“The Treaty of Versailles was signed less than two years ago. The German Government have already defaulted in respect of some of its most important provisions: the delivery for trial of the criminals, who have offended against the laws of war, disarmament, the payment in cash or in kind of 20,000,000,000 of gold marks (£1,000,000,000). These are some of the provisions. The Allies have displayed no harsh insistence upon the letter of their bond. They have extended time, they have even modified the character of their demands; but each time the German Government failed them.
“In spite of the Treaty and of the honourable undertaking given at Spa, the criminals have not yet been tried, let alone punished, although the evidence has been in the hands of the German Government for months. Military organisations, some of them open, some clandestine, have been allowed to spring up all over the country, equipped with arms that ought to have been surrendered. If the German Government had shown in respect of reparations a sincere desire to help the Allies to repair the terrible losses inflicted upon them by the act of aggression of which the German Imperialist Government was guilty, we should still have been ready as before to make all allowances for the legitimate difficulties of Germany. But the proposals put forward have reluctantly convinced the Allies either that the German Government does not intend to carry out its Treaty obligations, or that it has not the strength to insist, in the face of selfish and short–sighted opposition, upon the necessary sacrifices being made.
“If that is due to the fact that German opinion will not permit it, that makes the situation still more serious, and renders it all the more necessary that the Allies should bring the leaders of public opinion once more face to face with facts. The first essential fact for them to realise is this—that the Allies, whilst prepared to listen to every reasonable plea arising out of Germanyʼs difficulties, cannot allow any further paltering with the Treaty.
The Ultimatum
“We have therefore decided—having regard to the infractions already committed, to the determination indicated in these proposals that Germany means still further to defy and explain away the Treaty, and to the challenge issued not merely in these proposals but in official statements made in Germany by the German Government—that we must act upon the assumption that the German Government are not merely in default, but deliberately in default; and unless we hear by Monday that Germany is either prepared to accept the Paris decisions or to submit proposals which will in other ways be an equally satisfactory discharge of her obligations under the Treaty of Versailles (subject to the concessions made in the Paris proposals), we shall, as from that date, take the following course under the Treaty of Versailles.
“The Allies are agreed:
(1) To occupy the towns of Duisburg, Ruhrort, and Düsseldorf, on the right bank of the Rhine.
(2) To obtain powers from their respective Parliaments requiring their nationals to pay a certain proportion of all payments due to Germany on German goods to their several Governments, such proportion to be retained on account of reparations. (This is in respect of goods purchased either in this country or in any other Allied country from Germany.)
(3) (a) The amount of the duties collected by the German Customs houses on the external frontiers of the occupied territories to be paid to the Reparation Commission.