UNDERTAKINGS GIVEN PRIOR TO THE PEACE NEGOTIATIONS

The categories of damage in respect of which the Allies were entitled to ask for reparation are governed by the relevant passages in President Wilson's Fourteen Points of 8 January 1918, as modified by the Allied governments in their qualifying Note, the text of which the President formally communicated to the German government as the basis of peace on 5 November 1918. These passages have been quoted in full at the beginning of chapter 4. That is to say, ‘compensation will be made by Germany for all damage done to the civilian population of the Allies and to their property by the aggression of Germany by land, by sea, and from the air’. The limiting quality of this sentence is reinforced by the passage in the President's speech before Congress on 11 February 1918 (the terms of this speech being an express part of the contract with the enemy), that there shall be ‘no contributions’ and ‘no punitive damages’.

It has sometimes been argued that the preamble to paragraph 19 of the armistice terms, to the effect ‘that any future claims and demands of the Allies and the United States of America remain unaffected’, wiped out all precedent conditions, and left the Allies free to make whatever demands they chose.