763.72119/3049
The Swedish Legation to the Department of State
Memorandum
The Legation has received from the Royal Swedish Foreign Office, a cablegram requesting the Legation to transmit to President Wilson the following communication from the Austro-German Government:17 [Page 203]
The Austro-German Republic has felt it its duty to propose to the neighboring states, that is to say the Czecho-Slovak Republic, and the Jugoslav State, to submit to a decision by arbitration, the disputes regarding the frontiers which have come up before the conclusion of peace, and which have unfortunately caused severe acts of violence. The Austro-German Republic appeals to the sense of justice of the Powers and asks them to kindly use their influence with a view of bringing about that the said arbitrage and treaty be accepted and thus prevent further troubles and acts of violence, which are certainly not apt to bring nearer the conclusion of a general peace so much desired. The proposed treaties between the Austro-German Republic on one side, and the Czecho-Slovak and Jugoslav States on the other side, stipulate in article I, that the definite determination of the frontiers, the settlement by treaties of the economic and legal relations between the states in question, specially the regulation of questions of property which have necessarily been caused by the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy or Austria, shall be left to the peace negotiations.
In article II the States bind themselves to live in peace until that time, and to submit until then, all the conflicts, which cannot be settled at once through diplomatic negotiations, to an obligatory court of arbitration, in accordance with article III, composed of five members, of which each of the parties shall elect two, only one of whom shall be a citizen of the electing state, and the other a citizen of a neutral state. The 5th is to be elected by the other four, and in case of disagreement, by two neutral powers designated by the nations in conflict.
The abovementioned stipulations shall be valid only until the peace treaty is in force.
- Repeated to the Commission to Negotiate Peace as Department’s telegram No. 47, Dec. 18, 1918, 7 p.m.↩