711.62119/–: Telegram

The Commissioner at Berlin (Dresel) to the Acting Secretary of State

[Paraphrase]

56. I am informed by Simons, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, that, in regard to the possibility of a separate peace, a peace declaration would be greeted by the German people with joy and that any endeavor to ratify the Treaty of Versailles with reservations would greatly delay an effectual peace as both parties must accept the reservations, thereby starting endless discussion. It should be easy to reach a separate treaty following a declared peace, as the questions at issue between Germany and the United States are not complicated. The Foreign Minister also pointed out that under article 248 of the Treaty of Versailles the Entente obtains a first mortgage on all the state and commonwealth property in Germany, but that as the United States has little or no claim to reparations our ratification of this first mortgage would not work to our advantage.

Simons believes that were the peace to be made today instead of a year and a half ago there are many things that would doubtless be done entirely differently; from this point of view alone America should feel that it is only right that she should not ratify the Treaty of Versailles but should make a separate peace.

In a separate conversation with Secretary of State Albert,1 the latter expressed views nearly identical with those of Simons, adding that though he himself could disregard sentimental considerations, it was necessary to consider the disillusionment suffered by the German people at the failure to realize the fourteen points; whereas they might have understood America’s action in signing the treaty a year and a half ago, today they could not understand or forgive it, enough time having elapsed for us to understand what the treaty [Page 2] meant. Although Germany was not over-friendly to the League of Nations, a bitterness would be bred between Germany and America if the latter should accept the Treaty of Versailles without it that would spoil their relations for years to come.

Dresel
  1. Head of the Chancellery.