This is the effect Shire wants to achieve.
The accounts for reparations can be done any way one wishes, Shire said a million soldiers died, each receiving 1,000 US Dollars, or how many tanks, how much ammunition was lost, and how much economic damage was suffered, is Germany going to check them one by one?
Shire could easily call for 20 billion US Dollars and leave England and the United States in the lurch.
But Shire went the opposite way, he very modestly asked for only 2 billion US Dollars, while England and the United States didn't foresee this at all, still maintaining their high standards of "13 billion", "10 billion".
England's standard cannot be lowered; it owes 10 billion just in loans.
As an old capitalist country, and with a very shortsighted Minister of Military Supplies responsible for negotiations, he could not possibly pay reparations as a victorious country, nor could he fail to gain any benefits.
