This article is common to all the treaties, and it would have no more than historic and philosophic interest if it were not followed by another article in which the allied and associated governments recognize that the resources of Germany (and of Austria-Hungary, etc.) are not adequate, after taking into account permanent diminutions of such resources which will result from other provisions of the present treaty, to make complete reparation for all such loss and damage.  The allied and associated governments, however, require, and Germany undertakes, that she will make compensation for all damage done to the civilian population of the allied and associated powers and to their property during the period of the belligerency of each as an allied or associated power against Germany by such aggression by land, by sea and from the air, and in general all damage as defined in the treaty, comprising many of the burdens of war (war pensions and compensations to soldiers and their families, cost of assistance to families of those mobilized during the War, etc.).

There is nothing more useless, indeed more stupid, than to take your enemy by the throat after you have beaten him and force him to declare that all the wrong was on his side.  The declaration is of no use whatever, either to the conqueror, because no importance can be attributed to an admission extorted by force; or to the conquered, because he knows that there is no moral significance in being forced to state what one does not believe; or for third parties, because they are well aware of the circumstances under which the declaration was made.  It is possible that President Wilson wanted to establish a moral reason—­I do not like to say a moral alibi—­for accepting, as he was constrained by necessity to accept, all those conditions which were the negation of what he had solemnly laid down, the moral pledge of his people, of the American democracy.

Germany and the conquered countries have accepted the conditions imposed on them with the reserve that they feel that they are not bound by them, even morally, in the future.  The future will pour ridicule on this new form of treaty which endeavours to justify excessive and absurd demands, which will have the effect of destroying the enemy rather than of obtaining any sure benefit, by using a forced declaration which has no value at all.

I have always detested German imperialism, and also the phases of exaggerated nationalism which have grown up in every country after the War and have been eliminated one after the other through the simple fact of their being common to all countries, but only after having brought the greatest possible harm to all the peoples, and I cannot say that Germany and her allies were solely responsible for the War which devastated Europe and threw a dark shadow over the life of the whole world.  That statement, which we all made during the War, was a weapon to be used at the time; now that the War is over, it cannot be looked on as a serious argument.