Rothschild family

The Rothschild family is a European family of German Jewish origin that established European banking and finance houses starting in the late 18th century. It has been argued that during the 19th century, the family possessed by far the largest private fortune in the world as well as by far the largest fortune in modern world history. The book “Currency war” which I read during the summer basically describes Rothschild family’s effect on world’s most significant histories. And the book argues that the world war I, and II, The American Civil war, the numerous deaths of American presidents are all related to the conspiracy of Rothschild family.

Historian Paul Johnson writes that the Rothschilds are elusive. There is no book about them that is both revealing and accurate. Libraries of nonsense have been written about them. For this the family is largely to blame." A woman who planned to write a book entitled Lies about the Rothschilds abandoned it, saying: "It was relatively easy to spot the lies, but it proved impossible to find out the truth. The family is highly secretive... They kept no more documentation than was necessary. They systematically destroyed their papers." He also notes that this was understandable, since they were private bankers and had confidential relations with several governments and innumerable powerful individuals. They were Jews, and particularly concerned that details could be used to promote anti-Semitism. Their latest historian, Miriam Rothschild, believes another reason was that they kept no muniment room. The Rothschilds were not interested in their history, but were respectful towards their ancestors, as a matter of good form; they prudently thought about the future, but lived for the present.

"All the same," Johnson writes, "the salient facts about the Rothschilds are clear enough. They were a product of the Napoleonic Wars, just as the first phase of large-scale Jewish finance was a product of the Thirty Years War, and for the same reason: in wartime, Jewish creativity comes to the fore and gentile prejudice goes to the rear. In all essentials, the family fortune was created by Nathan Mayer Rothschild in London." He notes that prior to the beginning of the revolutionary wars in France, in the mid-1790s, European merchant banking was dominated by non-Jews, including the "Barings of London, the Hopes of Amsterdam and theGebrüder Bethmann of Frankfurt". The financial demands of war quickly expanded the money-raising market and so opened room for newcomers, including a German-Jewish group with the Oppenheims, Rothschilds, Heines, and Mendelssohns among them.



The Rothschilds already possessed a very significant fortune before the start of Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), and the family had gained preeminence in the bullion trade by this time. From London in 1813 to 1815, Nathan Mayer Rothschild was instrumental in almost single-handedly financing the British war effort, and the French war effort, financing the shipment of bullion to the Duke of Wellington's armies across Europe, as well as arranging the payment of British financial subsidies to their Continental allies. In 1815 alone, the Rothschilds provided £9.8 million (£694m in today's money) in subsidy loans to Britain's continental allies.



The brothers helped co-ordinate Rothschild activities across the continent, and the family developed a etwork of agents, shippers and couriers to transport gold across war-torn Europe. The family network was also to provide Nathan Rothschild time and again with political and financial information ahead of his peers, giving him an advantage in the markets and rendering the house of Rothschild still more invaluable to the British government. In one instance, the family network enabled Nathan to receive in London the news of Wellington's victory at the Battle of Waterloo a full day ahead of the government's official messengers.

Rothschild's first concern on this occasion was to the potential financial advantage on the market which the knowledge would have given him; he and his courier did not immediately take the news to the government. See a partisan French pamphlet in 1846 by John Reeves in 1887 in The Rothschilds: the Financial Rulers of Nations. It was then repeated in later popular accounts, such as that of Morton

The basis for the Rothschild's most famously profitable move was made after the news of British victory had been made public. Nathan Rothschild calculated that the future reduction in government borrowing brought about by the peace would create a bounce in British government bonds after a two year stabilisation, which would finalise the post-war re-structuring of the domestic economy. In what has been described as one of the most audacious moves in financial history, Nathan immediately bought up the government bond market, for what at the time seemed an excessively high price, before waiting two years, then selling the bonds on the crest of short bounce in the market in 1817 for a 40% profit. Given the sheer power of leverage the Rothschild family had at its disposal, this profit was an enormous sum.

Nathan Mayer Rothschild initially started his business in Manchester England in 1806, and gradually moved it to London, where in 1809 he acquired the location at 2 New Court in St. Swithin's Lane, City of London,where it operates today; he established N. M. Rothschild and Sons in 1811. In 1818, he arranged a £5 million loan to thePrussian government, and the issuing of bonds for government loans formed a mainstay of his bank’s business. He gained a position of such power in the City of Londonthat by 1825–6 he was able to supply enough coin to the Bank of England to enable it to avert a market liquidity crisis.