The Women of Rothschild

Author: Natalie Livingstone

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I’m on a history and non-fiction kick.

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There’s a great sweep of history.

Hannah Barret Cohen Rothschild

Constance de Rothschild, Lady Battersea

Rozsika von Wertheimstein

Nica (Kathleen Annie Pannonica) Rothschild

Miriam Louisa Rothschild

The stories of these and the other Rothschild women was fabulously told here. Especially once we got past where they had to live in the reflected light of the Rothschild men. 

Mayer Amschel Rothschild using his will to throw all of the women in the family out of the family business, forever. Nice guy there. Product of the times. But considering that his wife Gutle and his daughters were part and parcel of his businesses success, it is a mean-spirited slight. And you can see it being used as a weapon by the misogynists in the family down through the ages. And leaving his wife the house and a trust, but the trust is locked within the Rothschild businesses and those are handled by the sons and she has no say in how it was used. And again, yes, product of the times, but damn. He wouldn’t have been a success without Gutle. And this is how he rewarded her…and all their female progeny. Though despite his interdiction, the women of the family seemed to generationally fall into leadership roles within the family, society, politics, and banking either through the passing of their family patriarchs or some shortcomings of the men in their generation. 

Baron Jules Adolphe de Koenigswarter was classic misogyny and toxic masculinity. All the things that attracted him and Nica to each other before World War Two died on the vine amidst the horrors of war and the marriage staggered on in the aftermath. As his career advanced, he expected her to be seen and not heard and to “know her place.” He went so far as to destroy her record collection when she didn’t do to please him. He sounds like a horrid little man. 

So, the British promised Chaim Weizmann and the proto-Israelites, and the Prince of Mecca that the British Empire supported a homeland for both Arabs and Jews in Palestine.  Lord Crewe could've been a modern American politician. 

Hannah Barret Cohen Rothschild sneaking away to the exchanges in Paris while she was supposed to be attending her daughter who was expecting her grandchild. 

Uhm Moments: 

So, the cousin loving in pre-20th century Euro society extended beyond royalty to aristocracy and wealth. Whole lotta keeping it in the family. Ick.  

While interesting, the “focus” on the Rothschild women wanders severely telling us the story of the men while the women stand at the edges of the story, at least in the early chapters. The story of Hannah Barret Cohen Rothschild and her husband Nathan expanding his businesses in England including getting involved in smuggling payroll and such to the Duke of Wellington in Spain.. And he and his brothers on the Continent making huge currency exchanges between the pound and the franc behind the scenes during the Napoleonic wars. But that story is told as a part…an overwhelming part of the story of Nathan being the first of the Rothschilds to move to and marry into the growing English Jewish community with a strong woman who softens his strident and gruff business personality increasing the business and the tenor of his professional associations through her efforts. In fairness, as the history advanced, Hannah Rothschild became a force of nature in politics through the soft power of socializing and hosting, and her charitable work. 

The whole scribbling notes, writing letters, and diaries as opposed to modern social media…a poorer world? The difference in writing words that you’re never sure anyone is going to read as opposed to writing words designed to elicit someone to read them. 

Miriam’s husband, married in wartime, George Lane, nee Gyorgy Lanyi, being involved in X Troop of No. 10 Commando and being dropped into northern France to obtain details of German mines and prepare for Allied landings reminds of an Anglo version of Inglorious Basterds, though probably with fewer baseball bats. 

So MUCH cousin marriage. Exceeding European royalty factors, even. The branches of the tree grow back together so much that it is hard to keep track of. 

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Very well paced.

This was a really good book.

Having survived World War One largely intact, the impending horror of World War Two and the Holocaust hangs over the pages. It is similar to the feeling when you are reading a book you really love and you approach the end, and you don’t want to get there. This book is wonderfully well written. The characters are well fleshed out and true to life. I don’t want to read what is about to happen to them as it happens to all of the people of Europe.