ABSTRACT
The reparations story was influenced by the vagaries of French politics. In January 1923, the French and Belgians sent troops into the Ruhr, Germany's industrial heartland, ostensibly to protect a mission of engineers, but in practice to enforce reparations. The French government soon began to complain that the reparations due from Germany were not being paid, and considered the possibility of military occupation in the industrial Ruhr to enforce payment. The cartoonist is complaining both about reparations and about the depreciation in value of the mark. Before the war, it had been backed by gold; but wartime and post-war inflation have left merely the tattered paper mark. The cartoonist David Low, was highly critical of the domestic policy of Lloyd George's government during the period, but he obviously sympathizes with the Prime Ministers approach to the reparations question. In the Simplicissimus cartoon of April 1920, the tattered mark still had some purchasing power, and afforded some cover for Germanias nakedness.
