101

go out. Rothschild offered 500 francs, then 700, and finally 1,000 francs 

for a boat. One sailor said, "I will take you for 2000 francs; then at least 

my widow will have something if we are drowned." Despite the storm, 

they crossed the Channel.

The next morning, Rothschild was at his usual post in the London 

Exchange. Everyone noticed how pale and exhausted he looked. 

Suddenly, he started selling, dumping large quantities of securities. 

Panic immediately swept the Exchange. Rothschild is selling; he knows 

we have lost the Battle of Waterloo. Rothschild and all of his known 

agents continued to throw securities onto the market. Balla says, 

"Nothing could arrest the disaster. At the same time he was quietly 

buying up all securities by means of secret agents whom no one knew. 

In a single day, he had gained nearly a million sterling, giving rise to the 

saying, ‘The Allies won the Battle of Waterloo, but it was really 

Rothschild who won.’"*

In The Profits of War, Richard Lewinsohn says, "Rothschild’s war profits 

from the Napoleonic Wars financed their later stock speculations. 

Under Metternich, Austria after long hesitation, finally agreed to 

accept financial direction from the House of Rothschild."47

__________________________

46 Ignatius Balla, The Romance of the Rothschilds, Everleigh Nash, 

London, 1913

* The New York Times, April 1, 1915 reported that in 1914, Baron Nathan 

Mayer de Rothschild went to court to suppress Ignatius Balla’s book on 

the grounds that the Waterloo story about his grandfather was untrue 

and libelous. The court ruled that the story was true, dismissed