Posted on 09/28/2010 6:49:01 AM PDT by C19fan
World War One finally ends for Germany on Sunday - 92 years after the guns fell silent and nearly nine million men lay dead - as it pays off the last chunk of reparations imposed on it by the Allies. A final payment of 69.9 million euros, or £59.3 million, writes off the crippling debt which was the price for one world war - and laid the foundations for another.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
They weren’t guilty of starting WWI either. The United States should have made things clear regarding neutrality and stuck to it ~
I’d never heard this aspect and very interesting to read. Thank you. I wish real economics were taught when I was in school, class of 89. I had a wacko socialist economics teacher that despised RR and supply side economics. Never mind just about everyone in my little town was doing better than they were a few years ealier.
I always wondered if a Freeper ping list for coin / currency note collectors would work here. I suspect there must be plenty of us around.
Not to hijack the thread but I could not resist when I saw the mention of currency notes!
I have some Notegeld from Germay and Austria. As you mention really interesting designs.
I won’t say the Germans were saints, but I believe the stories of their atrocities during WWI were grossly exaggerated.
Germany made France pay reparations after the Franco-Prussian War, so this was payback.
Only the Germans who were 21 or older in 1914 really have any responsibility, and even they really had no say in the decisions made in the inner circles of the government. I doubt there are any Germans who were that old in 1914 who are still alive.
The bottom line was that Europe was a tinderbox that was going to flame up eventually, the old world was dying, and these were the birth pangs of the new reality.
Germans were not expected to “like” it.
The vanquished has traditionally been expected to bear the brunt of the expense the victor went through in kicking the vanquished’s buttocks. But as Churchill pointed out, long term payment plans have a way of making another war inevitable: he recommended a one time rip off of all mobile property - and call it a day.
“The WWI Imperial Germans were not Nazis, but they weren’t angels either.”
In my opinion, the only decent nation in WWI was the USA. We were duped, but we were trying to do right, and sought no national gains or revenge.
Oh that’s very true, however, the war is always cast as making the “world safe for democracy”, stopping the “German Empire”, and we are told of endless German atrocities in WWI.
But at the same time, Germans had universal male suffrage by 1871 in federal elections,,, most British Soldiers could not vote due to age and not owning property. And for the British, Belgian, and French Empires to whine about the German empire borders on the silly,,, both in size and violence visited on the occupied colonial possessions. And British and French atrocities are utterly equal if not worse.
The British had invented concentration camps 20 years earler,,, the Belgians mass murdered millions at about the same time.
Thank God our soldiers were not simply fed into the British Army as replacements as the British all but demanded. They would have watefully used them even more freely than their own.
But WWI is an amazing topic. The whole European system was rotten,, and i believe America has always suffered from the European garbage wars. They dragged us in, and we had to become incredibly strong military to win, and to finally stop their crap and create peace for them.
And now a peaceful Europe, which was literally created by our strength, turns and criticizes our military strength.
I think “The Marshall Plan” worked out much better in the long-run than Versailles.
Yes, they would gladly have used us like they used the Australians. Ridden hard and put away wet, or ridden to death on the road. American soldiers should always serve under American command.
“What Germany was guilty of was allowing Lenin to return to Russia.”
Exactly,,, That was Germany’s true WWI war crime. Their strategic move to remove Russia from the war haunts the world to this day. And a few decades later, the problem the created was standing in Berlin.
I almost think we really cannot understand how insane this century was. That historians 3 or 4 hundred years from now will be utterly stupified by this century. And im still 100% for it,, but they will look at nuking cities and shake their heads.
Or shot after following their orders, like Breaker Morant.
But at that point we knew that the (west)Germans were our allies against Russia. Easier to get the wolf to be friendly when the only alternative is the ravenous bear.
I think Americas long term success is that we WANT our vanquished foes back up on their feet, buying our goods at a fair market price, and developing their resources and/or producing goods for the market. We are not trying to make them “friends to Rome”, just a good trading partner.
Peace? Good times! We are the #1 seller of food. Wanna buy some?
War? Not so good times, but no reason to not make a profit. We are the #1 seller of arms. Wanna buy some?
Well remember that it is only in the last decade that we "stopped" paying a "soak the rich" telephone tax that was established to pay for the Spanish-American War.
“I use the joke I am a billionaire and whip out the note, hee hee.”
You know what? Whether i always agree with everyone here or not,, ive laughed till i had tears in my eyes at some of the humor in these FR posts. My adult daughter just looks over, shakes her head, mutters something about a bunch of old curmudeons ,,,,scattered all the nation,, linked together via computer.
And i tell her “yeah,, and we are about to take over”
Regardless of what Germany did, had Kerensky pulled Russia out of the war, Lenin would have never been anything more than small agitator. Instead, Kerensky foolishly listened to Wilson and stayed in. Speaking of war crimes perhaps we should consider the British starvation blockade of Germany which continued even after the Armistice!
There are three World War One veterans still alive - 2 British, 1 American.
Sorry. Serbia was responsible for supporting the Black Hand, and the Kaiser was responsible for giving Austria-Hungary a “blank check.”
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