest book "The Lost Empire of Alfred Nobel", New York Times Bestselling Author Douglas Brunt tells the fascinating tale of the rise and fall of the world's largest oil dynasty.
Emanuel Nobel took the reigns of his family's massive Russian petroleum conglomerate just as the Automotive Age began and the steam engine was giving way to internal combustion. Oil had become the lifeblood of human endeavor.
Nobel eclipsed business rivals like the Rothschilds and John D. Rockefeller and earned the favor of the Tsar himself. Yet just as he seemed invincible, the winds of war and political change swept over Imperial Russia and threatening his family fortune and even his life.
It's a sweeping tale in the far-flung reaches of the Russian Empire from Baku on the Caspian Sea to the streets of Saint Petersburg, swirling with a cast of characters including The Romanovs, Rasputin, Lenin, Stalin, Rudolf Diesel, and Winston Churchill. "The Lost Empire of Emanuel Nobel" is available now at fine booksellers everywhere.
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