Why didn't having to pay reparations, for franco prussian war, cause France to go bankrupt?

Why didn't having to pay reparations, for franco prussian war, cause France to go bankrupt?

Because the French didn't hyperinflate their currency as a petulant act of revenge.

wait the germans hyperinflated on purpose?
i'm not too knowledgeable on ww1/2 so please enlighten

Real quick:

>France demands reperation in kind, not just in cash, so Germany needs to provide so many bricks, so many steel beams so many telephone poles.
>Wait, telephone poles...Germany where are these telephone poles you promised?
>Dunno lol
>...Okay we're going to just activate this article of the treaty you signed that says we if you don't give us these telephone poles, we'll occupy your industrial heartland.
>Shit! How could we have foreseen this outcome we agreed to in advance!? What can we do?
>Army?
>Army broke.
>Understandable. Guerilla resistance?
>The French would relish the opportunity to blast our industrial region to shit fighting irregulars for a few months.
>I've got it! Let's pay everyone in the occupied region not to work.
>They're...kind of a lot of people and our most productive, how will we pay them?
>Print money.
>Won't that cause inflation?
>Even better! Then the French can't collect taxes while they're here!
>I see nothing that could go wrong with this plan.
[SEVERAL MONTHS LATER]
>Versailles harshest treaty ever, these reperations are what's killing our economy, I would wager individuals of Hebrew descent are behind these events!

France collected their taxes, and their telephone poles, and left

>implying Frankreich didn't send Algerian slaves to black up the Rhineland

Sources? Not memeing, I've only ever heard the LOLspeculation reasoning

Literally 450 Billion USD

Almost retard tier understanding of the situation.

Different user, but what kind of sources do you want?

The events that happened are as the user says, the difference is the motivation or reasoning behind them.

All things considered, the German economy was in relatively good shape after WW1. Physical destruction was minimal, and the infrastructure for industrial production was intact. Germany was the largest economy in Europe before the war, and had regained that status by 1921.

...

As far as the debt load was concerned, Germany had a much bigger problem with domestic debt than war reparations. Rather than raising taxes like a reasonable country, Germany hedged it's bets on victory, and funded the war largely through borrowing. Obviously that didn't work out.

As an aside, Germany also couldn't effectively raise money from taxes for a plethora of reasons. Domestic support for the war as lukewarm, and the "newly" federated German states balked at increased federal taxes. Remember that Germany was only 44 years old and hasn't had a crisis of this level since unification. During the entirety of the war, there was no federal income tax in Germany, whereas Britain and France both raised income taxes to pay for the war.

Second aside, same thing happened round 2. Nazi Germany paid for WW2 with loans and bonds rather than raising taxes, again betting on victory and seizure of foreign funds to pay off war debts. Didn't work and German citizens lost all their savings (again), this time with the added bummer of their property not being worth as much in it's rubblized state.

Hyperinflation also had the effect of wiping out domestic debt.

> "Oh you bought a 10 year war bond for 10,000 marks? well here's 10,000 marks, maybe you can wipe your ass with it"

Which essentially wiped out the liquid savings of everyone in Germany.

Could Germany have paid the war reparations without hyperinflation? Most definitely, could it have paid off it's domestic debt at the same time? Not a chance.

France had a lucrative colonial empire
germany did not

>sand and jungle
>lucrative

Would the domestic debt have been as big of issue though? The depression would have hit a country with high debt hard, but without foreign loans being called in would they still have resorted to hyperinflation?

There wasn't any hyperinflation in 1930s. Extremely high unemployment rate and economic troubles during the Great Depression are also mostly Germany's fault.

You are getting the timeline messed up.

War ends in 1918, war reparations are demanded

Hyperinflation happens 1921-1923

Depression hits 1929.

Germany was doing pretty good economically between 1919-1921, and 1924-1929. Germany actually didn't suffer from excessive inflation during the depression.

The domestic debt was a problem because defaulting on domestic debt hurts the trustworthiness of the government. The German people spent their savings to buy war bonds, and German businesses themselves took loans for wartime needs.

Think of the situation in the US. A lot of investments and retirement funds invest in the 10 year T-note, which is government debt. If the government suddenly says "so were are not honoring specific batches of T-notes" those people would lose their savings and investments, in effect, a seizure of private property by the government.

>Algerian slaves to black up

They're brown like latinos not blacks

And it is not our fault if the moment you see non-whites you feel the urge to racemix with them

>Rather than raising taxes like a reasonable country, Germany hedged it's bets on victory, and funded the war largely through borrowing.

Correct, but this was no German peculiarity as you seem to imply ("...like a reasonable country...")

According to Holtferrich, The German Inflation, the UK managed to raise 20-30% of the war cost through tax increases, Germany 0-6% and France 0%.

In the end, the Entente powers obviously also betted on victory, since especially the foreign debt to the US, that was amassed during the war, was to be payed off through German reparation payments. It's not surprising that the payments of the inter-allied debt was unilaterally canceled by Britain and France once the German reparation payments were canceled in 1932.

Made a brain fart, no idea why I included France in the list of "reasonable countries". The French being awful at war finance stretches all the way back to the Sun King.

Britain on the other hand has a history of being able to raise huge amount of money for wars and getting good terms on their war debt. The US is pretty good at it too.

Is this bait?

France did have to reparations and didn't go bankrupt. In fact, they paid them quickly.

Yeah why were they able to do it so shortly when thoughts at the time was that it would cause a financial crisis.

read it again
why didnt (X) cause france to go bankrupt?

(X) = paying reparations

The treaty of Frankfurt estipulated the German Army to occupy certain parts of France until the reparations were paid. So France paid ahead of schedule to have them go.

Are you retarded or just illiterate?

'Why didn't France go bankrupt as a result of paying reparations for the franco-prussian war?' would be less confusing and neat.

Because France had a strong economy, lot of gold, and the war didn't drag that much. 1870 payment was harsher, but the country was quick to recover because of booming industry, etc.

>lucrative colonial empire

Because the G*rman is mentally deficient.

The French were in awful shape after the Franco Prussian war. Alsace-lorraine had the majority of France's coal and steel production. It's the equivalent of Germany losing the Ruhr valley, which is something the French considered after WW1.

>The French being awful at war finance stretches all the way back to the Sun King.
didn't the French try to make a colony near the Mississippi river only to see it dramatically fail and then the crown pretended it didn't owe anyone their money back?
i remember my teacher from high school mentioning this but it was so long ago i can't remember the details

>So France paid ahead of schedule to have them go.
where the reparations very light or did the French decide they will starve and throw all their wealth at the reparation payments until the Germans leave?

gold coast colony, south american colony, and east asian colony
those would bring in lucrative trade profits, right? gold, sugar, and spices are always on the market

Almost all hyperinflations are on purpose.

Friendly reminder that the Versailles was more harsh than Brest-Litovsk.

And? Compared to the treaty Lenin signed with the Germans in 1917, and the subsequent treaties the Germans had prepared should they win the war Germany got off really lenient in the treaty of Versailles.