Recommend Books on This Thread

Irkutyanin Thursday 28 Nov 2019

Periodically I look for more loyalist material, which, despite some notable exceptions, is often more local colonial views in exile than a “anti-national” inversion of the American whole, especially since many ended up in Lower Canada. Or Bermuda, or England.

An interesting dichotomy of American loyalism is that it follows strains of ideology that the Union formulated as a philosophic-legal-moral necessity of keeping the Continental empire in one piece. And the more I consider the Civil War, the more the strategy and organization of the Union was formulated around correcting organizational and logistical mistakes made by the British command, which of course was helped by not having a divided cabinet across hemispheric distances.

You may or may not know of Thomas Jones, or William Smith Jr, but both represented different arguments for Empire, Jones from a global world historical view that sees the loyalists as inseparable from America and Americanism, the future of the empire that he observes almost in spite of politics. As distant as Jones is from Anglicans or Episcopalians today, his cold, reserved, historically obsessed image of the English world domain defined through its national and religious mission is something of the attitude you see in the half century before the Oxford Movement. His spiritual and political ideals were historical and anti popular, you can see the flirtations of Catholic or the Continuing Anglican Movement ideas in their genesis in the gloomy reflections on mistakes made, and his hatred of Calvinists.

His manuscript for the Revolutionary War History of New York was lost for 120 years unread in a closet.

https://archive.org/details/historynewyorkd03jonegoog/page/n14

https://archive.org/details/historynewyorkd00jonegoog/page/n13

William Smith Jr. was a Presbyterian, who mostly encapsulates the moral condemnation of America, that they embraced a fallen polity by engaging delegitimized rebellion even though he says that the home government provoked it. Had his side won, you definitely get the feeling this is the type of man who would want to “Reconstruct” America. Most Presbyterians ended up on the other side of the war, but Smith is an interesting example of a inter sect conflict at the margins of American society. He believes intently that a Civil War will happen in independent America and that it will likely result in other European power taking large sections of the existing colonies.

Smith’s idea were, of corse, the chief problem set upon by the Jeffersonians to James K Polk, and his proscription of American weakness was the most seriously addressed to his fellow low Protestants. I have no doubt that his pamphlet of the Whig view of the American Revolution was probably read by or it’s ideas articulated to Madison and Monroe.

His history of New York also contains something of the origin of tolerance Mythos for that state’s history and civic religion, which is a very different view than Jones.

https://archive.org/details/cihm_49635/page/n409

https://archive.org/details/cihm_49636/page/n9

I will post some of the “Candid Retrospect” a legal-moral argument against separating from Britain.

https://quod.lib.umich.edu/e/evans/N13230.0001.001?rgn=main;view=fulltext

THE CANDID RETROSPECT; OR The AMERICAN WAR examined, BY WHIG PRINCIPLES.

CHARLESTOWN printed:—NEW-YORK re-printed. MDCCLXXX.

Page [unnumbered]
THE CANDID RETROSPECT.
THE political creed of America (for I make no esti∣mate of two parties, who taken together are a Mi∣norityof the continent) may be comprised in the twelve following articles.

I. Every nation has authority to frame such a govern∣ment for itself, as will, without injury to others, be most conducive to its own felicity.

II. The national sovereignty under every form of go∣vernment whether in the hands of one, or of many per∣sons, or however modelled, is absolute; for no State can exist, if any of its members may by force or fraud attempt its subversion with impunity: And therefore, every na∣tion punishes treason, or an attempt tending to overturn the constitution, as the highest crime of which a subject can be guilty.

III. No man can be innocent, even F•ro Conscienti••,in an endeavour to change the government of his country, if the meditated revolution will light up a civil war, and the miseries in prospect are likely to exceed those, which the community have been accustomed to endure.

IV. The establishments made in America by English emigrants and their associates, mightin the early day of the colonies, if the parent country had been so determined, have been prevented or broken up.

V. The Lords and Commons of England, being con∣n•sant of the grants and charters of their Kings and Queens, for the encouragement of the colonies, and of the transactions under them; and afterwards co-operating Page 4 for regulating the plantations, rendering them secure a∣gainst foreign invasions and useful to Great-Britain, they cannot therefore be considered as merely Royal,but Parli∣amentary, or national establishments.

VI. The grants and charters to the colonies, and the posterior settlements, regulations and usages by the per∣mission, and with the knowledge or privity, and without the interdiction of Parliament, are incontestible proofs of a great national covenant between the Mother Country and the colonies, for her favours (which undeniably have been many and great) by inspiring the Colonists with confidence, and exposing them to hazardous and ex∣pensive undertakings, created rights; and gratitude never obliges to returns and surrenders, incompatible with those rights which are essential to the felicity of the receiver of the benefits.

VII. Before the year 1764, the King, Lords and Com∣mons, were universally acknowledged to be the supreme law-givers of the whole empire; of which the colonies were members.

VIII. The national c••enant bound the parent country to protect and promote the colonies, according to the good faith implied in the grants and charters, and other royal and national acts in their favour, as far as was consitient with the general weal of all the dispersions of the nation; and it obliged the plantations to submit to her authority, in all cases not repugnant to their grants, charters and establishments; and to such acts aad contributions, as were necessary for the commondefence and felicity of the empire.

IX. Neither of the contracting parties may dissolve this compact, as lo••as their joint aim in the union, to wit, their mutualprosperity, can be attained by it.

X. As no provision was made for constituting an impar∣tial Judge between them, to bridle or correct the partiality or infidelity of either party, therefore their controversies Page 5 are to be decided by negotiation and treaty, or on appeal by battle to the Lord of Hosts; for neither is obliged to surrender its essential rights at the willof the other, and each is justifiable in exerting its own self-preserving powers.

XI. When one of them wants either will or ability to fulfil its engagements, the other, if not instrumental to this disaffection or impotence, will be discharged from the original obligation. But,

XII. Since amongst imperfect beings offences are inevi∣table, the contractors are by the laws of a judge who can∣not be deceived, reciprocally bound, upon exceptions ta∣ken, to pursue every measure of a re-conciliatory nature, consistent with the end of the union; and to such mutual condescensions, as tend to the re-establishment of the ge∣neral felicity, peace and harmony: And this is the more eminently their duty, since the empire consists of otherbranches, which have offended neither of the parties at strife, and will nevertheless be ruined if the controversy ends in a separation,

Pelayo Friday 29 Nov 2019

Irkutyanin Have you read The True History of the American Revolution (1902) by Sydney George Fisher ? I quite enjoyed Fisher's British perspective, particularly as the UK had a great many more global concerns than continued occupation of eastern seaboard of north america. Fisher puts the American uprising in context of why it happened when it did (France's defeat), the UK half-hearted response to it, and the UK tutelage of the new self-governing vassal on the eastern seaboard as it served UK commercial and geo-strategic interests .

Irkutyanin Friday 29 Nov 2019

Yes, I periodically recommended Fisher to anyone who has an interest in the Revolution and the Imperial school in American history which really took off after the failure of Reconstruction as a national project. In many ways the overarching historical apologia for colonial governments, societies, and the loyalists was a national pause for reflection in the New England/middle colony educated elites of which Fisher was one. There was Herbert Osgood, Charles Andrews, or Oliver Perry Chitwood at the very latest. Emphasizing Colonial differences or the weaknesses of a dymythologized American Revolution started with men who I would say were reacting to the Union Victory in the Civil War and what it meant for an already greatly weakened sense of colonial continuity with all of these new imports into the country and the inability to do anything about it. Osgood in particular was combative with critics who continually advised him to shorten his works, saying “it’s not my duty to make the history as it happened compelling.”

There was this elevation of the Episcopal Church as the “colonial legacy” amongst old WASPdom in the NorthEast despite most of these people being descended from people who hated the Anglicans as “popish” and tarred and feathered agents of Rome. Indeed, some of them even went further and embraced the Oxford Movement’s conclusions. The Bush Sr. conversion to Episcopalianism was itself a kind of class signal and aesthetic choice that had a century legacy in this historical thought process of the Yaleman WASP, that you can even make out in Horatio Alger’s novels. Ragged Dick converts to Episcopalianism to rise in social standing. Literally Dick is baptized into the higher social order because he picks up the Englishizing quirks and ostentation of the dwindling but powerful New York elite who would end up entirely in Connecticut. He becomes Richard thereby.

For myself, I enjoy Fisher very much and own a copy of his work, which have been a sort of key to understanding American history. Every account of the Revolution I’ve read since, from Charles Beard and now Robert Middlekauff to Charles Stedman and Henry Clinton, becomes centered on the decisions made by William Howe in 1776-1777. Once you begin to understand the magnitude of the mistakes made, and the lengths he went to make sure that Burgoyne would slander Germain and Clinton, the story begins to fall apart. William Howe and his Admiral brother look like Whigs with significant personal motivation that influenced them to make decisions that directly lost the war. What O’Shaughnessy gives us is a more complete picture of the wartime “cabinet” that contextualizes this picture. Unity simply could not exist in the war cabinet. Germain was ignored because of Minden, the King had very little real power to organize or structure the divided command which eroded fully due to the natural abrasion of big personalities, North was Prime Minister because he could be pushed around by everyone for any purpose but ensured the largest coalition in parliament possible. Beyond all of this, the Generals were totally preoccupied with future positions in the government and titles to be made. Only Henry Clinton was concerned about losing his home in the high command, but he combined this sincerity with a contempt for the men he worked with that made cooperation impossible. Clinton maintained that all his enemies were aloof and not interested in winning the war, and he was probably right, but that hardly helped him maintain critical relationships that could have prevented at least the largest catastrophe in the war for the British and for himself personally.

Admiral Rodney suffers from the “Howe malady” to a frankly ridiculous degree. I thought before, while reading Fisher, that it was frankly bizarre at how self obsessed the Howes were for personal aggrandizement, self serving for protection of their errors, and ludicrous in their pomp when they retreated from Pennsylvania. Admiral Rodney robbing every single person on St Eustatius to pay off gambling debts and lose the war in America in the process is a fascinating story in the level of administration oversights or inability of the North Government to correct situations that were absolutely critical to the war effort. But this malady was present to an extent in all commanders, Admiral Arbuthnot, Guy Carlton, John Burgoyne, Cornwallis, and even Henry Clinton. Colonel Stedman dryly rebuffs many of his superiors for not feeling the losses, which, as a Philadelphian, he did. But such was the state of the British officer corps, and probably the most damning thing to a devout apologist for the British cause in America. They simply did not care much about winning back the colonies full of Englishmen if it caused their affairs or reputations to suffer, it was not even a cause worth ceasing personal intrigues or vendettas with competing Generals for.

This was probably the last major war cabinet fielded by an Anglo country that had this level of personal prerogative in command and lack of central authority. The American Army grew more consolidated around the chief executive when it too was established in earnest. Increasingly, I’m coming to the realization that the Union Army Civil War effort looks like the corrected British effort in the Revolutionary War, and that the US executed their strategic plans focused on logistics and strategic assets of the Confederacy and punished generals for bad initiatives before it became a total catastrophe. Howe could have been replaced after repeated failures in New York before the disaster at Saratoga, but the actual structure to do so was not there. Instead, Parliamentary opinion roughly guided who maintained or lost generalship or admiralship. Any redemption of Hannover authority on the national level, or the preservation of colonial governments and their diversity of charters and social orders, disappeared with an effort the very structure of the British government prevented from being fought seriously.

There are very large lessons to be gained from the collapse of the first British Empire and its consequences that you can only really get by reading the loyalists and the men that became interested in their cause.

Edit: to answer what the Gilded Age “Imperial School” was and why it differs from (and shares certain traits with) the politics of New America Imperialism embodied by Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, I wrote this answer.

The terminology is tragically cluttered and unfortunate if we apply the terms Imperial to both this historical school (set academic practice) and the later/contemporary new America Imperialism in Roosevelt or Wilson, who had their own school of historiography that frankly went in the opposite direction for the most part in emphasizing the exclusivity of American achievement without Britain but as a summation of the American people and state.

The “Imperial School” of historians were Anglophiles of the First British Empire they began as an elite phenomenon in the1870’s and I think terminated as a hobby for eccentrics in the 1970’s with the period of peak national cultural and intellectual influence being 1880-1930. Certainlysome of their ideas on the Anglo cultural revival and global duty to maintain a new traditionalism bleed into Wilsonian Idealism or more directly into Henry and Charles Francis Adams, but they are not totally equal, because they are something of apologists of the first intellectual anti-Americanism articulated by Americans.

The Civil War I feel was the central trauma here, as was the reality that New York, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia and increasingly many more Northern cities were no longer WASP majorities. Here was this bloody war, fought with large amounts of foreign mercenaries that the founding document of the government condemned, to relegate the historicpopulation into irrelevance in the very colonies that should be the core, not only of the elites, but the American peoplethemselves. The historians only occasionally state this hybrid Know Nothings and reactionary Anglicizing view, but it dominates their outlook and their ironies observing that community self determination shrank when thenational government was formed for “liberty’s sake”.

This central perspective was dominated by fears of homogenization of the American people that was largely too late and a post mortem, and frankly ran counter to what Teddy Roosevelt saw for American History. The “Imperial” in Imperial historiography comes from the exhalation of British culture, then defined by high imperialism and a confidence of the civilizational form. English diction, English mannerisms, English religion and English governance unjustly thwarted to the national detriment. All of this was of critical importance to these men, who saw that America must be an English or at least British state, even if it was not to be a political part of the Empire. The national future depended on itspreservation.

I’m not totally unconvinced they were wrong, but they certainly failed in preventing their ideas from becoming universalized into meaninglessness by the Wilsonian generation.

Blax Sunday 8 Dec 2019

I am reading a book by Roman McClay titled Sanction the Book (Volume 1). The premise as listed on Amazon is as follows:

Pain demands a response.

Our postmodern world denies the dual nature of Man as both beast and intellect. This denial grows steadily worse into the near future, where politics are even more polarized than today, and the primal nature of Man is forcibly constrained by naive and reckless policymakers.

But the beast cannot be denied forever.

Sanction is told initially from the perspective of an AI observing the remains of the human race, then shifts between multiple POV characters of varying derangement and debauchery. As the story unfolds, we see the tapestry of Man torn asunder by the claws of the ravening beast.

Evolutionary pathways for depraved behaviors are explored in visceral detail, but the dynamic humanity of the characters and the incredible detail of their agonizing choices will keep you nailed to the edge of your seat.

You will root for the killers and weep for the gentle. And in the end, those who persevere will gain the most terrible, powerful knowledge of the nature of Man.

Enter the world of Sanction and face your own inner beast.

===

At almost 800 pages, Sanction is massive. Unless you aced the verbal section of the SAT, it cannot be read without the aid of a dictionary. The book is brimming with jargon based in neuroscience, math, industrial engineering and artificial intelligence. Latin and French are woven into the vernacular, military vehicles and aircraft are called out by make and model, regional wine varieties cited by years and style, etc.

While BAP described Bronze Age Mindset as an exhortation, McClay describes his book as a bomb. BAP talks about the difficulty of escaping the modern world and laments our confinement to owned spaces. Roman McClay has managed to escape owned space, having trod a Thoreauesque path into the depths of the woods. BAP implores us to reclaim our cities from the bugmen and their conveniently situated underclass. BAP has chosen expatriatic anonymity while McClay seems compelled to broadcast his face, voice and location to anyone who has interest.

I have not finished the book, so I will abstain from a 'review' of any sort. I can however offer a few insights on the author. More often than not, the author of a novel is inconsequential to the story. Reading this book is a glimpse into the mind and soul of the author.

McClay grew up in an Air Force family and never settled for more than a year or so in one place. The constant uprooting combined with tendency towards introversion made making friends difficult. He turned to reading and art, prodigiously devouring literature. He describes Moby Dick as his favorite book, having read it 6 or 7 times. He views Melville as a necessarily cautious antecedent of Nietsche, hindered by the cultural constraints of that time.

Roman did not earn a degree, instead favoring physical labor and trade craftsmanship and his reverence for the proletariat resonated thematically throughout the book.

He was successful in business though faced multiple financial disasters. He describes betrayal at the hands of women, friends and employees. His world was shattered, so he left everything behind and purchased a 35 acre plot of land in Colorado adjacent to vast state park forest. Over a period of five months, he lived in a tent as he outfitted a shipping container as his home. He lives in seclusion, hunts wild game, often hunting nocturnal animals. The walls of the home are lined with hundreds of books. He has no internet and connects to social media and various podcasts with spotty cell phone coverage.

McLay described himself as a formerly militant atheist. He mentions the work of physicists who provided logical evidence for the necessity of a power outside of the natural laws of the universe. He went on to claim that the book was inspired by a vivid dream which he describes as a vision. He seemed reticent to mention this and well aware of how this could be received. Sanction is his first book and he refers to it as the culmination of many years of reading and digesting information across a wide variety of subjects.

Anyway, I just dropped a Modafanil, time to get back to the book.

이봉창 Sunday 8 Dec 2019

That sure sounds like a bag of wank so I definitely had to do some research. Author is Twitter buddies with our boys Alexander Cortes, Ed Latmore and The Dark Triad man himself.

Am not allow.

Blax Monday 9 Dec 2019

My friend, I am advise allow. Dutiful author work hard 18 hour day, sore hand tent sleep. NOT bn boxer steal pencil, shoe knife.

Eratosthenes Monday 9 Dec 2019

top of twitter page shows me all I need to know

also: https://www.sanctionthebook.com/

:lol:

Blax Monday 9 Dec 2019

Liberal institutions are factory farms for leftist writers, spineless NPC cogs. On the other hand, there is this guy, a self-educated man who immersed himself in classical literature for decades. He invested a year of his life into writing a massive tome of a novel (all while living alone on a fucking mountain.) But the top of his twitter page tells you all you need to know I guess.

Eminence Grise Wednesday 11 Dec 2019

The Deluge by Adam Tooze

https://adamtooze.com/books/the-deluge/

In The Deluge, Professor Tooze takes his talent at integrating economic history to alternatively compliment but also expand on the existing histography of existing events. Instead of Wages of Destruction 's ( WOD ) focus on Germany 1931-1945, in this book Tooze attempts to cover "The Great War, America and the remaking of the global order, 1916-1931". While similar in the time period covered, the book is far broader in scope than the prior.

Because of this broad scope covered, it is difficult for any review to cover the entire book. This reviewer does not have the scope of knowledge to comment on the intricacies of the Treaty of Rapello, the formation of the modern state of Turkey, or the post-Revolution(s) USSR/Russia. Nor will the reviewer be able to fully explore the intricacies of internal Japanese and Chinese politics and public opinion.

The book is divided into four major parts, The Eurasian Crisis, Winning a Democratic Victory, The Unfished Peace, and the Search for a New Order. As with the reviewer's previous review of WOD , the topics will be summarized into bullet points:

The Eurasian Crisis:
1. The book effectively starts off in 1916, where the Entente coalition is engaged both in a war of attrition in Northwest Europe, but also on other fronts, most importantly the Russian front. At the outbreak of War in 1914, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland (GB) planned to impose a full military and financial blockade of Central Europe, but was forced to back off full implementation by objections from Wilson's United States Government (USG). USG public opinion in turn was torn between the pro-GB forces led by JP Morgan & Co (JPM) and Senate Republicans, and popular disapproval of the GB blockade combined with pro-Irish Independence, pro-German, and anti-Russian ethnic blocs. The same opposition prevented the German Navy from using it's submarine forces against GB shipping.
2. By 1916, both the Entente and the Central Powers were moving to an understanding of the war as a titanic battle on all fronts. The major Entente powers combined their financial resources through GB/City of London, whom in turn channeled them through JPM to increasingly rely on USG's economic resources in exchange for massive amounts of gold and debt.
3. In 1916, reverses on the Eastern and Italian front almost forced Austria-Hungary (AH) out of the war, but were in turn reversed by a major German counter-offensive that badly damaged the Russian war machine. At the same time, the Germans were forced to turn off their "meat grinder" at Verdun to fight off the Russians and the British Somme offensive. Both sides turned to smaller and smaller other fronts to win whatever victories could be won, Japan was effectively given German possessions in the Pacific to obtain it's entry on the side of the Entente (and not against it's historical rival Russia).
4. The demand for supplies by the Entente led them to effectively nationalize the massive prewar private holdings of foreign debt holdings, which in turn were funneled to Wall Street to finance the massive war purchases required by the Entente. The Entente, particularly GB, knew that doing this meant that they both would run out of resources by 1917, but also that they would be completely dependent on USG if they didn't win in 1917. The British Cabinet chose this course of action in large part because of the immense domestic political issues they were balancing, as they had already promised a massive increase in the franchise, and also were balancing Irish independence against domestic opposition and USG public support. Despite this, a growing labor movement also forced an unsustainable increase in public benefits.
5. By 1916, USG had decided that no matter which way the conflict went, that USG would have the world's strongest navy, ready to end the Royal Navy's blockade by force or to intervene in Europe. This strategic situation in turn encouraged GB to push even harder. The supplied purchased by GB in turn created massive inflation in USG, but also forced USG to quietly tolerate JPMs effective takeover of USG's domestic economy in service to GB, or risk an immediate recession.
6. The key piece of the USG domestic economy at this point was the new (1913) Federal Reserve, which was to be the USG counterpart to the Bank of England. USG and the Federal Reserve were able to stop a market panic at the outbreak of war, and then provided the underlying nation-level "plumbing" for the USG domestic economy to absorb the massive GB munitions orders.
7. The increase in USG economic commitment to the War in turn fed the hardliners in Germany, most notably Field Marshal Hindenburg and Quartermaster General Ludendorff, who became obsessed with first knocking out Russia to obtain it's grain supplies, and then doing anything that could weaken USG before it entered the War. They were able to force the Kaiser and the "civilian" government of Germany to first approve the resumption of submarine warfare, and then the Zimmerman Telegram to Mexico. According to the book, even high-ranking officials on all sides first thought the Telegram was fake because of the absurdity of the offer. When the German government confirmed the authenticity, President Wilson obtained a declaration of war from the Senate.
8. The Book goes into great detail on Wilson's desire to create a "super-Federation" Unitary State to either overcome or supersede the pronounced divides from the American Civil War (1861-1865). Wilson himself was a well known historian, pro-Southerner by the standards of the day, and the first "Southerner" elected to the Presidency since that period. In Wilson's view, the entry of USG into the conflict was not as an ally to the Entente, but to force the European powers to stop fighting. The book lays out the case that Wilson intended to establish a permanent political, military, moral, and economic supremacy over first the "White Race" and the entire world.

Winning a Democratic Victory:
8. Wilson's entry into the war was awkwardly timed for Russia, where the pro-Entente Czar was deposed and replaced by a "Revolutionary Government". While this politically made France and USG's internal politics much easier, it meant that now USG would have to lean on the new Russian government to keep fighting, and Wilson reversed himself on the topic of concessions to Russia just to keep them in the war.
9. In a desperate attempt to remain relevant to the Entente, the new Russian government mounted a massive attack, which all but knocked out AH but then fell within days to a renewed German counter-attack, which in turn exposed the internal fissures of the Russian government. The success of the German counter-attack allowed the Germans to launch an attack on Italy, almost knocking them out of the war, and put them in position to finally obtain numerical superiority in the West.
10. Faced with this situation, the British and French desperately begged USG for reinforcements, but USG had been sluggish to prepare for entry into the conflict and USG's troops fought largely with Entente weapons. Understandably for the author, the book does not go into the political intricacies of the deployments. USG also happily decided to use it's shipping to dominate shipping to Japan and Brazil, removing GB from it's position in those markets.
11. Where USG was extremely helpful to the Entente was in financing the war, and providing support for the British colonies. This however led to the same situation GB had worried about, where the entire prewar finance system would now be dominated by USG and the colonies, particularly Canada, would now drift into USG's orbit.
12. The collapse of Russia and near-collapse of Italy led to wild sets of promises and interventions. It also led to the fall of the Revolutionary Government to Lenin, who in turn first attempted to fight Germany for domestic political reasons. Once that effort fell apart, he attempted to make peace with the Germans, which ended up causing both to make the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, causing both significant domestic issues, and wrecking internal German political and foreign policy positions. Hindenburg and Ludendorff didn't care, and by late 1918 Ludendorff was plotting with and against Lenin to move German troops to attack British troops in northern Russia.
13. As the German efforts collapsed under the Entente efforts, attempts to make peace ran into the roadblock of previously the pro-peace Wilson, who effectively wanted the Kaiser brought down for ideological and political reasons. It was the German Navy mutiny that forced the issue, and the civilian powers of Germany were able to offer a surrender directly to Wilson, who accepted it over furious British and French objections.

The Unfished Peace
14. Versailles was extremely complex, with the remaining powers (except Lenin) attending but jockeying both for diplomatic and public opinion. Even Japan had decided that public opinion was more important than gaining additional concessions in China. Italy was still torn between factions that demanded the prewar "Treaty of London" annexations promised by the Entente, and finally Wilson himself toppled the Italian government by publicly appealing to the public (and cutting off borrowing). In the Italian chaos, a handful of Italian zealots grabbed Fiume, which managed to offend almost everyone in Europe and hopelessly divided Italian governments for years.
15. The French continued to fight with Wilson and then the British on the issue of what to do with Germany. While France didn't seriously plan to carve up Germany, it did want extensive annexations East of the Rhine in addition to making Germany pay for wartime damages. By this point, France's economy was falling apart due to wartime spending and they needed someone to help them pay for the debts owed to GB and USG.
16. Because of the French position and the promises made to various central European nationalities, in particular the Czech forces fighting in Siberia against the Communists, much of Wilson's efforts were spent on Poland, which in turn further upset Germany.
17. Tooze takes much time to tear apart Mr. Keynes' arguments about reperations. According to Tooze, Keynes didn't explain to his later writing audience that it wasn't the British and French who were the issue, it was that USG repeatedly, publicly, and in humiliating fashion told the British and French not to even suggest the first part of Keyne's plan, that USG would forgive the war debt of the allies. Some of this debt would not be paid off until the 1980s. USG's logic was simple, USG financed the war, USG wanted free flow of capital and trade, since USG was now the most powerful provider of both.
18. The Treaty itself, and the League of Nations, was effectively doomed by the compromises that Wilson had to make to keep the Europeans on board, which then became fatal to ratification in the Senate. At the same time, the economic and social pressures of the war were finally on full display in USG itself.

Search for a New Order
19. At the bottom of page 354, Tooze makes perhaps the key line of the book, "(The Great Deflation) is to this day probably the most underrated event in twentieth-century world history".
20. In short, after the end of the war, every power to speak of was dealing with the consequences of money printing. USG had financed it's entry into the war with a massive amount of money printing and no small amount of domestic repression. GB had effectively seized the gold production of South Africa and deliberately diluted it's White workforce to maintain production. At the same time, GB had suppressed India's silver-backed currency, effectively causing mass food shortages to preserve the GB gold supply to be sent to Wall Street. At one point, USG even agreed to force India to produce a loan to GB and USG! India's economy was saved by USG agreeing to supply Silver, at the price of India effectively being brought into the USG financial orbit.
21.USG, dealing with rampant labor, ethnic, and political unrest, first attempted political repression with the "Palmer Raids" while the Federal Reserve was ordered to maintain low interest rates to protect the value of Liberty Bonds. However, once GB decided on deflation, the Federal Reserve was forced to carry out it's most extreme deflationary efforts in history to protect the gold supply of USG, leading to even more unrest and ethnic tensions. This had the not unwanted effect of destroying the power of organized labor and also damaging the populist farmer factions.
22. GB in large part decided to go back to the gold standard for internal reasons, they needed a stable currency for The City of London, to keep the Empire together, and to prevent USG from further inroads into Canada and India. To make things more complicated, they had gotten through 1919 elections by promising public benefits and pensions, which in turn required more spending. This in turn forced them to turn first to USG for debt relief (se no.17) and then to back the French in seeking more reparations from Germany in exchange for France paying it's war debt to GB.
23. USG, at this point having it's hands full domestically, returned to Wilson's strategy of weakening Europe with financial pressures but instead using disarmament as a "carrot" at the Washington Naval Conference, where USG, GB, and Japan effectively made a deal to stop the arms race. This in turn allowed Japan to stop it's buildup and also go on the Gold Standard, further tightening the global deflation. France, having lost it's influence, realized it had to stabilize it's economy to remain a power, in turn invaded the Ruhr to obtain the treaty reparations. This in turn caused hyperinflation in Germany and brought France to the breaking point. USG and JPM forced them out under threat of bankruptcy. France then took the hint and went to deflation to prevent future situations.
24. By the end of 1925, 35 countries had gone back to Gold or soft peg, causing social unrest on every continent, but also preventing military buildups and leaving USG and GB's joint economic dominion intact.
25. After the 1929 London and Wall Street crashes ended the major wave of loans to Germany, the German right wing coalition in 1931 attempted to crate a customs union with Austria in direct violation of at least 2 treaties. France decided to use it's financial power to crush German markets, leading to a Europe-wide bank run. At the same time, the Bank of England plotted against the sitting Labor government, who in turn was forced into a panicked devaluation (off gold), which only spread the bank run to GB and USG and Japan, where the Japanese government collapsed and was replaced by a pro-defense spending government. USG forced Germany to go through even more rounds of deflation until that government fell in Jan 1933, while USG's own domestic financial system collapsed in the chaos of the post-1932 election and USG itself left the Gold Standard in April 1933.

Razumov Wednesday 11 Dec 2019

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