The Great Inflation In late-1922 the German government were forced to ask the Allies for a moratorium on reparations payments; this was refused, and she then defaulted on shipments of both coal and timber to France. By January of the following year, French and Belgian troops had entered and occupied the Ruhr. The German people, perhaps for the first time since 1914, united behind their government, and passive resistance to the occupying troops was ordered. A government-funded strike began as thousands of workers marched out of their factories and steel works. The German economy, already under massive pressure, gave way. The huge cost of funding the