Editing World War I reparations (section)

====Contemporaneous====
[[File:Keynes 1933.jpg|thumb|John Maynard Keynes in 1933.]]

According to historian Claude Campbell, [[John Maynard Keynes]] "set the fashion for critics of the economic aspects of the treaty" and "made probably the severest and most sweeping indictment of its economic provisions".{{sfn|Campbell|1942|p=161}} Keynes was temporarily attached to the [[HM Treasury|British Treasury]] during the war and was their official representative at the peace conference. He later resigned "when it became evident that hope could no longer be entertained of substantial modifications in the draft Terms of Peace" due to the "policy of the Conference towards the economic problems of Europe".{{sfn|Keynes|1920|loc=preface}}

In 1919, Keynes wrote ''[[The Economic Consequences of the Peace]]'' based on his objections to the Versailles treaty.{{sfn|Keynes|1920|loc=preface}} He wrote that he believed "that the campaign for securing out of Germany the general costs of the war was one of the most serious acts of political unwisdom for which our statesmen have ever been responsible",{{sfn|Keynes|1920|p=146}} and called the treaty a "[[Carthaginian peace]]" that would economically affect all of Europe.{{sfn|Keynes|1920|pp=86–87}} Keynes said that the figures being bandied about by politicians at the time of the signing of the treaty, such as {{USD|25 billion}} or even {{USD|50 billion}}, as "not within the limits of reasonable possibility". He instead calculated that {{USD|10 billion}} was the "safe maximum figure", but though he also "not believe that [Germany could] pay as much".{{sfn|Keynes|1920|p=200}} He predicted that the Reparation Commission was a tool that could "be employed to destroy Germany's commercial and economic organization as well as to exact payment".{{sfn|Keynes|1920|p=79}}

Writing of his proposed {{USD|10 billion}} figure, fixing reparations "well within Germany's capacity to pay" would "make possible the renewal of hope and enterprise within her territory" and "avoid the perpetual friction and opportunity of improper pressure arising out of the Treaty clauses".{{sfn|Keynes|1920|p=265}} Keynes identified reparations as the "main excursion into the economic field" by the Treaty of Versailles, but said that the treaty excluded provisions for rehabilitating Europe's economies, for improving relations between the Allies and the defeated Central Powers, for stabilizing Europe's new nations, for "reclaim[ing] Russia", or for promoting economic solidarity between the Allies.{{sfn|Keynes|1920|p=226}} Coal provides an example of these destabilizing effects in Germany and beyond. Keynes said the "surrender of the coal will destroy German industry" but conceding that without coal shipments as reparations, the French and Italian industries damaged directly by the war or indirectly by damage to coal mines would be affected. He writes that this is "not yet the whole problem". The repercussions would also affect Central and Northern Europe, and neutral states such as Switzerland and Sweden, which made up for their own coal deficiencies by trading with Germany. Likewise, Keynes said Austria would now be consigned to "industrial ruin" as "nearly all the coalfields of the former Empire lie outside of what is now [[Republic of German-Austria|German-Austria]]".{{sfn|Keynes|1920|pp=94–95}}

Campbell writes that the "apparent majority did not regard the treaty as perfect". [[Bernard Baruch]] writes in ''[[The Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty]]'' that most believed it to be the best agreement obtainable under the circumstances and that it was a minority that attacked the treaty, but these attacks "centered upon its economic provisions".{{sfn|Campbell|1942|p=160}} [[James T. Shotwell]], writing in ''What Germany Forgot'', said, "the only 'unendurable servitudes' in the treaty were in the sections on Reparation and the Polish settlement and raised the question as to what part of Germany's grievance against the peace lay in the substance of its exactions and what part in the manner of their imposition". Sir Andrew McFayden, who also represented the British Treasury at the peace conference and later worked with the Reparation Commission, published his work ''Don't Do it Again''. McFayden's position "falls somewhere between the views of Keynes and Shotwell". His attack on reparations "was as harsh as Keynes" but he conceded that the "fault did not lie primarily in the provisions of the treaty but in their execution". He also believed "that the Polish settlement was the only readjustment&nbsp;...&nbsp;which was decidedly unwise".{{sfn|Campbell|1942|pp=161–162}}

[[René Albrecht-Carrié|Albrecht-Carrié]] writes that before the German surrender, Woodrow Wilson dispatched a note to the German Government on 5 November 1918 stating that the Allies "under-stand that compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air", the terms of which they accepted.{{sfn|Albrecht-Carrié|1940|p=15}} Regardless of which, Albrecht-Carrié says the reparation section of the treaty proved "to be a dismal failure".{{sfn|Albrecht-Carrié|1940|p=16}} Campbell says, "although there was much in the peace that was 'petty, unjust, and humiliating', there was little aside from reparation clauses and certain territorial concessions, which had much real bearing upon Germany's economic future".{{sfn|Campbell|1942|p=162}} Summarizing the view of economists throughout the 1920s, she says the territorial changes to Germany were "not necessarily&nbsp;...&nbsp;economically unsound", but than the removal of the [[Saar (League of Nations)|Saar]] and territory to Poland "depriv[ed] Germany of her resources in excess of the amount necessary to fulfill the legitimate economic demands of the victors&nbsp;...&nbsp;[and] was indefensible". Campbell also said the treaty failed to include "provisions looking to the restoration of Germany to her former position as the chief economic and financial stabilizing influence in central Europe" and that this was economically shortsighted and was an economic failing of the treaty.{{sfn|Campbell|1942|p=163}}

[[Étienne Mantoux]], a French economist, was the harshest contemporaneous critic of Keynes. In his posthumously published book, ''The Carthaginian Peace, or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes'', Mantoux said that Keynes "had been wrong on various counts, especially with respect to his predictions about Germany's coal, iron and steel production&nbsp;...&nbsp;and its level of national saving".{{sfn|Cord|2013|p=41}} Keynes said Europe's overall output of iron would decrease; Mantoux said the opposite occurred. By 1929, European iron output had increased by ten per cent from that of 1913. Keynes believed that this European trend would also affect German iron and steel production. Mantoux says this prediction was also incorrect. By 1927, German steel output had increased by 30 per cent and iron output increased by 38 per cent from 1913. Keynes predicted that German coal extraction would also decrease and that Germany would not be able to export coal immediately after the war. Mantoux also counters these arguments. By 1920, German was exporting 15 million tons of coal a year and reached 35&nbsp;million tons by 1926. By 1929, German coal mining had risen by 30 per cent on the 1913 figures because of her increased labor efficiency methods. In regard to national savings, Keynes stated that 2&nbsp;billion marks would only be possible after the adoption of the treaty. Mantoux says that the 1925 German national savings figure was estimated at 6.4&nbsp;billion marks, rising to 7.6&nbsp;billion marks by 1927.{{sfn|Mantoux|1952|pp=162–163}} Mantoux calculated that Germany borrowed between 8&nbsp;billion and 35&nbsp;billion marks in the period 1920–1931, while only paying 21&nbsp;billion in reparations. This, he says, allowed Germany to re-equip, expand, and modernize her industry.{{sfn|Henig|1995|p=62}} Highlighting the rearmament under Hitler, Mantoux said Germany "had been in a stronger position to pay reparations than Keynes had made out".{{sfn|Cord|2013|p=41}} He also says that Germany could have paid all of the reparations if she had wanted to, and that the problem was not that Germany was unable to pay, but that she was unwilling to pay.{{sfn|Taylor|1991|p=70}}

In 1954, [[United States Secretary of State]] [[John Foster Dulles]]{{mdash}}one of the authors of Article 231{{mdash}}said that, "Efforts to bankrupt and humiliate a nation merely incite a people of vigor and of courage to break the bonds imposed upon them&nbsp;...&nbsp;Prohibitions thus incite the very acts that are prohibited."{{sfn|Immerman|1998|p=10}}