Content deleted Content added
typing corrections |
Added a comma |
||
Line 1:
The Rhenish Republic, proclaimed October 1923 in the [[Rhineland|German Rhineland]], is better viewed as an aspiration than as a republic. A manifestation of the short-lived separatist movement that arose in the Rhineland during the turbulent years following Germany's defeat in the [[First World War]], the Rhenish Republic, as proclaimed, comprised three territories, named North, South and Ruhr with regional capitals respectively in [[Aachen |Aachen / Aix-la-Chapelle]], [[Koblenz]] and [[Essen]].
[[Germany]] had been [[German Unification |united]] and ruled from [[Berlin]] for less than sixty years, and in the Rhineland as elsewhere blame for the disaster of the World War defeat was variously apportioned to the military, the (German) government or indeed the French whose troops would remain in occupation of the left bank of the Rhine till 1930. It is generally accepted that the French, [[Treaty of Versailles| whose troops occupied the left bank of the Rhine]], encouraged anti-Berlin separatism in the area during the period that followed the [[Treaty of Versailles| Versailles settlement]].
As the 1920s progressed, a measure of brittle stability returned to Germany under the [[Weimar Republic| Weimar State]]: Rhenish separatism, never a mass movement, faded. The French military occupation of the[[Occupation of the Ruhr| Ruhr]] region initiated January 1923 to enforce [[World War I reparations | reparations payments]] was withdrawn in the summer of 1925, following the agreement in September 1924, under the [[Dawes Plan]], of a slightly less punitive reparations régime. The de facto demise of the Rhenish Republic can be dated at February 1924 when the movement's leader Hans Adam Dorten 1880 - 1963 was obliged to flee to France.
| |||