By late 1928, however, Gilbert had been successful in persuading the Allies to convene a conference in Paris in February 1929 to do just that. He had even convinced the powers in Berlin that though the current situation—no new foreign loans coming in, large debts to nervous French depositors in German banks, and rising domestic unemployment—did not provide the ideal backdrop against which to reopen negotiations, it was best to try to strike a deal now while at least the rest of the world was booming.
