The combination of the "real" policy of M.Clemenceau on unreal issues, with M.Klotz's policy of pretense on what were very real issues indeed, introduced into the Treaty a whole set of incompatible provisions, over and above the inherent impracticabilities of the Reparation proposals.
I cannot here describe the endless controversy and intrigue between the Allies themselves, which at last after some months culminated in the presentation to Germany of the Reparation Chapter in its final form.
There can have been few negotiations in history so contorted, so miserable, so utterly unsatisfactory to all parties.

I doubt if any one who took much part in that debate can look back on it without shame.

I must be content with an analysis of the elements of the final compromise which is known to all the world.
The main point to be settled was, of course, that of the items for which Germany could fairly be asked to make payment.

Mr.Lloyd George's election pledge to the effect that the Allies were _entitled_ to demand from Germany the entire costs of the war was from the outset clearly untenable; or rather, to put it more impartially, it was clear that to persuade the President of the conformity of this demand with our pro-Armistice engagements was beyond the powers of the most plausible.
The actual compromise finally reached is to be read as follows in the paragraphs of the Treaty as it has been published to the world.
Article 231 reads: "The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies." This is a well and carefully drafted Article; for the President could read it as statement of admission on Germany's part of _moral_ responsibility for bringing about the war, while the Prime Minister could explain it as an admission of _financial_ liability for the general costs of the war.
Article 232 continues: "The Allied and Associated Governments recognize that the resources of Germany 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 President could comfort himself that this was no more than a statement of undoubted fact, and that to recognize that Germany _cannot_ pay a certain claim does not imply that she is _liable_ to pay the claim; but the Prime Minister could point out that in the context it emphasizes to the reader the assumption of Germany's theoretic liability asserted in the preceding Article.

Article 232 proceeds: "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 Annex I.hereto."[104] The words italicized being practically a quotation from the pre-Armistice conditions, satisfied the scruples of the President, while the addition of the words "and in general all damage as defined in Annex I.hereto" gave the Prime Minister a chance in Annex I.
So far, however, all this is only a matter of words, of virtuosity in draftsmanship, which does no one any harm, and which probably seemed much more important at the time than it ever will again between now and Judgment Day.