When the First World War ended, the political and economic system of
prewar Europe lay in ruins. Though Allied politicians tried at various
post- war conferences to create a new and stable European order they
failed because of conflicting and competing national interests. The
peace settle- ments neither established security from renewed attacks by
the defeated nations nor did they lay the groundwork for a
reconstruction of Europe's devastated economic system, because the
members of the Allied war coali- tion could not agree on the goals to be
pursued by the treaties or on the means to enforce their settlement. In
this context, reparations played a most signi- ficant role. The conflict
between the European protagonists France, Great Britain and Germany
reached its peak at the beginning of 1923 when Franco- Belgian troops
occupied the Ruhr district in a last attempt to implement strategies
developed in 1919 for a control ofthe German economic potential until
reparations had been paid and to show to the Anglo-Saxon powers that any
modification of Allied policy toward Germany could not be attained
against French objections or without a simultaneous adjustment of French
war debts. By focusing on the reparation issue during the period of the
Cuno Cabinet, this book attempts to contribute both to the literature on
Cuno and to the interrelationship of political and economic problems
after W orId War I.