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French Occupation of the Ruhr*
By ROBERT INGOUF
Secretary, American Section of the
Soci6t6 des 111gbnieursCivils de France, New York
M
Y REMARKS, which I feel highly honored
in being invited to make, shall be limited to a
consideration of the mi6ing and metallurgical
problems involved in this question; in fact, these
problems alone might well be considered as sufficient to explain tlie existence of the Ruhr situation and
to justify the steps taken by France in this affair.
Comparing the France of pre-war days with the France
of the period following the Versailles treaty indicates
clearly how the Ruhr question is a direct consequence
of the new economic conditions which have prevailed
in Europe since peace was signed between the Allies
and Germany.
Before the war, in 1913 for instance, the French output of iron ore was 22,000,000 tons. This output,
which decreased considerably during and immediately
after the war, has about regained its previous level. It
should be noted that 96 per cent. of the production of
iron in France is obtained from the eastern part of the
country, in the districts of Nancy, Briey, Longwy,
Metz, and Thionville. This concentration of practically all the iron mines into one district creates a very
serious problem for France, involving strategic and
economic consequences.
The strategic problem arises from the fact that the
whole iron resources of France lie close to the frontier
of Germany, a t a distance of only a few miles; hence it
is of the utmost importance for France to be assured
that her eastern frontier shall not be a t the mercy of a
sudden invasion by an army which could in a few hours
deprive France of her iron resources and render her
powerless to defend herself.
Invaded by her Eastern neighbor three times during
the past 100 years, France has had dire experience with
what such invasions mean for her. Wherever the
German armies have passed, they have left an ineffaceable trail of desolation. France, therefore, intends to
protect herself by sufficient and efficient guarantees
against renewed invasions of her territory.
This situation has also its economic consequences.
France is a large iron-ore producer, but this ore is
naturally of comparatively little value to the country
unless coal and coke can be obtained in sufficieqt quantities to permit smelting the ore. Unhappily, however,
the fuel resources of France are not in proportion to her
resources in iron ore; in 1913, the French production of
coal was 40,000,000 tons, while in 1922 it was only
*LAnaddress before the New York Section, April 4, 1923.'
30,000,000 tons, as compared with 575,000,000 for the
United States, and 240,000,000 for Germany.
In 1913, the coal mines of northern France (districts
of Arras and Douai) produced 27~000,000tons, or 70
per cent. of the total French tonnage. The remaining
30 per cent. of the output was supplied by the mines
of the central and southern provinces (districts of St.
Etienne, Lyon, Clermont Ferrand, Alais, Toulouse)
which produced 13,000,000 tons. I n 1922, however,
the northern mines produced only 16,000,000 tons, or
53 per cent. of the total (as against 70 per cent. in
1913), while the central and southern mines produced
32 -per cent. (as against 30 per cent. in 1913). The
remaining 15 per cent. was supplied in 1922 by the
eastern mines (Strasbourg district) which France did
not possess in 1913, but recovered in 1918 after the war.
Thus the distribution of the coal output was cntirely
different in 1922 from what it was in 1913, for obvious reasons.
I n 1913 the largest part of the coal tonnage was
supplied by the northern mines, but these mines were
invaded almost a t the beginning of the war, and were
systematically and ruthlessly destroyed by the Germans; 220 mine shafts were totally destroyed and
flooded, 1800 miles of gallery (the distance from New
York to Chicago) had to be re-established. I t will
take possibly ten years of incessant work to put these
mines again in a position to produce coal. The
machinery and buildings have been entirely destroyed,
all the viaducts and railways of the districts have been
completely wrecked. The mine workings have been
flooded and blown up, and now contain 2650 million
cubic feet of water, which it will take years to pump out.
Altogether, an annual output of about 20,000,000 tons
of coal has been reduced to nothing and will probably
not be replaced until 1930. To sum it up, the German
invasion destroyed one-half of the pre-war coal
resources of France.
Determined efforts have been made by the French
engineers to repair the damage caused by the enemy in
the mines of nor!hern France, For instance, repairs
began a t the Courrihres mines on Oct. 10, 1918, only
a few days after the German armies had begun to
retreat. Many attempts were immediately made to
stop t h e water which was rising from the lower levels
into the dynamited mine shafts. Thousands of tons
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which she was legally and morally entitled. The
French metallurgical industry was therefore placed in a
very difficult position and had to purchase elsewhere
the products which it had every right to expect from
Germany; and while French plants had to close down,
Germany was increasing her mining output, was supplying her industries to capacity, and was making large
profits in exporting her metallurgical 'products. At
the same time she refused to levy on those products the
taxes which would have enabled her to meet the obligations which she had contracted with the Allies and to
which she solemnly pledged herself.
It would have been an easy matter for Germany to
supply to France the coal and coke that were required.
The German coal mines are situated.at a short distance
from the French frontier; they are the mines of the
Ruhr district, the richest and most active mining and
metallurgical center of Germany and the continent.
But the policy of Germany has been consistently to
The coal requirements of France in 1922 were about refuse the necessary means to enable French industry
60,000,000 tons, of which only about ope-half could be to recuperate from the destruction undergone during
obtained from domestic mines. As mentioned before, the German occupation, while a t the same time Gerthe German invasion had destroyed about .20,000,000 many placed her own industries in a position to domitons of yearly output. That is why the Versailles nate all the export markets.
treaty stipulated that Germany should replace the
tonnage thus destroyed. To this end France obtained
the German Government-owned mines of the Saar
France has shown the utmost patience in dealing
Valley (which produced in 1922 about -10,000,000 tons with this situation, but when in view of the persistent
of coal) and Germany was further obliged 'to supply a defaults of Germany, the Interallied Reparation
certain tonnage of German coal on account of "repara- Commission finally declared that country in wilful
tions." Those stipulations of the Versailles treaty default in January, 1923, France considered herself as
appear entirely just and equitable,' and one might rightfully entitled to put pressure to bear on Germany
reasonably have expected Germany to comply with so as to make her meet her obligations.
French industry has been hit hard in the course of this
those obligations as they were the direct consequences
of wilful and malicious damage done by her - armies. struggle: only 90 ovens were working in February as
Yet experience has proved that this stipulation of the against 116 in December, 1922; France had to buy in
treaty, like. so many others, was only a dead letter England and America enough coal and coke to enable
to Germany.
her to maintain activity, and such purchases bear
What has been said as to the coal situation of France heavily on the commercial balance of France. In
applies even more forcibly to the problem of coke. February and March, for instance, France bought in the
In 1913, northern France produced 3,000,000 tons of United States about 100,000 tons of coal and approxi.
coke (about' 76 per cent. of the total output) but mately the same tonnage of coke. It is likely that such
owing to the complete destruction of coke ovens and purchases will have to continue for a while until
coal mines France was deprived of' its main coke Germany decides to resume shipments according tb the
resources. This situation is aggravated by the fact schedules stipulated by the Allies. On the other hand
that, by t h e war, France recovered the important iron Germany cannot continue her present policy of passive
mines of her province-of.Lorraine, together with the resistance for any length of time. The interior of
large steel plants of t h a t district; consequently, her Germany needs the products of the Ruhr and the Ruhr
requirements in coal and coke have been largely itself must keep its industries running if the indusincreased. The coke which France required had to be trialists expect to be able to retain a t least a part of the
dbtained from Germany, . partly on . " reparations1' enormous profits which they have made during the last(
account and' partly - through direct purchase from few years.
German coke works. -Thus we find that France .is
It is of course impossible to foretell exactly when the
dependent upon Gerr;?any for the coal and coke.which present troubled conditions will end, but it should be
she requires.
remembered that a solution must be reached some day
Unfortunately, since 1919 and in spiteof all requests, because economic conditions in the end govern the
France has been unable to obtain from Germany more world, and it is a fact th&t France and Germany must
than a small part of the tonnages of coal and coke to necessarily coijperate eventually: France has more iron
of slate were dumped into the immense craters around
the pitheads; cement was then injected to consolidate
the new ground through which the shafts had to be
re-sunk. Shaft No. 9, for instance, absorbed over 4000
tons of cement, and it was only on April 24, 1920, that
the pitheads were considered safe enough to permit
the work of sinking. Steel lining was then placed down
to a depth of 100 ft., and not before 0ct. 17, 1920, could
the new shaft be connected with what had been left
of the lowe? levels. Pumping was then begun with
eight' electric pumps, delivering 30,000,000 cu. ft. a
month; yet the mine will probably not be in shape
for active work until the latter part of 1924. The
same general conditions hold true for the other mines
of the district. It is therefore no. wonder that the
mines of northern France supplied in 1922 but a small
percentage of their 1913 output.
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May, 1923
MINING AND METALLURGY
233
ore than her coal mining capacity enables her to use of pig iron and steel also increased; for the first item
while Germany has coal and coke in excess of her iron from 285,000 to 513,000 tons, and for the second item
supplies. There is no reason why such an agreement from 315,000 to 430,000 tons. It is true that there is
could not be, made and adhered to, but first of all today a decrease in the production owing to the insuffiGermany must meet her just obligations. France cient amount of coke which we derive from the Ruhr.
and, I venture to say, the world cannot permit this But this is merely a passing incident.
injustice to exist-that a victorious but pillaged France
Let me remind you that Germany did not wait for
shall see her industries starve and perish while a the French occupation of the Ruhr to restrict the
vanquished but untouched Germany thrives and refuses production of coal from that district. Germany preto repair the wanton damage she has caused during ferred to reduce the extraction of coal from the Ruhr
over four years of an atrocious war. France has proved basin to the mere quantities needed for her own indusby her sacrifices that she had a right to live and she tries rather than to come back to pre-war normal extraccertainly7 intends to see that justice is done to her. tion, as that would have meant an increase in her
ability for payment. In 1913, the Ruhr produced
over 114,000,000 tons of coal against 95,000,000
tons in 1921, that is to say about 82 per cent. of its
The ~ndustrialSituation of France*
normal production.
BY C. A. LEINEIVEIU~
I said that the present stagnation is merely a passing
OMFORTING it is for one whose efforts are incident. I think that all those who reason coolly and
directed towards promoting better trade between in good faith, all the world over, realize now that the
the United States and France to be asked to address French move into the Ruhr is purely a political affair.
this meeting because it is a sure sign of the belief It has never entered our heads to go into the Ruhr and, ,
which you, in this country, show in the possibilities extract the coal from the mines and transport it our- +.
of such trade.
selves. I t may have served the policy of some people
Will you permit me first to express my deep gratitude to pretend that we went to help ourselves, even at. the
for your courtesy and for your .warm reception. Ever risk of ruining Germany, and bringing about her absosince I came to the United States, I have been over-. lute collapse. It seems to me that those who are
whelmed by the sympathy which surrounds me, which capable of such reasoning are utterly incapable of
I am modest enough not to accept for myself, but for listening to reason.
the country I represent.
Although it is political, the French move into the
We are very often accused, I know, of lacking the Ruhr is sure to develop, sooner or later, and probably
proper Evangelical spirit; some have even gone so far much sooner than some believe, into a very important
Let me economic gain not alone for France but for the world
as to speak of the "war spirit of France.
put it frankly to you. Whenever I read a report on at large. I may even say, although I dislike the term,
the industrialdevelopment of the United States today, that it is a constructive policy. It is constructive,
I always find a reference to the, strikes which hampered because, by having control of the switchboard of German
your trade for the better part of last year. I know how organization, we hold in our hands the means of oversevere they were, and I fully understand the bearing coming the resistance of the all-powerful German
they must have on the economic situation, even now. industry, that is to say of those who amass wealth
This being so, how can we ignore in France, and let while impoverishing their Government, and while trying
others ignore abroad, the fact that 23,000 of our to impoverish France.
factories were destroyed during the war, and that over
one and a half million of young men were killed.
Reminiscences of the Copper Country
That must also have an influence on our economic situation.
BY PAULKREUZPOTNTNER*
The fact remains, however, that today we have
URING the 'sixties, the writer lived in Erie, Pa.,
rebuilt over 20,000 of these factories. They are in full
and worked for a concern which owned one of
swing, with the result that the volume of our exports
the
largest
ore-carrying Lake boats of that time, of
for 1922 was larger than that of 1913. Notwithstand900
tons
capacity.
To unload such a boat, entirely
ing the fact that practically all the coal mines of northby
hand,
required
generally
two days, but sometimes
ern France were destroyed during the war, our mining.
255
days.
Frequently
two
smaller boats, of 300 or
industry has largely recovered. We are extracting'
400-ton
capacity,
were
towed
by the ore-carrying
now an average of 2,825,000 tons of coal a month, and
these
towed
boats
were
often lost in stormy
vessel,
but
2,220,000 tons of iron ore as compared respectively
weather.
In
those
days,
ships
loaded
either a t Escanawith 2,300,000 and 1,300,000 tons'a year ago.
ba,
on
Green
Bay,
a
t
the
upper
end
of
Lake Michigan,
From 1921 to 1922 the average monthly production
a t Marquette, or a t Houghton, on Lake Superior.
*An address before the New York Section, April 4, 1923
* Physicist, Pennsylvania Railroad Co., Altoona, Pa.
tAttach6.-Commercial de France aux Etats-Unis, New York~
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MINING AND METALLURGY
There was an iron-ore railroad from Escanaba to
Marquette, but there was no railroad north of Milwaukee except a stretch of 40 miles, but a railroad was
being built north to Marquette. There was no land
connection between Marquette and the copper region
on Keweenaw Point.
There were great warehouses a t Houghton and
Hancock, stored with enough supplies to last the
people bf the copper region for about seven months, or
as long as navigation was closed; Indian runners
brought the mail from Marquette during the winter.
The mine workers were almost exclusively Scotch and
English, with a few Irishmen and Germans. Mine
officers and workers were a very hospitable, cheerful
people, glad to meet an occasional stranger. Settlements were few and far between. A settler would
select a suitable clump of trees, saw them off four or
five feet from the ground, and build his house on the
remaining stumps.
At the time of the writer's visit in 1870, copper
mining was just beginning to develop upon a large
scale. The Calumet & Hecla mine was but a year
and a half old; the Quincy mine was developed to a
depth of about 1000 ft., and was provided with the
most perfect equipment known a t that time.
I n those days, mass copper was often encountered;
I remember seeing chunks weighing two or three tons,
on the shore of the Lake, waiting for shipment to
Detroit, the facilities a t I-Ioughton not being extensive
enough to handle such masses. I n fact, there was
only a comparatively small smelter below the stamp
works, in which the recovered copper was melted and
the ingots shipped to Detroit for refining.
EARLYMETHODSOF ORE TREATMENT
All the ore hoisted out of the mine was hauled to the
roasting pile; on account of the excessive hardness of
the rock adhering t o the copper, the ore was roasted
before being crushed in the stamp mill. To accomplish this, the ore was piled in large heaps upon a crib
of wood, which was then ignited and allowed to burn
for several days. The ore was then hauled in twowheel, one-horse carts over a rough road through the
woods to the stamp mill.
The stamp mill was located a t the foot of a steep
incline, near the smelter, and was so arranged as t o
facilitate the transfer of the copper from the stamp mill
to the smelter, the latter being situated near the
water's edge; it was on an arm extending from Lake
Superior into the peninsula, almost separating Keweenaw
Point from the'mainland: At the upper end of that
arm was a narrow strip of land connecting the peninsula with the mainland. While I was there, in 1870,
the U. S. Government began to cut a channel through
this, to make a shorter and safer route for shipping to
the upper end of Lake Superior.
On arriving at the stamp mill, the roasted ore was
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dumped into chutes from whence it was fed by gravity
under the stamps. The mill contained a row of stamps,
the stems of which were of hard wood, squared, and
about 20 ft. long; a steel shoe was fastened to the lower
end. Steel pins were inserted a t suitable distances; a
cam, which engaged the pins, raised the stamp to a
given height and then let it fall of its own weight. The
mortar was an iron box, strong enough to resist the
crushing force of the falling stamp. It had holes in its
front, to permit flushing out of the crushed ore by a
strong stream of water which fell over the cliff from
behind the ore chutes. Such copper as could not be
flushed out of the box was shoveled out a t intervals
and taken to the smelter.
PRIMITIVE
MILLINGMETHODS
The crushed material flushed out of the box flowed
in succession over three tables arranged in front of
each stamp, each table being lower than the preceding
one. The tables were kept in constant motion by a
vibrating mechanism. The material flowing from the
third table, still containing considerable fine copper,
was conducted to an adjoining vat where the water,
with its suspended copper, was kept slightly agitated
by a broom moving round and round in the vat upon the
'surface of the water. The overflow from this vat still
contained "flour" copper, to extract which the water
ran into a large hogshead wherein it was slightly agitated
by an arrangement which struck lightly the side of the
hogshead; this tended to precipitate the flour copper
while the water overflowed into the lake. I was told
that this flour copper was given to the employees as a
sort of bonus.
The stamp mill has always been a sore spot in the
experience of mining engineers. The variability of the
stresses, due to the nature of the work, introduced complex factors. I n the early 901s,a t an annual meeting of
the Institute, the inexplicable and frequent breaking of
stamp stems was freely discussed, and a remedy was
sought. The writer published an article on the subject,
in the Iron Age, suggesting that the cause of the phenomenon was improper heat-treatment of stamp stems
which would leave certain portions of the stem highly
predisposed to fatigue.
A study of the early history of American industry
gives a valuable background against which to estimate
the work of our pioneer engineers. For example,
consider the progress in the iron industry from the time
when Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts, wrote to
' his son in 1648 that their blast furnace near Lynn was
doing exceedingly well, producing ten tons of pig
iron per week, to the time when Pittsburg furnaces
were able to turn out 500 tons of pig iron in 24 hours.
Even 50 years ago, before the advent of ',he high-grade
Lake Superior ore in quantity, the production of pig
iron a t the rate of 10 tons a day was considered
.highly favorable.