TRAGEDY AND HOPE Chapter 5-6 Analysis
* Turmel analysis has indented paragraphs, Quigley's text does not. * R&R = Rothschilds and Rockefellers
CHAPTER V: THE FIRST WORLD WAR
THE GROWTH OF INTERNATIONAL TENSIONS 1871-1914
Page 249 Four chief reasons have been given for the intervention of the United States in World War I. 1) to secure "freedom of the seas" from German submarine attacks; 2)British propaganda; 3) a conspiracy by international bankers and munitions manufacturers either to protect their loans to the Entente Powers or their wartime profits from sales to these Powers; 4) Balance of Power principles to prevent Great Britain from being defeated by Germany JCT: Wow! Name me one other historian who has had the nerve to cite the conspiracy by international bankers and munitions manufacturers to protect their loans and sales to the Entente Powers. Surely given this reason jives with the reasons for most of the other wars in our history must imply that fulfilling the wishes of the moneylenders to profit from the carnage is far more important than the other three possible reasons given. As we'll soon see, reason #1 was a red herring since the British were as much of a threat to the freedom of the seas as the Germans were. Reason #2 is certainly valid though I'd call it more a tactic than a cause. The bankers and munitions makers in a hurry to get their nations into the bloodletting controlled the British propaganda that was used to enflame British and American sheeple to clamor for war. If ever you delve deeper into the service records of the sons of bankers, you'll notice that they invariably serve as majors and colonels in military inteligence. The back-room bankers always seem to serve in back-room activity. So it's no wonder that the press owned by the bankers who wanted the war created the public opinion wanting war. And let's never forget that the media do not poll the public opinion, they create it. I think Chomsky's "Manufacturing Consent" is one of the best books available on how the elite control the media in favor of the war-making proclivities. Unfortunately, the guys who promote all these wars and their children never seem to be in the front lines. Oh if only those who lobby for war could be put in the front lines, there would be far fewer wars.
Page 250 The fact that German submarines were acting in retaliation for the illegal British blockades of the continent of Europe and British violations of international law and neutral rights on the high seas. JCT: Aha, so the "protection of the seas" was a red herring since there would have been no such need for protection had the British not been involved in an illegal blockade. Of course, the Versailles Treaty forced the Germans to accept all the blame for the war but this certainly does imply that the illegal British blockade had some effect in forcing the Germans to retaliate.
Britain was close to defeat in April 1917 and on that basis the United States entered the war. The unconscious assumption by American leaders that an Entente victory was inevitable was at the bottom of their failure to enforce the same rules of neutrality and international law against Britain as against Germany. They constantly assumed that British violations of these rules could be compensated with monetary damages while German violations of these rules must be resisted by force if necessary. JCT: Let us not forget that President Wilson was always in favor of getting American boys involved in the foreign war as he campaigned for the presidency on his campaign promise "not to send your boys to any foreign wars." I'm always amazed when these kinds of Big Lies get forgotten by historians and that's the reason I have to mention them. When world leaders like Wilson state bald-faced lies, there must be a very interesting underlying reason.
Since they could not admit this unconscious assumption or publicly defend the legitimate basis of international power politics on which it rested, they finally went to war on an excuse which was legally weak, "the assertion of a right to protect belligerent ships on which Americans saw fit to travel and the treatment of armed belligerent merchantmen as peaceful vessels. Both assumptions were contrary to reason and to settled law and no other professed neutral advanced them." JCT: So Quigley does point out that the reason given for the American intervention in the first world war was a false pretext. What's interesting is that so many great American wars were based on false pretexts: 1) Spain was falsely blamed for the sinking of the Maine in Havana Harbor as pretext for the Spanish American war; 2) The sinking of the munitions ship Lusitania and these other reasons as pretext for the First World war as well as false allegations of the Germans bayonetting babies; 3) Ignoring code-breakers who informed Roosevelt of the Japanese approaching Pearl Harbor for the Second World War; 4) False PT boat attacks on destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin as pretext for the Vietnam war; 5) False allegations that Khadafi disco bombing of US servicemen as pretext to bomb Khadafi's daughter; I don't believe US allegations about the Lockerbie bombing either as recent stories indicate they don't have much of a case other than having convinced the UN to apply sanctions. 6) False allegations of Iraqis killing the incubator babies in Kuwait made by a Kuwaiti princess disguised as a nurse by a public relations firm for the Iraqi war. 7) Bombing the Sudan factory on the false allegation that it was making chemical weapons, recently disproved, though no apology for those killed. It's sad to say that you can't believe anything the American administration ever says about someone they have labelled an enemy. They seem to make great use of the "killing babies" allegations and the American public seems to swallow it every time.
The Germans at first tried to use the established rules of international law regarding destruction of merchant vessels. This proved so dangerous because the British instructions to merchant ships to attack submarines. American protests reached a peak when the Lusitania was sunk in 1915. The Lusitania was a British merchant vessel constructed as an auxiliary cruiser carrying a cargo of 2,400 cases of rifle cartridges and 1250 cases of shrapnel with orders to attack German submarines whenever possible. The incompetence of the acting captain contributed to the heavy loss of life as did also a mysterious second explosion after the German torpedo struck. The captain was on course he had orders to avoid; he was running at reduced speed, he had an inexperienced crew; the portholes had been left open; the lifeboats had not been swung out; and no lifeboat drills had been held. JCT: Just like the Maine, they had a mysterious explosion and everything seems to indicate that the Lusitania was sent into dangerous waters in the hopes of being torpedoed with no concern for the loss of life. After all, if Roosevelt didn't kind having a couple of thousand American boys killed at Pearl Harbor to get them into the war after promising like Wilson not to send them to war, why wouldn't we believe that Wilson didn't mind having a thousand American tourists killed on the Lusitania to get the US into the war after promising not to send their boys to war.
Page 251 The propaganda agencies of the Entente Powers made full use of the occasion. The Times of London announced that 80% were citizens of the US (actually 15.6%); the British manufactured and distributed a medal which they pretended had been awarded to the submarine crew by the German government; a French paper published a picture of the crowds in Berlin at the outbreak of war in 1914 as a picture of Germans "rejoicing" at the news of the sinking of the Lusitania. JCT: And of course, I must remind you that the propaganda agencies were owned and operated by the bankers and munitions makers who wanted their neighbors kids to join in the slaughter that would prove to profitable to them. With Rothschild media on one side of the Atlantic and Rockefeller media on the other side both clamoring for war and publishing false pretexts for it, is it any wonder that the American people went from a majority not wanting to get involved to a majority wanting to get involved virtually overnight. Who can blame them when they assume that their media have checked the facts they are not in a position to check themselves and when they can't believe that some men would want to foment wars purely from a business profit point of view.
The US protested violently against the submarine warfare while brushing aside German arguments based on the British blockade. It was so irreconcilable in these protests that Germany sent Wilson a note which promised that "in the future merchant vessels within and without the war zone shall not be sunk without warning and without safeguarding human lives unless these ships try to escape or offer resistance. In return, the German government hoped that the US would put pressure on Britain to follow the established rules of international law in regard to blockade and freedom of the sea. Wilson refused to do so. It became clear to the Germans that they would be starved into defeat unless they could defeat Britain first by unrestricted submarine warfare. Since they were aware this would probably bring the US into the war against them, they made another effort to negotiate peace before resorting to it. It was rejected by the Entente Powers on Dec. 27 and unrestricted submarine attacks were resumed. Wilson broke off diplomatic relations and the Congress declared war on April 3, 1917. JCT: So the British were breaking the rules of war and when the Germans fought back in the only way they could, it was blown up in the media to be a cause of involvement. This ignoring the violations of one side while being critical of the other side is not a new tactic. We'll see it being employed over and over in upcoming wars. I myself therefore would assign blame on the illegal British blockade as the true cause of the U-boat attacks, something that most people aren't even aware of since most history books don't mention it. In every historical piece on the first world war, Quigley's books is the first time that I have ever heard that the Germans U-boat attacks were in retaliation for being starved by an illegal British blockade. All historical accounts simply lay the blame on German bloodthirsiness. Also, the fact that the German Government took out ads in New York papers warning people that the Lusitania was carrying munitions and might be attacked for that reason never seem to make the news. The point is that the back-room boys wanted an incident for war and the best kinds of incidents needed dead people. And in all the cases listed above, they got the dead people just as planned.
Page 252 Britain was unwilling to accept any peace which would leave Germany supreme on the continent or in a position to resume the commercial, naval, and colonial rivalry which had existed before 1914. JCT: So Britain insisted on sending millions of its boys to their deaths even though most Britons didn't benefit by their intransigence, only the bankers who financed and profited by the butchery.
Page 253 The Vatican, working through Cardinal Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) sought a negotiated peace. On Oct 5, a German note to Wilson asked for an armistice based on the basis of the Fourteen Points which promised the end of secret diplomacy, freedom of the seas; freedom of commerce; disarmament; a fair settlement of colonial claims, with the interests of the native peoples receiving equal weight with the titles of the Imperialist Powers; the evacuation of Russia, the evacuation and restoration of Belgium, the evacuation of France and the restoration of her Alsace-Lorraine as in 1870. JCT: Again, no one benefitted by the refusal to make an early peace except Rothschild and Rockefeller banking and munitions enterprises.
Page 254 The Entente Supreme War Council refused to accept the Fourteen Points as the basis for peace until Colonel House threatened that the US would make a separate peace with Germany.
Page 255 Wilson had clearly promised that the peace treaty would be negotiated and based on the Fourteen Points but the Treaty of Versailles was imposed without negotiation and the Fourteen Points fared very poorly in its provisions. The subsequent claim of the German militarists that the German Army was never defeated but was "stabbed in the back" by the home front through a combination of international Catholics, international Jews, and international Socialists have no merit whatever. JCT: Considering that the Germans surrendered upon the promise of the Fourteen points, the fact that the Fourteen Points fared very poorly is certainly a good reason for German militarists to have felt that they were sold out by their representatives at Versailles.
On all fronts, almost 13 million men in the various armed forces died and the war destroyed over $400 billion in property at a time when the value of every object in France and Belgium was not worth over $75 billion. JCT: One relevant fact was not mentioned, how much money Rothschild and Rockefeller made before, during and after all the devastation,
Page 256 In July 1914, the military men were confident that a decision would be reached in six months. This belief was supported by the financial experts who, while greatly underestimating the cost of fighting, were confident financial resources would be exhausted in six months. By financial resources, they meant "gold reserves." These were clearly limited; all the Great Powers were on the gold standard. However each country suspended the gold standard at the outbreak of war. This removed the automatic limitation on the supply of paper money. The each country proceeded to pay for the war by borrowing from the banks. The banks created the money which they lent my merely giving the government a deposit of any size against which the government could draw checks. The banks were no longer limited in the amount of credit they could create because they no longer had to pay out gold for checks on demand. This the creation of money in the form of credit by the banks was limited only by the demands of its borrowers. Naturally, as governments borrowed to pay for their needs, private businesses borrowed to be able to fill the government's orders. The percentage of outstanding bank notes covered by gold reserves steadily fell and the percentage of bank credit covered by either gold or bank notes fell even further. Naturally, when the supply of money was increased in this fashion faster than the supply of goods, prices rose because a larger supply of money was competing for a smaller supply of goods. People received money for making capital goods, consumer goods and munitions but they could spend their money only to buy consumer goods. The problem of public debt became steadily worse because governments were financing such a large part of their activities by bank credit. Public debts rose by 1000 percent. JCT: Notice that getting off the gold standard and using paper money worked just fine in financing the war. Now some will point out that this caused some inflation, and I won't disagree given that some much of the production backing up that new issue of money ended up being blown up. But had paper money been issued in exchange for useful production during the Depression rather than war production, it wouldn't have been blown up and no such inflation would occur. This issuing paper money in exchange for new non-blastable collateral, much like a casino cashier issues new chips in exchange for pledged collateral, does not cause inflation no matter the knee- jerk reaction of all economists to the issuance of any new money by unorthodox methods. Only as long as banks create the money and governments borrow it from banks do economists find the creation of money okay but moment government Treasuries do it and cut out banker middlemen, they they invariably scream inflation. Anyway, we have here a good indication that unorthodox financial methods of creating and issuing money would work fine as long as production backing up the new money isn't slated to be exploded or destroyed. And note that the government public debts to Rothschild and Rockefeller grew by 1000%. Not a bad profit for them with only the slaughter of their neighbors kids as the cost. You can bet none of their kids were on the front lines though I sure wish they had been.
Page 259 Governments began to regulate imports and exports to ensure that necessary materials stayed in the country and did not go to enemy states. This led to the British blockade of Europe.
Page 251 The results of the blockade were devastating. Continued for nine months after the armistice, it caused the deaths of 800,000 persons, reparations took 108,000 horses, 205,000 cattle, 426,000 sheep and 240,000 fowl. JCT: So they kept on killing Germans for many months after the war. That's another fact I'd never heard about before reading Quigley. Had anyone else heard that the continued blockade killed almost a million more people after the war?
Page 262 Countries engaged in a variety of activities designed to regulate the flow of information which involved censorship, propaganda and curtailment of civil liberties.
Page 263 The War Propaganda Bureau was able to control almost all information going to the American press. The Censorship and Propaganda bureaus worked together. The former concealed all stories of Entente violations of the laws of war or of the rules of humanity while the Propaganda Bureau widely publicized the violations and crudities of the Central Powers. The German violation of Belgian neutrality was constantly bewailed, while nothing was said of the Entente violation of Greek neutrality. A great deal was made of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia while the Russian mobilization which had precipitated the war was hardly mentioned. In the Central Powers a great deal was made of the Entente encirclement while nothing was said of the Kaiser's demands for "a place in the sun" of the High Command's refusal to renounce annexation of any part of Belgium. JCT: And why would the media have slanted the news this way? It would have been pretty tough to get the children of the sheeple to march off to the drums of war if the truth had been told.
Manufacture of outright lies by propaganda agencies was infrequent and the desired picture of the enemy was built up by a process of selection and distortion of evidence until, by 1918, many in the West regarded the Germans as bloodthirsty and sadistic militarists while the Germans regarded the Russians as "subhuman monsters." A great deal was made, especially by the British, of "atrocity" propaganda; stories of German mutilation of bodies, violation of women, cutting off a children's hands, desecration of churches, and crucifixions of Belgians were widely believed in the West by 1916. In 1917, Henry Carter is created a story that the Germans were cooking human bodies to extract glycerine and produced pictures to prove it. Again, photographs of mutilated bodies in a Russian anti-Semitic outrage in 1905 were circulated as pictures of Belgians in 1915. There were several reasons for the use of such atrocity stories: a) to build up the fighting spirit of the mass army; b) to stiffen civilian morale; c) to encourage enlistments; d) to increase subscriptions for war bonds; e) to justify one's own breaches of international law; f) to destroy the chances of negotiating peace or to justify a severe final peace; g) to win the support of the neutrals. JCT: I think the most important reason was f) because a negotiated peace would have ended the Rothschilds and Rockefellers' profits from munitions manufacturer. The others were certainly necessary but making sure there was no peace had to be number one and it sure worked. The Rothschilds and Rockefellers revelled in gore galore.
The relative innocence and credulity of the average person who was not yet immunized to propaganda assaults through mediums of mass communication in 1914 made the use of such stories relatively effective. But the discovery in the period after 1919 that they had been hoaxed gave rise to a skepticism toward all government communications which was especially noticeable in the Second World War. JCT: What a joke. They were skeptical until the next set of hoax pretexts and then joined the parades marching off to the next war as eagerly as they always had. We just have look at recent false pretexts to appreciate just how effective R&R's media control is at getting the booboisie to cheer the next and then the next bloodlettings.
CHAPTER VI: THE VERSAILLES SYSTEM AND THE RETURN TO NORMALCY 1919-1929
THE PEACE SETTLEMENTS 1919-1923 Page 267 The criticisms of the peace settlements was as ardent from the victors as from the vanquished aimed at the terms which were neither unfair nor ruthless. The causes of the discontent rested on the procedures which were used rather than the terms themselves. Above all, there was discontent at the contrast between the procedures which were used and the procedures which pretended to be used, as well as between the high-minded principles which were supposed to be applied and those which really were applied. JCT: So the Germans really got screwed.
Page 268 When it became clear that they were to be imposed rather than negotiated, that the Fourteen Points had been lost in the confusion, that the terms had been reached by a process of secret negotiations from which the smaller nations had been excluded, there was a revulsion against the treaties. By 1929, most of the Western World had feelings of guilt and shame whenever they thought of the Versailles Treaty. In England, the same groups, often the same people, who had made the wartime propaganda and the peace settlements were loudest in their complaint that the latter had fallen far below the ideals of the former while all the while their real aims were to use power politics to the benefit of Britain. JCT: So the Germans really got screwed..
The peace settlements were made by an organization which was chaotic and by a procedure which was fraudulent. None of this was deliberate. It arose rather from weakness and ignorance, from a failure to decide on what principles it would be based. JCT: Quigley must think we're pretty gullible if he thinks we're going to believe that none of it was deliberate. You just have to look at how once again Rothschild and Rockefeller interests reaped a fortune from the Versailles reparations to realize how non-accidental it really was. They profited because they knew exactly what they were doing.
Page 269 Since the Germans had been promised the right to negotiate, it became clear that the terms could not first be made the subject of public compromise. Unfortunately, by the time the victorious Great Powers realized all this and decided to make the terms by secret negotiations among themselves, invitations had already been sent to all the victorious powers to come to the conference. As a solution to this embarrassing situation, the peace treaty was made on two levels. On one level, in the full glare of publicity, the Inter-Allied Conference became the Plenary Peace Conference and with the considerable fanfare, did nothing. On the other level, the Great Powers worked out their peace terms in secret and when they were ready, imposed them simultaneously on the conference and on the Germans. This had not been intended. It was not clear to anyone just what was being done. JCT: I'm sure that it was pretty clear to the bankers agents in charge of most of the negotiations and seems pretty clear that it had been intended that it would not be clear just what was being done.
Page 271 At all these meetings, as at the Peace Conference itself, the political leaders were assisted by groups of experts and interested persons. Many of the experts were members associates of the international banking fraternity. JCT: Are these the members of the international banking fraternity that it wasn't clear to? Are these the guys who didn't intend the results that occured? Was the fact the bankers made a financial killing all accidental? It's funny how Quigley can report this kind of information then conclude they accidentally made themselves rich with processes no one understood.
In every case but one, where a committee of experts submitted a unanimous report, the Supreme Council accepted its recommendation. The one case where a report was not accepted was concerned with the Polish corridor, the same issue which led to the Second World War where the experts were much harsher on Germany than the final decision of the politicians. JCT: So in all cases, the shameful Versailles Treaty were the product of the word of the international banking experts and the one case where they weren't listened to, they wanted to screw the Germans even more so that there would be even greater grievances to lead to the Second World War where they also who made a killing.
Page 272 The German delegation offered to accept the disarmament sections and reparations if the Allies would withdraw any statement that Germany had, alone, caused the war and would re-admit Germany to the world's markets. JCT: Considering how many times the Germans had tried to make peace while the British would not and how it was an illegal British blockade which led to the unrestricted submarine warfare, I can understand why many Germans would resent having the sole blame for the war placed on them. I myself would place the millions of dead at the feet of the bankers controlling the politicians in London who made sure there was no peace, not at the feet of the Germans who it seems did try.
Page 273 The Allies answer accused the Germans of sole guilt in causing the war and of inhuman practices during it. The Germans voted to sign if the articles on war guilt and war criminals could be struck from the treaty. When the Allies refused these concessions, the Catholic Center Party voted 64-14 not to sign. The High Command of the German army ordered the Cabinet to sign. The Treaty of Versailles was signed by all the delegations except the Chinese in protest against the disposition of the prewar German concessions in Shantung. JCT: So we can understand how Hitler could have made good use of the resentment felt by most Germans at the politicians who accepted the sole blame for the war. This resentment can be said to be one of the main reasons Hitler found much of his support. Also, being forced to make reparations payments for the war for another 70 years was another good reason that they preferred to fight a second war rather than pay through the nose until 1990.
Page 274 No progress was possible in Hungary without some solution of the agrarian question and the peasant discontent arising from monopolization of the land. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs (acting on behalf of France's greatest industrialist, Eugene Schneider) made a deal with the Hungarians that if they would sign the Treaty of Trianon and give Schneider control of the Hungarian state railways, the port of Budapest and the Hungarian General Credit Bank, France would eventually make Hungary one of the mainstays of its anti-German bloc in Eastern Europe and, at the proper time, obtain a drastic revision of the Treaty of Trianon. Paleologue received his reward from Schneider. He was made director of Schneider's personal holding company. JCT: This may seem that it was only one preson in the French government pursuing policies to the benefit of one rich man but you can bet others in the government were in on the deal. Remember how Britain obstructed the Turkish railway until rich British businessmen were granted concessions? This is just more of the same, governments pursuing policies to the benefit of the Rothschild and their agents.
The Treaty of Sevres with Turkey was never signed because of the scandal caused by the Bolsheviki publication of the secret treaties regarding the Ottoman Empire, since these treaties contrasted so sharply with the expressed war aims of the Allies. The British felt that richer prospects were to be obtained from the Turkish sultan. In particular, the French were prepared to support the claims of Standard Oil to such concessions while the British were prepared to support Royal Dutch Shell. JCT: The French were supporting claims to Rockefeller's Standard Oil concessions and the British were supporting claims to Rothschild's Shell Oil concessions. What else is new?
Page 277 The chief territorial disputes arose over the Polish corridor. France's Foch wanted to give all of East Prussia to Poland. Instead, the experts gave Poland access to the sea by severing East Prussia from the rest of Germany by creating a Polish corridor in the valley of the Vistula. However, the city of Danzig was clearly a German city and Lloyd George refused to give it to Poland. Instead, it was a made a free city under the protection of the League of Nations. JCT: Notice that even though Danzig was a German city, it was this issue which was at the root of the dispute between Germany and Poland upon which the British and France went to war with Germany in 1939. Had they not severed East Prussia from Germany in this way, there would have been no World War Two. Interestingly, had they not severed Kuwait from Iraq to give it to a few rich families so they could loot the oil reserves with the Oil companies, there would have been no 1991 Desert Storm war. It's interesting to note now many of the partitions of land later resulted in wars, almost as if the bankers at Versailles were planning new profitable war ventures years in advance.
Page 279 The most violent controversies arose in regard to the boundaries of Poland. Of these, only that with Germany was set by the Treaty of Versailles. The Poles refused to accept their other frontiers and by 1920 were at war with Lithuania over Vilna, with Russia over the eastern border, with the Ukrainians over Galaicia, and with Czechoslovakia over Teschen.
Page 280 These territorial disputes are of importance because they continued to lacerate relationships between neighboring states until well into the period of World War II. There were 1,000,000 Germans living in Poland, 550,000 in Hungary, 3,100,000 in Czechoslovakia, about 700,000 in Romania, 500,000 in Yugoslavia and 250,000 in Italy. To protect these minorities, the Allied Powers forced the new states to sign treaties grating a certain minimum political rights guaranteed by the League of Nations with no power to enforce observation of them. JCT: So decisions made by the bankers at Versailles continued to lacerate relationships between neighboring states right into the Second World War. We might have thought that these territorial partitions were accidental if the bankers weren't still making so much money out of those later wars.
Page 282 The French were torn between a desire to obtain as large a fraction as possible of Germany's payments and a desire to pile on Germany such a crushing burden of indebtedness that Germany would be ruined beyond the point where it could threaten French security again. A compromise originally suggested by John Foster Dulles was adopted by which Germany was forced to admit an unlimited, theoretical obligation to pay but was actually bound to pay for only a limited list of ten categories of obligations with pensions being larger than the preceding nine categories together. All reparations were wiped out in the financial debacle of 1931-1932. JCT: One interesting fact that I ran into that Quigley never mentioned was the so-called French "carbide ring," the trial of a group of French industrialists who continued to do business with Germany during the war whose sales supported the Germans to such an extent that the carbide ring were charged with providing the means by which Germans could kill French soldiers. Of course, the trial was fixed and they beat the charge and even though the French branch of the Rothschild family weren't charged, they probably should have been. Even the judge decried the prosecution's inept handling of the case and maybe the fact that they were acquitted is the reason Quigley didn't mention their profits from the deaths of the own countrymen. Of course, the German branch of the Rothschild family probably sold the war material necessary for the British and French to kill Germans in the same way. Remember that they are hailed as patriotic by the prospective nations for their financial support of their individual war efforts without the realization that it still boils down to their making money no matter who wins.
Page 283 Britain had obtained all her chief ambitions. The German navy was at the bottom of Scapa Flow scuttled by the the Germans themselves; the German merchant fleet was scattered, captured, destroyed; the German colonial rivalry was ended and its areas occupied; the German commercial rivalry was crippled by the loss of its patents and industrial techniques, the destruction of all its commercial outlets and banking connections throughout the world, and the loss of its rapidly growing prewar markets. France on the other hand, had not obtained the one thing it wanted: security. JCT: So while many British and French families were attending funerals for their sons and daughters, some British businessmen were attending celebrations of the destruction of their German competition.
SECURITY 1919-1935 Page 287 The British governments of the Right began to follow a double policy: a public policy in which they spoke loudly in support of the foreign policy of the Left; and a secret policy in which they supported the foreign policy of the Right. JCT: I love noting instances where governments say one thing while doing the other. Of course, the biggest lies are the ones that lead to the deaths of millions such as Wilson and Roosevelt intending to send American kids to war while promising not to. These kinds of lesser government lies may not result in the deaths of many of their nation's children but they always result in more money for the bankers.
Thus the stated policy was based on support of the League of Nations and of disarmament yet the real policy was quite different. While openly supporting Naval disarmament, Britain signed a secret agreement with France which blocked disarmament and signed an agreement with Germany which released her from her naval disarmament in 1935. After 1935, the contrast between the public and secret policy became so sharp that Lord Halifax called it "dyarchy." JCT: Okay, so these decision did facilitate German rearmament making the Second World War easier to start after giving the Germans good reason to resent war guilt and 70 years of reparations payments.
Page 289 The British Right forced France to give away every advantage which it held over Germany. Germany was allowed to rearm in 1935, allowed to remilitarize the Rhineland in 1936. Finally, when all had been lost, public opinion forced the British government to abandon the Right's policy of appeasement and adopt the old French policy of resistance made on a poor issue (Poland 1939) In France, as in Britain, there appeared a double policy. While France continued to talk of collective security, this was largely for public consumption for in fact she had no policy independent of Britain's policy of appeasement. JCT: What they call appeasement was really the bankers providing the opportunity to rearm after having provided the reason for great resentment. Some say that the bankers didn't really want to make all those war profits during the Second World War and their efforts to enable Germany to rearm so they could fight the oppressive conditions of the Versailles Treaty was just accidental doings of their banking agents at the Conference. I see a darker side of it all and conclude that they screwed the Germans so royally intending them to finally fight back.
Page 290 War was not outlawed but merely subjected to certain procedural delays in making it, nor were peaceful procedures for settling international disputes made compulsory. The Covenant had been worded by a skillful British lawyer, Civil Hurst, who filled it with loopholes cleverly concealed under a mass of impressive verbiage so that no state's freedom of action was vitally restricted. JCT: In other words, though many nations of the world wanted tight conditions on warmaking and war declaring, Civil Hurst, probably another banker's agent, provided the loopholes that permitted the freedom of action to make war. It's not too often that we can pin the blame for the deaths of millions so clearly on one person but I think Mr. Hurst's soul deserves to burn in Hell even if he was doing nothing more than following Rothschild orders.
Page 293 The Locarno Pacts, which were presented at the time throughout the English-speaking world as a sensational contribution to the peace and stability of Europe, really formed the background for the events of 1938 when Czechoslovakia was destroyed at Munich. When the guarantee of Locarno became due in 1936, Britain dishonored its agreement, the Rhine was remilitarized and the way was open for Germany to move eastward. Poland protested violently at the refusal to guarantee her frontiers. JCT: Now you can bet that it wasn't the mothers of the first war's dead soldiers who were promoting the German rearmament. About the only British I can imagine saw any profit in such rearmament were the usual bankers betting on another profitable war.
Page 294 France agreed to an extension of a multilateral agreement by which all countries could renounce the use of war as an instrument of national policy. The British government reserved certain areas, notably the Middle East, where it wished to be able to wage wars which could not be termed self-defence in a strict sense. The US also made reservation preserving its right to make war under the Monroe doctrine. The net result was that only aggressive war was to be renounced. The Kellogg-Briand Pact took one of the first steps toward destroying the legal distinction between war and peace, since the Powers, having renounced the use of war, began towage wars without declaring them as was done by Japan in China in 1937, by Italy in Spain in 1936 and by everyone in Korea in 1950. JCT: So every attempt to deter war-making is defeated by the British and American governments. Again, they are not acting in the interests of the mothers and orphans of the recently slain but again they were acting in the interests of bankers who profit from these orphan-making activities.
Page 296 The outlawry of war was relatively meaningless without some sanctions that could compel the use of peaceful methods. Efforts in this direction were nullified by Britain. JCT: Not to blame British politicians in particular but let us not forget that the the real big money bankers did reside in London and New York at the time so it makes sense that they would be the most pliable bankers' agents. So let's be precise and say that peacemaking efforts were scuttled more by politicians under banker control rather than politicians who loved attending funerals though their policies certainly did help the business of morticians. Somehow I'd have to bet that Rothschilds and Rockefellers would have cornered the market on morticians considering they profit by all other areas of the bloodletting.
DISARMAMENT 1919-1935 Page 303 Disarmament suggestions of the Soviet representative, Litvinoff, providing for immediate and complete disarmament of every country, was denounced by all. A substitute draft provided that the most heavily armed states would disarm by 50%, the less heavily-armed by 31% and the lightly armed by 25%, and the disarmed by 0%. That all tanks, planes, gas and heavy artillery be completely prohibited was also rejected without discussion and Litvinoff was beseeched to show a more "constructive spirit." JCT: Once again, efforts to curtail war-making potential are scuttled by the back-room forces who consider such actions as "non- constructive." The only people who can say that ending war-making capacity is not constructive must be those who profit by such destruction and the only people who regularly profit from war are the bankers.
Page 305 Once it was recognized that security was in acute danger, financial considerations were ruthlessly subordinated to rearmament giving rise to an economic boom which showed clearly what might have been achieved earlier if financial consideration had been subordinated to the world's economic and social needs earlier; such action would have provided prosperity and rising standards of living which might have made rearming unnecessary. JCT: This is a major point. If financial considerations were subordinated to productive enterprise, it would give rise to an economic boom in favor of wealth production. The fact that financial considerations interfere with productive enterprise is the tragedy of the past several millenia. It is crucial to appreciate what Quigley is saying here. He's saying that the men who control the financial system permitted an economic boom once mankind was involved in destroying itself but would not permit such a boom when mankind wanted to make productive wealth. I consider the greatest crime of the Rothschild and Rockefellers. We could have been in an era of abundance but they diverted it to an era of destruction. Quite an indictment they'll have to face when they get to the other side.
REPARATIONS 1919-1932 Page 305 The preliminary payments were supposed to amount to a total of 20 billion marks by May 1921. Although the Entente Powers contended that only 8 billion had been paid, the whole matter was dropped when the Germans were presented with a total reparations bill of 132 billion marks. Under pressure, Germany accepted this bill and gave the victors bonds of indebtedness. Of these, 82 billion were set aside and forgotten. Germany was to pay the other 50 billion at 2.5 billion a year in interest and .5 billion a year to reduce the total debt. JCT: It would only take 100 years to pay off a total of 250 billion in interest and 50 billion in principal.
Page 306 Germany could only pay if two conditions prevailed: a) if it had a budgetary surplus and b) if it sold abroad more than it bought abroad. Since neither of these conditions generally existed in the period 1921-1931, Germany could not, in fact, pay reparations. The failure to obtain a budgetary surplus was solely the responsibility of the government which refused to reduce its own expenditures or the standards of living off its own people or to tax them sufficiently heavily. The failure to obtain a favorable balance of trade because foreign creditors refused to allow a free flow of German goods into their own countries. Thus creditors were unwilling to accept payment in the only way in which payments could honestly be made, that is, by accepting German goods and services. JCT: Notice they wanted money and not the goods that they would buy with that money. This means that they'd have to again fight to convert their production into scarce money instead of just paying with bartered products. This is standard usurious problem of the whole world. You can't pay your banker with increased production. He wants only cash so you must fight to sell your production before you can pay.
Germany could have paid in real goods and services if the creditors had been willing to accept such goods and services. The government made up the deficits by borrowing from the Reichsbank. The result was an acute inflation which was not injurious to the influential groups though it was generally ruinous to the middle classes and thus encouraged extremist elements. JCT: So financial policies were at the root of the acute inflation and the general malaise which ruined the middle class and made them so thankful to Hitler when he used a national LETS system to provide them with currency to generate full employment while the rest of the world suffered the worst unemployment and depression in recorded history.
Page 307 On Jan 9,1923, the Reparations Committee voted 3 to 1 (Britain opposing France, Belgium and Italy) that Germany was in default. Armed forces of the three nations began to occupy the Ruhr two days later. Germany declared a general strike in the area, ceased all reparation payments, and adopted a program of passive resistance, the government supporting the strikers by printing more paper money. The area occupied was no more than 60 miles long by 30 miles wide but contained 10% of Germany's population and produced 80% of Germany's coal, iron and steel and 70% of her freight traffic. Almost 150,000 Germans were deported. JCT: Again, pissing them off to the point where they were ready to go to war to fight back.
Page 308 A compromise was reached by which Germany accepted the Dawes Plan for reparations and the Ruhr was evacuated. The Dawes Plan was largely a J.P. Morgan production drawn up by an international committee of financial experts presided over by American banker Charles Dawes. Germany paid reparations for five years (1924-1929) and owed more at the end than it had owed at the beginning. JCT: And of course, the J.P. Morgan production ended up with Germany paying for five full years and owing more than when they started. Yet, this is now many people's mortgages still work today.
It is worthy of note that this system was set up by the international bankers and that the subsequent lending of other people's money to Germany was very profitable to these bankers. Using these American loans, Germany's industry was largely rebuilt to make it the second best in the world and to pay reparations. JCT: At least he admits that war reparations were very profitable to the bankers. I don't think they were profitable to anyone else.
Page 309 By these loans Germany's creditors were able to pay their war debts to England without sending goods or services. Foreign exchange went to Germany as loans, back to Italy, Belgium, France and Britain as reparations and finally back to the US as payments on war debts. In that period, Germany paid 10.5 billion marks in reparations but borrowed 18.6 billion abroad. Nothing was settled by all this but the international bankers sat in heaven under a rain of fees and commissions. JCT: I must point out that you'll read this kind of frank honest information in no other history book that I know of. I've heard that it's available at amazon.com and if it is, I'd recommend it to the library of any monetary reformer.
Page 310 The Dawes Plan was replaced by the Young Plan, named after the American Owen Young (a Morgan agent). A new private bank called the Bank for International Settlements was established in Switzerland. Owned by the chief central banks of the world and holding accounts for each of them, "a Central Bankers' Bank," it allowed payments to be made by merely shifting credits from one country's account to another on the books of the bank. The Young Plan lasted for less than 18 months. The crash of the New York stock market in 1929 marked the end of the decade of reconstruction and ended the American loans to Germany. JCT: The Young Plan had projected Germany payments lasting until 1990 and considering how the Dawes plan had ended up with them owing more at the end of the plan than when it started, it's not unrealistic to assume that in 1990, they might have again owed more than when they started and possibly renegotiated payments for another 60 or 70 years.
Germans and others had begun a "flight from the mark" which created a great drain on the German gold reserve. As it dwindled, the volume of money and credit erected on that reserve had to be reduced by raising the interest rate. Prices fell because of the reduced money supply so that it became almost impossible for the banks to sell collateral to obtain funds to meet the growing demand for money. JCT: Here Quigley tells us loans are savings and has forgotten that he had earlier told us it was new credit.
Page 311 On May 8, 1931, the largest Austrian bank, the Credit-Anstalt (a Rothschild institution) which controlled 70% of Austria's industry, announced a $140 million schillings loss. The true loss was over a billion and the bank had been insolvent for years. The Rothschilds and the Austrian government gave the Credit-Anstalt 160 million to cover the loss but public confidence had been destroyed. A run began on the bank. To meet this run, the Austrian banks called in all the funds they had in German banks. The German banks began to collapse. These latter began to call in all their funds in London. The London banks began to fall and gold flowed outward. On Sept.21, England was forced off the gold standard. The Reichsbank lost 200 million marks of its gold reserve in the first week of June and a billion in the second. The discount rate was raised step by step to 15% without stopping the loss of reserves but destroying the activities of the German industrial system almost completely. JCT: I always find it amazing that all the bankers have to do is withdraw money from circulation precipitating a panic and everything shuts down. Even though they have the same men, machinery, resources, and with the only change being a withdrawal of money from circulation and all industrial activity is paralyzed by a mental impediment. It's the reason I wrote the poem about the ants being superior to men in http://turmelpress.com/pombank.htm
"MOTHER NATURE In Mother Nature, ants you see, no slouchers, not a one, They manage full employment which man has yet begun. Like in the Great Depression where men sat before their trees, With hammers, nails and chain-saws, their lot was still to freeze.
They couldn't build their houses and they couldn't grow their food, They couldn't clothe their families, such ineptitude. What makes the ants superior to men and all his deeds? The ants are not dependent on scarce money for their needs.
Man is the only animal who has to pass the test, To get cash for his pay, his boss must pay some interest. Because of lack of money, men were brought down to their knees. Then came the war and there was money, plenty as you please.
They now constructed barracks and their food they now could grow, They now could make the uniforms, production on the go. The war did put the scarcity of money to an end, Destruction was acceptable so money they would spend.
Where was that money years before with idle men in ranks? The cash was kept in short supply on purpose by the banks. But I believe that engineers can equal ants so skilled, At rounding up and turning on manpower unfulfilled. When every source of power can put out all of its might, Mankind will match the ants at last and shed its greatest light."
Germany begged for relief on her reparations payments but her creditors were reluctant unless they obtained similar relief on the war-debt payments to the US. The President suggested a moratorium for one year if its debtors would extend the same privilege to their debtors. Acceptance of this plan was delayed by French demands which were rejected by the U.S.
Page 312 At the June 1932 Lausanne Conference, German reparations were cut to a total of only 3 billion marks but the agreement was never ratified because of the refusal of the US Congress to cut war debts equally drastically. In 1933, Hitler repudiated all reparations. JCT: Someone had to or they'd still be owing today. Though I may be giving the Rothschilds and Rockefellers a rough time, I'm sure that in the new LETS world of future, they'll jump at the chance to change their names and not be associated with their murderous forbears. I can't help feeling an complete contempt for their kind. I consider them the kind of people who would steal the medicine money from a dying child, not because they need it but just so they can sit on a bigger pile they'll never be able to spend, not because they need it but just so the dying child doesn't get it. Is it any wonder I can understand those Muslims who consider taking usury 70 times worse than intercourse with your mother on the altar of your temple? I too consider the Rothschild and Rockefeller moneylenders worse than the worst mother-fuckers in the world. What bugs me most is that I'll have to forgive them and forget what they've done if they change their ways and go straight as the Lord commands in Ezekiel. I might even have to thank those of them who change their ways and throw their resources into establishing the world-wide LETS and saving us all. But until they do change their ways, if Christ could attack them with his whip, I can certainly call them the genocidal monsters that they are.