Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [306]
Nevertheless, the reparations commission was asked to look at the whole matter again. Again it failed to agree. The French and the British found it impossible to fix a sum; the Americans suggested 120 billion gold marks and even drafted a note to the Germans. Wilson said firmly that justice demanded that the Germans bear a heavy burden, but that the Allies must not drive the German economy to ruin. “I rather like the crust and the sauce of this pie,” said Lloyd George, “but not the meat.” Wilson replied, “You must however prepare your stomach for meat that will be able to sustain you.” Certainly, said Lloyd George, but under one condition: “it is that you give me enough of it.” Clemenceau interjected, “And especially, I would like to be sure that it will not go into someone else’s stomach.” Lloyd George proposed a variety of ingenious schemes to give the impression of a fixed sum without actually naming a figure. “This is your reply to the American proposal about fixing the figure,” said Wilson incredulously. “Have you read the rest of the American report?”31 The clauses were left as they were.
On June 16 the Germans were informed that they had three days to accept the treaty (the deadline was later extended until June 23)—or the Allies would take the necessary steps. Brockdorff-Rantzau and his chief advisers left that night for Weimar. An angry crowd whistled and jeered as their cars rolled toward the railway station. A secretary was knocked out by a rock. The French authorities were unrepentant—remember, said a report, what the Germans did to Belgium—although they later paid the unfortunate woman, who never recovered, a substantial amount.32
Reports from Allied agents indicated that it was highly likely that the German government would reject the treaty. The German public was strongly against signing, although it was not clear if it was prepared to fight. Brockdorff-Rantzau, as the Allies knew from intercepted telegrams, was urging rejection and his delegation was behind him. “If Germany refuses,” said Clemenceau at the Council of Four, “I favour a vigorous and unremitting military blow that will force the signing.” Wilson and Lloyd George agreed without hesitation. On May 20, Foch, as supreme Allied commander, gave the order for a massive drive by forty-two divisions into central Germany. The British prepared to renew the naval blockade.33
Two days before the deadline an event occurred that further hardened Allied determination. Far from Paris, at Scapa Flow, the officers of the interned German fleet had been listening to the news from Paris with increasing dismay. The winter had been long and gloomy. The crews had not been allowed to go ashore, a disappointment in particular for the radical sailors who had volunteered for duty so that they could spread the revolution to Britain. The men, bored and mutinous, obeyed routine orders only after prolonged discussions and the ships that had been the pride of the German navy were now filthy. The admiral in charge determined to salvage something of German naval honor. At noon on June 21 British sailors noticed that all the enemy ships had simultaneously raised the German ensign. When one after another the dreadnoughts and destroyers began to list, it was obvious what was happening. The British were too late to save more than a few; by five that afternoon, 400,000 tons of expensive shipping had gone. (Most of the German sailors took to their lifeboats but ten were killed when the British fired at the German ships in a last-ditch attempt to stop the scuttling.) The Germans were delighted; and so was House, who told his diary, “Everyone is laughing at the British Admiralty.” The peacemakers were annoyed. “There was no doubt,” said Lloyd George, “that the sinking of these ships was a breach of faith.” Wilson agreed: “He shared Mr. Lloyd George’s suspicions to the full, and did not trust the Germans.” There should certainly be no further extension of the deadline, as the German government had requested. In