Treaty of Versailles: It Set No Reparations Total in 1919

What did the treaty say about reparations?

Reported: Part VIII of the treaty opens with Article 231. In it, “the Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage” of the war [1]. Article 232 then concedes that Germany's resources “are not adequate” for complete reparation, and limits the demand to damage done to civilians and their property, as listed in Annex I [1].

Reported: Article 233 holds the missing number. The amount “shall be determined by an Inter-Allied Commission, to be called the Reparation Commission”, and its findings were to be notified to Germany “on or before May 1, 1921” [1]. The commission was also to draw up a schedule for discharging the whole obligation within 30 years from that date. Article 234 let it extend dates later, but not cancel any part without the authority of the governments [1].

Each article and its deadline or sum (CSV) · Source and license notes (JSON) Data: Treaty of Versailles, 28 June 1919, Parts VIII, XIV and XV, text as published by the Avalon Project; accessed 2026-11-02, public domain

Reported: The treaty did name two sums. Article 235 asked for 20 billion gold marks before the total was known, and Annex II asked Germany to hand over bearer bonds as “security for and acknowledgment of her debt” [1]. The bonds came in three parts: 20 billion without interest, 40 billion at interest, and a written undertaking to issue 40 billion more [1].

Reported, with our check: Those three parts add up to 100 billion gold marks. Annex II, though, calls them a “first installment” of security, not a total [1]. Article 430 added an enforcement clause: if the commission found that Germany refused its reparation obligations, the areas named in Article 429, in whole or part, would be reoccupied immediately [2].

Who wanted what at the table in 1919?

Reported: The meeting notes of 5 April 1919 show the leaders split on what the commission should calculate [4]. Klotz, speaking for the French delegation, argued that whatever Germany could not pay within 30 years should still be owed. Norman Davis, one of the American financial experts, read the draft as limiting the bill to what Germany could pay in about 30 years [4]. David Lloyd George said that 30 years was an expression of opinion about what Germany could pay, not a cap on the total [4].

Reported: At the afternoon session, by the same notes, Davis gave a history of the expert talks. The experts had worked from what Germany could pay, and their estimates ranged from 25 billion to 50 billion dollars [5]. Because no agreement on a figure could be reached, and fixing one seemed unwise, the meeting turned to another method [5]. Lloyd George then gave a history that, by the same notes, differed somewhat from Davis's [5].

Reported: On 7 April 1919, the Council approved the wording that became Articles 231 to 233 [6]. The amount was to be fixed by a commission and notified “on or before May 1st, 1921” [6]. John Maynard Keynes is listed among the British delegation present [6]. The treaty was signed 82 days later [3][6].

Reported: Keynes left an account of why no figure went in. In The Economic Consequences of the Peace, he wrote that the treaty “fixes no definite sum as representing Germany's liability” [20]. In his view, any figure close to expert estimates of Germany's capacity would have fallen “hopelessly far short of popular expectations” in Britain and France [20]. He put the total claim at about $40,000,000,000, with his own margin of $32 billion to $44 billion, and proposed fixing the payment at $10,000,000,000 [20].

Assessed: Keynes was a participant who had become a critic, so his account is one side of this question, not a settled verdict. What the meeting notes and the text agree on is narrower: the leaders could not agree on a number in April 1919, and Article 233 moved that choice to a commission and a date [5][6].

What was due before the total?

Reported: Article 235 asked Germany to pay “the equivalent of 20,000,000,000 gold marks” during 1919, 1920 and the first four months of 1921 [1]. The costs of the armies of occupation since the Armistice came out of that sum first, and food and raw materials the Allied governments judged essential could, with their approval, also be paid for from it [1]. The balance would count towards reparation [1].

Reported: The sources disagree about how much had been delivered. Keynes printed an approximate statement by the Reparation Commission of deliveries from 11 November 1918 to 30 April 1921 [19]. It lists cash, ships, coal, dyestuffs and other goods worth 1,780,688,000 gold marks, and 4,534,792,000 once property and assets not yet turned into cash are included [19].

Reported: A French figure was higher. On 28 April 1921, the US Secretary of State recorded a counselor of the French embassy saying, in remarks the counselor called personal and unofficial, that Germany had given about eight billion “in equivalent” [13]. The counselor said the German offer of one billion more would bring the total to only nine billion of the 20 due [13].

Reported, with our check: The commission's larger figure, 4,534,792,000 gold marks, is 22.7 percent of the 20 billion [1][19]. Keynes reported an estimate of about three billion gold marks for the occupation costs over the same period, and noted that conversion rates were disputed [19].

Every figure with its unit, qualifier and source (CSV) · Source and license notes (JSON) Data: Treaty of Versailles, 28 June 1919, Parts VIII, XIV and XV, accessed 2026-11-02, public domain; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States: The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. V (1946), doc. 4, accessed 2026-11-02, public domain; Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1921, vol. II (1936), docs. 50, 51, 56, 58, 59, accessed 2026-11-02, public domain; J. M. Keynes, A Revision of the Treaty (1922), Appendix of Documents and Excursus V, PG eBook #46037, accessed 2026-11-02, public domain; J. M. Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1920 edition), PG eBook #15776, accessed 2026-11-02, public domain; Foreign Relations of the United States, 1932, vol. I (1948), docs. 480, 516, accessed 2026-11-02, public domain

Assessed: The two figures measure different things and come from different hands, so this page shows both rather than choosing. On either count, the 20 billion had not been paid by the deadline. The London resolution of 5 May 1921 named the 1 May payment as one of Germany's defaults [17].

What did each side offer in 1921?

Reported: The Allied Paris decisions of 29 January 1921, as printed by Keynes, asked for 42 fixed annuities rising from 2 to 6 billion gold marks, plus 12 percent of the value of German exports [19].

Reported, with our check: The fixed annuities alone add up to 226 billion gold marks. The export share comes on top [19].

Reported: Germany's counter-offer went through Washington. On 20 April 1921, the German government asked the US President to mediate and fix the sum [8]. The United States answered the next day that it “could not agree to mediate the question of reparations with a view to acting as umpire” [9]. On 24 April, Germany proposed to acknowledge a liability of 50 billion gold marks, or to pay annuities totalling 200 billion, with one billion at once [11].

Reported: A correction of 28 April called the 50 billion “capital” and the annuities an alternative [12].

Illustration

Reported: On 27 April, by the telegram of the US ambassador in Paris, the commission told the German delegation it had decided “to fix at 132 billion gold marks” the damages due [14]. That was 4 days before the treaty deadline. Keynes prints the same decision under the date 30 April 1921 [19]. The commission left out Germany's separate duty to repay Belgium's war loans [14].

Reported: On 2 May, the United States told Germany that it could not see in the proposals “a basis for discussion acceptable to the Allied Governments” [15]. In a note dated 4 May, Germany replied that it could not now work out new proposals that would satisfy the Allies [16].

What could each side fall back on?

One way to read May 1921 is to start with each side's BATNA, the best alternative to a negotiated agreement, meaning what a side could do if the talks failed. This site uses it as an order of analysis, not as a rule that the side with the better alternative wins; the same order runs through the Cuban Missile Crisis replay.

Reported: The Allied fallback was written into their resolution of 5 May 1921. If Germany did not comply by 12 May, the Allies would proceed “to the occupation of the Valley of the Ruhr” and take other military and naval measures, in the text Keynes printed [17][19]. Germany had six days from receiving the commission's decision to declare that it would carry out its obligations “without reserve or condition” [17][19]. The window from 5 May to 12 May was 7 days.

Reported: Germany's appeal for American mediation had been refused, and its offer had been judged no basis for talks [9][15]. In March, the Allies had already decided to occupy Duisburg, Ruhrort and Düsseldorf as a sanction [7]. Simons, the German minister for foreign affairs who had put the April offer, told the US commissioner on 24 April that he had handed the Chancellor his resignation [10].

Reported: On 11 May 1921, the German ambassador in London handed the British Prime Minister a note in the name of a new German government [18]. It declared that Germany would carry out, without reserve or condition, the obligations defined by the Reparation Commission, and the British ambassador's covering letter described it as an unconditional acceptance [18].

Assessed: By May, Germany's fallback had narrowed. Apply what this site calls the known-then test, which scores a choice only on what its makers could know at the time, with each piece of that knowledge tied to a source. In the first week of May, Berlin knew the total, the threat to the Ruhr and the refusal from Washington, and had no new offer that its own note said could satisfy the Allies [14][15][16][17]. Reading the acceptance as either wise or weak from the start adds what we call the hindsight premium, the share of a decision's apparent wisdom or folly added only after the outcome is known.

How was the 132 billion bill split, and what happened next?

Reported: The Schedule of Payments, printed in full by Keynes, split the total into three series of bonds [19]. Germany was to deliver 12 billion gold marks of Series A bonds by 1 July 1921 and 38 billion of Series B by 1 November 1921 [19]. The last 82 billion, Series C, were to be delivered without coupons and issued only when the commission judged that Germany's payments could carry their interest and sinking fund [19].

Reported: Each year, until the bonds were redeemed, Germany was to pay 2 billion gold marks plus a sum equal to 25 percent of the value of its exports, and a further 1 percent [19].

Reported, with our check: The two export shares make 26 percent, the figure Keynes also uses [19]. Series A and B together come to 50 billion gold marks, and A, B and C to 132 billion [19].

Reported: Keynes made a pointed observation about those 50 billion. The face value of the A and B bonds, he wrote, matched the sum at which Germany had offered in April to have its liability assessed [19]. He judged it probable that, sooner or later, the C bonds would be cancelled, not merely postponed [19].

Assessed: By the text of the schedule, the 132 billion had a working core of 50 billion and a conditional 82 billion. That reading follows the schedule's own terms for Series C. How much of the 82 billion anyone expected to be paid in 1921 is a question the sources read here answer only through Keynes, a critic of the whole settlement.

Reported: The sources read for this page jump to 1932. By the editors' note in the State Department's published papers, a Final Act was signed at the Lausanne Conference on 9 July 1932, 13 years after the treaty [21]. By a French government note of December 1932, the arrangement cut Germany's debt to a lump sum of three billion marks [22]. A side agreement initialed by the creditor governments said the Lausanne agreement would not take final effect until ratified [21].

Method: The sources read for this page give no total of what Germany actually paid between 1919 and 1932, so this page gives none. A debt between governments, set in gold marks across a currency collapse, has no matching wage series, so no sum here is converted into days of wages.

Assessed: Whether the reparations clauses helped bring on a second war is a separate question from what the treaty said. Keynes argued in 1919 that the settlement would do lasting harm, but his book is one side's case, and the sources read for this page stop in 1932 [20]. This page does not settle that question. On the narrower one, the record is plain: in June 1919 the treaty named an interim sum and a stack of security bonds, and left the total to 1921 [1].