German War Finance

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1916 edition. Excerpt: ... THE PRINCIPLES OF WAR FINANCE Ever since the success of the first German war loan English speakers and writers have taken a lot of trouble in running down German finance. Their attitude was quite intelligible as long as Great Britain had hopes of winning the war by the financial and economic exhaustion of the enemy. These hopes have gone long ago. England has realized that the road to victory leads over battle fields. Whilst her soldiers are doing manfully their duty in the service of their country, she is compelled to borrow money abroad, in order to finance the huge army she must have. Her financial experts go on trying to beguile the neutrals with stories of the imminent economic and financial collapse of the enemy. They do not seem to see how criminal it would be to sacrifice the lives of so many thousand brave men in the trenches if there really was a short cut to success by blockade and starvation. They boast about the great achievements of the blockade which, according to their views, has cut off the Central Powers from the rest of the world. At the same time they are trying hard to undermine Germany's foreign credit, forgetting evidently that a country, as completely blockaded as Germany is supposed to be, is independent of foreign credits. They are taking great trouble in impressing their views on the neutrals by stopping almost completely the influx of German newspapers, not of war news only, but of financial and economic news as well: Evidently the collapse of German credit is not yet visible in Germany. If Germany was likely to appear as a competitor for loans in the American market this attitude could be easily explained. As this is not likely to happen, it is difficult to understand these methods. Even if Allied authors...

Occasional paper [no.] 20 : April 1944.