William Astor "Willie" Chanler (June 11, 1867 – March 4, 1934) was an American soldier, explorer, and politician who served as U.S. Representative from New York.

[14] Ashley was already well known after appearing in John Philip Sousa's operetta El Capitan (1896) starring DeWolf Hopper,[15] as well as The Geisha (1896), The Circus Girl (1897), A Greek Slave (1899)[16][17] and San Toy (1900 and 1902).

[18][19][20] Ashley was anxious to quit her stage career due to damage to her eyesight resulting from prolonged exposure to theatrical arc lights.

[36] They traveled to Zanzibar and then to the coast of Kenya, going overland to Tsavo and then through lands inhabited by the Taveta people, where they encountered ornithologist William Louis Abbott and geologist Hans Meyer.

[3] Between 1892 and 1894 he explored the territory in the vicinity of Mount Kenya with George Galvin and Ludwig von Höhnel, a lieutenant in the Austro-Hungarian Navy.

[41]: 86 In early February the expedition was stranded in what is now the Meru North District of Kenya because of the death of all of its 165 pack animals (probably due to trypanosomiasis) and the desertion of many of the 160 porters.

[54] In 1896, Chanler published the first ethnographic description of the Cushitic Rendille, a community he would describe as "the most original and interesting of all the strange and different peoples met in East Africa".

[58] He worked enthusiastically to pass bills concerning the Sunday closing law for New York City saloons and amending the code regulating prize fights.

[61] After the sinking of the USS Maine, when it appeared certain that war would break out, Chanler offered to resign from the assembly and was granted an indefinite leave of absence.

[63][64] In April 1898, at the outset of the Spanish–American War, Chanler responded to President William McKinley's call for volunteers by forming a New York regiment,[65][66] with the encouragement of Theodore Roosevelt, who was hoping to lead it as lieutenant colonel.

[69] Chanler immediately volunteered his services to General Máximo Gómez and was given the rank of colonel in the nascent indigenous Cuban Army.

[73] The group included Chanler's brother Winthrop Astor Chanler, his brother-in-law C. Temple Emmet, his friend George Galvin, fellow explorer Dr. William Louis Abbott,[74] war correspondent (later Lieutenant) Grover Flint,[75][76] and the German surgeon Dr. Maximilian Lund,[77][78] as well as a grandson of General Hood, a great-grandson of Daniel Boone, and two former members of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show.

[93][94] Other horses that Chanler owned included Hancock II,[95] Aurelian,[96] Winona, Caldron,[97][98] Tender,[99] Cresson,[100] Madelaine, Salvacea, Camilla, Nanon, Lady Dainty,[101] Nasturtium,[102] Escuriel,[103] Salvatella,[104][105] I Told You,[106] Novena[107] and Salama.

[120][121] Chanler's investments in real estate and foreign mining operations largely insulated him from the Wall Street Crash of 1929, although towards the end of his life he began hoarding gold coins in his Paris home as insurance against currency fluctuations.

[127] In 1902, Chanler was approached by a group of Dutch investors, who were afraid that the Venezuelan President Cipriano Castro was about to default on a massive loan.

They asked Chanler to stage a rebellion, which he did by raising a small army of "desperadoes, soldiers of fortune, cattle rustlers, bank robbers, gamblers, Indian scouts and fugitives," recruiting some through his acquaintance Butch Cassidy and others from Quantrill's Raiders.

[128] The mercenary army landed on the Venezuelan coast, marched inland and threatened to seize power, but the insurrection was called off when the president agreed to comply with the terms of his loans.

In return for his help, Chanler was able to borrow funds for a project to provide a new sewage and water supply system to the city of Tampico, Mexico.

[129] He is known to have invited Sun Yat-sen aboard to discuss his plans for overthrowing the Qing dynasty, as well as members of the Young Turk Movement who were organizing opposition to the Ottoman Empire.

[130] In August 1911, he wrote to von Höhnel to ask him to order 15 Mauser pistols and 5,000 rounds of ammunition through arms dealer Basil Zaharoff.

On October 23, 1911, Arab cavalry commanded by Chanler ambushed and nearly destroyed the IV Battalion of the 11th Bersaglieri Regiment at Shar al-Shatt, killing over 500 Italian troops.

There, he served until late 1913 as a military adviser to Mohammed Abdullah Hassan (the "Mad Mullah"), during the Somaliland Campaign, the Dervish State's struggle against the Italians, British and Ethiopians.

[132] Chanler's recommendations may have influenced Hassan's forces to fight the British Somaliland Camel Corps at Dul Madoba on August 9, 1913, and later to sack the port at Berbera.

[138] Chanler established the French Heroes Lafayette Memorial Fund,[139] together with Theodore Roosevelt and Myron Herrick, to build schools, hospitals and asylums.

[141][142][143] The château served as a school, orphanage and preventorium for the care of pre-tubercular, frail and malnourished children, as well as a museum of the life and family of the Marquis de Lafayette.

"[56] Chanler accepted as authentic the widely recognized forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and he employed agents to compile dossiers on Jewish public figures in the US and other countries.

"[145] Chanler once wrote to Margaret: Although [I am] as you know, a devout Christian, I have been helped a great deal by the Islamic faith, and lately I have been massaged by a Hindu Yoghi much to my benefit.

[3]In 1928 Chanler wrote to then-governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, on his preoccupation with Jewish conspiracy, and stated that he was in confidential communication with anti-Jewish Arab leaders including the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem.

In 1933 he wrote to his sister Elizabeth Astor Winthrop Chanler on the "centralized Jewish control of world affairs," stating his belief that the British cabinet was under the control of the Fabian Society and Baron Israel Moses Sieff, who were enacting a secret plan to "Bolshevize" Great Britain and the United States, "which will result in the absolute loss of individual independence.