862.00/350: Telegram
The Chargé in Denmark ( Grant-Smith ) to the Secretary of State
[Received November 27—1:28 a.m.]
3205. Uncensored and confidential message received from …9 in Berlin reads as follows:
“Scheidemann said to me but not for publication: ‘Opposition to the Constituent Assembly would disappear if Wilson were to say that peace could be made only with the Constituent Assembly or Government supported by it.’ So far I can make the following positive statements: First. The Government must stand or fall by the Constituent Assembly. Second. The Spartacus group and other[s] of Bolshevik tendency can grow in power only if famine and rumor [of?] retreat to the Rhine throw the army into disorder. The Bolshevik centers are Berlin, Hamburg, and Bremen and they can only be successfully fought with immediate food. The food situation is really desperate and inspires the Radicals to plan to prevent the Constituent Assembly to force the Allies to come to Berlin and so threaten the Allied armies with Bolshevikism. Also our move is to announce loudly that food is coming to a democratic Germany, followed quickly by at least a few shiploads and at the same time to try [to] delay the fulfillment of the armistice terms especially regarding the delivery of the railroad so that it can be used in transporting coal and food.”
Copenhagen to London.
- A newspaper correspondent.↩