These developments did not pass unnoticed in Europe. Clemenceau and Lloyd George had yielded to Wilson during the first weeks of the Conference because they could not afford to separate their fortunes from the United States, upon whom they depended for economic support, and because an open break with Wilson would weaken their own position with liberals in France and England. But now it became apparent to them that Wilson's position at home was so unstable that they might be justified in adopting a stronger tone. Each of them could point to the tangible evidence of victorious elections and votes of confidence. President Wilson could not. The party in the Senate which, after the 4th of March, would hold the majority, expressly repudiated Wilson's policy. When the President returned to Paris, on the 14th of March, he found a different atmosphere. The League was no longer the central topic of discussion. Concrete questions were uppermost. How much should Germany pay? What territory should be taken from her? How was the Kaiser to be punished? Wilson had been given the satisfaction of securing approval for the principle of the League. Now he must permit the Conference to satisfy the practical aspirations of France, England, and Italy.
It is a tribute to the personality of Wilson that by his presence at this critical juncture, when the attitude of the Allies differed but slightly, if at all, from that of the powers at the Congress of Vienna, he was able to bring back something of the spirit of justice which had been so frequently and loudly declaimed before the armistice, and to repress at least in some degree the excessive claims which demanded satisfaction in the treaties. The plans which, during his absence, had been evolved for the separation of the Covenant from the Treaty and for its postponement, and which had received the hearty support of several French and British diplomats, were quickly dropped. Wilson was able to announce without contradiction, that the Covenant would be an integral part of the Treaty, as decided on the 25th of January. Far more difficult was the situation that resulted from French and British plans for indemnities from Germany, and from the French territorial claims on the Rhine. In each of these matters Wilson could secure nothing better than a compromise.
From the day when peace dawned upon Europe, the question that had touched Allied peoples most closely was, How much will Germany pay? It was not so much the shout of the brutal victor greedy for loot, as the involuntary cry of nations which had seen their homes and factories pulverized, their ships sunk, the flower of their youth killed and maimed, and which now faced years of crushing taxation. They had carried the load of war gallantly and they would enter the struggle for recuperation courageously. But they would not endure that the enemy, which had forced these miseries upon them, should not make good the material damage that had been done. What was the meaning of the word justice, if the innocent victors were to emerge from the war with keener sufferings and more gloomy future than the guilty defeated? Another question stirred the mind of every Frenchman. For generations the eastern frontier of France had lain open to the invasion of the Teuton hordes. The memory of Prussian brutality in 1814 had been kept alive in every school; the horrors of 1870 had been told and retold by participants and eye-witnesses; and the world had seen the German crimes of 1914. From all France the cry went up, How long? It would be the most criminal stupidity if advantage were not taken of the momentary helplessness of the inevitable enemy in order to make that vulnerable frontier secure. This was not the end. Some day the struggle would be renewed. Already, within two months of the armistice, the French General Staff were considering mobilization plans for the next war. France must be made safe while she had the chance.
These feelings had such a hold on the people that the statesmen of Europe would have been over-thrown on the day they forgot them. Popular sentiment was reënforced by practical considerations less justifiable. Crushing indemnities would not merely ease the load of Allied taxation and furnish capital for rapid commercial development; they would also remove Germany as an economic competitor. French control of all territory west of the Rhine would not only assure France against the danger of another German invasion, but would also provide her capitalists with a preponderating economic advantage in regions by no means French in character. Such selfish interests the Americans strove to set aside, although they never forgot their desire to secure as complete justice for the Allies as seemed compatible with a stable and tranquil settlement.
In the matter of indemnities, or reparations as they came to be called, the experts of the various powers soon established the fact that Germany would be unable to pay the total bill of reparation, even at the most conservative reckoning. There was a long discussion as to whether or not the costs of war, aside from material damage done, that had been incurred by the Allies, should be included in the amount that Germany was to pay. It was finally determined, in accordance with the arguments of the American financial delegates who were warmly supported by President Wilson, that such war costs should be excluded. On the other hand it was agreed that pensions might properly be made part of Germany's reparation bill. The two items of damages and pensions were calculated by the American experts as amounting to a total figure of not less than $30,000,000,000 present capital sum, which Germany ought to pay.
The next step was to determine how much Germany could be made to pay. By drafting too severe terms German trade might be destroyed completely and Germany left without the economic capacity to make the money that was to pay the bill. It was obvious to careful students that the total amount which she could turn over to the Allies could not be much more than the excess of her exports over imports; and that even if payments were extended over twenty or thirty years their value for purposes of reparation would probably not much exceed twenty-five billion dollars. Lloyd George in his election pledges had promised that the complete reparations account would be settled by the enemy; neither he nor Clemenceau dared to confess that the sum which could be exacted from Germany would fall far below their early promises. The British experts, Sumner and Cunliffe, continued to encourage Lloyd George in his belief that Germany could afford to pay something in the neighborhood of a hundred billion dollars, and the French Finance Minister, Klotz, was equally optimistic. At first, accordingly, Allied demands on Germany seemed likely to be fantastic.
The Americans, on the other hand, were infinitely more conservative in their estimates of what Germany could pay. Even after certain Allied experts, including Montagu and Loucheur, affirmed the necessity of scaling down the suggested sum of reparations, the difference between the American proposals and those of the Allies was serious.[13] Political considerations, however, interposed, and preventing the settling of a definite total sum which Germany must pay. Neither Lloyd George nor Clemenceau dared to go to their constituents with the truth, namely that Germany could not possibly pay the enormous indemnities which the politicians had led the people to expect. (Lloyd George, for example, had stated the sum that Germany must pay at about $120,000,000,000.) Both the chiefs of state asserted that they were almost certain to be turned out of office as a result, with consequent confusion in the Peace Conference, and a prolongation of the crisis. The only escape seemed to be in a postponement of the problem by not naming any definite sum which Germany must pay, but requiring her to acknowledge full liability. The disadvantages of this method were apparent to the President and his financial advisers, for it was clear that the economic stability of the world could not be restored until the world knew how much Germany was going to pay.
[13] At first the French and British refused to name any specific sum that might be collected from Germany, requesting the Americans to submit estimates. The latter named $5,000,000,000 as representing a sum that might be collected prior to May 1, 1921, and thereafter a capital sum as high as $25,000,000,000, always provided that the other clauses in the treaty did not too greatly drain Germany's resources. After some weeks of discussion the French experts stated that if the figures could be revised up to $40,000,000,000 they would recommend them to their chiefs. The British refused to accept a figure below $47,000,000,000.
Equally difficult was the problem of the French frontier. The return of Alsace-Lorraine to France was unanimously approved. The French claimed in addition, the districts of the Saar, with their valuable coal-fields, a portion of which had been left to France after the first abdication of Napoleon but annexed to Prussia after his defeat at Waterloo; and they contended that if the German territories west of the Rhine were not to be annexed to France, they must at least be separated from Germany, which had secured a threatening military position mainly through their possession. American experts had felt inclined to grant a part of the Saar region to France as compensation for the wanton destruction of French mines at Lens and Valenciennes by the Germans; but both Wilson and Lloyd George were opposed to absolute annexation of the district which the French demanded, including, as it did, more than six hundred thousand Germans and no French. Wilson was definitely hostile to any attempt to separate from the Fatherland such purely German territory as that on the left bank of the Rhine. The Allies, as well as himself, had given assurances that they did not aim at the dismemberment of Germany, and it was on the basis of such assurances that the Germans had asked for an armistice. Wilson admitted that from the point of view of military strategy the argument of Foch was unanswerable, under the old conditions; but he insisted that the League of Nations would obviate the necessity of the strategic protection asked for.
The struggle over these issues nearly broke the back of the Conference. If Clemenceau had yielded in January when the League was demanded by Wilson, it was with the mental reservation that when the "practical" issues came up, the victory should be his. The French press were not slow to give support to their Government, and within a short time the President, so recently a popular idol, found himself anathematized as a pro-German and the sole obstacle to a speedy and satisfactory peace. The more noisy section of the British press followed suit. Liberals were silenced and American idealism was cursed as meddlesome myopia. For some days the deadlock appeared interminable and likely to become fatal. In a contest of obstinacy even Wilson could be matched by Clemenceau. The increasing bitterness of French attacks upon the Americans began to tell upon Wilson; for the first time his physical strength seemed likely to collapse under the strain. Matters were brought to a head by a bold stroke, on the 7th of April, when Wilson ordered the George Washington to sail for Brest. The inference was plain: the President would leave the Conference unless the Allies abated their claims.