WI: France bombs Germany during the Ruhr Crisis

pressure from England and the United States to pay their own debts
France's debts are called past due
Yeah, I could never quite comprehend this BS that happened OTL.
Americans kept forgiving Germans their debt, but France was still expected to pay.
France: "Oh, you're pressuring us to renegotiate reparations with German, America? I guess that means you don't need the money that much, does that mean we can cancel our debts to you? No? Doesn't that mean you're just being generous with other peoples money?"
 

Perkeo

Banned
I don't think the occupation was that unsuccessful, it did accomplish its short term goals: After all, Germany did pay reparations and the Nazis remained irrelevant for the rest of the decade. Yes Hindenburg did get his first presidential term but he didn't do anything to abolish democracy until his second term.

As for the long term goals: You cannot successfully enforce them if you don't have any. That was the problem with the ToV all along: They didn't have a coherent plan about how Europe in general and Germany in particular was supposed to work. Therefore - enforcement or no enforcement - there was no chance that anything could work as planned.
 
Yeah, I could never quite comprehend this BS that happened OTL.
Americans kept forgiving Germans their debt, but France was still expected to pay.
France: "Oh, you're pressuring us to renegotiate reparations with German, America? I guess that means you don't need the money that much, does that mean we can cancel our debts to you? No? Doesn't that mean you're just being generous with other peoples money?"

Well in this case the Germans aren't slaughtering innocents.
 

Wimble Toot

Banned
Any air bombing of Germany by France in 1936 would be for effect, rather than any tactical or economic impact.

The Third Reich would consider it an act of war, in which France was the aggressor.
 
Could the French actually annex the Ruhr (or parts of it) if the Germans stop paying reparations?

I suspect they would raise all kinds of hell in the international community for such naked aggression, and probably end up with their experience in Indochina a good 20 years early.
 
Any air bombing of Germany by France in 1936 would be for effect, rather than any tactical or economic impact.

The Third Reich would consider it an act of war, in which France was the aggressor.

There is no Third Reich at this time. The Republic of Germany would certainly see it this way, though, and be right, seeing how disproportionate and bloodthirsty it is.
 
Question, but why would they even need to bomb the factories in the first place? If they've got the Ruhr occupied, couldn't they just send in army engineers with dynamite, force the workers out and just blow the buildings, one by one? I'll freely admit to not being all that familiar with this particular length of history, so sorry if this is something covered by something obvious :coldsweat:
 
I didn't mean to imply any such thing, and I apologize if it seemed like I did. I simply meant to add that, although the questions around killing Hitler before he came to power are an ethical quandary by themselves, this is a far starker case.
Make the Treaty of Versailles less harsh and give Hitler admission to the art school he wanted to go to. Telling and try to get him to believe it at they want him as an instructor. That just set a shitload of butterflies
 

Deleted member 97083

Any air bombing of Germany by France in 1936 would be for effect, rather than any tactical or economic impact.

The Third Reich would consider it an act of war, in which France was the aggressor.
The Ruhr Crisis was in 1923, you're thinking of the remilitarization of the Rhineland in 1936.
 

Perkeo

Banned
Question, but why would they even need to bomb the factories in the first place? If they've got the Ruhr occupied, couldn't they just send in army engineers with dynamite, force the workers out and just blow the buildings, one by one? I'll freely admit to not being all that familiar with this particular length of history, so sorry if this is something covered by something obvious :coldsweat:
France didn’t want to destroy anything. Germany was supposed to use those factories to pay reparations.
Unfortunately the German government encouraged a strike that lead a hyperinflation. In the end a loaf of bread literally cost a hundred billion marks.
After the crisis the Dawes plan temporarily solved the problem: Germany got American loans to pay reparations and rebuild her own economy. Unfortunately the such created dependency on the solvency of American investors proved fatal in the Global Economic Crisis.
 
Better that than the Nazis. Think of it as a necessary evil in the name of preventing a second war. Like Hiroshima and Downfall.
Well... it's been a week since I posted that, and my kick for it has just recently expired.

I'd like to start off with a simple sentence:

I am sorry for that message and hereby apologize for advocating mass murder.

But I just want to make it clear - that message in no way reflects my actual beliefs, nor do I have a genocidal grudge against the German people. This thread started off with a genuine question. After a while, I went full [r-word] and thought to myself "gee, I wonder how folks will react if I pretend to be a woefully ignorant idiot". In hindsight, that lousy attempt at trolling was a very, very, dumb move.

I'll refrain from doing that again in the future. And to @TRH - no, I do not support a French bombing of Weimar Germany. My previous posts on this thread were me being a complete moron.
 
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