Has the C of E got its reparations bill all wrong?
by Robert Tombs, Spectator:
Reparations have a troubled history, and rightly. The word itself, in its familiar sense, seems to have been a euphemism thought up by lawyers after the first world war. President Woodrow Wilson had promised a peace ‘without indemnities’. So no indemnities: ‘reparations’ instead. It sounded less objectionable. It was further agreed that liability should cover only demonstrable damage, not be punishment for the act of war itself – a remarkable and perhaps unprecedented concession by the victors to the vanquished (who had themselves recently imposed heavy indemnities on Russia, and before that on France). Yet reparations – relatively modest in total and largely unpaid – still became probably the most divisive and damaging aspect of the post-war Treaty of Versailles. The many groups advocating various forms of reparations today would be well-advised to show some circumspection.
The case for reparations at the time was politically irresistible and ethically defensible. Germany had not only invaded its neighbours, it had fought the whole war on their territories. Their populations had been subject to forced labour. Industries had been looted, with machinery removed lock, stock and barrel. Housing and infrastructure had been destroyed by four years of devastating combat – and in retreating, German armies had carried out a scorched-earth policy, which included flooding coal mines and destroying crops. Millions were left widowed, orphaned or disabled, needing pensions.
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