Trudy Gold
Edward VII and his Jewish Circle, Part 2

Trudy Gold - Edward VII and his Jewish Circle, Part 2

- In many ways, the extraordinary presentation we had on the Sassoons last night dovetailed beautifully with what we’re trying to do, because of course, the Sassoons were also part of Edward II Circle, particularly when he was Prince of Wales and later on when he was the king. Now, what I’m going to continue tonight is to look at some of the other extraordinary characters who surrounded him, including Baron Maurice de Hirsch, who was probably the richest man in the world, and also Ernest Cassel, both of whom were bankers to Edward. Now, can we have a look at the next slide, please. Here you see a sketch of baron Maurice de Hirsch. His dates are 1831 to 1896. He was born in Munich. Ironically, many of the Wall Street bankers who went to the states from Germany between 1830 and 1848 were from Munich. And later on, he is going to have very good relationships with a lot of them. Now, his grandfather was the first Jewish landowner in Bavaria, and he was the first banker to ever have been ennobled in Bavaria. He was also the banker to the Vittles Spark family. And those of you who know about the history of Munich, of course, the Vittles sparks were on the throne. And Munich is really a city to visit because it’s his grandson, Ludwig II, who builds all the fairytale castles. Now, the point about Barron Maurice to Hirsch, he was really in the tradition of the court Jews. If you go back to the third, 15th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th centuries, you have this tradition of wealthy Jews who were bankers to particular rulers. Now, not only were his family in that position, but on his mother’s side, his mother was a bear timer. She made sure that Maurice or Moses, to give him his Jewish name, had a good Jewish education. She came from an illustrious family.

One of her ancestors was the vet Heimer, who was the court factor to the Habsburg emperor. And his cousin was of course Oppenheimer, who that very famous Jew who lifted the siege of Vienna in 1683, which prevented the Turks from conquering Europe. So ironically, it was the money of a Jewish banking house that prevented Islam’s onslaught. So this is the kind of family he comes from. He, when he is only 13 years old, he’s sent to Brussels to be schooled. And then at 17, he is part of the Bishop Shrine and Goldschmidt clan. Can we go on and have a look at the picture of Ludwig of Bavaria I? There you see Ludwig, he of course, he is the man. The October Fest was named for his wedding, by the way. And also if you visit Munich, he was an incredible womaniser. And you go to the Gallery of the Beauties and you see all the women he either lusted after or loved, including the Irish dancer who went by the name of Lola Montes. So they were a pretty degenerate group of characters, the kings of Bavaria. And ironically, it was because of Ludwig’s, absolute… Ludwig I and Ludwig II’s insane need for money for their crazy building products that Bismarck was able to really take hegemony over Germany, through Russia. So can we go onto the next slide, please? There you see Munich in the 1830s, that city that brought out so many interesting Jewish bankers, and later on, of course, is going to have such a tragic history. So let’s move him on to Brussels. Where Belgium, can we go on please? Belgium has just become independent. Belgium had taken its independence in 1831, and in that city, one of the most important banking houses, was Bishop Heim and Gold Schmidt.

And he goes to work at the bank. You know, he comes from a banking family. They are all interrelated. I think it’s important to remember this, if they’re not actually physically related ones or the other, they all know each other. You’re probably talking about a few hundred families, and they have an incredible amount of influence in their own worlds. And four years later, he marries Clara, and it was the most spectacular Jewish wedding that Brussels had ever seen. Even before she married, she was already involved in philanthropic causes. She worked under her father’s guidance. She worked to try and relieve misery, not just of the Jewish poor, but of the poor in Brussels. She set up arms, houses, soup kitchens, and later on, she’s going to be a guiding force of her husband’s philanthropy. It was a very successful partnership. Her father had founded the bank, and he was responsible of founding all the institutions that were really important in Belgium’s independence with his brother Louis, who founded a bank, which became known as Paraba. He father was a liberal member of the Belgium Parliament, very influential in developing public education networks. These individuals, they were Jewish. They were mixing now the top end of society, and they are becoming, in many ways, more and more divorced from their Jewish roots. Now, what happens to Maurice de Hirsch? He works with the bank. They have branches in Paris and London and Brussels. He also has quite a private income, and some, there’s a dispute as to whether a lot of it came from his family and her family, or whether it was just his brilliant speculation.

But certainly he was totally aware of all the opportunities of the modern world. He was incredibly good at networking. He could mix in every circle and think about the period he’s active in now, it’s the 1860s. What is changing Europe cities? London was the first city in the world to reach 40 million. Vienna by 1860 is going to reach a million. There’s going to be five cities in Europe, which have a population of a million people. It’s industrialization, it’s modernity. And he understood the need for railway networks. And it was him through all sorts of scheming and contacts that he finally managed to bribe the Salton, who was always in debt, to create a railway network, which linked the orient by rail to Europe. So a railway that would run from Constantinople all the way into the capitals of Europe, particularly to Vienna. Vienna becomes the sort of staging post for all the other links. And because of this, he became quite close to Prince Rudolph. It took him a long time to gain control of the railway concession from the Turkish government. He personally supervised it. He skillfully engineered it. It was a huge success, and it led to his nickname of Turk and Hirsch and this… But travelling through the Balkans building networks, it made him aware of the absolutely appalling flight of his people. Can we first have a look at the Oriental, the map of the Oriental Railway, please? Do you see how important it is from… Have a look what it does. It goes down from Istanbul, Sophia. It links many of the cities within the Habsburg Empire. It’s absolutely critical, and he becomes incredibly rich. And also that means he is part of society. Franz Joseph’s son, Rudolph was quite a character. Those of you who know the story of Miley he was a liberal, but he was also a young man who wasn’t given much say in the government.

His father didn’t really trust him. He lived an on the edge life. Later on, of course, he commits suicide and shoots his 17 year old mistress at Miley, but he becomes a friend of Baron de Hirsch. And through his friendship with Rudolph, he’s going to meet Edward. But meanwhile, as he travels through the Balkans, he goes through… And as he travels through the Habsburg Empire, he becomes more and more aware of the plight of his own people. This is a letter he writes to the Allianz, now the Allianz Universal Israelite, had been set up in 1860 by Adolphe Crémieux to really forge French culture throughout the French colonies and to spread what they believe to be great French culture. Now obviously, much of their work is in North Africa and also in the Balkans. And Baron de Hirsch by this time has homes both in Paris and in London. Can we go on please and have a look at the railway again? There you see, this is the arbiter of modernity. This is Turk and Hirsch. He’s going to be known as one of the richest men in the world. He’s a Jew, he’s very publicly a Jew, and he is at the absolute forefront of modernity. Now, can we have a look at the next slide, please? This is the Chateau de Beauregard that they built in France. His townhouse in Paris. He actually bought the property of Princess and knocked three houses into one to create an incredible place. This is his chateau in France. He’s going to have a hunting estate in Hungary. He’s going to have an incredible estate in London, in Bathhouse Piccadilly. And he’s also going to buy himself a home in Norfolk.

So he’s going to live incredibly high. He’s also a great collector of art and artefacts, and he becomes one of these men who glide the world. He has two, he has a son, tragically, that son is going to predecease them. But basically, even when his son dies, he says, “Now I have the whole of humanity to look after.” So he’s made a huge fortune, and he makes the huge fortune against the backdrop of 1873 and the collapse of the stock market. It doesn’t affect him, but it does affect a lot of people. And he’s not really prepared for the rise of racial antisemitism. He doesn’t get it. But more about that later. In 1873, as he travels through the Balkans, he realises just how bad the plight of Jews are. And he writes to the alliance, and this is what he says, “I have been painfully impressed by the misery and ignorance in which the Jewish masses live in that empire.” He’s talking now about that part of the Balkans, which is part of the Turkish empire. Progress has been bypassed, and only education and training for the young generation can remedy this dismal situation. You see, he understands the need for skilled labour, but it’s the conservative Jewish leaders. They don’t like it. And what happens is Hirsch’s going to pause and pour an incredible amount of money into it. He’s also very concerned with the situation of the Jews in France, Joseph’s empire, the Jews of Galicia and Bovina. They are the poorest Jewish parts of the Habsburg empire that had been that area that had once been part of Poland. And when Poland had been dismembered, beginning in 1793, 1776, sorry, culminating in 1815, Poland was no longer an independent entity. The bulk of those Jews had gone to Russia, but about a hundred thousand of them were living in Galicia and Bovina. And it’s the poorest part for Jews of the Harper Empire. And he is really concerned about it.

So what he does, he sets up the Baron de Hirsch Foundation to create an embryonic welfare state for all irrespective of creed. Now, it took him three years to convince both the Austrian government and the Jews themselves, particularly the conservative ones, that this was a good thing. He declared his plan to a fascinating Viennese preacher, a man called Adolf Jellinek. Now, Jellinek was the man to whom Leon Pinsker had already sent his dream of Zionism. You will remember that in 1881 when the pogroms breakout, this young man, Leon Pinsker, he had believed in acculturation. The pogroms were an incredible blow to him. And he writes, the year later, a pamphlet called Auto Emancipation, in which he said, “The western world suffers from Judah phobia. It is a psychic aberration. It’s a 2000 year old disease. It is incurable.” And he said, those of you who are fleeing west, you’re fooling yourselves. But meanwhile, what had happened was that Jellinek had said, “This man is insane.” Jellinek like many Jews, including Baron de Hirsch, believed that if the Jews progressed, if the Jews became more like the others, then everything would be well. And this is what he wrote to, this is what Hirsch wrote to Jellinek. It would afford him the greatest satisfaction if the Yiddish Deutsch jargon would disappear. Yiddish must go if Jews were at abandoned all customs not associated religion, which unnecessarily divides them. So it’s okay to have your separate religion, but give up that side of your culture and tradition, which divides you from the Gentiles or that was desired. And quoting again, “That they should receive the requisite cultural and vocational training to enable them to learn their living by the work of their hands.”

And he needs to persuade the Austrian government to allow him to do that. He’s close to Rudolph, but Rudolph of course has now died. But he gives an incredible amount of money, almost as a sweetener. He gives £300,000 to the Hungarian poor, regardless of religion. He also helps the tradesman in Vienna and Budapest, who were very much falling on hard times. However, when he finally receives permission for his Galatian adventure in 1891, he’s given permission. He sets up the Baron de Hirsch Fund, Endowment fund. So he’s already poured £200,000 into the Allianz for work in the Balkans. He’s now pouring another 300,000. Remember this is before the turn of the 19th century into a foundation to help the Jews of Galicia. But when he finally receives permission for this venture, he was actually at Thetford. Why was he at Thetford? He had rented 10,000 acres of land for shooting. And the first engagement in the Prince of Wales’s diary at Sandringham for January, 1892, left a shoot with Baron de Hirsch at Rexam Hall. The Prince of Wales also used him as a financial safety net. Can we go on please? La Fleche. Now, La Fleche is one of Hirsch’s most extraordinary horses. It won the Darby, it won. And it was the great horse of the era. He had already, he’s made his name in London Society, as I’ve already mentioned, he had been introduced by Rudolph. He has a home in London, and he really does settle a lot of the prince’s debts. I explained to you last week that the Prince of Wales was kept very short of money by his mother, and he did have a very extravagant lifestyle.

He and Alexandra had their own separate court, the Marlborough house set, and he, I think it’s a two-way street, though. He liked the company of these interesting cosmopolitan Jews, despite what many of the mores conservatives courts thought about it. But they were interesting. They were exciting, but they also helped him out financially. And the Prince basically let it be known where he goes, Hirsch must be invited too. An early visitor, was a man called Lucian Wolf fascinating character, who I’m going to talk about more tomorrow, actually. Wolf found him a very unusual man, and he said he’s very Jewish, both in manna and conversation. Now, another entry into British society was through his wife’s cousin, Henry Bishop Heim of the banking family. They’d been settled in London for over 20 years. His wife, Clarissa, was Clarissa Biman of Vienna. They lived in incredible style in South Orley Street. They’d actually turned it into a mini Versailles. Even Queen Victoria was fond of them. On their golden wedding anniversary, they actually gave a gift of £100,000 to charity. So look, let me emphasise, the bulk of Jews are actually dirt poor. However, you have this collection of individuals like the Rothchilds, like the Sassoons, like Hirsh, like Ernest Cassel and others that I’m going to talk about, who gave the impression that Jews were at the forefront of capitalism. And in terms of creating a modern economy, I think it’s… We can say there’s a certain amount of truth in it. Now, however, what do these characters want? Now, take this particular family.

Henry Bishop Shine’s family. He had two daughters. One had married the fourth earl of Dorset, Desar a bega, pardon.* And the other had married Sam Morris Fitzgerald, who was the 20th night of Kerry. So they had married into the aristocracy, and this was a very important pattern. So these Jews who want to be part of the aristocracy, they want to, and they’re prepared to buy their way in. Just as so many American eras, like Lady Randolph Churchill was doing the same thing. Now, Hirsch made sure that the Prince of Wales was a regular visitor at his estate, not only in Sandringham, but also his home in London. And he invited him to visit him in his estate in Hungary. Now, this almost caused a diplomatic incident because the Prince arrives in Vienna in October, 1890 with a loader and his guns. Now, who was travelling with him? Lady Randolph Churchill and Arthur and Louise Sassoon, the first thing he did was to lay a wreath on Rudolph’s tomb. And much of the Austrian nobility were absolutely horrified. Now, Franz Joseph was not in the least bit anti-Semitic, but many of the Austrian nobility were. Because if you think about Vienna, those of you who’ve been to the rings, many of those houses on the ring were built by Jewish financiers who were seen as a real threat to the Austrian aristocracy. What Hirsch then did was to whisk his guests off on a special train to his estate. The Prince had a wonderful time, he totally enjoyed himself. The Duke of Portland was another guest and said what a wonderful place it was. Hirsch had a real taste for the turf, as I’ve already said. He enjoyed hunting and shooting, and he flits between London and Paris.

And in Paris of course, he has to be aware of what is happening because of you have characters like Edmund Drumal and his terrible book, France Sri, where he accuses the Jews of controlling most of the capital of the French world. Anyway, he as a beneficiary, I don’t think there’s ever really been one to his scale. He gave in London to the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, the 40th anniversary of Franz Joseph’s succession in 1888, he gave half a million pounds for primary and technical schools, mainly in Galicia and in Bucabina. He was in many ways an assimilationist, but he did serve kosher food to visiting Jews. His racing, when he won at the horses, which he often did, he gave all the prize money away. But now he’s going to have another huge challenge. And that, can we go on please? Turn your attention back to Russia in 1881. What happened in 1881 is of course pogroms breakout throughout Russia, after the assassination of Alexander II. In London, there was a great deal of protest against it, Manchin House Fund, and Hirsch, the man of action, wants to do something about it. He wants to help his people, he wants to modernise his people, but he does believe they are downgraded. He did in an article in the New York Herald, he gave an interview. He said, this, “I am a bitter enemy of fanaticism, bigotry, and exclusive theology. The Jewish question can only be sold by the disappearance of the Jewish race, which will inevitably be accomplished by the amalgamation of Christians and Jews.” He, in fact, had wanted his son to marry into the English aristocracy. His son actually had illegitimate children, or were they de Hirsch’s?

There’s a huge mystery about this, but after de Hirsch’s death, Clara, who was a saint, adopted these children. But the point is, he doesn’t… He sees himself as a Jew. He thinks it’s his duty to help with the appalling fate that the Jews are under. But on one level, he is an assimilationist. So what happens is this, he is confronted with the pogroms in Russia, and what he decides to do was to send an agent to Russia to see what could be done. He is determined. He’s got a two-prong attack. Jews are pouring out of Russia to towns like Brody. They just want to get out. Now, where are they going to go to? You already know that already the Jewish establishment in Britain, and to a lesser extent, the Jewish establishment in America, they weren’t so keen on all these immigrants coming in. He reacted, first of all to the pogroms by giving 1 million francs to the alleles. And he sent two representatives to Brody on the Austrian border. And in all, he gave £200,000 to the maroon refugees. Now the Mansion House fund in London. He also decides to set up his own fund, and he sends delegates to St. Petersburg to establish technical schools and modern workshops in Russia itself. He wants to persuade the Russian authorities that he can improve the lot of the Jews, and at the same time raise them up. And he proposed to give £2 million to fund the projects. He sends his agents to have meetings with some Jewish bankers like the Bumsergs in Russia, the because despite the antisemitism of the Czars, what you do have is a cadra of Russian Jewish bankers. However, the lay pro curator of the Russian Orthodox Church, a man called Pobo De Ernesto, he doesn’t want them in Russia. He actually said, “A third will emigrate, a third will assimilate, a third will die.”

He’s going to use the Jews to try and ward off revolution. Now this man, the lay procurator to the Russian Orthodox Church, he excommunicated Tolstoy. He was the tutor to three Czars, Alexander II, Alexander III and Nicholas II. He was an absolute fanatic. So Hirsch is looking for a practical solution. He wants to create self-supporting communities. And as a result of this, Robert Ernesto, he sends a man called White with Dan Feinberg out to Russia to see what can be done. Now, this man, Arnold White, in fact, was a journalist in London, and I’ve already referred you to him. He later becomes very, very anti-Semitic. So what Hirsch has done, he’s established a central committee with Gunzburg and Pollyokov. And ironically, Barron Jacob Pollyokov his niece was married to Hirsch’s brother James. So see this interrelated network. So in London, he establishes the Jewish Colonisation Association with a capital of £2 Million because on one level, he’s going to try and help the Jews in Russia. But he’s seeing that that’s not going to work. So what he’s going to do is to set up an organisation to help them lead. And because he’s Baron de Hirsch and he’s the hugest philanthropist in the world, he manages to bring together leaders of the Anglo Jewish Association in London, leaders of the Board of Deputies, leaders of the Allianz, Lord Nathan Rothchild, who is a friend of the Prince of Wales and also of Hirsch. And he’s also president of the United Synagogue. And he brings in his new friend Ernest Cassel. More about him later.

The following year, he donated another 7 million to this Jewish colonisation association, twice the annual budget of the Russian Navy. Now going back to Russia, when Povo Deneisto was visited by Arnold White, who’s travelling on de Hirsh’s mission, this is what Povo Deneisto said to him, “The characteristics of the Jewish race are parasitic. For their substenance, they require the presence of another race as host, although they remain aloof and self-contained, take them away from the living organism, put them on a rock, and they die. They cannot cultivate the soil.” Povo Deneisto would consider only immigration or conversion. Let me reiterate that. Hirsch even offered him 1 million francs to bribe him, which he took. But after a year of wrangling, Hirsch breaks off the negotiations, it’s not going to work. Meanwhile, there’s a fresh influx of refugees. And so therefore, French Jewry don’t know how to react to this. Because France and Russia are allies. In 1894, they actually, the the main synagogue in Paris offers prayers for the welfare of Alexanders III, he dies 12 days later. I don’t know if the two things are in any way connected, but meanwhile, Hirsch’s come across a man called Dr. Lontal. Dr. Lontal had pointed out to him that Argentina was a country that was very undeveloped and it had a thriving economy. It had once been part of the Spanish Empire. It was now independent. And Dr. Lontal, Hirsch likeness. So he sends Lowell back to in Argentina with a commission to acquire land, establish housing, and provide equipment and livestock. Even before he got going, the first 775 immigrants went on their way. There were many, many problems. This is Hirsch. “My difficulty here is not in money, but in men. Men who have the necessary moral and mental capacity for grappling with the work of so complex and difficult, a mixture, are not to be easily obtained.” He said, “I haven’t got enough good people around me to make this happen.” He has decided he is going to provide land. He’s going to buy land in Canada.

He’s going to buy land in Argentina, and he’s going to set up self-sufficient Jewish communities. By 1895, the association owned 470,000 acres of land in Argentina, only 10% of was cultivated. One of the problems they found is when they finally settled there, one of the colonists commented, we have sown wheat, and harvested doctors because a lot of the children of the colonists, they didn’t want to work on the farms. They wanted to go to the cities and go into the professionq. Hirsch visits a semi-autonomous entity in an alien state. Now this is the aim of the Jewish Colonisation Association. To system promote the immigration of Jews from any part of Europe and Asia, to form and established colonies, various parts of North and South America and other countries for agricultural, commercial, and other purposes. By the time he dies aged only 64, he had about 10,000 have made it there. And interesting communities like Moises Ville, which actually predated, there was already a Jewish community there. But he created an infrastructure, public services, schools, synagogues, library, theatre, newspapers, Mauricio, which was just outside Enos Aires, San Antonio, and Villa Clara named after his wife. Today, by the way, it’s a Jewish charitable association of works in Israel, so Argentina, also in Canada. So basically he is creating self-sufficient communities for Jews. He himself is an assimilationist or certainly an acculturation. He believes in acculturation. And then in April, 1895, he has a very strange visitor. You’ve got to remember what his life was like. He’s a whirlwind of activity. He’s travelling from place to place. He has incredibly luxurious homes, but he has this great sense of largess. He believes it’s his duty to help people in trouble. He’s also quite dictatorial. He keeps on firing people who work for him, putting in new people.

Nobody’s ever as clever as him, nobody’s as good as him. His wife was quite a steady hand. And actually after his death, she gave away even more money. It’s estimated that the Hirsch Foundation in the end gave away £200 million. And he died in 1896. So try and work that out. But in April, 1895, he receives a letter and that letter says, it comes from a Dr. Herzl. It’s a correspondent of the Noya Fry press. And he asks for the honour of calling on Baron de Hirsch to discuss the Jewish question. He emphasises, “I don’t want to talk about money.” He says this, “One cannot guard against the suspicion of unsavoury designs. I simply wish to have a discussion with you about Jewish political matters, a discussion that I may have an effect on that neither you and I will live to see.” He gets a reply a couple of weeks later, May the 20th from her Hirsh’s London residence. It’s written in French. And he tells Herzl to put his ideas in writing and mark the envelope personal. This is his reply to Hirsh. “What you have undertaken until now has been a magnanimous, as it has been costly, as it has been pointless.” This is quite something, let me repeat that. “What you have undertaken until now has been as magnanimous as it has been costly, as it has been pointless. You have been only a philanthropist. I want you to show you the way of becoming something more.” Look, Hirsh was intrigued, informed Herzl he would meet him during a two-day trip to Paris. Herzl carefully prepared. You’ve got to remember, Theodore Herzl had a very, very strange personality. He was born in 1860. He died in 1904. As a young man in Vienna at the University of Vienna, very well aware of antisemitism. He had actually first suggested that he take the whole of the Jewish community to King St. Stephen’s Cathedral and convert them all. He had been aware of antisemitism. He was when Wagner died, he’d been part of a student’s association.

The kind of demonstrations about the death of the great man, the great hero of Germandom became very anti-Semitic. And he resigned. He offered to resign from his student fraternity thinking that they wouldn’t accept it, but they did. Then he is in Paris for the Dreyfus affair. He was a very conflicted character. He would go to the opera. He adored Wagner. He wanted to create, even when he had his idea of creating a Jewish state. He wanted to have an opera house that would play Wagner in Jerusalem. He was rooted in European culture, but now he is actually having the chutzpah to say to the richest Jew, perhaps richest man in the world. You’ve got it completely wrong. He’s very carefully prepared. But as he says, “Despite his own maxim, one mustn’t show rich people too much deference,” Herzl was totally overwhelmed by the luxury of Hirsch’s Paris Place. He spent a lot of time looking at the collection of art and figurines. Unfortunately, he had made 22 pages of notes. He attacked his philanthropic settlements. He said, “you turn Jews into schnars.” He says this, “Whether the Jews stays put or emigrates, the race must be improved on the spot. It must be made strong as if it were eager to work and virtuous, afterwards, let them work if necessary.” So both of them believe in a downgraded view of the Jew. And this is something that is actually quite troubling, whether Herzl, of course, later on is going to really create political Zionism. But Baron de Hirsch, both of them believed the Jews had become downgraded. There is something about aping the Gentile, and I’m going to talk more about this tomorrow when I talk about Israel Zangwill. What he wanted, he wants the Baron support for regenerating the Jewish masses.

He asked Baron de Hirsch to set up a Baron de Hirsch prize for people who could do something extraordinary, particularly in anti-Semitic countries. Deeds of moral beauty, he suggest, conscious self-sacrifice, ethical conduct, achievements in the arts and scientists, contributions to public welfare. This is actually quite tragic, and I think in a way, I’m speaking personally now. I think it took the show up to bring people to their senses. He had a two-pronged aim, improve the Jewish race and foster favourable publicity. Hirsch took the opposite view. He said the minority should keep a low profile. He’d already told his wife that he believed that the only difference between Jews and Christians was religious beliefs. And the sooner Jews saw that, and the sooner they tilt the same soil or worked on the same benches as Christians, all would be well. So what he says to Herzl, you have too many intellectuals. My intention is to keep the Jews from pushing ahead. They should not make such great strides. All due hatred comes from this. Now, do you think so? So what you have is no real concept of minds, no meeting. And it’s interesting because Hirsch’s ideas were formed before the concept of race. Theodore Hertz is very well aware of the concept of race, which is sweeping Europe, and it wasn’t necessary pejorative. Please don’t forget that Israeli talked about the Jewish race. Kipling talked about the Jewish race. And so the Herzl’s concept should be set in its own time. So of course the meeting is a total failure, and Hirsch actually dies in 1896. He dies at his hunting lodge in Hungary. His body is brought back to France.

The Chief Rabbi Officiates, the Chief rabbi of France. Can we have a look at the obituary, please? This is the obituary in the illustrated London News. “The death of Baron de Hirsch makes a gap in the ranks of great European financiers. The baron belonged to one of those Jewish firms, which has supposed to have done more than sovereigns and statesmen with the secret polities of the continent.” You see, these are the “300 elders”. His name was famous in a way, even more honourable to his race. He conceived a great scheme for transporting Jewish refugees from Russia to the Argentine Republic. Land was brought in Argentine and a considerable colony established, but it suited too soon to judge the practical out outcome of the idea. “Baron Hirsch was in the habit of entertaining shooting parties on interstate in Austria, and some amusing stories of told of the thrift, which distinguished certain features of his household.” So a rather mixed obituary. But he certainly was a larger than life character. Can we go on please. And of course, the man who was introduced to the Prince by Baron de Hirsch was his friend, sir Ernest Cassel. And Sirus Cassel was born in Cologne in Prussia. Can we have a look at Cologne, please? Yeah. That’s the town he came from. He was the youngest of three children. His father owned a small bank, but he really wanted to get away from the restraints. So he arrived in Liverpool with very little money in 1869. He was 16 years old and he went to work for a firm of grain merchants for £2 a week, just as Nathan Rothchild had done in nearly 50 years earlier. He went out there to make it himself, but he had an incredible business grain and he was very hard working. He then goes off to Paris.

He founds work in a bank, the Anglo Egyptian bank, and soon he is earning an awful lot of money. He is so good. And then because of the Franco Prussian war, he has to, you know, he’s a German. France is at war with Prussia. So he moves to London and he also was close to Bishop Chimes and Goldsmith. Bishop Chimes, they were known as . They’re also friends of the Prince of Wales, and he works for them. He manages the firm’s affairs in Sweden, in Turkey and Latin America. He’s so good at it. But by the time he is 21, he’s earning 5,000 a year. He comes to London, he’s very amiable. He’s well off. He’s mixing with his cousins. He’s mixing with Baron de Hirsch. And in 1878, he marries into the English aristocracy. He marries Annette Mary Maud Maxwell. He becomes a naturalised Brit. And later on she is going to persuade him to convert to Catholicism, which he did after her death. That was her dying wish. She dies young and his sister and three children moved to London to look after the family. He has a daughter who is the love of his life. In 1884, he starts his own business, international banking, high risk. He is very, very good at it. By 1888, he has a residence in Mayfair. He’s got a country house, sporting estates, apartment in Paris. He very much follows on from his mentor. He’s a great collector of mice in China, antique English silver. And he bought Brookhouse Park Lane. Later on, he’s going to leave it to his granddaughter. He also, as part of the Prince of Wales set, he forms a stud for horse breeding with Lord Willoughby de Brock. Shall we have a look at him? Yep. And these are the kind of characters he is mixing with.

He begins racing his horses, his business operations included. He finances the Asam Dam. He won all sorts of awards from the Egyptians. He formed the National Bank of Egypt. He financed all sorts of governments in China, Morocco, Latin American countries. Like Baron de Hirsch, he walks the world. In England, he consolidates speakers Armstrong’s, Britain’s leading arms manufacturer. He’s also involved in railways, national and international. And of course, all the doors are open. And when Hirsch dies in 1896, Hirsch had looked after Edwards private portfolio. It is taken over by Cassel. And as a sweetener, he wrote off a £300,000 loan. Now it is he who’s going to advise the prince. And when Cassel’s daughter, Maud married Wilfred Ashley, the Prince of Wales was present. He was a guest at the wedding. Maud died of TB when she was only 30 years old. And he had two daughters, I’ve already told you. And the king was godfather to Edwina, who was one of his two daughters. Later on, she marries Elman Batna becomes Vice Rena Egypt. Now, what is also interesting is through her father’s family, Wilfred Ashley, she is related… She is the granddaughter of, she’s not just the granddaughter of Cassel, she’s the granddaughter of Lord Shaftsbury, who had been a philocimite, Shaftsbury Avenue. The statue of Eros that I’m talking about, that particular Shaftsbury and interesting, Cassel looked very, very much like Edwardson. By the way, let’s have a look at the picture. Let’s have a look at his wife. There’s his Amalia Mary Maud Cassel, the English aristocrat he fell madly in love with, with her daughter Edwina. So Cassel is given all these awards because of his services to Egypt in 1899. He is made a knight of the garter.

1901, he becomes a member of the Privy Council. And in fact, during World War I, they tried to remove him because of his German descent. But it didn’t happen. He had many, many honours from all sorts of foreign governments. He was given the Royal Order of Vassar by the Swedes in 1900, the Grand Cordon of the Imperial Ottoman Order in 1902 when he visited Egypt for the opening of the Aswan Dam, 1908, the Grand Cross of Prussia, 1911, the Order of the Red Eagle from Japan. He was very helpful to the Japanese, as was a very close friend of his in America. A man called Jacob Schiff, who I’m going to talk about tomorrow. He was also a great philanthropist. He founded and endowed the Cassel Hospital for mental illness. His estate was worth 7 million at his death. There’s a wonderful story that when Bertie asked one of his courtier, have you seen the importance of being earnest? You know, the play by Oscar Wilde? He said, no, but I’ve seen the importance of being earnest Cassel. In fact, when the Prince was dying, Cassel, when the king was dying, remember he’s now a privy counsellor to the King, Cassel of was one of the last to be called to Edward’s deathbed. And when the prince died, Cassel handed an envelope containing £10,000 to the courtier Francis’ knowledge saying it was in fact a debt he owed the king. But in fact it was understood to be a sweetener to Alice Keppel, his most consistent mistress. And because, and Cassel looked after her. And because of Cassel’s investments, she could go on living a lavish lifestyle in 16 Ner Street.

The sum of money that Bertie owned, Cassel has never been fully calibrated, but he really underpinned the monarchy. So it’s important to remember that these characters, they were friends with the Prince, they were incredibly loyal to him. In return, they were the pinnacle of high society. They all intermarried. Although Hirsch married a Jewish woman, his adopted children intermarried, and in fact his granddaughter, Edwina Ashley, her story is that she married Lord Mountbatten. So what can one make of these characters, these friends of kings and princes, the court Jews, they so wanted the world. There’s that rather strange expression. They really had their noses pushed against the ghetto war. They lived extraordinary lives. I mean, both of them were great beneficiaries to their own people, but they wanted to reform their own people. And they had this notion there was something special about the gentile world. So I will leave it there. And what I intend to do tomorrow is to look at another group of individuals. I’m going to start with Israel Zal. These are Jewish intellectuals living in London who also want to say, solve the problem of the Jewish people. So let’s have a look at questions.

Q&A and Comments:

I think what I’m most interested with these characters is really their attitude to being Jewish. Don’t forget, this is against the backdrop of appalling antisemitism that is on the rise.

Well, this is from Elliot, who’s greetings from Aurelia, Ontario. And just thanking Wendy and everyone. Thank you very much, Elliot.

This is from Michael. My father’s family left Buffa in 1892 and came to Canada. I still have my grandfather’s passport signed by the Emperor Franz Joseph, oh, I do love lockdown because I suppose you came out because of Baron de Hirsch.

How incredible Monty, this is from Monty. Your lectures on this bunch of acculturated assimilated Jews reminded me of the words of Bernard Lewis, Judaism, or more broadly, Jewishness is a religion in the fullest sense, a system of belief and worship, a morality and a way of life. A complex of social and cultural values and habits. Well said Monty. I don’t think… I think they weighed up the Jew as against the dream they had of what the Gentile could be. And they found it wanting, and I think it’s quite tragic, really, because they forgot what there was. That’s my view, what there was in the Jewish world.

This is from Man. And many Jews went to the Hirsch colony in Canada, which was less than great. I understand from my friends whose parents were there. It was very difficult in the near west, I believe Manitoba. Yes. I haven’t talked about Canada, but yes.

And Rita’s talking about Saskatchewan. How do you pronounce that? I’m very bad at pronunciation, Rita. The colony was in what is now the Canadian Pacific Railway provided free land in Western Canada. Yes, of course. Because they wanted to settle the wide open spaces. And if Baron de Hirsch wanted to buy land, then that was welcome too. So it all makes sense.

And Mike was saying there was also a Hirsh colony in Michigan, yes. I didn’t even have time to talk about his American philanthropy. He gave a fortune in America. I mean, he helped the Henry Street settlement. He gave millions in America to set up training schools. He really was the archetypal Jewish philanthropist. He wanted Jews to have productive work, productive lives, to work the soil. Ironically, later on the second Aliyah are going to take exactly the same tack. I thought that NASA built the Swan Dam. No, not the original. That was built in the time of the Saltan. He rebuilt it and did it. Bender Hamlet in Manitoba says Harriet Vice Rena of India, not Egypt. Yes, yes. Nicholas Edwina Mountbatten became the Vice Rena of India. She married Lord Mountbatten. Unless I misspoke. had a daughter whose name was given to the car. That’s interesting. Wait a minute, I better check this, Aviva. I’ll check.

This is from Rose, the tragedy where died from a violation off from the simulation. So sad. No, no, Rose, take the middle road. Yeah, we’ve had a tragic history, but we have an extraordinary history. We have survived for thousands of years and we will go on surviving. I really believe that. Psychologists since Freud, says Abigail, have a term for this identification with the aggressor that can be applied to this class of 19th century up class of Jews. That’s interesting. Thank you, Rita

Yes, Montreal has a very large Jewish cemetery named after Baron de Hirsch, yes. I believe there are other cities in Canada and America which have cemeteries named after Baron de Hirsch. Saskatchewan. Thank you.

With the accent on Saskatchewan. Thank you Anna Lee. Thank you very much.

And Hindis saying I got it right. My husband’s granddad arrived at the so-called train station in Hirsch. No wonder no one was waiting at the time and they waited in -30 degrees in a typical brutal prairie winter. It was a struggle. Wow, wow. What some people had to go through is absolutely extraordinary.

Anyway, I think that’s it, Lauren. Thank you very much and thank you for getting those slides sorted so quickly. So I wish you all good night and I’ll see you tomorrow. God bless.