<P> In early 1923, Germany defaulted on its war reparations payments and German coal producers refused to ship any more coal across the border . In response to this, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr River valley inside the borders of Germany in order to compel the German government to continue to ship coal and coke in the quantities demanded by the Versailles Treaty, which, contrary to German propaganda at the time (which characterized the coal shipments as onerous), was only 60% of what Germany had been shipping into the same area before the war began . </P> <P> This occupation of the centre of the German coal and steel industries outraged the German people . They passively resisted the occupation, and the economy suffered, contributing further to the German hyperinflation . </P> <P> To simultaneously defuse this situation and increase the chances of Germany resuming reparation payments, the Allied Reparations Commission asked Dawes to find a solution fast . The Dawes committee, which was urged into action by Britain and the United States, consisted of ten informal expert representatives, two each from Belgium (Baron Maurice Houtart, Emile Francqui), France (Jean Parmentier, Edgard Allix), Britain (Sir Josiah C. Stamp, Sir Robert M. Kindersley), Italy (Alberto Pirelli, Federico Flora), and the United States (Dawes and Owen D. Young, who were appointed by Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover). It was entrusted with finding a solution for the collection of the German reparations debt, which was determined to be 132 billion gold marks, as well as declaring that America would provide loans to the Germans, in order that they could make reparations payments to the United States, Britain and France . </P> <P> In an agreement of August 1924, the main points of The Dawes Plan were: </P>

How did the dawes plan benefit the united states