Faeelin
Banned
(As a counterpoint to the idea that his survival wouldn't make a difference, with one additional tweak. And because I really like this song.)
Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
-Holding Out for a Hero
One of the irony’s of the 1920s is that the Franco-German detente of 1926 had its origins in French fears of suffering from hyperinflation only a few years after the Germans. Like Germany, France suffered from a budget deficit through 1925 and 1926, weakening the value of the franc. To cover the deficit, the French had been printing more money without keeping an adequate supply of gold on hand, and when news of this leaked out there was a run on the banks. Attempts to balance the budget in 1925 and 1926 proved ineffective, and this merely increased political instability, which merely exacerbated the problem. [1] By March of 1926, there was a very real fear that France would face the same problems as Germany only a few years before. Yet this crisis, ironically, was averted by Germany….
Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand met in the small town of Thoiry, in the French Alps. As the creators of the Locarno Treaties, they were ably suited to work together on an ambitious proposal to establish a “general settlement” for Franco-German relations. France, along with Britain, would evacuate the Rhineland and the Saar would be restored to Germany. In return, it was agreed that Germany would pay an advance on reparations in the total of three hundred million gold marks, along with receiving the profits from the shale of bonds worth one and a half billion marks. When this was presented to the French National Assembly in October of 1926, there was outspoken opposition; but when President Poincare agreed with the proposal it soon went forward. The loans were rapidly bought up by American and British investors over the next several months, and the Allied troops withdrew from the Rhine over the course of 1927 and 1928.
Stresemann and the Weimar Coalition were lambasted for those on the right for paying “German gold for German land.” Yet as Stresemann responded, “One should not worry about the methods so long as one is moving forward. For in the end success decides which methods are right. Do no doubt the goal of our foreign policy: German freedom and German greatness.”
Perhaps the true significance of the Thoiry agreement was that it marked the first instance of peaceful treaty revision. Stresemann’s policy of cooperating with the Allies, and France in particular, proved enormously successful; and buoyed by his success, the Republic of Germany seemed to have finally emerged from the postwar troubles….
[1] In OTL, the French under Poincaré were able to end the France’s decline by balancing the budget and raising indirect taxes on luxury goods; ATL they do slightly worse.
Where have all the good men gone
And where are all the gods?
Where's the street-wise Hercules
To fight the rising odds?
-Holding Out for a Hero
One of the irony’s of the 1920s is that the Franco-German detente of 1926 had its origins in French fears of suffering from hyperinflation only a few years after the Germans. Like Germany, France suffered from a budget deficit through 1925 and 1926, weakening the value of the franc. To cover the deficit, the French had been printing more money without keeping an adequate supply of gold on hand, and when news of this leaked out there was a run on the banks. Attempts to balance the budget in 1925 and 1926 proved ineffective, and this merely increased political instability, which merely exacerbated the problem. [1] By March of 1926, there was a very real fear that France would face the same problems as Germany only a few years before. Yet this crisis, ironically, was averted by Germany….
Gustav Stresemann and Aristide Briand met in the small town of Thoiry, in the French Alps. As the creators of the Locarno Treaties, they were ably suited to work together on an ambitious proposal to establish a “general settlement” for Franco-German relations. France, along with Britain, would evacuate the Rhineland and the Saar would be restored to Germany. In return, it was agreed that Germany would pay an advance on reparations in the total of three hundred million gold marks, along with receiving the profits from the shale of bonds worth one and a half billion marks. When this was presented to the French National Assembly in October of 1926, there was outspoken opposition; but when President Poincare agreed with the proposal it soon went forward. The loans were rapidly bought up by American and British investors over the next several months, and the Allied troops withdrew from the Rhine over the course of 1927 and 1928.
Stresemann and the Weimar Coalition were lambasted for those on the right for paying “German gold for German land.” Yet as Stresemann responded, “One should not worry about the methods so long as one is moving forward. For in the end success decides which methods are right. Do no doubt the goal of our foreign policy: German freedom and German greatness.”
Perhaps the true significance of the Thoiry agreement was that it marked the first instance of peaceful treaty revision. Stresemann’s policy of cooperating with the Allies, and France in particular, proved enormously successful; and buoyed by his success, the Republic of Germany seemed to have finally emerged from the postwar troubles….
[1] In OTL, the French under Poincaré were able to end the France’s decline by balancing the budget and raising indirect taxes on luxury goods; ATL they do slightly worse.
