The House of Rothschild (121 page)

15
Rothschild, Garton and Rothschild,
Rothschild gardens,
pp. 148ff. The offer was refused.

16
I am grateful to Miriam Rothschild for this information.

17
33 rue du Faubourg St Honoré was acquired by the Cercle de l‘Union Interalliée in 1920; two years later the house in the rue Berryer was given to the state; and the villa Ephrussi on the Riviera was left to the Académie des Beaux Arts in 1934.

18
Anthony’s daughters Annie and Constance died in 1926 and 1931; Natty’s widow Emma in 1935; and Leo’s widow Marie in 1937.

19
According to Bower, he went so far as to stuff a bundle of Ultra documents through the Soviet embassy’s letter-box.

20
The fact that the government explicitly denied that Victor Rothschild was the “fifth man” in 1986 did not prevent an entire book being written in 1994 insisting—on the basis of wholly circumstantial evidence—that he was. To some extent, Victor’s dabbling in the Byzantine internal politics of MI5—in particular, his relationship with Peter Wright—was to blame for encouraging this notion. As Victor discovered while at the CPRS, Wright firmly believed that the former director-general of MI5, Roger Hollis, had been a Soviet agent. (Victor also knew of Wright’s involvement in the MI5 attempt to smear Harold Wilson and other Labour politicians as communists after 1974.) When speculation began about his own role following the exposure of his friend Anthony Blunt in 1979, Victor rashly turned to Wright, now living in embittered retirement in Australia. In the belief that the allegations against Hollis would distract attention from himself, Victor encouraged Wright to collaborate with Chapman Pincher on the book
Their trade is treachery
(1981). This backfired badly when, five years later, Wright decided to publish his own book
Spycatcher
in defiance of the British government. The ensuing trial brought Victor more unwelcome publicity. In a final effort to clear his name, Victor wrote a letter to the
Daily Telegraph
in which he demanded public exoneration from the head of M15. Mrs Thatcher’s response, though formally sufficient, was frosty in its tone—reflecting her reluctance to comment on intelligence matters: “I am informed that we have no evidence that he was ever a Soviet agent.”

21
The phrase derived from the fact that only the 200 largest shareholders in the Banque de France could vote at its General Assembly.

22
They were the Clementine Interdenominational Girls’ Hospital at Bornheimer Landwehr; the Baron Carl von Rothschild public library; the Anselm Salomon von Rothschild Foundation for the Arts and the Old People’s Home for Jewish Gentlewomen named after Wilhelm Carl and Mathilde.

23
The Grüneburg house was destroyed by bombs in 1944, but the house at Königstein survived.

24
This was a complex operation for two reasons: first, the other major shareholders, the Gutmanns, had to be bought out; second, the transfer had to be made indirectly via Swiss and Dutch institutions to avoid possible confiscation by the British government in the event of a future war.

25
Anthony became appeal chairman in 1939 as well as being chairman of the Emigration Planning Committee for Refugees. He, Lionel and Jimmy were also on the appeal committee of the Council for German Jewry set up in 1936.

26
Victor had experienced at first hand the English version of anti-Semitism: at Harrow he remembered being called a “dirty little Jew,” and in 1934 (when he was twenty-four) he had been refused membership of a “road house” and country club in Barnet on religious grounds.

27
The second sentence did not appear in the official minutes, but was reported in the press.

28
For example, Edouard was incensed when, following the recovery of Algeria in 1942, the Free French General Giraud failed to restore the Crémieux legislation granting citizenship to the Algerian Jews.

29
The proceeds supposedly went to French war orphans.

1
I am grateful to Sir John Plumb for this reference.

2
Jimmy had been one of those who donated £5,000 towards the purchase of the cash-strapped Churchill’s house at Chartwell in 1946 to allow the Premier to go on living there.

3
Construction on the Churchill Falls did not begin until 1966; but in 1974, just three years after the plant had been opened, a new government in Newfoundland decided on nationalisation, paying Brinco $160 million in compensation (compared with total construction costs of $1 billion).

4
Anthony gave Palace House at Newmarket to the Jockey Club in 1944 and Ascott to the National Trust in 1950; Jimmy left Waddesdon to the National Trust in 1957; Mentmore and its contents were sold in 1977 and Tring is now a school run by the Arts Education Trust. In France, the villa Rothschild in Cannes passed out of family hands, as did the house at Boulogne, the châteaux des Fontaines, de la Muette and de Laversine, and the houses in the rue Saint-Florentin and the rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré.

5
Siegmund Warburg had proposed such a merger to Edmund as early as 1955.

6
Other examples from this period included the former chairman of the Electricity Council, Sir Francis Tombs, who became a non-executive director in 1980, and the former Under-Secretary for Trade, lain Sproat, who joined N. M. Rothschild as a consultant after losing his seat in the 1983 election.

7
N. M. Rothschild paid $9.2 million for a 9.9 per cent shareholding in Smith Brothers and $7 million for a 51 per cent stake in what became Smith New Court—in all, an investment of around £10 million. Big Bang ended the strict separation of banks, brokers (who dealt with the public) and jobbers (who executed transactions on the stock exchange).

8
Clients included Sir James Goldsmith, the Reichmann brothers’ Olympia & York and the Hanson Trust—not to mention Robert Maxwell, whose campaign to acquire an American publishing house Pirie backed, earning fees worth $17 million in the process. When Maxwell died in 1991, leaving a legacy of peculation and towering debt, it was N. M. Rothschild which was called in to investigate his books and arrange the sale of his heirs’ 54 per cent stake in Mirror Group Newspapers.

9
It had at least symbolic significance that many of the French family’s most treasured houses, including Ferrières, were disposed of in this period. The house in the rue du Monceau was destroyed; 23 avenue de Marigny was sold to the state in 1975; Ferrières was given to the Sorbonne in 1975; Sans-Souci, Gou- vieux, was sold in 1977 and is now a hotel, as is the abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay; the château d’Armain villiers was sold in the 1980s to the King of Morocco.

10
The others are Schröders, Flemings and Lazards.

Abdul Aziz, Sultan

Abdul Mejid, Sultan

Aberdeen, Lord

ABN AMRO

Acton, Lord

Acton, Sir John

Addresses to Young Children
(Charlotte Rothschild)

Adelaide, Princess of Hohenlohe

Adler, Hermann

Adler, Nathan Marcus

Afghanistan

A la recherche du temps perdu
(Proust)

Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Consort of England

Alexander, David

Alexander, King of Bulgaria

Alexander 11, Tsar of Russia

Alexander III, Tsar of Russia

Alexandra, Queen Consort

Alfonso, Prince of Asturia

Alfred, Prince of England

Algeciras conference (1906)

Aliens Act (1905)

Alliance Assurance company

Almadén mines

Alsace

Amadeo, King of Spain

Amalgamation Committee

American-Canadian International Nickel Company

Amersham International

Amex International

Ampthill, Lord

Amsterdam Overseas

Anaconda Mining Company

Andrássy, Count

Angell, Norman

Anglican Church

Anglo-African Diamond Mining Company

Anglo-American Corporation

Anglo-Austrian Bank

Anglo-Egyptian Bank

Anglo-Jewish Association, Conjoint Foreign Committee of

anti-Semitism

Bismarck and

in criticism of Rothschilds

in Franco-Prussian War

revocation of citizenship rights and

in revolution of 1848,

Rothschild response to

Zionism and

Apponyi, Count

Arabi Pasha

Arab League

Arabs

Argent‘
(Zola)

Argentina

Barings crisis and

armaments

Arnold, Matthew

Artisans’ and Labourers’ Dwellings Improvement Act (1875)

Asher, Asher

Ashley, Lord (later Earl of Shaftesbury)

Asiatic Petroleum Co.

Asquith, Herbert

Aumale, duc d‘

Australia

Austria

Anselm’s takeover in

anti-Semitism in

bonds of

Crimean War and

French relations with

Holstein and

interwar

Italian unification and

Landau initiative and

military expenditures of

National Bank of

Nazism in

Piedmont vs.

Prussian relations with Z2

public expenditures of

railways in

Rothschild relations with aristocracy in

Russian relations with

Salomon’s relations with

in Triple Entente

in war of 1866,

Austria-Hungary

bonds of

Eastern Question and

isolation of

military expenditures of

railroads in

in Three Emperors League

in Triple Alliance

Austrian Creditanstalt

Committee Ayer, J.

Bagehot, Walter

Bahia and San Francisco Railway Company

Balcarres, David Lindsay, Earl of

Balfour, Arthur

Natty’s relationship with >

Balfour Declaration (1917)

Balkans

crisis of 1875-78 in

railroads in

Balzac, Honoré de

Banco de Brasil

Bank of England , §

Barings crisis and

Suez Canal and

bank failures

Bank of International Settlements

Bank of London

Bank of the United States

Banque Austro-Ottomane

Banque de France

Barings crisis and

Franco-Prussian War and

Banque de Paris

Banque Nationale

Banque Ottomaine (later Imperial Ottoman Bank)

Banque Privée

Banque Rothschild

Baring, Cecil

Baring, Edward,
see
Revelstoke, Edward Baring, Lord

Baring, Evelyn,
see
Cromer, Evelyn Baring, Lord

Baring, John

Baring, Robert

Baring, Thomas

Baring Brothers

crisis of

Rothschilds compared with

Baring Estate Co.

Bark.

Baron Vampire
(Charnace)

Bartholony (railway financier)

Battersea, Constance Rothschild Flower, Lady

Jewish identity of

marriage of

party politics and

philanthropy of

on revolutions

World War I and

Battersea, Cyril Flower, Lord

Batum Oil Refining and Trading Company (BNITO)

Bauer, Max

Bauqué, Armand-Louis

Beach, Sir Michael Hicks

Bechuanaland Exploration Company

Becke, Baron

Beerbohm, Max

Beit, Alfred

Belgian Congo

Belgium

agents in

Franco-Prussian War and

in Latin Monetary Union

neutrality of

railways in

Bell, Charles Moberly

Belmont, August

Benedetti, Comte Vincente

Benn, Tony

Bentinck, Lord George;

Bergman (Ferrières estate manager)

Berlin, Treaty of (1878)

Berliner Handelsgesellschafr

Berthier, Alexandre, prince de Wagram

Berthier, Bertha Clara Rothschild

Bethmann, Moritz

Beust, Count Friedrich Ferdinand von

Bigart, Jacques

Billing, Noel Pemberton

Bineau, Jean

Biotechnology Investment

Bishopsgate Growth

Bismarck, Herbert von

Bismarck, Otto von

alliances in diplomacy of

Amschel as viewed by

anti-Semitism and

Crimean War and

Eastern Question and

in fall from power

finances of

Franco-Prussian War and

German unification and

James and

Rumanian Jews and

Spanish succession issue and

war of 1866 and

Bismarck and Rothschild
(Bauer)

Bixio, Alexandre

Björkö meeting (1905)

Blanqui, Auguste

Bleichröder, Gerson

Bismarck and .

death of

Franco-Prussian War and

Bloch, Ivan

Blum, Julius

Blunt, Wilfrid Scawen

BNOC (Britoil)

Board of Deputies

Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor