The French Occupation of the Ruhr (Short Animated Documentary) 

Germany: Why do the French get to militrize the Rhineland? Belgium, and France: *Shut up slave!*

Literally every "demilitarized" zone in history was one of the most heavily militarized places in the world.

@@Jack209 the irony

They aren't. The *borders* around said DMZ are what are heavily militarized. A DMZ is just a zone typically around national borders where a mutual agreement is made in order to forbid military instillations within said zone. When you *approach* (but not enter) a DMZ on a hostile border, there will typically be many military instillations, but within said DMZ itself, there will (or should be) none. Unless it is violated which does happen. /Definitions

Why is it you can't say crap without rap?

MarchBloxBoy theone this meme was getting old but this revived it a little for me 😂

Venezuela: Are you challenging me

Noah Weaver Argentina: *YOU DARE OPPOSE ME MORTAL?!*

If you have uncontrollable debt it's actually a pretty big brained move You destroy your own currency and go 'well that sucks guys!', adopt another country's currency for a few years and then start yours back up pegged to it until you're pretty sure things will be stable.

@bloxboy 1 Yeah lol

Actually, if the allies had been more rational about war reparations, the Ruhr Valley occupation AND the second World War could have been avoided.

@@atlasbailly5439 ...Or just being more rational about forcing one country to pay back everything. But alas, Britain and France wanted their pound of flesh... Then again, maybe you were right and should have dismantled Germany so they would no longer be on the hook for all those unfair payments.

@@atlasbailly5439 Well, we can argue in the same way about the congress of Vienna. If the coallition had ripped France apart than there would be no Napoleon III, no Franco - prussian war and no French revisionism that led - among others - to the outbreak of WW1. So no, if the allies had treated Germany more gentle than the western Integration of the country would had played out more accordingly. The peace treaty - and especially Frances behaviour - was more or less responsible for the rise of Hitler and his Nazi thugs. Incidently; Europe after the war needed a strong and peacefull Germany. Its a shame that France insisted on a weak and helpless Germany.

@Ivan Ricaña how in gods name is the french navy supposed to help in a war against germany. they share a massive common border and the germans were not very reliant on foreign supplies, as illustrated in the first and second world wars. in 1940 the definitive command of the sea held by the brits and french could not prevent the fall of france in the slightest. the tanks of the french were far inferior in number and organization to those of the germans. in addition, the germans had absolute command of the sky, which is incredibly important and made up a large portion of german military strength and strategy. you have made two points which completely ignore the simple fact that the germans completely dwarfed the french in terms of industrial output, population, and land based military power.

Ivan Ricaña Naval Power is only so effective. The fact that France was drastically outnumbered in Air power, manpower, and equipment such as tanks meant they could not keep up. Not having Britain to cover a portion of the Belgian border would have made a bad situation worse.

A million pennies is still $10,000. A million Dongs on the other hand.

Huey Long Dong***

And no one wears a Pickelhaube

A worthless millionaire is a millionaire nonetheless

@@HighFlyingOwlOfMinerva um, Gustav Stresemann would like to talk to you from his grave. ;)

Actually I still have a 5 Billion Reichsmark (only one banknote)

@@kaputtesrollo2756 How much is it worth?

@@zhouwu Today it's nothing

@@kaputtesrollo2756 You could use it as toilet paper or make an airplane.

@@charu2059 I could (due to its value) but I think its a historical item I should keep ^^

You have freed us

@@breaderikthegreat3224 Eher wie - unter neuer leitung

I agreee with you,but do be fair,if videos were still 10 minutes long,uploads were to be for sure not so frequent.

same

When you say the German government did print money just to pay their bills you're at least oversimplifying. It's obvious from the beginning that it won't solve your problems even with the least economical knowledge. Or you're claiming that the people in charge were just idiots which is unlikely. So to me there's no question wether inflation was planned. You could still argue about the extent of inflation planned ofc since once started it was like an avalanche effect building up more and more.

It works well for making single event videos.

Erik Dorbandt never underestimate the stupidity of politicians

*HAHAHAHHAHAH LMAOOO*

*I CANT BELIEVE IT*

Since the reparations were set in Reichsmark, however, the plan kinda worked...

Dominic Jackman it sorta worked but they also got free bricks to build their houses with in germany.

I8pT do you mean Inflation OVER 9000

lmao coming from the man who invented the great leap forward

No its Inflation Inflation Inflation LV 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

It’s because no one understands seemingly how important economies are

@@looinrims well, unless your country is in economic crisis.

@@anonymouscausewhynot nah people still don’t get it, as they cry for social welfare programs that are the reason the coffers are dry (or a big reason in many cases), Argentina isn’t having fun for many reasons but the out of control spending doesn’t help

@@looinrims I would say it's because it would expose the responsibility and passiveness of UK and US.

@@divicarpe1844 you…are ridiculous That isn’t the case whatsoever both historically and presently

@Shadow Reptile it’s very obviously Hitler and also France does not and has never had chancellors

I would say ending up in a ditch, covered in petrol, on fire, is not "winning"

@Shadow Reptile I was replying to the original post by hfar, apparently RU-vid got mixed up

I need a sad react

well if you consider the threat of france occupying you printing money doesnt seem like that bad of an idea

@@alexg4711 Military staff be like: *we drown the french in paper!* And then paper would have to be forbiden by the Genfer-convention...😨

It also devoured much of the population's life savings

Normie

Injection of capital to stimulate the economy when it does not work anymore. That sounds a bit like Keynsian.

Like a distant mirror

That is still used to this day but only once and as a last resort.

@@Aceshot-uu7yx incorrect

@@Aceshot-uu7yx Sorry I shouldn't have jumped to a conclusion... What is the "that" that is still used to this day?

@@historyfan So printing money causes World War? A very daring Hypothesis.

Germany say should've been dismantled like the ottoman empire or the Austrian empire

@@martinfiedler4317 Makes sense to me. -Printing Money -Money has less value -The money on your bank, for which you saved your entire life, is nothing but worthless up to 1921 -Same probably goes to the company you worked for -Your company closes because it can't produce or buy due to it being broke -You're unemployed -You have luck and find a nine-to-five job -You realize saving money is Bullshit because the Money you earned on Friday is worthless on Monday -You buy everything you need literally right after work, literally carying your cash in a wheelbarrow -You're fired because the company you worked for closes due to it being broke -You realize life sucks -You know it's the frenchies fault -You hate the frenchies now because they destroyed your life -You realize that democracy in Germany succs D -Nazis say that Democracy succs D -''Yeah, that makes sense'' -You like the Nazis -Nazis take power -Nationalism is cool again -You want to be cool, so you become a Nationalist -You don't like Poland controlling Germany Territory -You rekk Poland - *Looking westward* -''You thought i forget about you?'' -You rekk France -''Oh boi, nobody can stop me now, not even...'' -You rekk Russia -Russia rekks you back - ''Ah shit. It's ok, we can do this'' - USA walks in - ''Did somebody say war?'' - USA rekks you - British rekk you - French farmers with guns rekk you - ''Oh come on no! Fuck you guys, seriously!'' Succ my dicc history!

@@alexschmidt443 Venezuela is going to start the ww3

@@zejdland you miss the point that while austria and the ottomans were already very divided internally, german peoples wanted to be unified

Frenchies in the trenchies

@FBI - Federal Bureau of Investigation Not an original sadly but it is still funny just wanted to tell the joke to people who haven't seen them :)

UH OHHHH

Whole europe: simply dismantles germany.

@mitsuki XD

Only if you replace all the workers with your own, otherwise you have to pay an assimilation penalty to production for the first ten turns.

@@Delosian So that's where France went wrong....

game ?

​@@omeven5785Civilization 6

Well in-between a certain Great Depression happened too

And intervening when Hitler marched into the Ruhr in 1936.

Tbf under Gustav Stresemann the Weimar Republic did see a short economic boom by not printing more money amongst other things

BMT yeah it might’ve worked but America wanted the money back after the Wall Street crash so the money that was fixing the economy was gone

@@Jthomas-gg9pi well America was mainly the only nation who gave Germany any real help.

@@mrbrainbob5320 We Americans are the best.

*it’s free real estate*

Oh, you're absolutely right, e. g. I don't give a shit about the Middle Ages or Chinese history, but videos here are always interesting and intrigue me to put an eye on other topics and eras.

Driving in Orlando I saw a grocery store today called Presidente. Instantly busted out laughing thinking of the El Presidente brand in Tropico.

I8pT Ankther channel already made a video on it

alanz ik but i wanted to hear how History Matters would explain it in his perspective

@@seamonster936 Yeah. The same reason you guys implemented mandatory school shootings every second Tuesday. It's too boring without the constant threat of being gunned down

@@50shekels Butthurt much?

Mallyoo oh don’t worry, I don’t really care what you think. Honestly the world is just sick of Murica propaganda, just because they weigh the most doesn’t mean they have a lot to say

I think this in and of itself is a little misleading. The British rarely provided direct credit to the French, and were not a net creditor at the end of the war after spending over 50% more than the French on the war. At points the French, and Russian empires had far higher borrowing costs than the British, so it was agreed that France and Russia could borrow money from the British, at British borrowing rates. What this meant was if the French needed a million dollrars, the British would borrow it from the markets (at this time mostly Americans), then load it to the french at the same interest rate, with the idea that France would pay off the loan at a lower interest rate than she would otherwise be offered. The best way to look at this is the British guaranteed a significant amount of French debt, with a few extra steps. What this meant in practice is at points the Germans would pay the French, who would pay the British, who would then pay the final American creditor. Every loan the British gave the French had a matching loan the British needed to pay off at the same rate. In the end the British would never Profit from the French loans, the only thing they got out of it was a good credit rating.

What is not added either are the "emprunts russe", aka loans given to russian that the communists simply refused to pay back once after seizing power in 1917 (that would be 100 billions euros today). Combined with the fact that the most industrialized part of France was completely ravaged by the war and the heavy demographic price paid by France (half of a generation of young men). The narrative is that french wanted the money to punish the germans but the reality is that France had 200% of its GDP as debt after the war.

“Hey thanks for all that cash fighting this war we couldn’t win without it, can we just not pay 90% of it?” Fuck you

Absolutely wrong. The France wanted reparations first and foremost to rebuild the regions of France that had been destroyed or pillaged during the war & German occupation. That’s why they were called reparations (go and translate the word). Paying back the USA and the UK (who had also borrowed to the hilt from the USA) was a more long-term thing that would be resulting from the repairs.

Didn't he say that in the video? (the first line, not the whole explanation)

RIP von Mackensen

RIP von Mackensen.

@@miguelmontenegro3520: His first name was August, not RIP. ;)

His name: *A U G U S T V O N M A C K E N S E N*

Story time: sometime in the 1980s or 1990s I went with my mother to visit the widow of a much older colleague of my father. Her (American) military father had been stationed, along with his family, in a French occupation zone in Germany, as some kind of liaison. Being young and vivacious and in her late teens, she, of course, was much in demand as a dance partner at the military balls. Among the French officers with whom she danced was a tall gentleman of the name De Gaulle. I just looked at her - holy smokes, you danced with Charles De Gaulle?! Yep. Before he was all that, too. And yes, I checked - De Gaulle was indeed stationed in Germany, in Trier.

One this one, I would say we were right ;) I'm not 100% sure, but I think that Germany was kind of a threat for peace in 1933 ^^

@@alioshax7797 germany was always a threat to the peace

@@alioshax7797 and i mean was cuz now they are fine

@TheSatanicTicTac so was France from 1871 onwards being salty about the loss of Alsace Lorraine. And basically French kingdom was a threat to peace since Hugo Carpet and later the empire with Napoleon lol

Germany: *uno reverse card*

So basically the French and the Belgians did what they had been doing to half of the world: they stole everything they could.

This is absolute fiction. The French never got even half of what they needed from the Germans.

As was their right. They should've taken the whole country and saved the whole continent a lot of trouble.

​@@nicholasm7822then you'd get a second Napoleon in Europe and the cycle will continue.

​@@MyDemon32 I prefer this than WWII

aqui1ifer Taco Bell and Charmin?

France and attempts to occupy the coal rich Saarland

Germany and losing world wars Or Britain and oppressing tribes around the world...

Please remind us which country started WW2 out of spite again ?

Germany invaded twice neutral Belgium. Even France never dare to do so.

Napo lean? More like Napo Fat. That's what happens when you misspell Napoleon...

@@Cjnw this response seems normal so now the tables will now turn towards your area and you will now be titled "normie"

Because it’s all surface level stuff that doesn’t even come close to even referencing all of the important points let alone any detail Ie there’s barely any data to disseminate

Hungary:Amateurs!

Zimbabwe: *Allow me to introduce myself.*

Brazil: Excuse me

Italy: Am I joke to you?

Venezuela's inflation does not even reach the heels of the German.

It's the french fault for starting ww2. They pissed off a already bitter Germany who didn't lose the fight on the battlefield just lost at home.

@@pride2184 That's the propaganda made by generals. In reality, German lost their last massive attacks and then French succedely counterattack. They severely lost the fight.

France in 1939: Where my country gone?

France: Mistakes were made

@@pride2184 kind of true France wanted revenge after the France Prussian war but all the treaty of Versailles did was put Germany in the same position France was extremely bitter

But first have some god damn faith

france is really getting away with no repercussion for basically setting the stage for another ww

@@dillonblair6491 I mean the french did pay their war reparations in 1870-80 , Germany never did, for WW1 or WW2.

@@nicolas.p331 Yeah, because those reparations in 1870-1880 weren't through the roof and motivated by resentment towards the French. Unlike in treaty of Versailles, French were salty that they had lost in the Franco-Prussian war and lost many soldiers in WW1. The thing is, Germany wasn't even able to pay it in the first place, so it's rather senseless to demand the money they didn't have. Now, Germany IS paying reparation for both the world wars...

Nicolas .P We still pay war reparations...

@@nicolas.p331 thats because we are still paying them to this day, which should show you how insane the amount of money is.

It was already too late. They (the others powers (just my way to say Britain)) should have reacted right from the start, in 1920. When it was possible. After that, wether France wanted it or not didn't change much: they just couldn't do it anymore.

Actually even as soon as the sudeten crisis France was ready to make it a war over it if Britain was willing to do its part. Czech and Poles were ready to go too.

@@xenotypos what a stupid notion “let’s punish them for violating something they...haven’t violated yet”

@@andreleclerc7231 considering how the poles ended their conflict there’s no way they’d be able to go on the offensive Also the Czechs had little popular support for this supposed offensive Ignore how the French were completely incapable of offensive operations And Britain had little in ground forces due to decreased budgets “Gah we should attack before they’re ready, why didn’t we think of that?” What a historical insight

@@looinrims No idea what the fuck you're even talking about. Maybe you're replying to a post from another dimension or something.

That's funny because French love strikes ;p

So u were never early?

@@christiangaming-fy6rv oof

Projekt:Kobra the Greeks held out in ww2 for 6-7 months delaying Germans and getting the first allied victory. France barely could hold for a month with British help lol

@Projekt:Kobra Get your head out of your ass.

@Projekt:Kobra ok french boomer

@An unimpressed Rooster I do. It would make an interesting video for people who watch, if you dont like it thats your problem

I do too, it's always interesting to hear and learn about new stuff!

@@ecoper210 Well I am Lithuanian and these uprisings are barely known outside my country.

Honestly it be an interesting video if they talked about the Soviet Union occupy and quickly annexing the Baltic states and all of the politics that went on in them.

he makes the home front and 1920s in europe way better then any class i've been to

it's a great strategy if you ever consider building an empire: take someone else's land, then deport the local people and replace them with your own. bam, now it's ethnic *insert ethnicity* territory. side effects including creating a hellhole for nationalist ranting.

Not sure about Upper Silesia, but Memel was always inhabited by Lithuanian Germans. When Memel was taken by Lithuania none of the people living there complained, or even tried to revolt.

@@antanassmetona4054 didn't Lithuania get memel from France from a Crimean style uprising?

@@grandinquisitor8335 Memel was at that time being set up to become a city state, which Lithuania kept on refusing to happen. The whole region of Memel was inhabitated by Lithuanians, and it had a port which Lithuania wanted. Those two things were the major facts that caused the incident. Lithuania was not getting a chance to speak up in the world press, so it felt pressured to take matter into it's own hands - knowing that no one will listen to Lithuania's wishes. So to safely put it: no, France wanted to create a state of it's own, just like the free city of Danzig.

@@antanassmetona4054 I meant to say stole it from France sorry

Hydro 07 Or debt collecter simulator if you’re American

*N O R M I E*

Germany had the ability to pay. They didn't want to. That's what dumb British thinking they are so smart, still don't understand.

Salvinius Augustus I would like to point out that there is a difference between having money and being able to pay off a debt. Just as someone who is paying off a car loan wouldn’t give all of their money at once to pay the loan, as they wouldn’t have very much money for necessities like food or even gas, Germany wouldn’t give their entire treasury at once to pay off their debt, since they have to take care of their own country first. Considering that Germany was recovering from the massive loss that WW1 brought, I wouldn’t say they were in the best shape to be paying other countries. You also have to consider that from the perspective of the people in Germany that the Government giving so much money to a foreign power, who were previously at war nonetheless, looks like they are easily submitting. Basically diverting so much resources to pay of France’s (quite unfair) fine would only lead to the German people suffering more.

France : I NEED TO PUNCH GERMANY !

In 1923 the German industry had excellent results when the French and the Belgian ones were destroyed by the German invasion. German factories were not destroyed by the war. All the German infrastructure was ok. Germany had the money. They just didn’t want to pay and repair.

Amazigh Blue Azul - Anti Mafia - Anti ANPD France: No you can’t have your own intact factories, it is unfair! Germany: Ha ha production lines go Vrrrrrrrrrr

Russia was not the 'Allies' in WW2

@@samarkand1585 😎 Correct. The Soviet Union was the biggest of the Allies. 🤩 EDIT: 1941-1945 that is

@@samarkand1585 if I remember correctly they had their own faction called the Cominterm right?

@@llamaboxx Yes, but they were also in the Allies with the United Kingdom and the United States

@@ixlnxs September 17 1939 moment

this combined with the fact that France and the UK didn't know how to keep Germany under control (and the fact that the UK didn't really want to get involved in mainland affairs) meant that reparations was the best solution they could come up with at the time, since the Versailles conference went less than optimal to say the least (way too many issues that needed to be resolved since a lot of small states with regional issues were present, and not enough time since the people on the victorious side were eager to get their reparations)

Don't know if you're willing to watch long form videos but TimeGhost history has some information about this

It's kind of the same. Subtitles: "because of the horrors they had to enjoy during the First World War" (17 Nov, 2023).

There basically was almost no resistance xd

@@mlszkw There was.

@Fabian Kirchgessner I mean during occupation, like in France, Yugoslavia...

@@mlszkw There was literally the biggest, most organised resistance movement of the whole war, spanning to an entire underground state robust enough that it ran actual underground universities. And while the regular Polish armies were defeated on the home soil (you try fighting the Nazi Germany and the USSR on two fronts at the same time), many were reformed elsewhere (like for example in Iran) and kept on fighting, while politically there never was a formal declaration of surrender. So no, there was plenty of resistance and plenty to do a video on.

[ Zimbabwe has entered the chat]

Democrats enter the CHat.

It was probably a better idea to have just split Germany up in a dozen smaller states, as they did to Austria-Hungary and the Ottomans.

@@brandonlyon730 but the people are still german, they cant be seperated by nationalism.

@Stephen Jenkins At the time they wanted. The Austrian Republic was named "German Austria" by it´s people and wanted to join Germany. But the allies forbade it in the Versailles Treaty (another case of that fucked up idea of "national self-determination", or at least the implementation of it).

French industry was wrecked by the fighting while German was left intact, and France owed lots of money to the US and UK Someone has to pay

@@tictac2therevenge291 the innocents of France and Germany, obviously And they got sweet nothing from their occupation, oh accept to set the stage to lose THEIR ENTIRE COLONIAL EMPIRE Woooo, that’s quite the profit

@@looinrims What would you have suggested?

@@tictac2therevenge291 suggested for what?

@@looinrims For the problem I just presented, how should France have dealt with the need for money that was caused its neighbor? Should they print it all? Wait for it to fall out of the sky?