t 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 reenforced 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