and clemenceau said i have to look at what the public says. it probably wasn't sensible.and in the end, it was very difficult to get reparations out of germany, but public opinion put clemenceau in a position where he had very little choice. and the british said, well, the french and the belgians are going to get recompense for their damage, they argued that the pensions paid to widows and children should be also in the build. you could say wilson shouldn't have gone along with this, but it was difficult to go against his allies. he really ran the risk of not -- what they were doing was drawing up the treaty with germany, and if he had failed to compromise, it might well have broken down, because this is something the french in particular were not prepared to compromised on. but what the french did do, they backed down on a lot. they backed down on occupying germany, they backed down on long-term proposals to break germany up. so the compromise was not just on wilson's side. the french compromised, too. the british compromised, too. and it was a very difficult situation.