“Thirty years after the dust had settled on the fields of Waterloo, a poisonous anti-Semitic pamphlet circulated in Europe, claiming the Rothschild family had accrued its vast wealth on the back of Wellington’s triumph.”
This legend had “such a grip on history that, albeit often in modified or diluted forms, references to it can still be found today both in popular culture and in scholarly works.”
“The first modern attempt to challenge the myth was made in the 1980s by a Rothschild – Baron Victor, a retired scientist and public servant who wrote a book about his ancestor Nathan. It was Victor who identified the powerful role played by the Satan pamphlet, and he debunked many of the dafter allegations.”
“But he also discovered in the Rothschild archives a document that muddied the water.This was a letter written to Nathan Rothschild by a bank employee in Paris about a month after Waterloo, and it included the statement: “I am informed by Commissary White you have done well by the early information which you had of the victory gained at Waterloo.” Proof, it seemed, that the legend had some foundation in fact.”
“Newspapers published in the week of Waterloo make it clear that the first person to bring authentic news of the victory at Waterloo to London was not Nathan Rothschild; rather, it was a man who had learnt of it in the Belgian city of Ghent and made a dash to England.”
“This shadowy figure, identified only as “Mr C of Dover”, was telling his story freely in the City from the morning of Wednesday 21 June – at least 12 hours before the official news arrived.”
“So, while it is confirmed that Rothschild had early news, he was not the only one.”
“Did Rothschild have time to buy shares? Apparently, but in the thin market of the period, it could not have been enough to accumulate holdings sufficient to earn him the millions that Dairnvaell wrote of. Nor did he manipulate the market to double his gains, for, contrary to legend, there was no slump in prices that Wednesday.”
“It’s just possible to see the factual elements upon which a vivid myth was built: Nathan Rothschild did have early information and it seems he did buy shares. But it was only by taking these facts out of their relatively humdrum context and adding a heap of falsehoods on top – relays of horses, storms in the channel, pigeon post, market manipulation – that a narrative of any interest was fashioned.”
2021-week10
