File No. 763.72/7950
The Ambassador in France ( Sharp) to the Secretary of State
[Received December 2, 11.20 p.m.]
2837. While stopping in Paris this week, Professor George D. Herron, formerly of Princeton I believe, but a resident of Zurich for the past two years, told me of a visit which he received some weeks ago from Professor Foerster, at one time instructor at the University of Munich. On account of the importance of the message conveyed to Professor Herron and at the risk of possibly repeating in whole or in part both [what?] may have been already brought to your attention, I will briefly outline its substance.
Professor Foerster told Mr. Herron that a short time before he had been summoned by the Austrian Emperor, with whom he had a life-long acquaintance, to meet him at Vienna. While there he was the Emperor’s guest at the Imperial Palace and was informed by the Emperor that he had been called for the express purpose of [Page 333] consulting him as to the best means of communicating to the Allied powers, particularly the Greeks [Great Britain?] or the United States, the desire of the Austrian Government to break away from Germany. The Emperor stated that he stood ready to reorganize his government in such a way as to approach as near as feasible the principles governing the federation of Switzerland; that among other things he would give to Bohemia home rule and help unite the Jugloslavs into one common power with Servia. He thought that some such action on the part of Austria might be the forerunner of the establishment of a United States of Europe. But how to make effective join [apparent omission] the Allied powers seemed to the Emperor a problem which the Allies must help him to solve.
Professor Foerster, who himself lives at Zürich and is entirely out of sympathy with the Germans, communicated the Emperor’s message as above outlined to Professor Herron. What other action he took I do not know.
For a long time past it has been a subject of common rumor that Austria, greatly exhausted by the war and distrusting the ultimate aims of Germany, would be glad to break away from her ally. The story which Professor Foerster tells, and the truth of which I do not doubt, may explain the several visits of Emperor William to Vienna during the past two or three months, and I have no doubt but that, if the truth were known, he has had far more difficulty in holding Austria and perhaps Bulgaria and Turkey in line than the Allies have had in harmonizing some of their differences known to exist. Such a situation also as Professor Foerster has described to Professor Herron would account for the added desire and conclusion of Germany to come quickly to the aid of Austria on the Italian front. Immediately after their successes there I noticed extracts from German papers in the tenor that Austria ought to come at last to realize the strength and friendship of her powerful ally and the debt which she owed her.
What change, if any, in the attitude of the Austrian Emperor may have been brought about by the recent successes in Italy it is hard to tell, but the new Roumanian Minister told me recently that Austria was so fatigued by the struggle that for a considerable time past her soldiers had absolutely refused to enter into any engagement on the eastern front.
Mr. Matsui, my Japanese colleague, said to me to-day that stranger things might happen than that Austria after all agreeing to an armistice with the Maximalists at Petrograd would inform Germany that she would no longer remain in the war.
While I know upon direct authority that the French Government favors the declaration of war upon Austria by the United States, yet [Page 334] unless, with the movement of enemy forces from the eastern to the western front, Austrian troops should be actually used in fighting our allies on French soil and, later, our own men, I believe that such a declaration would add an unnecessary complication to a situation not yet made very clear and which might place beyond our reach an influence which events may make of great service to us. Not since the early days of the war have any Austrian troops fought on French soil.
During the past ten days the atmosphere in Paris has been surcharged with rumors of threatened sudden and concentrated attacks by augmented German forces on the western front. What crystallized form these rumors may take at any time caused Mr. Cambon to express to me to-day his gravest concern. It is my own belief, however, that the very system of waging war so firmly established on the western front will be proof against compelling any retreat of the Allied forces; besides, their morale is magnificent.
Mr. Venizelos told me yesterday that he regarded an early attack by German and Bulgarian forces upon Saloniki, with the view of pushing down into Greece, as not only possible but probable.