What if in the 1920s the Germans with US support refused to pay the French the reparations. Thus when the depression hit the Germans would have been in a better position and the French may have hit the low the Germans hit and leading to a aggressor France.

What form would this have taken.. fascist? communist? Would anti-Semitism be a factor?

Would a world war even have occured?

Actually this did happen, in 1924 I think. The Weinmar Government refused some payment or other. The French mobilized some regiments to occupy Geman industrial sites in the Rhineland to enfoorce payment. Politically it was a disaster. The British and Belgian governments dithered, and Italy along with the US provided no support.

The French Army had no 'professional' regiments available who might have been suitable for such a mission. They had to send conscript regiments, that were reinforced with called up reservists. Neither the teenaged conscripts or the reservists had any great ethusiasm for the mission. The Germans in the occupied area were completely uncooperative and the French officials responsible for enforcing the treaty obligations were stalled at every step by German factory managers and government offcials.

The communist, socialist, and every other German political party made the occupation into its own political theatre. Demonstrations and confrontations with the French soldiers were organized with increasing frequency. Socialist and Communist partys in other nations, including France declared soldarity with their exploited brother workers in Germany. Business men became nervous as financial arraigments with German banks and business became threatened. (Note the Great Depression started in the US in 1929 or 1930, but in Europe economic problems dated from the end of the brief post WWI boom in 1922-23.) The disruption of gGerman industry in the Ruhr begain scaring businessmen as contracts in neaby Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, and hundreds of other areas beyond were threatened. The French governemnt came under increasing pressure from industrial and bank leaders to 'Do Something'.

Things came to a head when the German factory workers began attacking French soldiers. Increasingly large crowds of workers had to be cleared from areas at bayonet point. The worse incident occured when a platoon of soldiers fled into a building they were susposed to secure. The factory workers opened a a steam valve scalding the soldiers, who then shot their way out killing & wounding several 'unarmed' factory employees.

The French government decided it had made its point and abandoned the effort withdrawing its soldiers and ceased effective enforcement of the Versallies treaty. Long before Hitler made a progaganda issue of renouncing the Versallies Treaty the actions of the Weinmar government and the political weakness of the Allied governments had made it a dead letter.

Had France & its allies attempted to enforce the treaty then the riots would have likely turned into a sad and bloody war between the ill armed Germans and the Allied occupation army. The disruption to German industry would have been financially catastrphic across Europe & the world. Europe was already well along into a economic depression and another war in Germany would have made thing far worse. More finacial failures, banks and factorys closing, more unemployed....

The offensive would have been called off, after the Maginot Line had stubbornly refused to advance.

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Police cars carry three agents. The first one can read, the second one can write and the third one keeps watch on those dangerous intellectuals.
Unknown subversive activist - 20th century.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

An interesting "what if" an offensive in 1936 (after the occupation of Rhineland) could have changed many things. I believe that 1937 was still possible but 1938 and 1939 was another story. Germany was not ready in 1938, but at the conferenc eof Munich it was already a consiserable threat.

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If the French and the Brits in 1936 were only willing to play at neutrals to the point of scandal with the Spanish Civil War, when the Fascists (and Sovs) were intervening in broad daylight, how could you expect them to show any spine at all at the Rhine?

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Everly Brothers - What I Have To Do Is Dream
"Never wrestle with pigs, you both end up getting dirty and the pig likes it."

If Daladier and Chamberlain had stood their ground at Munich and resisted Hitler to point of making him using force against Czechoslovakia, Gens Beck, Blaskowitz and others were in the position and had firm plans to move against Hitler, removing him from power and installing Gen Brauchitsch as temporary head of state. Also was planned was the arrest of several key NSDAP and SS types.

When Czechoslovakia was sold out, it knock any hope the plan to succeed, as Hitler now looked like the savior to the German people and there were grave doubts that the Army would follow the plotters. As time proceeded afterward, several of the key plotters were given new assignments that placed them in less of a position to have sufficient influence, such as the commander of Weikries I, whose name I cannot recall, and Beck retired, plus the apparent strength of Hitler following such successes as the remilitarizaton the Rhineland, Munich and the Anschluss, making the chances of a successful coup slim.

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Best Regards,
JW

True Slip, this is precisely why I say that 1936 was THE opportunity to stop Hitler and Munich was probably already too late. Then Remember that 1936 is also the date of the election of the Popular Front (more or less pacifist) in France and that the war in Spain at France's border was another reason not to open a second warzone.

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