Part 25

But afterwards, as things went on, all was altered when it came to preparing the treaties.

For a while the idea, not only of a reparation of damages, but of the payment of the cost of the War was entertained. It was maintained that the practice of making the vanquished reimburse the cost of the War was permitted by international law. Since Germany had provoked the War and lost it, she must not only furnish an indemnity for the losses, but also pay the cost.

The cost was calculated roughly at seven hundred milliards of francs at par. Further, there was the damage to assess. In the aggregate, war costs, damage to property, damage to persons, came to at least one thousand milliards. But since it was impossible to demand immediate payment and was necessary to spread the sum over fifty years, taking into consideration sinking funds and interest the total came to three thousand milliards. The amount was published by the illustrated papers with the usual diagrams, drawings of golden globes, length of paper money if stretched out, height of metal if all piled up together, etc. etc.

These figures were discussed for the first few months by a public accustomed to be surprised at nothing. They merely helped to demonstrate that an indemnity of 350 milliards was a real sacrifice for the Allies.

Thus a whole series of principles came to be established which were a contradiction of reality.

A great share in the responsibility in this matter lies with Great Britain, who not only followed France's error, but in certain ways made it worse by a number of intemperate requests. Italy had no influence on the proceedings owing to her indecisive policy. Only the United States, notwithstanding the banality of some of her experts (lucus a non lucendo), spoke an occasional word of reason.

When Lloyd George understood the mistake committed in the matter of the indemnity it was too late.

The English public found itself face to face with the elections almost the day after the conclusion of the War. In the existing state of exaltation and hatred the candidates found a convenient "plank" in promising the extermination of Germany, the trial of the Kaiser, as well as of thousands of German officers accused of cruelty, and last, but not least, the end of German competition.

The Prime Minister of Australia, William Morris Hughes, a small-minded, insensitive, violent man, directed a furious campaign in favour of a huge indemnity. Lord Northcliffe lent the aid of his numerous papers to this campaign, which stirred up the electors.

Lloyd George, with his admirable intelligence, perceived the situation clearly. He did not believe in the usefulness or even in the possibility of trying the Kaiser and the German officers. He did not believe in the possibility of an enormous indemnity or even a very large one.

His first statements, like those of Bonar Law, a serious, honest, well-balanced man, an idealist with the appearance of a practical person, revealed nothing. On the eve of the dissolution of Parliament, Lloyd George, speaking at Wolverhampton, November 24, 1918, did not even hint at the question of the reparations or indemnity. He was impelled along that track by the movement coming from France, by the behaviour of the candidates, by Hughes's attitude, and by the Press generally, especially that of Northcliffe.

A most vulgar spectacle was offered by many of the English candidates, among whom were several members of the War Cabinet, who used language worthy of raving dervishes before crowds hypnotized by promises of the most impossible things.

To promise the electors that Germany should pay the cost of the War, to announce to those who had lost their senses that the Kaiser was to be hanged, to promise the arrest and punishment of the most guilty German officers, to prophesy the reduction to slavery of a Germany competing on sea and land, was certainly the easiest kind of electoral programme. The numerous war-mutilated accepted it with much enthusiasm, and the people listened, open-mouthed, to the endless series of promises.

Hughes, who was at bottom in good faith, developed the thesis which he afterwards upheld at Paris with logical precision. It was Germany's duty to reimburse, without any limitation, the entire cost of the War: damage to property, damage to persons, and war-cost. He who has committed the wrong must make reparation for it to the extreme limits of his resources, and this principle, recognized by the jurists, requires that the total of the whole cost of the War fall upon the enemy nations. Later on, Hughes, who was a sincere man, recognized that it was not possible to go beyond asking for reparation of the damages.

Lloyd George was dragged along by the necessity of not drawing away the mass of the electors from the candidates of his party. Thus he was obliged on December 11, in his final manifesto, to announce not only the Kaiser's trial and that of all those responsible for atrocities, but to promise the most extensive kind of indemnity from Germany and the compensation of all who had suffered by the War. Speaking the same evening at Bristol, he promised to uphold the principle of the indemnity, and asserted the absolute right to demand from Germany payment for the costs of the War.

In England, where the illusion soon passed away, in France, where it has not yet been dissipated, the public has been allowed to believe that Germany can pay the greater part, if not the entire cost, of the War, or at least make compensation for the damage.

For many years I have studied the figures in relation to private wealth and the wealth of nations, and I have written at length on the subject. I know how difficult it is to obtain by means of even approximate statistics results more or less near to the reality. Nothing pained me more than to hear the facility with which politicians of repute spoke of obtaining an indemnity of hundreds of milliards. When Germany expressed her desire to pay an indemnity in one agreed lump sum (à forfait) of one hundred milliards of gold marks (an indemnity she could never pay, so enormous is it), I saw statesmen, whom I imagined not deprived of intelligence, smile at the paltriness of the offer. An indemnity of fifty milliards of gold marks, such as that proposed by Keynes, appeared absurd in its smallness.

When the Peace Conference reassembled in Paris the situation concerning the indemnity was as follows. The Entente had never during the War spoken of indemnity as a condition of peace. Wilson, in his proposals, had spoken only of reconstruction of invaded territories. The request for réparation des dommages had been included in the terms of the armistice merely to afford a moral satisfaction to France. But the campaign waged in France and during the elections in England had exaggerated the demands so as to include not only reparation for damage but reimbursement of the cost of the War.

Only the United States maintained that the indemnity should be limited to the reparation of the damages: a reparation which in later phases included not only reconstruction of destroyed territories and damage done to private property, but even pensions to the families of those dead in the War and the sums in grant paid during it.

When Prussia beat France in 1870 she asked for an indemnity of five milliards. The Entente could have demanded from the vanquished an indemnity and then have reassumed relations with them provided it were an indemnity which they could pay in a brief period of time.

Instead, it being impossible to demand an enormous sum of 300 or 400 milliards, a difficult figure to fix definitely, recourse was had to another expedient.

From the moment that the phrase réparation des dommages was included in the armistice treaty as a claim that could be urged, it became impossible to ask for a fixed sum. What was to be asked for was neither more nor less than the amount of the damages. Hence a special commission was required, and the Reparations Commission appears on the scene to decide the sum to demand from Germany and to control its payment. Also even after Germany was disarmed a portion of her territory must remain in the Allies' hands as a guarantee for the execution of the treaty.

The reason why France has always been opposed to a rapid conclusion of the indemnity question is that she may continue to have the right, in view of the question remaining still open, to occupy the left bank of the Rhine and to keep the bridgeheads indicated in the treaty.

The thesis supported by Clemenceau at the Conference was a simple one: Germany must recognize the total amount of her debt; it is not enough to say that we recognize it.

I demand in the name of the French Government, and after having consulted my colleagues, that the Peace Treaty fixes Germany's debt to us and indicates the nature of the damages for which reparation is due. We will fix a period of thirty years if you so wish it, and we will give to the Commission, after it has reduced the debt to figures, the mandate to make Germany pay within these thirty years all she owes us. If the whole debt cannot be paid in thirty years the Commission will have the right to extend the time for payment.

This scheme was agreed. And the thesis of the compensation of damages, instead of that for the payment of the cost of the War, prevailed for a very simple reason. If they proposed to demand for all integral reparations, and therefore the reimbursement of the cost of the War, the figures would have been enormous. It became necessary to reduce all the credits proportionally, as in the case of a bankruptcy. Now, since in the matter of the indemnities France occupied the first place (to begin with, she asked sixty-five per cent. of all sums paid by Germany), she took the greater part of the indemnities, while on the sums paid for reimbursement of cost of war, she would only have got less than twenty per cent.

Germany has therefore been put under control for all the time she will be paying the indemnities--that is, for an indefinite time.

The valuation of the expenses for the reconstruction of the ruined territories had to be carried out according to the regulations of the treaty, and, the prices having increased, the French Government presented in July, 1920, a first approximate valuation: damages, 152 milliards; pensions, 58 milliards; in all, 210 milliards. In November, 1920, the damages had increased to 218 milliards.