Personal letter
to Gareth from David Lloyd George.
The retired General, Hans von Seeckt, one-time
Commander-in-Chief of the Reichswehr, went as a German military adviser to the Marshall
and introduced an industrialist, Klein, to him. With General von Seeckt’s knowledge, Klein was also involved with
the development of an armaments factory and an arsenal in Canton for Marshall
Chen Chi-tang’s Army. On Gareth’s first
visit to Hong Kong he saw Von Seeckt with a Chinese General in mufti. The German Foreign Office, or the
Wilhelmstrasse, wished to keep a balanced foreign policy between China and
Japan. Unbeknown to the department in
the late spring of 1935 the Nazi, Joachim von Ribbentrop, began secret
negotiations with the Japanese Military Attaché, General Oshima Hiroshi, in Berlin against Bolshevik Russia. The significance of these discussions
should have become apparent on reading the tragic story of Gareth’s last
mysterious journey into Inner Mongolia.