EconAir

  This is a summary of the reasons Germany lost World War I.   The  Entente  was the alliance of France, Russia, and England, later including the United States. Sometimes called the Allies.   German Planning (Schlieffen Plan) Germany’s strategy was based on the Schlieffen Plan, first developed by the head of the German General Staff in the 1890s. The essence was that most of the German Army would quickly attack France, before France could fully mobilize, and defeat France in six weeks. Then much of the army could be quickly transported on German’s superb railroad system to the east to defeat Russia. The Plan was reviewed and updated by the German General Staff every year up to 1914, first under Schlieffen and then under his successor, von Moltke. Helmut von Moltke was the nephew (and namesake) of the general that led German forces to victory over France in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.   The elder von Moltke, thinking about Germany’s future after his ...

Famous Headline Introduction The usual reasons given for the Great Depression – the stock market crash of 1929 and the later collapse of the banking system – do not tell the whole story. Available economic data indicate (there were no national income accounts in 1929) that a recession had already begun before the stock market crash. The crash of October and November of 1929 was a catalyst that made the recession worse but the partial stock market recovery in early 1930 did not end the recession. Industrial production continued to fall quickly and unemployment rose rapidly in 1930. Continuing farm and businesses failures over the next two years wiped out thousands of small rural banks and threatened total financial collapse in early1933.  For a fuller explanation, we have to go back to the 1920s to see additional reasons for the origins and the rapid decline in output at the beginning of the Great Depression. We have to look at the int...