It will be remembered that the treaty gave until May 1, 1921, for the total amount of indemnity to be fixed. Germany bound herself in advance to accept whatever sum the victors decided upon, to agree to make payments in the way they demanded, and not to consider as an act of war any punitive measure they might take to enforce their will. Stipulations of this kind, which had never before been written into a treaty, placed Germany completely at the mercy of her conquerors. They could make upon her any demands they saw fit, however impossible to fulfil, and could undertake reprisals if what could not be done was not done. The only protection to Germany, now that she was disarmed, lay in the fact that her creditors were several, who might not all agree that her permanent ruin would be to their best interests. The Paris Conference met on January 24, 1921. On the first day Marshal Foch declared that Germany had failed to fulfil the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, and that the danger was so great that France would be justified, as a military precaution alone, in occupying the Ruhr Valley. This proposal, although tentative in form, as if to try out the Allies, brought an immediate and strenuous protest from British and Italians. The two delegations stood together also in rejecting France’s demand that the indemnity be fixed at 400,000,000,000 gold marks. There was a lively argument between Lloyd George and Doumer. When the latter said that it was reasonable to expect 17,000,000,000 marks per annum from German exports, of which 12,000,000,000 could be taken by the Reparations Commission, Lloyd George retorted that the calculation was absurd. How could Germany pay for raw materials, coal, labor, etc., on the basis of retaining five billions out of seventeen billions? After five days of acrimonious debate, in which British and Italians pleaded for a practicable total sum, a compromise was effected. It was decided that Germany should pay in forty-two annual installments 226,000,000,000 gold marks, and for the same period an annual tax of 12 per cent on her exports. At the first default the Allies should have the right to take any measures, financial or military, that they saw fit. The German Government was summoned to send a delegation to London, after four weeks, “to agree to the decisions of the Paris Conference.”