ABSTRACT
The turnover of production from war to peace was more difficult than the reverse process had been in 1914. Former export markets had learned to depend upon other sources of supply, and the exhaustion of defeat was scarcely an auspicious starting point for a war of commercial re-establishment. The difficulty of fulfilling the enormous demands of the Allies, the uncertainty attaching to the series of conferences held .between 1920 and 1922, and the fear of a French seizure of the Ruhr, were circumstances hardly propitious for a revival of industry in the teeth of competition from its own former sources of raw materials. Lorraine, Luxemburg and the Saar, transferred into the enemy’s camp, were a continual stimulus to foreign competitors. Above all, Germany inherited her problems in the hour of political insecurity, when the monarchy had foundered and the stability of the new order was neither recognised nor assured.
