Doctor_Impossible_

Doctor_Impossible_ t1_isjpodx wrote

Wind and water pick up enough sediment from the surrounding soil to cover sites, not counting things like buildings at low points, which will also accrue soil simply moving downhill very very slowly over decades via gravity. Sites higher up will be subjected to proportionately more weather effects via exposure, and will fairly quickly be worn down to ground level, especially after they fall into disrepair or are abandoned or destroyed, or all three.

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Doctor_Impossible_ t1_ird934l wrote

>on the other the reassurance of a permanent peace maintained at a Germany defeated in a situation of destitution while its lobbyists reassured with the promise that the Weimar Republic would fulfill its commitment and pay the indemnities established by the Versailles Treaties of 1918-1919 that Baldwin and the majority of the Conservative Party knew that payment was impossible by a melted and prostrated Germany,

This isn't true. Germany could have paid reparations, they chose not to. Germany was initially to pay some 132 billion marks. That number was essentially fictional, and they did end up paying some 8 billion marks in the interim period which were largely contributions towards things like occupation costs, which technically speaking were not reparations.

One of the ongoing problems was Germany paying in kind (coal, timber, steel, dyes, etc). While cash payments were rare, payments in kind were more reliable, but were still technically defaults, as Germany refused to supply the amounts it had agreed. 1920-1922 for instance, Germany fell short by some 15,000,000 tons of coal, while it was simultaneously exporting coal to Austria and Switzerland at a good markup. This is especially indicative of bad faith for several reasons; payments in kind were based upon (and revised downwards from) German offers, the shipments were arranged by Germany at a fixed price in paper marks, which Germany had intentionally devalued, allowing them to fund such deliveries at impossibly low prices, and shipments continued to fall short, even as Germany received further funding in loans and bounties for development of industries and deliveries respectively.

In 1921, Germany did actually pay 1 billion marks in full, largely because there were troops occupying custom posts in western Germany, but after that paid 13 million marks in late 1921 and 435 million in 1922. During this time inflation spiralled, largely thanks to enormous amounts of paper marks being printed. The Germans blamed reparations for this, at the same time as they barely paid anything, proving inflation and reparations payments were in fact entirely decoupled, and inflation was a very handy ploy to pay back domestic debt, and state enterprise costs, as well as dodge reform and reparations. All told, Germany paid out approximately 20 billion marks, but during this same period received some 35 billion marks in loans.

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