But two days later came the _putch_ of Kapp and Lüttwitz. Berlin fell into the hands of a military faction who announced openly their determination to bring back the old régime. The regular government fled to Stuttgart, where it hastily convoked the National Assembly. A general strike was declared everywhere. Defeated by this, Kapp and Lüttwitz fled and the regular government came back to Berlin. But the workers refused to resume work without receiving first the guarantees they considered necessary against the return of the military dictatorship. Then followed also troubles in the Ruhr and the occupation of German cities on the right bank of the Rhine by Franco-Belgian troops. All these events were too important and upset too profoundly the political situation to make it feasible to go on without an immediate consultation with the people of Germany. Therefore, after hastily enacting the last of the immediately urgent laws, particularly electoral provisions, the Assembly dissolved at the end of May, 1920. CHAPTER II TOWARD A UNITARY STATE The first question with which the National Assembly found itself confronted and which had to be decided was whether the German Reich was to remain a federated state or whether it was to become a unitary state; or, supposing that an intermediate solution were obtainable, to what extent it could partake of the characteristics of one or the other type of state. The unitary state possesses an undivided and exclusive sovereignty. There is unity of law, of power and of will with one Constitution, one administration and one authority. The type of such a unitary state is France. To the unitary state is opposed the composite state in which co-exist several sovereignties, those of the member states as well as that of the central government. For, there are two principal types of federated states: the confederation of states, which has as its basis an international treaty and the expression of whose will is only the sum total of the wishes of its member states; each component state retains its sovereignty, but certain attributes of that sovereignty are exercised in common through the confederate organs. The other type is the federal state, which has as its basis a constitution and which possesses a sovereignty necessary for the performance of its duties, the exercise of its rights and its independent will.