Ruhr Crisis

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The Ruhr Crisis occurred in 1923 when Germany stopped making their reparation payments required by the Treaty of Versailles. In response, France, under Poincaré, occupied the Ruhr Area. This region had coal mines and was the center of steel production for the Germans. This occupation cost the French the good will of the United Kingdom and the United States, who presumably thought this was too harsh an action and not warranted by the circumstances. In response to this loss of good will, France shifted its policy and began to accept the fact that Germany was once again going to be a major player in central European politics.

Thus, until the beginning of World War II, France assumed a defensive posture towards Germany instead of an offensive policy as manifested in the Ruhr occupation. Specifically, the unsuccessful conclusion of the from the Ruhr Crisis, from the French point of view, may have contributed to France's failure to oppose Hitler's remilitarization of the Rhineland eleven years later, in a clear treaty violation on Germany's part.

The French occupied Ruhr in order to collect payments. The people of Ruhr stopped working in protest of the French occupation. To support the starving people of Ruhr, Germany began printing money- and German money lost much value, and as a result, there was a social revolution, bringing Gustav Stresemann to power.