to soldiers and their families, cost of assistance to families of
those mobilized during the War, etc.).

There is nothing more useless, indeed more stupid, than to take your
enemy by the throat after you have beaten him and force him to declare
that all the wrong was on his side. The declaration is of no use
whatever, either to the conqueror, because no importance can be
attributed to an admission extorted by force; or to the conquered,
because he knows that there is no moral significance in being forced
to state what one does not believe; or for third parties, because they
are well aware of the circumstances under which the declaration was
made. It is possible that President Wilson wanted to establish a moral
reason--I do not like to say a moral alibi--for accepting, as he was
constrained by necessity to accept, all those conditions which were
the negation of what he had solemnly laid down, the moral pledge of
his people, of the American democracy.

Germany and the conquered countries have accepted the conditions
imposed on them with the reserve that they feel that they are not
bound by them, even morally, in the future. The future will pour
ridicule on this new form of treaty which endeavours to justify
excessive and absurd demands, which will have the effect of destroying
the enemy rather than of obtaining any sure benefit, by using a forced
declaration which has no value at all.

I have always detested German imperialism, and also the phases of
exaggerated nationalism which have grown up in every country after the
War and have been eliminated one after the other through the simple
fact of their being common to all countries, but only after having
brought the greatest possible harm to all the peoples, and I cannot