...This chapter focuses on the disparate impact of French hegemony on Central Europe's industrialists in former German and Austro-Hungarian empires. French investors and the Paris government were active in Alsace-Lorraine, and East-Central Europe to replace the Russian alliance and investments...

... corporations could trade with France and Germany duty-free since the Paris government's military hegemony in Central Europe effectively forced Germany to receive products duty-free from the former Reichsland. However, the conclusion of treaties on the economy by French and German technocrats began...