Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, With the Address of the President to Congress December 7, 1915
File No. 711.673/64.
Ambassador Morgenthau to the Secretary of State.
Constantinople, June 7, 1915.
Sir: I have the honor to transmit herewith, for the information of the Department, copies of notes recently exchanged with the Sublime Porte in regard to the attitude of the local authorities in various parts of the Ottoman Empire toward the American consular officers, and toward their intervention with the said authorities in matters concerning American citizens and interests.
Copies of previous notes referred to, that of this Embassy of September 18, 1914, and those of the Sublime Porte of November 26 and December 5, 1915, are also herewith transmitted.
I have [etc.]
Ambassador Morgenthau to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Constantinople, September 18, 1914.
Highness: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Highness’ letter of the 9th instant,2 in which you were kind enough to communicate to me the decision taken by the Imperial Government to abrogate the Capitulations commencing October first.
I have submitted to my Government the above decision and the reasons therein set forth.
Acting under instructions from my Government, I have the honor to inform Your Highness that my Government does not acquiesce in the attempt of the Imperial Ottoman Government to abrogate the Capitulations and does not recognize that it has a right to do so; or that its action, being unilateral, has any effect upon the rights and privileges enjoyed under those conventions. I am instructed further to inform the Imperial Ottoman Government that my Government reserves, for the present, the consideration of the grounds for its refusal to acquiesce in the action of the Imperial Ottoman Government, and the right to make further representations later.
I avail [etc.]
The Minister for Foreign Affairs to Ambassador Morgenthau.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Constantinople, November 26, 1914.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs is in receipt of notes verbales in which mention is made of the claims of individuals of foreign natonality who believe [Page 1302] that they have grounds of complaint against the competent Imperial authorities for certain injurious acts; who demand that their rights be respected, and even demand damages.
Since October 1, 1914, the former methods of procedure concerning claims of this sort should cease to be repeated, and whenever foreign subjects shall desire to maintain their rights, they shall address themselves directly to the said Imperial authorities, basing their action to this effect upon the laws, regulations and instructions in force; in case they should not obtain favorable action they shall have recourse, according to the case, to the Imperial Departments from which these authorities depend, to the Council of State if there is occasion, through the channel of the Grand Vizierate, or to judicial proceedings if that course is open to them.
In case their representations should remain fruitless and clauses of treaties or conventions, other than those which are abrogated, should be misinterpreted with regard to them, diplomatic procedure for securing redress of their wrongs could be chosen.
The Imperial Ministry will therefore be obliged, to its great regret, to take no action with regard to private claims which may be communicated to it by the said diplomatic channel when administrative and judicial recourse shall not have been exhausted, and it will be unable to take into consideration those which are not based upon infractions of the precise provisions of treaties in force.
Strictly speaking, it will only be able to receive, by notice, recommendations concerning certain private affairs, and to transmit them, as a matter of simple courtesy, to the Departments concerned, provided that this method of procedure is followed in exceptional cases.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs to Ambassador Morgenthau.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Constantinople, December 5, 1914.
Mr. Ambassador: I have taken note of the note which your excellency was pleased to address to me on September 18, 1914, in regard to the abrogation of the Capitulations.
The Imperial Ministry does not desire to enter into this question, into considerations upon the treaties which have been concluded in this connection, nor upon the extensive interpretations which have been given to clauses making exceptions to the rights of territorial sovereignty, clauses which, by the very juridical nature of things, should have been restrictively interpreted.
Nor does it try to point out that the part of the agreements and arrangements concluded in favor of the Imperial Government was reduced to the point of making them lose their chief interest. It limits itself to setting forth that the Sublime Porte has, like every state, the right to denounce, at any time, international acts concluded without stipulations of duration.
In effect, no treaty can contain provisions which should perpetuate themselves to eternity, when they deal with matters of commerce, of organization, and of judicial procedure or administration, which should evidently be submitted to the evolution of time.
The Imperial Government has all the more undeniably the right to avail itself of the faculty of denouncing which belongs to it, since the régime of the Capitulations, obsolete and no longer responding to modern needs, even when it is confined within its true contractual limits, threatens its own existence, and renders very difficult the conduct of Ottoman public affairs.
For all of these reasons, the Sublime Porte now feels that it must maintain its point of view as set forth in its note of September 9, 1914, No. 53699/89.
Please accept [etc.]
Ambassador Morgenthau to the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Constantinople, May 7, 1915.
note verbale.
The Embassy of the United States of America has the honor to inform the Imperial Ministry of Foreign Affairs that it is in receipt of reports from its consuls in various parts of the Empire, notably Bagdad, Aleppo, and Harput (Maamouret-ul-Aziz), in which they state that the provincial authorities have informed them that their direct intervention in matters affecting Americans can no longer be allowed, and that these latter must address their complaints or petitions directly to the said authorities.
At the time when the buildings of the American Schools at Harput were occupied by the military authorities (see this Embassy’s note verbale of April 9, 1915, No. 252) the Governor General even informed the American Consul at that place that the latter’s protest could not be taken into consideration, as his consular position was no longer recognized. To cite another example, the Kaimakam of Alexandretta refused, and was upheld by the Governor General at Aleppo, to receive a petition from a local American firm through the American Consular Agent at Alexandretta; while at Bagdad the Governor General has notified the American Consul and his various colleagues that hereafter their intercourse with him and with the other local officials must be restricted within certain limits.
Reserving its views in regard to the long-established rights of American consular officers and American citizens in the Ottoman Empire, guaranteed by treaties and usage, the Embassy desires to remind the Imperial Ministry that it is a universally recognized duty, as well as the right, of consular officers in every country to endeavor to assist and to uphold the rights of their nationals when the latter have need of protection, and that no possible interpretation of the general usages of international law can deprive American consular officers of the right of exercising this duty.
While reiterating the attitude of the American Government in the general question, as set forth in this Embassy’s note verbale of September 18, 1914, the Embassy finds itself obliged to ask the Sublime Porte to issue without further delay appropriate instructions to the provincial authorities to maintain the correct relations which have always existed between them and the American consular officers in the past.
The Minister for Foreign Affairs to Ambassador Morgenthau.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
Constantinople, May 31, 1915.
note verbale.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has had the honor to receive the note verbale which the Embassy of the United States of America was pleased to address to it on May 7, 1915, No. 285, concerning the refusal by certain local authorities in the provinces to admit the intervention of the American consuls in matters which concern their nationals.
It is evident that, in spite of the abrogation of the Capitulations, there is a possibility to admit, under all reserve, that the American consulates continue to be recognized in localities where they have already been formerly recognized; but their functions are reduced to proportions incomparable with the past, within the limits of general public international law and, accordingly, these agents can no longer, as formerly, act as intermediary between one of [Page 1304] their nationals and the Imperial authorities, whether for the receipt, or for the transmission of petitions, judicial acts, or other papers.
Whenever an American citizen shall have need of addressing himself for his affairs to the Imperial Ottoman authorities, he shall do it directly as, moreover, these things are done in every country.
The Imperial Ministry has deemed it proper to set forth its point of view in this connection in its note verbale of November 26, 1914, No. 57803/133, and thinks that the same principles are to be followed in the Empire, where all official recourse of consuls for prejudicial acts of which their nationals make complaint may not be accepted by the Imperial Authorities.
The Valis and Mutessarifs might only receive unofficial requests for certain affairs of a private nature, and send recommendations to the competent imperial authorities provided that this mode of procedure be followed as an exception.
Ambassador Morgenthau to the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Constantinople, June 3, 1915.
note verbale.
The Embassy of the United States of America has had the honor to receive the note verbale of the Imperial Ministry dated May 31, 1915, No. 66421/107, in regard to the intervention of American consular officers in matters which concern their nationals in the Ottoman Empire.
In reply, this Embassy has the honor to again refer to its notes of September 18, 1914, and of May 7, 1915, No. 285.
- Inclosure 1, Despatch 115, September 11, 1914, For. Rel. 1914, p. 1092.↩