The Musings Of The Consensus

 This little blog post is about a bit of economic history that tends to be glossed over in many history books, at least those without a strong economic focus. In fact, it's both ingenious and moronic in equal measure, but the Nazis made heavy use of it to rearm for what would be World War II and I wanted to cover it. First some background. After World War I, Germany was forbidden to rebuild their military beyond a pitiful level, mostly because the guys who won did not want Germany trying to go for round 2. Of course, the Nazis had every intention of going for round 2, but they needed to find a way to pay for the rearmament expenses without getting caught, and also do so without scaring away people because they were a terrible credit risk. It's really hard to do both because credit requires public records of your ability to pay back debts to act as a basis for your ability to get credit. At least, that's how it usually works. The Nazis thus had to get a ton of money by hook ...

 As many who read this blog or who know my tastes may be aware I adore reading about history. Wars are particularly interesting to read about, but honestly, they suck because wars kill people. And people die when they are killed. And, now that I made a lame Fate/Stay Night meme reference, bear with me (and for the gun nuts among you, get the antacids) as we take a trip down the snark-laden road that was the history of the Chauchat, long considered to be one of the worst weapons to ever be given to soldiers to kill people with. First off, the name, being French, is pronounced "show-sha". Also, that's merely the informal name. The actual official military designation is  Fusil Mitrailleur Modele 1915 CSRG (French for "Machine Rifle Model 1915 CSRG"). The more informal name comes from its chief designer contributor, Colonel Louis Chauchat. Before we continue, some argue this gun is unfairly maligned, and while it was a piece of garbage that had better use as a pap...