The German government fell into arrears with war reparations payments. In response, on 8 March 1921, French and Belgian troops moved in to occupy Duisburg and Düsseldorf. On 9 January 1923 the Reparations Commission determined that Germany had willfully held back from making payments due, and two days later troops occupied the rest of the Ruhr Area: thus the Rhineland's richest industrial region now bore, on behalf of Germany, the principal burden of the reparations imposed at Versailles. In the fighting that followed more than a hundred people lost their lives. More than 70,000 were turned out in order to make space for French and Belgian workers. Mostly young men, those suddenly evicted and deprived of their livelihoods frequently found themselves homeless and some ended up joining one or other of the various active Rhenish separatist groups. Respectable Rhinelanders, appalled at their unkempt appearance, were inclined to dismiss the dispossessed as work-shy thieving riff-raff ("").