File No. 860d.48/24
The French Ambassador ( Jusserand) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 31.]
Mr. Secretary of State: As I had the honor to tell Your Excellency in our conversation yesterday, the Allied consuls at Helsingfors have submitted to their respective Governments a proposition to cause a note to be published in the Scandinavian press showing that the Entente Powers, harboring no hostile sentiment toward Finland, [Page 586] are ready to supply the northeastern districts of the country with food on the condition that they be evacuated by the Germans.1 In this way the revictualing would spread to all parts relinquished by the Germans.
On receipt of that proposition forwarded to it by the Minister of France at Stockholm, my Government replied that it could not be accepted in that form, that the position of the Allies on that question had been clearly stated in the note handed to M. de Grippenberg and that it is deemed expedient to adhere to the terms of that note which places the following conditions on the revictualing of Finland: termination of the treaty concluded by that country with Germany in evident violation of its neutrality; a guarantee that the imported foodstuffs will be for the exclusive use of the Finnish population; a pledge not to tolerate any attempt upon the Russian adjoining provinces. As viewed by my Government, the partial revictualing proposed by the consuls would make it possible for the Germans momentarily to withdraw from certain parts to which they would return afterward.
Furthermore, it is of the highest importance to bring into Finland a conviction that Germany’s defeat is assured and thus change its state of mind. Firmness on the part of the Allies may go far toward establishing that needed conviction.
I was glad to report to my Government, on the strength of the oral remarks made to me on the subject by Your Excellency, that the American Government’s views of the question were on the whole like its own.
Be pleased to accept [etc.]
- See telegram of Aug. 21, 1918, from the Consul at Helsingfors, and Department’s reply of Aug. 28, Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, vol. II, pp. 806 and 808, respectively.↩