File No. 763.72111Sp1/109

The American Chargé ( Wilson) to the Spanish Minister of State ( De Alhucemas)1

No. 109–A

Excellency: On October 26 last, the French Ambassador transmitted to Your Excellency’s predecessor, the Marqués de Lema, a note in regard to a suggestion which he had previously made concerning the signals made by the German merchant ships Belgrano and Fangsturm. This suggestion was to the effect that the only means of preventing the vessels above mentioned, and other German ships in Spanish ports, from giving assistance to German submarines in their operations against Allied and Spanish ships was to cause their crews to be interned in the interior of Spain.

I am to-day in receipt of a telegram from my Government, stating that it agrees with the views expressed by the French Government through its Ambassador in the above-mentioned note of October 26 last.

My Government has reasons for believing that these German interned ships are used as a channel of communication with German submarines, and that by means of signals they give information concerning arrivals, departures, and whereabouts of Spanish and Allied ships, many of which are attacked and sunk.

My Government feels that these German ships, by using Spanish ports as bases of intelligence for submarine operations against vessels of nations with which His Majesty’s Government is at peace, are endangering the neutrality of that Government, and I am accordingly instructed to express the hope that His Majesty’s Government will accept the suggestion of the French Government, and intern in the interior of the country the crews of German merchant ships now in Spanish ports.

I avail [etc.]

[No signature indicated]
  1. Copy enclosed in the Chargé’s despatch No. 945, Nov. 21 (received Dec. 17), not printed.