Nicholas A. Lambert, Planning Armageddon. British Economic Warfare and the First World War, Cambridge, MA, London: Harvard University Press 2012, VIII, 652 S., £ 33.95 [ISBN 978-0-674-06149-1]

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (1) ◽  
pp. 237-239
Author(s):  
Michael Epkenhans
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Harvard University ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Economic Warfare ◽  
First World

scholarly journals ‘A Retrograde Tendency’: The Expropriation of German Property in the Versailles Treaty

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 507-535
Author(s):  
Nicholas Mulder
Keyword(s):  
Property Rights ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
First World War ◽  
Financial Globalization ◽  
World War ◽  
Economic Context ◽  
The First World War ◽  
The World ◽  
Economic Warfare ◽  
First World

Abstract This article explores how the Versailles Treaty was shaped by the effects of economic warfare 1914–1919. The First World War was in part an Allied economic war waged against the Central Powers in conditions of advanced economic and financial globalization. This was reflected in the treaty’s expropriation mechanisms, which were used to take control of German property, rights, and interests around the world. Whereas Articles 297 and 298 of the treaty legalized wartime seizures, the Reparations Section of the treaty also contained a provision, paragraph 18, that gave the Allies far-reaching confiscatory powers in the future. The article places these mechanisms in a wider political, legal and economic context, and traces how they became a bone of contention among the former belligerents in the interwar period.

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