What, on the above basis of claims, would the aggregate demand amount to? No figures exist on which to base any scientific or exact estimate, and I give my own guess for what it is worth, prefacing it with the following observations.
The amount of the material damage done in the invaded districts has been the subject of enormous, if natural, exaggeration. A journey through the devastated areas of France is impressive to the eye and the imagination beyond description. During the winter of 1918-19, before Nature had cast over the scene her ameliorating mantle, the horror and desolation of war was made visible to sight on an extraordinary scale of blasted grandeur. The completeness of the destruction was evident. For mile after mile nothing was left. No building was habitable and no field fit for the plow. The sameness was also striking. One devastated area was exactly like another—a heap of rubble, a morass of shell-holes, and a tangle of wire.[80] The amount of human labor which would be required to restore such a countryside seemed incalculable; and to the returned traveler any number of milliards of dollars was inadequate to express in matter the destruction thus impressed upon his spirit. Some Governments for a variety of intelligible reasons have not been ashamed to exploit these feelings a little.
Popular sentiment is most at fault, I think, in the case of Belgium. In any event Belgium is a small country, and in its case the actual area of devastation is a small proportion of the whole. The first onrush of the Germans in 1914 did some damage locally; after that the battle-line in Belgium did not sway backwards and forwards, as in France, over a deep belt of country. It was practically stationary, and hostilities were confined to a small corner of the country, much of which in recent times was backward, poor, and sleepy, and did not include the active industry of the country. There remains some injury in the small flooded area, the deliberate damage done by the retreating Germans to buildings, plant, and transport, and the loot of machinery, cattle, and other movable property. But Brussels, Antwerp, and even Ostend are substantially intact, and the great bulk of the land, which is Belgium's chief wealth, is nearly as well cultivated as before. The traveler by motor can pass through and from end to end of the devastated area of Belgium almost before he knows it; whereas the destruction in France is on a different kind of scale altogether. Industrially, the loot has been serious and for the moment paralyzing; but the actual money cost of replacing machinery mounts up slowly, and a few tens of millions would have covered the value of every machine of every possible description that Belgium ever possessed. Besides, the cold statistician must not overlook the fact that the Belgian people possess the instinct of individual self-protection unusually well developed; and the great mass of German bank-notes[81] held in the country at the date of the Armistice, shows that certain classes of them at least found a way, in spite of all the severities and barbarities of German rule, to profit at the expense of the invader. Belgian claims against Germany such as I have seen, amounting to a sum in excess of the total estimated pre-war wealth of the whole country, are simply irresponsible.[82]
It will help to guide our ideas to quote the official survey of Belgian wealth, published in 1913 by the Finance Ministry of Belgium, which was as follows:
| Land | $1,320,000,000 | tons. | ||
| Buildings | 1,175,000,000 | " | ||
| Personal wealth | 2,725,000,000 | " | ||
| Cash | 85,000,000 | " | ||
| Furniture, etc. | 600,000,000 | " | ||
| $5,905,000,000 | " |
This total yields an average of $780 per inhabitant, which Dr. Stamp, the highest authority on the subject, is disposed to consider as prima facie too low (though he does not accept certain much higher estimates lately current), the corresponding wealth per head (to take Belgium's immediate neighbors) being $835 for Holland, $1,220 for Germany, and $1,515 for France.[83] A total of $7,500,000,000, giving an average of about $1,000 per head, would, however, be fairly liberal. The official estimate of land and buildings is likely to be more accurate than the rest. On the other hand, allowance has to be made for the increased costs of construction.
Having regard to all these considerations, I do not put the money value of the actual physical loss of Belgian property by destruction and loot above $750,000,000 as a maximum, and while I hesitate to put yet lower an estimate which differs so widely from those generally current, I shall be surprised if it proves possible to substantiate claims even to this amount. Claims in respect of levies, fines, requisitions, and so forth might possibly amount to a further $500,000,000. If the sums advanced to Belgium by her allies for the general costs of the war are to be included, a sum of about $1,250,000,000 has to be added (which includes the cost of relief), bringing the total to $2,500,000,000.
The destruction in France was on an altogether more significant scale, not only as regards the length of the battle line, but also on account of the immensely deeper area of country over which the battle swayed from time to time. It is a popular delusion to think of Belgium as the principal victim of the war; it will turn out, I believe, that taking account of casualties, loss of property and burden of future debt, Belgium has made the least relative sacrifice of all the belligerents except the United States. Of the Allies, Serbia's sufferings and loss have been proportionately the greatest, and after Serbia, France. France in all essentials was just as much the victim of German ambition as was Belgium, and France's entry into the war was just as unavoidable. France, in my judgment, in spite of her policy at the Peace Conference, a policy largely traceable to her sufferings, has the greatest claims on our generosity.
The special position occupied by Belgium in the popular mind is due, of course, to the fact that in 1914 her sacrifice was by far the greatest of any of the Allies. But after 1914 she played a minor rôle. Consequently, by the end of 1918, her relative sacrifices, apart from those sufferings from invasion which cannot be measured in money, had fallen behind, and in some respects they were not even as great, for example, as Australia's. I say this with no wish to evade the obligations towards Belgium under which the pronouncements of our responsible statesmen at many different dates have certainly laid us. Great Britain ought not to seek any payment at all from Germany for herself until the just claims of Belgium have been fully satisfied. But this is no reason why we or they should not tell the truth about the amount.
While the French claims are immensely greater, here too there has been excessive exaggeration, as responsible French statisticians have themselves pointed out. Not above 10 per cent of the area of France was effectively occupied by the enemy, and not above 4 per cent lay within the area of substantial devastation. Of the sixty French towns having a population exceeding 35,000, only two were destroyed—Reims (115,178) and St. Quentin (55,571); three others were occupied—Lille, Roubaix, and Douai—and suffered from loot of machinery and other property, but were not substantially injured otherwise. Amiens, Calais, Dunkerque, and Boulogne suffered secondary damage by bombardment and from the air; but the value of Calais and Boulogne must have been increased by the new works of various kinds erected for the use of the British Army.