All the warring nations had internal obligations to meet. In the period of reconstruction as well as during the actual war years, successive loans had been floated, partly by pyramiding, at increasing rates of interest. In every country the national debt had grown beyond belief. Most of it was owed at home, but millions of people had patriotically invested their own savings and reserve funds and the capital essential to their business enterprises. Governments had to meet the interest charges, and, because they needed to borrow still more money, their people had to be assured that all that had been advanced would be paid back. In many of the countries staggering under the load of unprecedented internal obligations, budget deficits confronted the Governments, and new loans had to be floated to keep abreast of current expenses. And yet there were added burdens, for reconstruction, for demobilization, and for liabilities of all kinds, most important of which were pensions and interest on war loans. As if these seemingly insurmountable obstacles to balancing budgets were not enough, the vanquished nations had reparations to pay, and the victors owed stupendous sums to one another. With the exception of the United States and the British Empire, gold reserves were depleted, further credit abroad was shut off, and paper money was progressively issued, in defiance of economic laws, until inflation drove down European exchanges to the lowest levels in the record of international finance. In four years French money dropped to one-third of par, Belgian between one-third and one-fourth, Italian one-fourth, Czechoslovak one-eighth, Jugoslav one-twelfth, and Rumania one-fifteenth. Greek, Bulgarian and Turkish money kept well above Rumanian. Poland, on the other hand, shared with Russia, Austria, and (after the invasion of the Ruhr) Germany the problem of keeping the paper money from becoming altogether valueless. Hungary and the Baltic Republics (except Finland) gave up the struggle of supporting their money in international exchanges in the early part of 1923.