Their rescue came from the French branch of a family that, among the wars and governments and industries it had bankrolled, had also already financed many of Europe’s new railroads. They owned a refinery at Fiume, on the Adriatic, and were interested in acquiring lower-priced Russian crude for it. They loaned the money to complete the railroad that Bunge and Palashkovsky had begun, acquiring in exchange for a package of mortgages on Russian oil facilities. They also arranged guaranteed shipments of Russian oil to Europe at attractive prices. They were the Rothschilds.
