From the late imperial period until 1922, the British and French
made private and government loans to Russia, making it the foremost
international debtor country in pre-World War I Europe. To finance
the modernization of industry, the construction of public works
projects, the building of railroads, and the development of the
military-industrial complex, Russia's ministers of finance,
municipal leaders, and nascent manufacturing class turned, time and
time again, to foreign capital. From the forging of the
Franco-Russian alliance onwards, Russia's needs were met, first and
foremost, by France and Great Britain, its allies, and diplomatic
partners in the developing Triple Entente. Russia's continued
access to those ready lenders ensured that the empire of the Tsars
would not be tempted away from its alliance and entente partners.
This web of financial and political interdependence affected both
foreign policy and domestic society in all three countries. The
Russian state was so heavily indebted to its western creditors,
rendering those western economies almost prisoners to this debt,
that the debtor nation in many ways had the upper hand; the Russian
government at times was actually able to dictate policy to its
French and British counterparts. Those nations' investing
classes-which, in France in particular, spanned not only the upper
classes but the middle, rentier class, as well-had such a vast
proportion of their savings wrapped up in Russian bonds that any
default would have been catastrophic for their own economies. That
default came not long after the Bolshevik Revolution brought to
power a government who felt no responsibility, whatsoever, for the
debts accrued by the tsars for the purpose of oppressing Russia's
workers and peasants. The ensuing effect on allied morale, the
Anglo-French relationship, and, ultimately, on international
relations in the twentieth century, was grim and far-reaching.
Jennifer Siegel narrates a classic tale of money and power in the
modern era-an age of economic interconnectivity and great power
interdependency-involving such figures as Lord Revelstoke, chairman
of Baring Brothers, the British and French Rothschild cousins, and
Sergei Witte, Russia's authoritative finance minister during much
of this age of expansion. For Peace and Money highlights the
importance of foreign capital in policymaking on the origins and
conduct of World War I.
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