Once Mayer Amschel wrote to his son Nathan: “Without order in business, a millionaire can ruin himself and others, because the whole world is dishonest or not very honest. If people see that you are in a mess, they will do business with you with one intention - to deceive you. The main thing in this message, of course, is not the trivial idea that accounting should be exemplary. Mayer does not concentrate on the main thing in his letter: for many years he has been bringing up in his sons the conviction of the badness of humanity.
Following this view, the dynasty created a financial empire, the boundaries of which no one knows today. Conspiracy theorists are sure that the Rothschilds own half of the world.
And all the necessary stones in the foundation of today's power of the family were laid then, more than 200 years ago. The Rothschild coat of arms depicts a hand holding five arrows. Arrows are the sons of the founder of the empire, Mayer Amschel: Amschel, Salomon, Nathan, Karl and James. Without their unanimous support for their father's decisions, the Rothschilds would hardly have been able to get out of the ghetto.
The house in the ghetto of Frankfurt am Main where the Rothschild family lived
Trample the path to trust
Mayer Amschel Rothschild was born into a poor family in the filthy Frankfurt ghetto, sandwiched between the city wall and the moat. The life of the Jews there was hard: they were forbidden to engage in most professions, to leave the ghetto at night, on Sundays and on holidays, they paid numerous taxes … The brothers of Mayer Amschel traded in second-hand things, and he began to buy old coins and medals. Collecting antiquities was in vogue among the German nobility, and the goods could become for a modest merchant a pass to the princely palaces.
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Moritz Oppenheim. "The Elector of Hesse-Kassel entrusts his treasures to Mayer Amschel Rothschild." Canvas, oil. 19th century
He was also fond of numismatics, and Wilhelm, Count of Hanau and heir to the Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, which bordered on the imperial city of Frankfurt. The Hesse house was considered the richest in Europe. One of the collectors' acquaintances introduced him to the young antiquarian Rothschild. Wilhelm knew how to count money, so he immediately liked the competence and reasonable prices of the seller.
However, he was not going to stop selling antiques. At the court of the German princes, Jewish bankers were traditionally involved in financial transactions. Mayer Amschel, who mastered banking in the ghetto, offered Wilhelm services as an intermediary. From 1789, he received the first commissions of this kind, insignificant in comparison with the huge sums that Wilhelm, who became Landgrave, trusted more experienced competitors. To get around them, patronage at court was required, and Rothschild surrounded Karl Friedrich Buderus with special attention.
My instinct did not disappoint Mayer Amschel - Buderus, who started out as the tutor of the bastards of Wilhelm, gradually became the landgrave's closest confidant, and he handed him over the management of the most expensive - the Military Treasury (leasing troops to other states was the main source of income for the House of Hesse). The courtier willingly accepted gifts and lucrative offers from Rothschild in exchange for patronage. On the advice of Buderus, Wilhelm began to trust the Rothschilds with more and more financial transactions. In 1803, Mayer Amschel, to the amazement and indignation of his rivals, was appointed chief court agent.
Putting any money into circulation
By the beginning of the 19th century, the Rothschilds were already considered a wealthy family in the ghetto. They could have remained one of the many small-town rich people, but they used an external threat in time: Emperor Napoleon I began to conquer Europe.
In 1806, Wilhelm fled from the French occupation outside the domain. Mayer Amschel remained his agent, but on the continent it was dangerous and not always profitable. And Rothschild thought about England, where Nathan, his third son, had lived for several years. It would be nice to arrange so that Rothschild Jr. disposes of the Elector's investments in London, inaccessible to Napoleon …
Mayer Amschel Rothschild's bank check
Nathan quickly turned from a cloth merchant and smuggler to a stock trader, and in 1807 invited William to purchase British government bonds for him for a large amount. The distrustful and cautious elector refused. Rothschild Sr. continued to petition for this through Buderus, who persuaded Wilhelm for two years and finally succeeded: Nathan was ordered to purchase bonds for 73.5% of the par value. From 1810 to 1813, he bought them nine times, for a total of £ 664,850. But how did the Rothschilds benefit from these trades beyond modest brokerage fees? Historian Niell Ferguson explains: firstly, after waiting, Nathan bought the bonds for a lower percentage of the par value than the agreed 73.5%, and made money on this difference. Secondly, the Rothschilds bought bonds in installments,payment from the noble buyer did not come immediately, and securities for huge sums remained at the disposal of the intermediary for a long time. Plus, while Nathan was playing for time, he could use the deposit from the Elector to his advantage. "The old man," said the younger brother Karl, implying Wilhelm, "made us a fortune."
So a new tycoon suddenly appeared in the City, buying up government securities for fabulous sums, and the British government began to look closely at Nathan Rothschild …
Lithograph depicting the monarchs of Europe at the feet of Amschel Mayer Rothschild. 1848 year
Serve two or more gentlemen
While Nathan was enriching himself in London, the Frankfurt Rothschilds thought about how to profitably survive the French occupation. Thus, Karl von Dahlberg, ruler of the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, created in 1810 by Napoleon, received a loan from Mayer Amschel on favorable terms, when a large sum was required to travel to Paris to baptize the emperor's son. "Thanks to this service," the German historian Heinrich Schnee quotes one knowledgeable Frenchman, "he gained the grand duke's full confidence and was able to take advantage of this favor so that since then the duke has never refused the Rothschilds."
The family regularly worked for both camps: on the one hand, they enriched Wilhelm and raised money for the Austrian army, which was preparing to fight against Napoleon, and on the other, they lent the enemy, for example, to buy horses for the army.
1 Amschel Mayer Rothschild, 2 Salomon Rothschild, 3 Carl Rothschild, 4 James Rothschild, 5 Nathan Rothschild
Aphorisms of worldly wisdom
Fragments from the correspondence of the men of the Rothschild family
Nathan to a business partner about Mayer Amschel: "My father's chimney won't even smoke without profit."
Amschel: "It is better to deal with a government that is doing badly than with one that is good."
James: “My father used to say: if you can't make people love you, make people fear you”.
Salomon Rothschild to a friend about Nathan: "My brother in London is our commander-in-chief, and I am his field marshal, and, accordingly, it is my duty to do everything in my power, and therefore I must report to my command …"
Salomon to Nathan: "Since 1811, I have always come where business was called … If today my presence is needed in Siberia … I will go to Siberia."
Nathan: “I don't read books, I don't play cards, I don't go to the theater; all my pleasures are my business, and therefore I read letters from Amschel, Salomon, James and Karl."
To rake in the heat with someone else's hands
On the continent, the Rothschilds lent money to the French for the war, and in Britain, Nathan contributed to the defeat of Bonaparte. The British fought the French occupiers in Portugal and Spain. In 1813, the British army advanced, pushing the enemy back beyond the Pyrenees when the supply situation became critical. You needed gold to exchange it for local currency. But how to transport a huge amount of precious metal through enemy territories, and who could get so much gold?
Everything was arranged by Nathan Rothschild, who since 1811 smuggled yellow metal to the continent with the help of his brother James, who settled in France. Treasury Minister Nicolas Molien believed that the gold leak would weaken the economy of England, and convinced Napoleon of this. Therefore, the French authorities turned a blind eye to the flagrant violation of the continental blockade and even gave the "familiar" Rothschilds permission to transport valuable cargo.
In January 1814, the British government instructed Nathan to carry out the plan. Gold was collected in small batches in the war-depleted cities of Europe and safely transported to its destination. “It was the most successful of all my endeavors,” noted Nathan Rothschild himself, whom the British government has since come to trust in the largest financial transactions.
Famous client
Socialist capital
Alexander Herzen was abroad when, in 1849, Nicholas I called upon his subjects to return from Europe, engulfed in revolutions, and ignored the autocrat's order. The Russian authorities have seized the capital of a freethinking publicist. Moreover, Russian officials refused to pay the bank notes of the Moscow treasury, cashed by Herzen in the bank of James Rothschild in Paris, "for political and secret reasons."
"I could not imagine that your name had so little weight in Russia!" - took Herzen Rothschild "weakly". James drafted an angry letter, threatening to publicize the story. Then the Russian authorities would lose confidence - and credit! - all the bankers in the world. But the king was just at this time trying to get another loan through … James Rothschild. The threat worked, and Herzen was saved from ruin.
Anti-Semitic French cartoon of how the Jews, represented by James Rothschild, took over the world
Adapt to changing markets
Nathan financed not only the English army: with the money of the Rothschilds, Westminster credited Prussia, Russia and even the future king of France. The authority and influence of the Rothschilds in Europe grew with the amount of loans they provided. The constant movement of money during the war influenced exchange rates in different countries. Since these movements were in the hands of the Rothschilds, they could predict the exchange rate and control it in part.
According to legend, thanks to the Allied victory over Napoleon at Waterloo, Nathan, who learned about this before anyone else in London, enriched himself fabulously on the manipulation of British securities. In life, the banker was rather not happy. "As soon as in New Court (Rothschild's office in London. - Approx." Around the World ") reports came that the end of the war was near, - Ferguson writes, - Nathan was not expected to fabulous profits from the legend, but heavy and progressive losses.
Tomb of Mayer Amschel Rothschild, Frankfurt am Main
But peacetime presented new opportunities. The war-torn countries needed loans for reconstruction: James Rothschild financed the government in Paris, Salomon in Vienna, Nathan in London, Karl moved to Naples, and Amschel remained in Frankfurt to continue his father's work.
So the family entered the world elite - in 1816-1818 the brothers received the nobility from the Austrian emperor, and in 1822 - the title of baron. Napoleon intended to conquer half the world, but in the end the world was conquered by the Rothschilds.