Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Armed conflicts in the history of humanity from the ancient times to the 20th Century.
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José M. Rico
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Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by José M. Rico »

I had no idea Germany was still paying for reparations agreed in the Versailles treaty of 1919.
The last payment of 69.9 million euros (about $100 million ) will be made tomorrow Sunday, October 3rd.

Here some links:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor ... =130232809

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/richa ... is-sunday/

http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/10/0 ... 43039.html
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RF
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Re: Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by RF »

This is just an overhang on bond debts arising from the 1930's and not reparations as actually required under Versailles. Another piece of journalistic licence...

Anyway Germany is rich enough to bankroll the EU, along with the British taxpayer. But that just isn't news, is it?
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

A shame still! Europe still has to be thankfull they are not talking German, less to be pretending they deserve a dime from Germany.
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RF
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Re: Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by RF »

Karl, a lot of Europe does talk German - in Germany itself, in Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and parts of Belguim, Italy and Denmark......
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Re: Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by RF »

And German is still spoken to some extent in Togo.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

RF,

Good to know that of Togo. It implies that even defeated the Germans influence spread a lot. However the issue is that Germany is only paying that because of "guilt" culture imposed to them as if Edward Gray, the Zar or Poincare, the real sinister conspirators that started the Great War, were Germans.
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RF
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Re: Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by RF »

I don't think there is any real evidence that Sir Edward Grey tried to pick a fight with Germany in 1914. Indeed it was only with the greatest reluctance that he went along with the British declaration of war.

Lets be clear on this point. On August 1 1914, when Germany declared war on Russia (itself a totally unnecessary action, as Russia's mobilisation was to defend Serbia from Austrian invasion, not to threaten Germany) the British Foreign Office demanded of both the French and German governments that they would respect Belgian territory and neutrality in the event of hostilities between France and Germany. The French replied immediately in the affirmative. The Germans ignored the British note, and went on to invade Belguim. Britain was faced with enforcing its guarantee of the Belgain state, or otherwise showing to the world that British guarantees were not worth the paper they were written on.

Far from being a warmonger, Sir Edward Grey regarded Britain's declaration of war on Germany as a tragedy and predicted that the war would not end in his lifetime.
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Karl Heidenreich
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Re: Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by Karl Heidenreich »

RF,

What you say is just the 1914 wartime propaganda that was re boosted during WWII in order to minimize the Versailles Catastrophe and put Germany as the contemporary bad guys.

You state that Germany's war declaration on Rusia was unnecesary. However you do not mention that Russia's declaration of war against Austria was more than unnecesary. The russian intention was not "save" poor Serbia but to gain access to the Adriatic and open a seaway for it's Black Sea Fleet throught the Bosforus. The russians supported and boosted the Serbian Inteligence's terrorist agenda into the Habsburg Empire.
You also fail to mention that it was the Serbians those that infiltrated a terrorist cell in Sarajevo with the express target of killing the Archduke and produce and international crisis. A crisis completely artificial that was required by Rusia and it's ally, France, in order to smash into the heart of Europe: Russia for the already mentioned motives whilst France needed allies in order to take revenge against Germany for the superb kick it gave against them in 1870'-71. France knew that never, ever, their supremely incompetent army could deal, alone, with Germany.
You also fail to mention that Germany was bound to Austria the same way France was with Russia. Let's assume for a second that France and Russia were decent in their intentions: still France had to go to war against Germany because of their pact with Russia. So Germany with Austria.
If one war declaration was unnecesary then both were the same.
And Edward Gray was, in at least one ocassion, called to attention by the Parliament because of it's anti Germanic stance. And it's even more than clear that the invasion of Belgium was a move that both sides considered as necesarry to wage their war. The Germans had to attack, as Israel had done late in the same century, because they had to prevent two offensives in two borders. Simply put, the Germans got there first.
You also fail to mention that Russia's action was 100% offensive and was only thwarted by their own incompetence and because the proficiency of a dark Prussian colonel at Tannenberg.
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Re: Germany To Settle Last World War I Debt

Post by RF »

Karl, what you say is one interpretation of events taken by somebody thousands of miles away from where I live. I at least know my own country. And what you say is not supported by the facts.

The Austrians had a blank cheque from the Germans to deal with Serbia. That was the Austrians' decision. Invading and subjugating a whole country for the actions of a few of its renegade citizens is rather an extreme course of action. It would rather be like Britain invading Eire and imposing martial law in return for the Birmingham pub bombings - the USA and the other countries in Europe would never have accepted such a course of action.

Serbia was quite capable of defending itself against Austria. Only when Bulgaria stabbed them in the back in 1915 was Serbia overrun. Russia had an alliance with Serbia. The Austrians knew that, which is why they had to get that blank cheque from the Germans. The Germans gave that blank cheque thinking that Austria probably wouldn't go all the way to invading but would bully the Serbian government into submission. What the Austrians did was to present the second version of an ultimatum to Serbia, deliberately made far more severe than the original first version because the Austrian diplomatic service had discovered that the Serbian government may not have rejected it.
Russia mobilised to support Serbia, because Serbia was threatened with attack. Austria was the aggressor, so the terms of the Central Powers Pact did not oblige Germany to assist Austria. The Italians were bound by the same pact; they chose not to back Austria.
Germany barged into a dispute that was nothing to do with them by demanding that Russia cease its mobilisation - in other words not to help Serbia. Had Austria not declared war on Serbia then the Russians might have stopped mobilising; as it was, and the Russians and Germans both knew, full mobilisation of Russia would take months rather than weeks because of the ramshackle state of the country. That was the implicit assumption of the Schlieffen Plan.

Russia didn't stop mobilising. So Germany declared war. That mean't declaring war on France as well as Russia because the only plan the Germans had was the Schlieffen Plan. As it was based on attack, it made Germany the aggressor. And I would suggest that the clearest case of that aggression was the German contempt for the indepedence and neutrality of two countries, Belguim and Luxembourg. A blunder compounded equally by German contempt and ignorance about the British reaction.

Germany, whether by design or simple incompetance, started WW1. They ended up fighting most of the rest of the world. Why do you think that a country like Brazil would want to declare war on Germany, as they did in October 1917?
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