15
The Post-war Years 1919–1930
Of Airships, unfinished business from Germany, and
the new GEC Laboratories.
‘O brave new world That has such people in’t! …’
Miranda, from ‘The Tempest’, Act Five, Scene One.
15.1 Post-war Germany
When Robert Le Rossignol fled Germany in December 1918, he left behind
a country the international community held responsible for both starting and
prolonging the war. Much of Belgium and northern France had borne the
brunt of the conflict and were devastated. Soon, a particular bitterness
towards Germany arose—especially amongst the French, a bitterness amplified by the realization that Germany had survived the war with much of her
homeland and industry intact. Driven by a French imperative to
‘de-militarize’ her borders, and by an American insistence on occupying
German territory, otherwise ‘we will have to do this all over again,’ the Allies
advanced into Germany immediately after the Armistice occupying all her
lands south of the Rhine. This occupation included the BASF plants at
Oppau and Ludwigshafen which they entered on 06 December 1918.
1
Eventually, through the Treaty of Versailles, the Allies saw Germany as a
valuable asset to be exploited as compensation for the war. As a result, they
imposed swingeing penalties on her. They forced her to pay billions of Marks
in ‘reparations’.
2 they ceded some of her sovereign and overseas territories to
allied countries, emasculated her armies, denied her the use of tanks and an
air force, scuttled her capital ships and submarines (many of which had
anchor chains made by Brown Lennox in South Wales), prevented future
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_15
319
The Post-war Years 1919–1930
Of Airships, unfinished business from Germany, and
the new GEC Laboratories.
‘O brave new world That has such people in’t! …’
Miranda, from ‘The Tempest’, Act Five, Scene One.
15.1 Post-war Germany
When Robert Le Rossignol fled Germany in December 1918, he left behind
a country the international community held responsible for both starting and
prolonging the war. Much of Belgium and northern France had borne the
brunt of the conflict and were devastated. Soon, a particular bitterness
towards Germany arose—especially amongst the French, a bitterness amplified by the realization that Germany had survived the war with much of her
homeland and industry intact. Driven by a French imperative to
‘de-militarize’ her borders, and by an American insistence on occupying
German territory, otherwise ‘we will have to do this all over again,’ the Allies
advanced into Germany immediately after the Armistice occupying all her
lands south of the Rhine. This occupation included the BASF plants at
Oppau and Ludwigshafen which they entered on 06 December 1918.
1
Eventually, through the Treaty of Versailles, the Allies saw Germany as a
valuable asset to be exploited as compensation for the war. As a result, they
imposed swingeing penalties on her. They forced her to pay billions of Marks
in ‘reparations’.
2 they ceded some of her sovereign and overseas territories to
allied countries, emasculated her armies, denied her the use of tanks and an
air force, scuttled her capital ships and submarines (many of which had
anchor chains made by Brown Lennox in South Wales), prevented future
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020
D. Sheppard, Robert Le Rossignol, Springer Biographies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29714-5_15
319