The decision has been made.
The Ruhr area will be at the mercy of foreign arbitrariness.
France uses force instead of law.
It thereby places itself outside of the peace treaty.
Poincaré pretends to believe that Germany itself will lend a hand to disenfranchise and rob her.
He is wrong.
The German answer that was due to him was not lacking.
Ambassador Mayer is recalled from Paris.
The Embassy is placed under the direction of an Embassy Council.
This does not mean the severing of diplomatic relations for the time being, but it does mean that in our relationship with France we will confine ourselves to conducting formal business.
France will encounter German opposition with its attack.
To defend ourselves with military weapons is out of the question. We will have to defend ourselves with the weapons of reason.
No people would calmly accept the injustice that France is doing to us.
Even German can't do it.
The path we are treading will entail further severe suffering for the German national community.
However, we must not shy away from it.
Because if we offered our hand to the French attack, we would become accomplices to the destroyers of German unity.
Then the fall of the German Reich would be certain.
At this critical hour, our eyes are turned abroad.
No relief came from there.
But what Poincaré did met with sharp disapproval from other nations.
The American President's decision to recall the United States troops from the Rhine is clear proof of this.
But at the moment it is just a gesture that is of no use to us in practice.
Will the countries in question learn to speak a stronger language over time?
Their wait-and-see policy is to let France learn from experience that what they are doing is disastrous.
Let us therefore do our part to deprive the French action of its success!
The previously announced note from the French government was handed over at the German Embassy in Paris at 4 a.m. this afternoon, at the same time as the delivery in Berlin.
It contains the notification of the misconduct found by the Reparations Commission and the justification for the application of sanctions derived by the French government from the arbitrary interpretation of paragraph 18.
The coercive measures envisaged, which are expected to be carried out during the course of the night, will be notified in the form already known from press releases.
The French government confines itself to sending a commission of engineers to protect the troops provided and whose task it is to supervise the distribution of German coal for the purpose of fulfilling the peace treaty.