British Foreign Policy and the Ruhr Occupation Crisis 1922-1924 Elspeth Yvonne O Riordan P h D T h esis London School of Economics and Political Science University of London January 1998 UMI Number: U109171 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Disscrrlation Publishing UMI U109171 Published by ProQuest LLC 2014. Copyright in the Dissertation held by the Author. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 To my parents 6i4lZiy A bstract This thesis provides a comprehensive examination of British policy during the Ruhr occupation crisis of 1922-1924. It addresses central questions raised in the historiography of the 1920s, shedding light both on Britain’s policy and that of other powers, particularly France. Based on a thorough examination of the British archives, analysis also focuses on the process of policy-formation, revealing the significance for this of administrative and personal relationships and of domestic political constraints. The thesis begins with an analysis of Britain’s role at the onset of the crisis. It evaluates the influence on Britain’s policy both of the international situation and of internal factors after the collapse of the Lloyd Gleorge coalition. Britain’s ambiguous position of benevolent neutrality from January to April 1923 is then analysed and its inadequacy demonstrated by revealing the contradictions involved when implementing it on the spot in the Rhineland and Ruhr. The thesis explores the search for alternatives during the summer of 1923, when policy-makers tentatively tried to encourage negotiations, but in fact simply compounded Britain’s difficulties. Discussion then moves to events in the autumn of 1923. Once German passive resistance ceased the European situation became more fluid. Britain was at last able to pursue an effective policy . She distanced herself from events on the spot and played an important role both in establishing international enquiries to investigate reparations, and in ensuring that the experts’ reports (particularly those of the Dawes Committee) were adopted at the London Conference in 1924. This thesis explores Britain’s attitude to reparations and to broader questions of post-war European reconstruction and stability, revealing the dilemmas caused by Britain’s underlying strategic and economic weakness after the war. It highlights the difflculties Britain encountered when dealing with her European neighbours and provides a valuable insight into the complexity of British foreign policy during this brief but crucial period. 1 Contents List of Figures 3 List of Abbreviations 4 Acknowledgments 5 Introduction 6 I. The Bonar Law Cabinet and the Origins of the Ruhr Crisis. 16 II. From Benevolent Neutrality to Tentative Intervention, January - April 1923. 71 III. Attempts to Prompt Negotiations, April - July 1923. 126 IV. The 11 August Note and its Aftermath, August - September 1923. 162 V. Britain and the German Collapse, September - December 1923. 199 VI. The Establishment of the Committees of Experts, September - December 1923. 250 VII. Resolution at Last, January - August 1924. 286 Conclusion. 329 Bibliography. 344 List of Figures Table I: The Progress of the Ruhr Occupation, January-March 1923. 73 Map I: Railway Communications between France and the Ruhr & Rhine Area, Spring 1923. 84 Table II: Chronology of International Diplomacy and Events in the Ruhr and Rhineland, September - December 1923. 200 Abbreviations BT Board of Trade DNVP National People’s Party (Grermany) DOT Department of Overseas Trade FO Foreign Office HMG His Majesty’s Government. KPD Communist Party (Germany) NSDAP Nationalist Socialist Workers’ Party (Germany) SPD Social Democratic Party (Germany) WO War Office Acknowledgments I am grateful to many sources for assistance in the completion of this thesis. My thanks go to the British Academy for the financial support it has afforded me during my years of postgraduate study. I would also like to thank the many library staff and archivists who have assisted me in my research, in particular those at the Public Records Office and the British Library of Political and Economic Science, where I have spent so much time over the last three years. My most sincere and grateful thanks go to my supervisor. Dr. David Stevenson. I will always be indebted to him for the guidance, advice and intellectual stimulation he has given me throughout the writing of this thesis. I am also grateful to Professor John Keiger and to Dr. Zara Steiner for their suggestions and comments regarding sections of the text, and especially to my sister, Moira, for so carefully proofreading the whole. On a more personal note, I would like to thank my husband, Jonathan, for all his encouragement and support during the completion of this thesis. Finally, I would like to say a very special thank you to my parents, Brenda and David Lown. Without their constant encouragement and unwavering belief in me none of this would have been possible. Introduction The occupation of the Ruhr marked the culmination of the bitter dispute over German reparations which had poisoned European relations since the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919. On 26 December 1922 the Reparation Commission declared that Germany was in default on timber deliveries, and on 9 January that she had “voluntarily” defaulted on coal. On 11 January 1923 the governments of France and Belgium sent engineers accompanied by troops into the Ruhr valley in order to ensure coal and timber deliveries.! The resulting crisis quickly escalated. The Germans launched “passive resistance” (effectively a government-sponsored general strike), and the French reacted by increasing their presence. It was not until 26 September that the Germans finally announced the cessation of passive resistance. This decision was not taken in time to save Germany fi^om political chaos, economic collapse and hyper-infiation, or to prevent serious challenges to the very structure of the Reich - from Separatists in the Rhineland and Ruhr, from Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch in Bavaria, and from a revolutionary communist movement in Saxony. France, though ostensibly the victor, also suffered in real terms. Despite an agreement in November 1923 establishing international expert committees of inquiry into the reparations issue, she refused to evacuate the Ruhr. The occupation continued to take a huge economic toll and in January 1924 the franc collapsed, leaving France financially vulnerable and therefore, it has been argued, diplomatically constrained. When the experts’ reports were published, France had little alternative but to accept their proposals - in particular those of the Dawes 1 The Italian Government sent a token few engineers. 6 committee - at the London Conference in July-August 1924. These events have received considerable historiographical attention. Significantly, the majority of this has focussed on France, particularly since the French archives were opened in the 1970s. The trend has been to move away from viewing the occupation of the Ruhr as a calculated, vindictive attempt by France to attack, suppress and exploit Germany. Historians such as Stephen Schuker, Walter McDougall, Marc Trachtenberg and Charles Maier have distanced themselves from the traditional view of the 1920s as merely an era of illusions and a prelude to the 1930s and have come to view the decade as a time when the conditions for international stability were defined, the limits of the return to the pre-World War I status quo were reached, and developments took place which prefigured the post-World War II settlement.2 Charles Maier has even explained the Ruhr crisis as part of a much broader progression towards eventual post- Second World War European stabilisation and integration and the ultimate triumph of conservative bourgeois forces.3 Walter McDougall has argued that throughout the post-war period, French policy was consistent, positive and rational. It was aimed at seeking parity and partnership with Germany and was based on the assumption that a weakened Germany and a strengthened France could have been integrated into the Western European community in the 1920s in the way that they were after World War II. Thus France sought to enlist the help of her allies to internationalise European stabilisation in order to solve her twin dilemmas of 2 For an excellent overview of this revisionist literature, see J. Jacobson, ‘Is there a new International History of the 1920s?’, American Historical Review. Vol. 88, No. 3 (1983), pp. 617-645. 3 C.S. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilisation in France. Germanv and Italv in the Decade after World War I. (Princeton, 1975). 7 security and reparation and avoid internal domestic conflict.4 Jacques Bariéty shares this supportive appraisal of French policy. 5 Marc Trachtenberg and John Keiger are also sympathetic to France. While they do not attribute to her the farsighted consistency and clarity of purpose of McDougall, they see Poincaré as well-intentioned and justified in his German policy and desire for reparation. Facing an increasingly complex and difficult situation, both internationally and domestically, and - crucially - lacking the support of his allies, Poincaré was increasingly overwhelmed by events and his policy became essentially reactive in nature until, by January 1923 he had no real alternative but occupation.6 Stephen Schuker and Bruce Kent are more critical. Kent, like Trachtenberg and Keiger, emphasises the immense difficulties facing France and the influence on Poincaré of domestic-political factors. He also criticises Britain and the US for irresponsibly abandoning her. None of this, however, is sufficient justification for the Ruhr occupation - an act which he condemns as ‘criminal foliy.