British ambassador on the French occupation of the Ruhr (1923)

On January 21st, the British ambassador to Berlin made the following observations about the French occupation of the Ruhr:

“The French, by their invasion of the Ruhr, and by their imprisonment of the mine directors, have done more to bring together all parties and all classes in Germany than it was possible to effect by any other means. The mine-owners and mine-directors who have been imprisoned are becoming national heroes. They do not deserve to be, for the policy they have followed has been certainly selfish and probably short-sighted. They have ruined large classes of their countrymen by their inflation policy, and without doing much good to themselves; but they have achieved the object nearest their heart, which was to avid the payment of reparation to France. For the moment, all class hostility by the workmen towards the owners has I been submerged by the patriotic wave. The whole country appears to be united.”