Mueller & Bissell & Prudhomme – WWI Connections to the Rockefellers and Rothschilds

Mueller & Bissell & Prud'homme – Industry Connections to Rothschilds & Rockefellers

Our interest in the Belgian American Coke Company was initiated by the deeper dive we did into the Mueller family tree. As noted in previous posts, Robert Swan Mueller the 3rd is related to Richard Bissell Jr., the famed CIA Director of Plans, fired by JFK for the Bay of Pigs debacle, along with Allen Dulles and General Charles Pearre Cabell.



As shown in the abbreviated family tree, Richard Bissell's sister married Hector C. Prud'homme. Hector "C", is interesting in his own right, but for now, we are more interested in his father Hector "P" Prud'homme, and his associations with the Belgian American Coke Company, its officers and investors.

As noted in the clipping, Hector "P" was from Brussels. He spent some time in China (circa 1903) where he was a "Belgian civil engineer in charge of railway construction" , according to the obituary of his son Hector "C", who was born in China in 1903.

At some point after 1903, Hector "P" moved to St. Louis, likely in connection with the start-up of the Belgian American Coke Ovens. Hector "P" and his wife made the papers in September of 1922 when they returned from a trip to Marseilles and landed in Brooklyn and failed to declare a diamond brooch worth $1,000.00. The paper notes their would be an investigation, but it appears they were allowed to continue on to their home in St. Louis.

[Side Note: George Herbert Walker was from St. Louis. Robert Swan Mueller Sr. also lived in St. Louis. Dorothy Lucille Cabell, the mother of Ann Cabell Standish Mueller (RSM3 wife) was also from St. Louis.] 

Belgian American Coke Company - Officers, Directors, Financiers

The Belgian American Coke Company was no small affair. It's initial capitalization of $10 million in 1921 would be about $143 million today (a useful inflation calculator.)

The Americans

The American investors were well known at the time due to their pre-WWI wealth and post-WWI astronomical level of wealth, influence, and all around tycoon like status. They included President George H.W. Bush's grandfather (George Herbert Walker) and Thomas Fortune Ryan, the founder of the American Tobacco Company. American Tobacco Company, was ruled a "Trust", like Standard Oil. It was the largest tobacco company in the United States before it was broken up in 1911; also like Standard Oil.

Both George Herbert Walker and Thomas Fortune Ryan benefited financially from WWI, with economic interests in all types of companies, whether or not those companies provided goods and services to the war effort indirectly (banking, shipping, raw materials) or directly.

George H. Walker's daughter, Dorothy Walker, was introduced to Samuel Prescott Bush's son, Prescott Sheldon in 1919, linking the Walkers to Remington Arms, a Rockefeller controlled company. 

Samuel Prescott Bush was also closely associated with Samuel Pryor, who, along with the Rockefellers, controlled the Remington Arms Company. During the First World War, Clarence Dillon, a senior figure at the War Industries Board, arranged for Bush, to become chief of the Ordnance Small Arms and Ammunition Section of the WIB. This involved giving out contracts to supply arms and ammunition to the United States Army. Over half of the small-arms ammunition and 69% of the rifles used by the United States in the war were supplied by Remington. Source: Spartacus-Educational

Thomas Fortune Ryan, among many other corporate interests, was also an early financial backer of the Auto-Ordnance Company, which developed the Thompson Submachine Gun. Although intended to be used in the trenches of Europe, the war ended before the first "Tommys" were shipped. Nevertheless, post WWI sales to the US Marines for use in various Banana Wars, law enforcement agencies and foreign forces, helped Ryan's investment pay-off.

The Belgians

The Belgians listed in the 1921 press release mostly represented the economic interests in the company of the Rothschilds. The Belgians listed include Emil Francui, Oliver Piette, Adolphe Stoclet, Lambert Jadot, and Hector P. Prud'homme. Piette was the inventor of the coke oven.

Emil Franqui, Adolphe Stoclet, Lambert Jadot,  Hector P. Prud'homme were either officers and/or directors of Société générale de Belgique (Socgen) and its sub-affiliate Banque d'Outremer. The French Rothschilds as one of the primary owners of the Banque d'Outremer, along with Socgen, and through countless cross ownership arrangements, collectively owned most of the metal mining and mineral assets in the Belgian Congo. Socgen itself was believed to be the agent for the London Rothschilds in all Belgian related business. In short, both the French and English branches of the Rothschild banking group had interests in the Belgian American Coal Company.

Emil Franqui is of particular interest. He became a friend of Herbert Hoover when both were stationed in China in the late 1890's. When WWI broke out, he worked with Hoover to set up the "National Aid and Food Committee" and its American counterpart the "Commission for Relief in Belgium" to provide food, clothes and other necessities for the Belgian population, which was at 7.8 million at the start of the war, and in bad shape from the German occupation, blockades and the overall inconvenience of being stuck between the Germans on one side and the French and English on the other side,

A number of historians have argued that the situation of the Belgians, though dire, was also intentionally embellished in the effort to get America to join the War. Various unspeakable atrocities were attributed to the occupying German forces in an effort to rally the American public to demand that US soldiers be sent to end the "Rape of Belgium."

Post War Partnership

If one reads enough Carrol Quigley, or have watched The Corbett Report special on WWI, or taken a deeper look into the history of WWI beyond what most text books deliver, there are many convincing arguments that WWI was entirely contrived by a small group of British bankers and industrialists. The "Milner Group" (members list) is often considered to be an early organizing cabal, although any number of other British "secret societies" can probably be given credit, and more than likely they are the same people, working together under different names. These would include "Milner's Kindergarten", the "Rhodes Roundtable" and others. The groups had foreign affiliates or overlapping connections.

In the United States, this would include The Pilgrim Society (members list), and predecessors of groups like the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR.)  Some sources give the date of the founding of the CFR as July 29, 1921, which is one day before the NY Times article posted here. Founding CFR members include the Rockefellers, Herbert Hoover and Edward House, among others.

To be continued....