But after 1914 she played a minor role.
Consequently, by the end of 1918, her relative sacrifices, apart from those sufferings from invasion which cannot be measured in money, had fallen behind, and in some respects they were not even as great, for example, as Australia's.

I say this with no wish to evade the obligations towards Belgium under which the pronouncements of our responsible statesmen at many different dates have certainly laid us.
Great Britain ought not to seek any payment at all from Germany for herself until the just claims of Belgium have been fully satisfied.

But this is no reason why we or they should not tell the truth about the amount.
While the French claims are immensely greater, here too there has been excessive exaggeration, as responsible French statisticians have themselves pointed out.

Not above 10 per cent of the area of France was effectively occupied by the enemy, and not above 4 per cent lay within the area of substantial devastation.

Of the sixty French towns having a population exceeding 35,000, only two were destroyed--Reims (115,178) and St.Quentin (55,571); three others were occupied--Lille, Roubaix, and Douai--and suffered from loot of machinery and other property, but were not substantially injured otherwise.