As the war dragged on the British government got deeper and deeper into debt, borrowing £23.5m in 1811 and £32.25m in 1812, with Nathan establishing himself as the chief creditor. In 1814 when Louis XVIII re-entered Paris in triumph it was only possible (so we are told) through a loan of £200,000 from Rothschild. The following year, when a British/Dutch/Prussian army of 209,000 fought at Waterloo, this too was financed by Rothschild. After the Napoleonic Wars the House of Rothschild grew rapidly, its capital base expanding from £42.48m in 1818 to £106.51m in 1828, according to their figures. It would be interesting to see how much credit had actually been advanced by all the Rothschild banks on the basis of this capital, but no such critical appraisal can be expected of an author who glosses over Nathans overt treachery in the aftermath of Waterloo. If there was one thing apart from the loan business at which the Rothschilds excelled it was running their own information network. Nathan knew the outcome of the battle before anyone else. Mr Wilsons account of how Nathan tried to inform the Prime Minister, Lord Liverpool, but was prevented from doing so, is far from convincing. Having been told by his butler that Liverpool had retired for the night, he returned again the next morning. Incredibly, so we are told, Liverpool refused to believe him. So what was poor old NM to do, but console himself by (obeying) his second impulse - to go down to the Exchange and invest heavily in government stock. Why, of course! What else would any decent chap do? It was merely a sound business move (too true!), but, intones Mr Wilson, by no stretch of the imagination can he be said to have made the killing some writers later claimed. Come on, Mr Wilson! Get real! The rest of nineteenth century Rothschild history is dealt with in the same manner of fawning subservience. Expansion into America, consolidation in Europe, the way in which the Rothschilds and their agents managed to get control of virtually every treasury in the western world, all this is dealt with in superficial detail but with no effort to question whether this was a good thing. Much is made of how governments came to depend on these people for both money and information. For example, at the time of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, inter-government messages often went via the Rothschilds. Here, again, the family had a field day, with Baron Alphonse de Rothschild (most of them were Barons or Lords by this time) supplying financial advice to the French government at the subsequent peace conference, when France had to pay a staggering five thousand million francs indemnity. He then made a major financial coup in brokering two loans to cover this. Wasnt that splendid? Of course, while French families mourned their dead sons, the post-war arrangements brought huge profits to the participating banks, whose commission ran into tens of millions. They had to risk none of their own money; and they had the short term use of an immense flow of funds. The purchase by the British government a few years later of the Suez Canal shares was only made possible by - yes - the Rothschilds. It was Lionel, this time, who came up with £4m at a mere 5% with only 2.5% commission. The deal was pulled off with very little time to spare, as there was a great danger that the French would get hold of the shares, stiffling British control of a vital artery of trade and expansion throughout the British Empire. None of this would have been possible without Lionel de Rothschilds dispatch and utter reliability. Yes, quite.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 04:45:59 +0000
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