History of the Jews

by Paul Johnson

In Vienna, the Rothschilds sold bonds for the Habsburgs, advised Metternich and built the first Austrian railway. The first French railways were built by Rothschild Frères in Paris, who also raised money, in turn for Bourbons, Orleanists and Bonapartes, and financed the new king of Belgium. In Frankfurt they floated issues on behalf of a dozen German thrones. In Naples, they raised money for the government there, for Sardinia, Sicily and the papal states. The combined Rothschild capital rose steadily, to £1.77 million in 1818, to £4.3 million in 1828, to £34.35 million in 1875, of which the London house controlled £6.9 million.16 The wide spread of the network’s contacts made the money-power the firm could actually deploy very much greater. They exploited to the full the traditional Jewish flair for news-gathering and transmission. Jews by mid-century were already turning from banks to wire-services.