First, I’m going to give you a brief background of the family, so you can put your own opinion about the Rothshilds together and decide if they are still relevant in 2017.
FAMILY ORIGINS
The Rothschild family is recognize today as the richest family on the planet. Turns out, it’s been this way for centuries.
The family descends from Mayer Amschel Rothschild, a court Jew born in Germany who established a banking business in the 1760’s. Mayer was able to establish the most influential chain of banks throughout Europe with the help of his five sons. Together, they funded numerous global affairs, and manipulated their way into becoming the wealthiest family on the face of the planet.
What many don’t know is that Mayer A. Rothschild pre-arranged marriages within the family. Meaning he ensured that the female members of the family were very limited in their marriage options when it came to getting their inheritance. The only way for them to make sure that they would be getting money in the future was by marrying their cousins.
Turns out that this was a pretty good way to keep money within the family, however unethical it may be. Throughout the family’s history is a long list of unethical events that led them to the immense wealth they have today. Mayer’s five sons: Nathan, James, Salomon, Carl, and Amschel, established banks throughout Europe. They began with London, Paris, Frankfurt, Vienna, and Naples (visualized below). With their help, the Rothschild’s grew into the most wealthy business family on the planet.
THE NAPOLEONIC WARS
The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts fought between France, under the leadership of Napoleon Bonaparte, and a number of European nations between 1799 and 1815.
Luckily for the Rothschild’s, they were situated throughout Europe by the beginning of the 19th century, giving them a paramount influence on how the war played out. Because of this, they were able to greatly benefit from the Napoleonic. It was during this time that the Rothschild family established themselves as the richest, most elite family on the planet.
During the war, the Austrian army and British forces contracted Mayer Rothschild to supply them with a range of items including wheat, uniforms, horses, and equipment. Along with this, they arranged the payment of British financial subsidies to their continental allies. The family wealth grew enormously through the commissions earned on these transactions.
Arguably their greatest move during the Napoleonic wars was the stock manipulation of the Waterloo war in June of 1815. During the war, speculators watched Rothschild’s stocks in an attempt to guess who would win. Shortly after the battle ended, and long before anyone else knew who was the victor, they began selling stocks. Everyone assumed this meant Napoleon had won and Europe had lost. Panic selling ensued. When prices crashed, Rothschild bought everything in sight and made exuberant profits.
Call it how you want, the Rothschild’s were able to set themselves apart from everyone else during this time in terms of wealth by bailing out several nations and manipulating the stock markets due to their better methods of communication. Some say their actions were evil, some say they were smart, but either way, it made them a boatload of money.
THEIR INFLUENCE ON EUROPEAN INDUSTRIALISATION
Given their geographical banking control and massive wealth throughout the 19th century, the Rothschild family pioneered international high finance during the industrialisation of Europe and were instrumental in supporting railway systems across the world, and in complex government financing for projects such as the Suez Canal.
The Suez Canal was another immensely profitable investment by the Rothschild family. If you take a look at the diagram above, you can see how important this shipping route is for connecting Europe to Africa and Asia. The Rothschild’s saw this and took advantage of it.
The British recognised the canal as an important trade route. They objected to the use of forced Egyptian labour to build it, and perceived the French project as a threat to their geopolitical and financial interests.
So, over a span of eleven years, starting on 15th December 1858, the Suez canal was built. The Rothschild’s basically owned the British banking system at the time since they funded all prior British war efforts throughout the 19th century. Thus, In 1875, the London banking house of N M Rothschild & Sons advanced the Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. They effectively acted for the British Government, and paid a sum of £4,000,000 to purchase Suez Canal shares. Disraeli was a close personal friend of Lionel de Rothschild and, according to legend, this was transacted on a gentleman’s agreement with no documentation, a technically unsecured loan for a sum of over £550 million today.
Basically, England recognized the huge economical gain of purchasing shares in this trans-continental shipping route, but they did not want to be recognized for supporting the forced labour (slavery) that was implemented in order to build the canal.
The British government repaid the loan to the London banking house of N M Rothschild & Sons in five months and were then able to profit from the canal, without any harsh media scrutiny. A smart move, but an unethical one to say the least.
OTHER NOTABLE BUSINESS
The Rothschild family was directly involved in the Independence of Brazil from Portugal in the early 19th century. Upon an agreement, the Brazilian government should pay a compensation of two million pounds sterling to the Kingdom of Portugal to accept Brazil’s independence. N M Rothschild & Sons was pre-eminent in raising this capital for the government of the newly formed Empire of Brazil on the London market.
In 1825, Nathan Rothschild raised £2,000,000, and indeed was probably discreetly involved in the earlier tranche of this loan which raised £1,000,000 in 1824. Part of the price of Portuguese recognition of Brazilian independence, secured in 1825, was that Brazil should take over repayment of the principal and interest on a £1,500,000 loan made to the Portuguese government in 1823 by N M Rothschild & Sons.A correspondence from Samuel Phillips & Co. in 1824 suggests the close involvement of the Rothschild’s in the occasion.
Major 19th century businesses founded with Rothschild family capital include:
-Alliance Assurance (1824) (now Royal & Sun Alliance);
-Chemin de Fer du Nord (1845)
-The Rio Tinto mining company (1873) (from the 1880s onwards, the Rothschild’s had full control of Rio Tinto)
-Eramet (1880)
-Imerys (1880)
-De Beers (1888)
ROTHSCHILD FAMILY POST 19TH CENTURY
Since the late-19th century, the family has taken a low-key public profile, donating many famous estates, as well as vast quantities of art, to charity, and generally eschewing conspicuous displays of wealth. Today, Rothschild businesses are on a smaller scale than they were throughout the 19th century, although they encompass a diverse range of fields, including: real estate, financial services, wine and charities.
I’ve heard a lot about how the Rothschild family is worth around $500 trillion and basically rules the world through a chain of banks. Conspiracy theorists claim that they are evil, and are a large reason for a lot of the world’s problems (wars, poverty, corruption, etc.). But after a bit of research, all of these claims seem to be false.
They’ve earned their wealth, but they didn’t earn it in a very ethical way, so you would think that to redeem their conscience they would donate some of their money.
However, the Rothschild’s wealth in the 21st century is a fraction of what it once was. Their overall wealth has been shared with hundreds of family members and their global influence has been declining for decades.Furthermore, there is only one Rothschild family member that is included among the Forbes’ list of the world’s billionaires: Benjamin de Rothschild, who is ranked at number 1121 with a net worth close to $2 billion.
From this, I think we can also assume that the Rothschild family isn’t even on the radar of other billionaires around the world.
I mean, I’m sure they are still quite popular in Europe, but it’s hard to say whether other billionaires around the world even know about them, let alone what they think about the family.
All in all, the Rothschild’s rose to immense wealth through exploitation and slavery; something that built the essence of the continent I live in - North America.
With that fact alone, I can’t see any other billionaires loathing at the Rothschild’s for being unscrupulously evil in their voyage to greater financial prosperity when the world we live in is built on the very thing that got the family rich; immoral capitalist exploitation.
They once controlled the financial world and we can't say that they still are controlling it, considering the huge wealth and power lose.