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.