March 8, 1921. The Occupation of the Ruhr Commences.

French, Belgian and British troops occupied Düsseldorf, Duisburg, and Ruhrort due to German reparation payment failures.  The U.S., meanwhile, announced that it would continue to occupy the Rhineland.

It's well know that the French "occupied the Ruhr" in 1923, but it rarely seems to be  understood that this started as an overall Allied action in 1921.  The initiation of the occupation was limited, but none the less the event didn't start in 1923, but 1921.

December 18, 1920. Anticipating Christmas

Norman Rockwell was contemplating Christmas, just a week away, on his cover illustration.
 

In Germany the Allied Disarmament Commission order the German government to conduct house to house searches for firearms.  

I've never seen this really fully explained.  In looking at it, I think they were looking for military weapons, but you rarely see it fleshed out. An example of bad historical detailing, as it leads, I suspect, to a misunderstanding of what was occurring, or it would be truly an example of Versailles Treaty overreach, the cited examples of which often are not.

July 5, 1920 Delegations.

James M. Cox was chosen by the delegates to the Democratic Party to be that party's nominee for President for the 1920 race.  His running mate was Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Cox was the Governor of Ohio at the time, but he's best remembered today for being a newspaperman who founded Cox Enterprises.  He lived until 1957.

On the same day, the Spa Conference in Spa, Belgium, commenced. The conference was between the victorious Allied powers of the Great War and Weimar Germany.

Allied delegates to the Spa Conference.

The topics were principally those associated with implementing the details of the Versailles Treaty.

June 10, 1920. Activities in and about Washington.

Republican Convention, June 10, 1920.

While the Republican Convention was going on in Chicago, back in Washington the Federal Water Power Act, now the Federal Power Act, went into law The act regulated hydroelectric activities and is the basis for power regulation in the United States.

Also in Washington some young women were getting a lesson in baseball.

Germany on this day announced that it had reduced the size of its army to 200,000 men in compliance with the Versailles Treaty.

May 14, 1920. Flights

 "General William Mitchell, Chief of the Air Service today formally opened the big air tournament at Boling [ie. Bolling] field, the first of its kind to be held. Congressman P. P. Campbell accompanied General Mitchell on the opening flight."  May 14, 1920.

On this day Mexican revolutionaries captured the Carranza cabinet, but not Carranza himself who managed to elude capture, taking with him a body of seemingly loyal troops and coins from the treasury.

The rebels were offering Carranza safe passage into exile, but he was having none of it.

The rebels also on this day called the Mexican congress into session to solve the problem of leadership in advance of an election.

Warren G. Harding.

Warren G. Harding, Presidential candidate for 1920, urged a return to normalcy in a speech at the Home Market Club in Boston.:

My countrymen, there isn’t anything the matter with world civilization, except that humanity is viewing it through a vision impaired in a cataclysmal war. Poise has been disturbed, and nerves have been racked, and fever has rendered men irrational; sometimes there have been draughts upon the dangerous cup of barbarity, and men have wandered far from safe paths, but the human procession still marches in the right direction.  

America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate; not experiment, but equipoise; not submergence in internationality, but sustainment in triumphant nationality. It is one thing to battle successfully against world domination by military autocracy, because the infinite God never intended such a program, but it is quite another thing to revise human nature and suspend the fundamental laws of life and all of life’s acquirement. 

This republic has its ample task. If we put an end to false economics which lure humanity to utter chaos, ours will be the commanding example of world leadership today. If we can prove a representative popular government under which a citizenship seeks what it may do for the government rather than what the government may do for individuals, we shall do more to make democracy safe for the world than all armed conflict ever recorded. 

The world needs to be reminded that all human ills are not curable by legislation, and that quantity of statutory enactment and excess of government offer no substitute for quality of citizenship. The problems of maintained civilization are not to be solved by a transfer of responsibility from citizenship to government, and no eminent page in history was ever drafted by the standards of mediocrity. More, no government is worthy of the name which is directed by influence on the one hand, or moved by intimidation on the other. 

My best judgment of America’s need is to steady down, to get squarely on our feet, to make sure of the right path. Let’s get out of the fevered delirium of war, with the hallucination that all the money in the world is to be made in the madness of war and the wildness of its aftermath. Let us stop to consider that tranquility at home is more precious than peace abroad, and that both our good fortune and our eminence are dependent on the normal forward stride of all the American people. We want to go on, secure and unafraid, holding fast to the American inheritance, and confident of the supreme American fulfillment.

Harding had entered the race some time earlier, but he was not doing well in it.

Harding campaigning in 1920.

The speech changed that, and its primary tag line, "a return to normalcy", became the theme of his campaign.  

The Republican nominee would have been Theodore Roosevelt, who by that time really didn't want it, but for his death in January 1919.  Suffice it to say, a return to normalcy would not have been the theme of Roosevelt's campaign, had there been one.

On the same day, Bulgaria ceded Western Thrace to Greece.

May 8, 1920 Endings

On this day in 1920, the Luftstreitkräfte, the World War One equivalent of the Luftwaffe, more or less, officially came to an end.

Disassembled German aircraft on display in London, 1918.

The organization, not surprisingly, had gone through several names and structures before achieving its final one in October 1916.  It did not include naval flyers, who remained in the navy, and its association with the German army was organizational such that it was part of the army.  It oddly did not include every German army pilot, however, as Bavaria retained an element of organizational control over men recruited from its territory, including at least theoretically its own air force.

After the German surrender it basically came to an end and its one and only commander, Ernst von Hoeppner, left his appointed position as its chief in January 1919 as part of the dissolution of the force in accordance with the Treaty of Versailles which prohibited the Germans from having military aircraft.  After that point it existed on paper until this day in 1920.

Ernst von Hoeppner, the commander of the Luftstreitkräfte from October 1916 until January 1919.  He returned to the cavalry branch from which he had come and retired in November 1919, dying from the flu at age 62 in 1922.

The German government did field aircraft as late as 1920 when it put down the Ruhr Rebellion, but those aircraft and their pilots were at least theoretically in the Freikorps.

On the German air arm and symbols, an interesting thing to note is how the stylized cross borrowed from the Teutonic Knights has evolved in the German air arm. From 1914 to 1915, it was the full cross pattée associated somewhat inaccurately with the Medieval crusading order that was painted on the sides and wings of German aircraft.  In reality, the Teutonic Knights only occasionally employed this style of cross, but it was heavil adopted by the German crown after unification of the country during the Franco Prussian War.

German cross pattée originally used on German aircraft.

In 1915, the cross pattée was slimmed down a bit for some reason.

Cross pattée used from 1915 until March 1918.

In March 1918, it was made a simple straight cross.

German aircraft symbol from March 1918 until the end of the war.

The revived Luftwaffe continued to use the simple cross throughout its existence from 1935 until 1945, in a modified form that added emphasis to the lines, but when the post war Luftwaffe was recreated, it went back, with the rest of the German military, to the cross pattée.

While the German air arm was disappearing, the Carranza government was as well.

What started as an effort to control who would be his successor was rapidly and obviously going down the tubes, although Carranza was not conceding anything.  Forces were lining up against him, including those of the improbably named Gen. Benjamin Hill, who would die under suspicious circumstances that following December.

As Mexico was increasingly headed leftward, American leftists were on the front cover of the papers as well, claiming that Woodrow Wilson had broken faith with them.  His government certainly hadn't been kind to them recently.

The news from the oil patch was strangely similar to today's.

Wyoming Oil World was reporting that petroleum prices had fallen to an all time low.

Washington D.C. was having a dog show and some well known names were going to it.

Seventh annual Dog Show of the Washington Kennel Club.  Franklin Roosevelt and his daughter Anna in photo.

March 27, 1920. Germany's Treaty Violations noted, Borah says something about Wood, maybe.

On this day in 1920 the German civil war in regions left inside the Versailles Treaties prohibition on German military power continued on in rebellion. Both the Ruhr and Westphalia had seen armed worker revolts as a result of the Kapp Putsch and now neither region's labor fighters were willing to stand down and instead were trying to take German in a more leftward direction.  The Allies, however, wouldn't agree to let the German Army in.

On the same day, Germany was found to have violated the Treaty, which in fact was pretty obvious.  Germany had been limited to 204 artillery pieces and was prohibited to have aircraft, but in fact, through the help of the quasi official but technically civilian Freikorps, it had 12,000 artillery pieces and 6,000 aircraft.

The size limitations placed on the German military were never realistic, no matter what a person otherwise thinks of the Versailles Treaty. Indeed, the Weimar Republic had no choice but to violate them.  Realistically, the only alternative the Allies had to allowing Germany to have a fairly sizable military would have been to actually occupy the country, as it did following World War Two.  As it was, Germany was left a functioning, albeit barely, republican state that had to contend with internal revolution as well as a very unstable situation in the immediate post war world to its east.  Those concerns practically necessitated the retention of artillery and aircraft.

Their prohibition and the very early incentive to avoid that prohibition, which in part was done through the reliance on right wing monarchical militias help fuel a sense of resentment in the military which would later help bring about the Second World War.  It was certainly not solely responsible for it by any means, but it was an element of that.

On the same day the Cheyenne State Leader opted for a nearly nonsensical primary election headline.

Apparently that meant that highly respected Senator Borah of Idaho was taking some swipes at leading GOP Presidential contender, General Leonard Wood.

Elsewhere, on this Saturday, people went shopping.

March 19, 1920. Kapp gone, but Germany in turmoil, Storms in southern Wyoming, Storms in Chaplin marriage, Senate fails to ratify Versailles Treaty.

Ebert's government was restored, but still challenged.  In the Ruhr a Communist rebellion was still very active.

On the same day, news of a huge storm in southern Wyoming was making headlines, . . . and a century later another blizzard is expected in the state.

In Cheyenne the new of the marital troubles of the Chaplins, which involved the former Mildred Harris of Cheyenne, Chaplin's first wife, were front page news.  The couple would in fact divorce that year.

A majority of the Senate voted to ratify the Versailles Treaty, but it was still seven votes short of the number needed to ratify the treaty.

The Senate did vote support for Ireland's independence.

Yaqui Indians surrendered to Mexican troops causing a headline that proclaimed that the Mexican Revolution was now over.  On the same day Soviet newspapers were reporting that Alaska wished to succeed from the United States and join the Soviet Union, an early example of "fake news" involving Russia.

March 15, 1920. The Ides of March sees Germany in near revolt, the Allies in Constantinople, Congress Acting on the Versailles Treaty, and a Blizzard in North Dakota.

The headline was quite correct, a new civil war loomed in Germany, but at the same time the Reichswehr was pulling back from the putschists, proving once again that the army's instinct for self preservation remained paramount.

And perhaps it also reflected the fact that the rank and file of the Germany army differed little from the average man in the street to some degree.  This was no doubt not the case for the Freikorps, but German soldiers had played a role in the revolution of 1918, something that their leaders couldn't afford to forget.

Not forgotten in the U.S. was the Treaty of Versailles. The Senate ratified it, but not as written, substituting a compromise alternative Article X.

On the same day, but only hinted at here, British forces, acting under the Treaty of Sevres, occupied Constantinople.  The Allies in Turkey were acting as if the surrender of the Ottoman regime meant that the end of Turkey as a state capable of waging war against those on their own soil was over, which was far from true, and which would ultimately lead to disaster.

Allied troops marching in Constantinople, Greek flag flying from a building.

The occupation of the Ottoman capital city did not go well.  It commenced the night prior and was expansive on this day.  British Indian troops engaged in gunfire at a Turkish military school, killing ten students and British authorities arrested Turkish nationalist, including some members of the Ottoman parliament.  The overall human toll on the occupation isn't known.

The occupation of the parliament effectively eliminated the Turkish government which in turn put only the Sultan in a position of supporting the peace treaty with the Allies.  This would discredit the peace and a putative government anticipated by the treaty, which in fact had not yet been signed by the Turks.  The entire affair would strengthen Turkish nationalist who were already fighting the Allies in Anatolia.  

Constantinople would be occupied until 1923 when it was evacuated under the terms of a treat with the new Turkish government, the result of which would in part be the expulsion of most of Turkey's Greek minority population.

Closer to home, the deadly Spring Blizzard of 1920 hit North Dakota.

And U.S. passports suddenly became invalid due to Robert Lansing departing the office of Secretary of State with no replacement in place.  The crisis would continue for a week until Bainbridge Colby was confirmed for the office.

March 9, 1920. Primaries, Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Anarchists and Smoking.

On this day in 1920 the New Hampshire Primaries were held.  It was the first time that New Hampshire's primary had the "first in the nation" status and only the second time it had been held, having been established in 1916.

The top Republican vote getter was Gen. Leonard Wood, where as the top Democrat was Herbert Hoover.

Wood was a physician and career Army officer who was a close associate of Theodore Roosevelt. That was part of the reason that Wood had been bypassed for the senior command of the U.S. Army in France during World War One, but only part of the reason.  That same association, however, made him a very serious contender for the 1920 Republican nomination.

Hoover, a mining engineer by trade, had come into the public eye due to his leadership of relief efforts in Europe following World War One.  During the war and following it he'd urged that taxes be raised and he'd been a critic of the Palmer raids.  He ran on Progressive policies such as the establishment of a minimum wage, the elimination of child labor, and a forty-eight hour work week.  While he did well in the New Hampshire primary as a Democrat, that very month he switched parties and in 1928 he ran, successfully, as a Republican.

Regarding politics, elsewhere Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman met with Lenin. They were among those who had been deported several weeks prior.  Both had been born in Imperial Russia and their radicalism resulted in their being rounded up and sent back there just prior to the Palmer Raids.

In meeting with Lenin they complained about Communists treatment of anarchists and lack of freedom of the press.  Lenin told them to pound sand.  Both would later write books about their delusionment with Soviet Russia.

In some ways its hard not to regard both of them as completely delusional.

In Cheyenne, the paper noted an effort to wipe out smoking by 1925.

The New Hampshire's first in the nation status wasn't a big deal at the time and it didn't make the front page of any Wyoming newspaper on this day.

The troubles over the ratification of the Versailles Treaty, however, did.

With all this news, it's no wonder some folks felt they needed a drink.

January 10, 1920. Germany signs the Protocol and the Great War officially ends (except for the U.S.). . .

And thereby avoids an Allied occupation.

It read:

PROTOCOL SIGNED BY GERMANY JANUARY 10, 1920

At the moment of proceeding to the first deposit of ratifications of the Treaty of Peace, it is placed on record that the following obligations, which Germany had undertaken to execute by the Armistice Conventions and supplementary Agreements, have not been executed or have not been completely fulfilled:
(1) Armistice Convention of November 11,1918/5 Clause VII; obligation to deliver 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons. 42 locomotives and 4,460 wagons are still to be delivered;
(2) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XII; obligation to withdraw the German troops in Russian territory within the frontiers of Germany, as soon as the' Allies shall think the moment suitable. The withdrawal of these troops has not been effected, despite the reiterated instructions of August 27, September 27 and October 10, 1919;
(3) Armistice Convention of November 11,1918, Clause XIV; obligation to cease at once all requisitions, seizures or coercive measures in Russian territory. The German troops have continued to have recourse to such measures;
(4) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XIX; obligation to return immediately all documents, specie, stocks, shares, paper money, together with plant for the issue thereof, affecting public or private interests in the invaded countries. The complete lists of specie and securities carried off, collected or confiscated by the Germans in the invaded countries have not been supplied;
(5) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XXII; obligation to surrender all German submarines. Destruction of the German submarine U.C. 48 off Ferrol by order of her German commander, and destruction in the North Sea of certain submarines proceeding to England for surrender;
(6) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XXIII; obligation to maintain in Allied ports the German ~arships designated by the Allied and Associated Powers, these ships being intended to be ultimately handedover. Clause XXXI; obligation not to destroy any ship before delivery. Destruction of the said ships at Scapa Flow on June 21, 1919;
(7) Protocol of December 17, 1918, Annex to the Armistice Convention of December 13, 1918; obligation to restore the works of art and artistic documents carried off in France and Belgium. All the works of art removed into the unoccupied parts of Germany have not been restored;
(8) Armistice Convention of January 16, 1919/6 Clause III and Protocol 392/1 Additional Clause III of July 25, 1919; obligation to hand over agricultural machinery in the place of the supplementary railway material provided for in Tables 1 and 2 annexed to the Protocol of Spa of December 17, 1918. The following machines had not been delivered on the stipulated date of October 1, 1919. 40 "Heucke" steam plough outfits; all the cultivators for the outfits; all the spades; 1,500 shovels; 1,130 T.F. 23/26 ploughs; 1,765 T.F. 18/21 ploughs; 1,512 T.F. 23/26 ploughs; 629 T.F. 0 m. 20 Brabant ploughs; 1,205 T.F.o m. 26 Brabant ploughs; 4,282 harrows of 2 k. 500; 2,157 steel cultivators; 966 2 m. 50 manure distributors; 1,608 3 m. 50 manure distributors;
(9) Armistice Convention of January 16, 1919, Clause VI; obligation to restore the industrial material carried off from French and Belgian territory. All this material has not been restored;
(10) Convention of January 16,1919, Clause VIII; obligation to place the German merchant fleet under the control of the Allied and Associated Powers. A certain number of ships whose delivery had been demanded under this clause have not yet been handed over;
(11) Protocols of the Conferences of Brussels of March 13 and 14, 1919; obligation not to export war material of all kinds. Exportation of aeronautical material to Sweden, Holland and Denmark.
A certain number of the above provisions which have not been executed or have not been executed in full have been renewed by the Treaty of June 28, 1919, whose coming into force will ipso facto render the sanctions there provided applicable. This applies particularly to the various measures to be taken on account of reparation.
Further, the question of the evacuation of the Baltic provinces has been the subject of an exchange of notes and of decisions which are being carried out. The Allied and Associated Powers expressly confirming the contents of their notes, Germany by the present Protocol undertakes to continue to execute them faithfully and strictly.
Finally, as the Allied and Associated Powers could not allow to p'ass without penalty the other failures to execute the Armistice Conventions and violations so serious as the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow, the destruction of U.C. 48 off Ferrol and the destruction in the North Sea ofcertain submarines on their way to England for surrender, Germany undertakes:
(1) A. To hand over as reparation for the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow: .
(a) Within 60 days from the date of the signature of the present Protocol and in the conditions laid down in the second paragraph of Article 185 of the Treaty of Peace the five following light cruisers:
Konigsberg,
Pillau,
Graudenz,
Regensburg,
Strassburg.
(b) Within 90 days from the date of the signature of the present Protocol, and in good condition and ready for service in every respect, such a number of floating docks, floating cranes, tugs and dredgers, equivalent to a total displacement of 400,000 tons, as the Principal Allied and Associated Powers may require. As regards the docks, the lifting power will be considered as the displacement. In the number of docks referred to above there will be about 75 per cent. of docks over 10,000 tons. The whole of this material will be handed over on the spot;
B. To deliver within 10 days from the signature of the present Protocol a complete list of all floating docks, floating cranes, tugs and dredgers which are German property. This list, which will be delivered to the Naval Inter Allied Commission of Control referred to in Article 209 of the Treaty of Peace, will specify the material which on November 11, 1918, belonged to the German Government or in which the German Government had at that date an important interest;
C. The officers and men who formed the crews of the warships sunk at Scapa Flow and who are at present detained by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers will, with the exception of those whose surrender is provided for by Article 228 of the Treaty of Peace, be repatriated at latest when Germany has carried out the provisions of Paragraphs A. and B. above;
D. The destroyer B. 98 will be considered as one of the 42 destroyers whose delivery is provided for by Article 185 of the Treaty of Peace;
(2) To hand over within 10 days from the signature of the present Protocol the engines and motors of the submarines U. 137 and U. 138 as compensation for the destruction of U.C. 48;
(3) To pay to the Allied and Associated Governments before January 31, 1920, the value of the aeronautical material exported, in accordance with the decision which will be given and the valuation which will be made and notified by the Aeronautical Inter-Allied Commission of Control referred to in Article 210 of the Treaty of Peace. In the event of Germany not fulfilling these obligations within the periods laid down above, the Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to take all military or other measures of coercion which they may consider appropriate.
Done at Paris, the tenth day of January, one thousand nine hundred and twenty, at four o'clock p.m. [For Germany:] V. SIMSON FREIHERR VON LERSNER

The ongoing refusal of the United States to ratify the Versailles Treaty meant that for the U.S., World War One technically remained ongoing.

Today, due to the treaty, was the beginning date for the League of Nations, which technically remained in existence until 1946.

Senate Minority Leader, Oscar Underwood.

In the U.S., the House of Representatives refused to seat Victor L. Berger, a duly elected member from Winsconson, who had been convicted under the Espionage Act.  Berger was an Austrian American member of the Socialist Party whose newspaper had been opposed to the war. The Supreme Court would overturn his conviction in 1921.

 Victor L. Berger after Congress refused to seat him in the House of Representatives, January 10, 1920.

World War One, therefore, remained very much a thing.

In Washington D. C., representatives of the Soviet Union were in town.

Mr. L. Martens, Representative of the Russian Soviet Republic and his party photographed in Washington, D.C., January 10, 1920. Left to Right Mr. G. Nuorteva, Secty. Mrs. Nuorteva, their son Matti Nuorteva, Kenneth Durant Publicity Representative and Mr. Martens.

In Russia, a platoon of American soldiers under Sheridan Wyoming's 2d Lt. Paul Kendall defeated an attack by a Soviet armored train near Posolyskaya, Siberia (entry from WyoHistory.org).  Armored trains had become a strange but big feature of the Russian Civil War.

Kendall had been born in Kansas but raised in Sheridan.  He entered West Point in 1916 and graduated in 1918, due to the shortened class cycle World War One caused.  He received the Distinguished Service Cross for his action in Siberia on this day.

Kendall would go on to a career in the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of Lt. Gen., commanding troops in World War Two and the Korean War.  

January 6, 1920. Peace Secured. Protestants Unite? Suffrage Advances.

The headline news for this day, January 6, 1920, was that a treaty was to be signed between the victorious Allies and the Germans.  Or, more properly, a protocol to the Versailles Treaty

More properly, this was an amendment to the Versailles Treaty altering and amending some of its terms.  Germany's reluctance to enter into a protocol had lead the Allies and Germany back to the brink of war several months earlier, an event now wholly forgotten, but in the end the amendment had been worked out.

The U.S. Senate had not ratified the original text and would still not be ratifying the treaty in its entirety.

The Casper paper was also reporting that a new Wyoming corporation had been formed to build or take over the manufacturing of the Curtis Aircraft line.  I've never heard of this before and Wikipedia sheds no light on what was going on with this story.  Does anyone know the details?

Also making headlines was an effort to unite the nation's Protestant churches into a single organization. The headlines are apparently a bit misleading as they would suggest that the individual denominations were set to be united, which was not the proposal.

Also misleading, today, is the use of the term "United Church of Christ". That denomination would not come about until 1957.

On the same day, Kentucky and Rhode Island passed the 19th Amendment.

Suffrage supporters watching the Governor of Kentucky sign his state's passage of the 19th Amendment.

And Walt experienced something that I routinely do a century later.

December 8, 1919. Wars averted and freezing in the dark.

The protocol the Germans were asked to accept due to their failure to fully comply with the provisions of the Versailles Treaty was modified, including taking out a use of force provision.

Resumed war, or quasi war, or at least military occupation of/with German, was thereby averted.

Meanwhile, President Wilson told Senator Fall to pound sand over a resolution that would have required the United States to sever diplomatic relations with Mexico over the recent Jenkins affair.

It's really debatable if such a resolution was constitutional.  Congress doesn't set diplomatic policy, the President does, and Congress' ability to do a thing like that would have been questionable at best.

And the coal shortage was so bad that it looked like Laramie was going to freeze in the dark on New Year's Eve.

And it'd be a dry New Years at that.

It was in fact already happening, with the restrictions that had been put in place.  And Laramie's notoriously cold weather was already present.

December 6, 1919. Rumors of War.

Germany had failed to comply with all of the provisions of the Versailles Treaty by this date, and as a result, a protocol was issued addressing it, and the German government asked to sign it.  To this date, they had not.

Here's what the protocol stated:

At the moment of proceeding to the first deposit of ratifications of the Treaty of Peace, it is placed on record that the following obligations, which Germany had undertaken to execute by the Armistice Conventions and supplementary Agreements, have not been executed or have not been completely fulfilled:  

(1) Armistice Convention of November 11,1918/5 Clause VII; obligation to deliver 5,000 locomotives and 150,000 wagons. 42 locomotives and 4,460 wagons are still to be delivered;
(2) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XII; obligation to withdraw the German troops in Russian territory within the frontiers of Germany, as soon as the' Allies shall think the moment suitable. The withdrawal of these troops has not been effected, despite the reiterated instructions of August 27, September 27 and October 10, 1919;
(3) Armistice Convention of November 11,1918, Clause XIV; obligation to cease at once all requisitions, seizures or coercive measures in Russian territory. The German troops have continued to have recourse to such measures;
(4) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XIX; obligation to return immediately all documents, specie, stocks, shares, paper money, together with plant for the issue thereof, affecting public or private interests in the invaded countries. The complete lists of specie and securities carried off, collected or confiscated by the Germans in the invaded countries have not been supplied;
(5) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XXII; obligation to surrender all German submarines. Destruction of the German submarine U.C. 48 off Ferrol by order of her German commander, and destruction in the North Sea of certain submarines proceeding to England for surrender;
(6) Armistice Convention of November 11, 1918, Clause XXIII; obligation to maintain in Allied ports the German ~arships designated by the Allied and Associated Powers, these ships being intended to be ultimately handedover. Clause XXXI; obligation not to destroy any ship before delivery. Destruction of the said ships at Scapa Flow on June 21, 1919;
(7) Protocol of December 17, 1918, Annex to the Armistice Convention of December 13, 1918; obligation to restore the works of art and artistic documents carried off in France and Belgium. All the works of art removed into the unoccupied parts of Germany have not been restored;
(8) Armistice Convention of January 16, 1919/6 Clause III and Protocol 392/1 Additional Clause III of July 25, 1919; obligation to hand over agricultural machinery in the place of the supplementary railway material provided for in Tables 1 and 2 annexed to the Protocol of Spa of December 17, 1918. The following machines had not been delivered on the stipulated date of October 1, 1919. 40 "Heucke" steam plough outfits; all the cultivators for the outfits; all the spades; 1,500 shovels; 1,130 T.F. 23/26 ploughs; 1,765 T.F. 18/21 ploughs; 1,512 T.F. 23/26 ploughs; 629 T.F. 0 m. 20 Brabant ploughs; 1,205 T.F.o m. 26 Brabant ploughs; 4,282 harrows of 2 k. 500; 2,157 steel cultivators; 966 2 m. 50 manure distributors; 1,608 3 m. 50 manure distributors;
(9) Armistice Convention of January 16, 1919, Clause VI; obligation to restore the industrial material carried off from French and Belgian territory. All this material has not been restored;
(10) Convention of January 16,1919, Clause VIII; obligation to place the German merchant fleet under the control of the Allied and Associated Powers. A certain number of ships whose delivery had been demanded under this clause have not yet been handed over;
(11) Protocols of the Conferences of Brussels of March 13 and 14, 1919; obligation not to export war material of all kinds. Exportation of aeronautical material to Sweden, Holland and Denmark.  

A certain number of the above provisions which have not been executed or have not been executed in full have been renewed by the Treaty of June 28, 1919, whose coming into force will ipso facto render the sanctions there provided applicable. This applies particularly to the various measures to be taken on account of reparation.
Further, the question of the evacuation of the Baltic provinces has been the subject of an exchange of notes and of decisions which are being carried out. The Allied and Associated Powers expressly confirming the contents of their notes, Germany by the present Protocol undertakes to continue to execute them faithfully and strictly.
Finally, as the Allied and Associated Powers could not allow to p'ass without penalty the other failures to execute the Armistice Conventions and violations so serious as the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow, the destruction of U.C. 48 off Ferrol and the destruction in the North Sea of certain submarines on their way to England for surrender, Germany undertakes:
(1) A. To hand over as reparation for the destruction of the German fleet at Scapa Flow: .
(a) Within 60 days from the date of the signature of the present Protocol and in the conditions laid down in the second paragraph of Article 185 of the Treaty of Peace the five following light cruisers:  

Konigsberg,
Pillau,
Graudenz,
Regensburg,
Strassburg.  

(b) Within 90 days from the date of the signature of the present Protocol, and in good condition and ready for service in every respect, such a number of floating docks, floating cranes, tugs and dredgers, equivalent to a total displacement of 400,000 tons, as the Principal Allied and Associated Powers may require. As regards the docks, the lifting power will be considered as the displacement. In the number of docks referred to above there will be about 75 per cent. of docks over 10,000 tons. The whole of this material will be handed over on the spot;  

B. To deliver within 10 days from the signature of the present Protocol a complete list of all floating docks, floating cranes, tugs and dredgers which are German property. This list, which will be delivered to the Naval Inter Allied Commission of Control referred to in Article 209 of the Treaty of Peace, will specify the material which on November 11, 1918, belonged to the German Government or in which the German Government had at that date an important interest; 

C. The officers and men who formed the crews of the warships sunk at Scapa Flow and who are at present detained by the Principal Allied and Associated Powers will, with the exception of those whose surrender is provided for by Article 228 of the Treaty of Peace, be repatriated at latest when Germany has carried out the provisions of Paragraphs A. and B. above;  

D. The destroyer B. 98 will be considered as one of the 42 destroyers whose delivery is provided for by Article 185 of the Treaty of Peace;  

(2) To hand over within 10 days from the signature of the present Protocol the engines and motors of the submarines U. 137 and U. 138 as compensation for the destruction of U.C. 48;  

(3) To pay to the Allied and Associated Governments before January 31, 1920, the value of the aeronautical material exported, in accordance with the decision which will be given and the valuation which will be made and notified by the Aeronautical Inter-Allied Commission of Control referred to in Article 210 of the Treaty of Peace. In the event of Germany not fulfilling these obligations within the periods laid down above, the Allied and Associated Powers reserve the right to take all military or other measures of coercion which they may consider appropriate.

There Versailles Treaty was complicated to start with, and things clearly hadn't been going smoothly in Germany.  The question now was what to do about it, and the threatened solution was military.

This of course followed the ongoing difficulties with Mexico.  The U.S., for its part, hadn't signed the Versailles Treaty, but it still had troops on occupation duty in the country.

Rumors of war were definitely not going away.  It would be enough to make a person want to curl up with a good book and forget the news of the day.