As soon as the League of Nations conference ended, the diplomatic note reached Washington, and life became impossible for the Wilson administration. This was simply too much bullying!
The League of Nations had utterly failed to take the United States of America seriously. First, it demanded that the American government hand over the culprit. That was manageable enough—at most, it was a matter of finding a scapegoat.
But the astronomical reparations that followed were truly lethal. Wilson suddenly realized that German reparations had not been much at all. At least compared with the sky-high compensation demanded by the League of Nations, the former was not even one percent of the latter!
After analysis by his think tank, they finally reached a conclusion: the purpose of the nations of the world this time was to destroy the United States of America. And that destruction did not necessarily have to be military—economic means would do just as well!
The amount of compensation alone made that clear. All told, the massive reparations came to five trillion pounds. Even if all humanity paid together, they could not afford it. How could the American government possibly pay?
Even if they haggled it down and paid only one percent of the compensation, it would still drag down the American government. Even one percent amounted to the output of the entire American population for decades!
Even selling off America would not be enough to pay the reparations, yet the League of Nations had still demanded them. Of course, beyond the compensation, there was also an astronomical fine for crimes against humanity. In short, it would be hard for the American government to clear this hurdle!
The figure looked enormous, but when divided among every deceased person, it was not all that outrageous—just a slightly higher standard. What