The Ruhr Crisis, 1923–1924

Abstract

The Ruhr Crisis, 1923–1924. By CONAN FISCHER (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 2003; pp. 312. £50). THE Ruhr crisis was one of the seminal events of the interwar period. It arose from the frustration of the French government at what it saw as defiance by German industrialists of the reparations clauses of the Versailles Treaty, made worse by the lack of support for France from its erstwhile allies, Britain and the United States. Poincaré determined to change the balance of forces by extending the Rhineland occupation into the industrial heartland of the Ruhr in January 1923. The result was a pyrrhic victory. Germany responded with ‘passive resistance’ but by the autumn was forced to abandon it unconditionally as the economy of the region verged on collapse, and the need to stabilise a new currency meant that the costs of resistance could no longer be met. France, having encountered much tougher opposition than it had expected, lost the political will to continue, and, under a new government, settled for the Dawes Plan which restored the Ruhr to German sovereignty. The consequences can be interpreted in different ways. Did the Dawes Plan represent the moment when France lost the battle to maintain the Versailles Treaty, presaging the defeat of 1940? Or did it open the way to peaceful accommodation between the French and German Republics, which made some progress in the 1920s but was cut short by the depression?