The House of Morgan had been powerful before the war, helping to finance and restructure the steel, railway, and shipping industries; it had even bailed out the U.S. government in 1895 and saved the banking system in 1907. But its business had been largely domestic. Pierpont Morgan himself had indeed been a well-known figure in Europe, and his father, Junius Morgan, had helped the French government raise money to pay the indemnity after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870; but in international ranking, J. P. Morgan & Co. had been a second-tier house. The war had transformed its position.
