- published: 08 Apr 2015
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War reparations are payments intended to cover damage or injury during a war. Generally, the term war reparations refers to money or goods changing hands, rather than such property transfers as the annexation of land.
Making the defeated party pay a war indemnity is a common practice with a long history.
Rome imposed large indemnities on Carthage after the First and Second Punic Wars.
The 'unequal treaties' signed by the Qing dynasty in China, Japan, Korea, Siam, Persia, Ottoman Empire, Afghanistan and other countries in the nineteenth century included payments of indemnities to the victorious Western powers, mainly United Kingdom, France and Russia, and later Japan.[citation needed]
Following the Greco-Turkish War (1897), defeated Greece was forced to pay a large war indemnity to Turkey (£4 million). Greece, which was already in default, was forced to agree to see its public finances overseen by an international financial commission.
After the Franco-Prussian War, according to conditions of Treaty of Frankfurt (May 10, 1871), France was obliged to pay a war indemnity of 5 billion gold francs in 5 years. German troops remained in parts of France until the last installment of the indemnity was paid in September 1873, before the obliged date.[citation needed]