File No. 763.72119/368

The Ambassador in Austria-Hungary ( Penfield) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]

1635. Department’s circular, 2d.1 Following note from Minister Foreign Affairs left at Embassy near midnight, 11th instant, after it had been given to press and broadcast:2

The Imperial and Royal Government had on the 5th instant the honor to receive through the obliging medium of the Government of the United States of America the reply of the states at war with it to its note of December 12, in which the Imperial and Royal Government in concert with its allies declared its readiness to enter upon peace negotiations. Jointly with the allied powers the Imperial and Royal Government did not fail to subject the reply of the enemy governments to a thorough examination which brought the following result.

Under pretense that the proposal of the four allied powers lacked sincerity and importance the enemy governments decline to accede to the proposal. The form they gave to their communication makes it impossible to return an answer addressed to them. The Imperial and Royal Government nevertheless wishes to disclose its views to the neutral powers.

The reply of the enemy governments shuns every discussion of the means to bring the war to an end. It confines itself to reverting to the facts anterior to the war, to the alleged strength of their military situation, and to the motives for the peace proposal as supposed by them.

The Imperial and Royal Government has no present intention to launch into a renewed discussion of the antecedents of the war, for it is convinced that a straightforward, impartial judgment has already and irrefutably established, in the eyes of all mankind, on which side lies the responsibility for the war. With particular [Page 11] reference to Austria-Hungary’s ultimatum to Serbia, the Monarchy has given in the years that preceded that step sufficient evidence of her forbearance in the face of the tendencies and hostile and aggressive doings of Serbia which were growing worse and worse up to the time when the infamous Sarajevo assassination put any further leniency out of the question.

Likewise any discussion of the point of determining on which side’ the advantage lay in regard to the military situation seems idle, as the answer to that question may unhesitatingly be left with public opinion throughout the world. Besides a comparison of the ends sought by the two groups in the present conflagration implies the solution of that question. While Austria-Hungary and its allies from the beginning of the war, never aimed at territorial conquest but rather at their defense, the contrary stands true for the enemy states which, to mention but a few of the objects they harbor in this war, crave the annihilation and spoliation of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy, the conquest of Alsace-Lorraine, as also the partition of Turkey, and the curtailment of Bulgaria. The four allied powers therefore may consider they have achieved the purely defensive ends they seek in that war while their adversaries are more and more removed from the accomplishment of their designs.

If the enemy governments term “stratagem” the proposal of the four allied powers which is said to lack sincerity and importance, it is clear that we have here but an absolutely arbitrary assertion of a biased judgment incapable of proof so long as the peace negotiations have not begun and consequently our peace terms are not known.

The Imperial and Royal Government and the governments of the allied powers acted in perfect sincerity and good faith when they proposed peace negotiations for they had to reckon with the contingency of their explicit proposal to make their terms known immediately upon the opening of the negotiations being accepted. On the contrary the adversaries were those who, without offering any counter proposal, declined to acquaint themselves with the contents of the proposal of the four allied powers. If the adversaries demand above all the restoration of invaded rights and liberties, the recognition of the principle of nationalities and of the free existence of small states, it will suffice to call to mind the tragic fate of the Irish and Finnish peoples, the obliteration of the freedom and independence of the Boer Republics, the subjection of North Africa by Great Britain, France, and Italy, and, lastly, the violence brought to bear on Greece for which there is no precedent in history.

The Imperial and Royal Government lays down as a fact that in concert with the allied powers it had declared its readiness to bring the war to an end by means of an oral exchange of views with the enemy governments and that on the decision of the adversaries alone depended the opening of the way to peace. Before God and mankind it disclaims responsibility for a continuance of the war. Calm, strong, and confident of their right, Austria-Hungary and its allies will carry on the struggle until they gain a peace that will secure the existence, honor, and free development of their peoples and at the same time enable the states of Europe to cooperate in the grand work of civilization on the basis of wholly equal rights.

[Page 12]

The Imperial and Royal Government has the honor to apply for your excellency’s obliging; good offices with a request that you will kindly forward the foregoing to the Government of the United States of America.

Be pleased to accept [etc.]

Czernin

Penfield