This book analyses the post-1919 collapse in Franco–German relations, which culminated in 1923 with a Franco–Belgian occupation of Germany's heavy-industrial heartland, the Ruhr District. Germany was in technical default of reparations deliveries including coal, coke, and timber and the French Premier, Poincaré, insisted that the occupation sought to secure these assets. German opinion, however, believed that beyond the reparations France was seeking to trigger the break-up of Germany, a belief recently vindicated by leading French historians. The people of the Ruhr rallied to defend their reg ... More

This book analyses the post-1919 collapse in Franco–German relations, which culminated in 1923 with a Franco–Belgian occupation of Germany's heavy-industrial heartland, the Ruhr District. Germany was in technical default of reparations deliveries including coal, coke, and timber and the French Premier, Poincaré, insisted that the occupation sought to secure these assets. German opinion, however, believed that beyond the reparations France was seeking to trigger the break-up of Germany, a belief recently vindicated by leading French historians. The people of the Ruhr rallied to defend their region and country in a grass-roots campaign of passive resistance against the occupying forces, with legal and financial support from Berlin. This book analyses the contours of this struggle which pitted mass civil disobedience against a heavily militarised occupation force. The Franco–Belgian authorities struggled to secure reparations deliveries and assert de facto sovereignty over the Ruhr and neighbouring Rhineland as railwaymen, coal miners, and public officials obstructed them at every turn. This triggered draconian sanctions against the region and sometimes the collective punishment of entire communities. This ‘Battle of the Ruhr’ involved the women and even children of the region as much as the male workforce. Famine, violence, and even sexual abuse came to characterise everyday life. The costs of underwriting this struggle were ruinous for the German exchequer. Hyperinflation rendered the currency worthless, labour relations collapsed, and western Germany was swept by a wave of French-supported separatist risings. Only international mediation (the Dawes Plan) finally resolved the crisis and ushered in a period of Franco–German reconciliation.