Victors in 19th century wars often expected to be able to extract an indemnity from the defeated.
Two prime examples include the indemnity that the German Empire imposed on France in addition to occupation and territorial annexations, and the indemnity the Japanese imposed on China in addition to territorial annexations.
Yet oddly, there were two occasions where the victor annexed territory of the defeated, but rather than charging an indemnity, they provided the loser a pay-off. Those occasions were the Mexican-American War and the Spanish-American War, where America paid its adversaries some money as part of the final settlements.
The challenge is to get Germany to give France a payoff for Alsace-Lorraine and Japan to give China a payoff for Taiwan, and to have America charge Mexico and Spain indemnities in addition to the forced cession of northern Mexico and the Philippines.
I welcome discussion as to why the issue of money changing hands worked out in each of these wars, and also examples of other wars involving either indemnities or payoffs.
All powers imposed an indemnity on China for the Boxer rebellion. I believe that Britain charged China an indemnity in one or both opium wars, but I am not sure. I am not sure if an indemnity was a factor in the Sino-French war.
Was an indemnity charged for any of these wars? The Austro-Prussian war, the Greek war of independence, the Paraguayan war of the Triple Alliance, the Crimean War, the Russo-Turkish war or the Franco-Austrian war?
Was provision of a payoff for forcing an adversary to cede territory a purely American habit? Did other countries do this?