500.A15a3/1370
The Ambassador in France ( Edge ) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 26.]
Sir: Referring to your telegram No. 34, February 4, 2 P.M. and confirming my telegrams No. 49, February 7, 4 P.M. and No. 56, February 11, 6 P.M.,63 I have the honor to inform the Department that, upon the receipt of the first telegram, I had the Counselor of the Embassy64 call on Mr. Ronald Campbell, Counselor of the British Embassy, to explain the general situation to him and to arrange for me an interview with the British Ambassador.
I saw Lord Tyrrell on the morning of February 6th and had a long talk with him acquainting him with the contents of the Department’s telegram. Lord Tyrrell said that, as I was undoubtedly aware, negotiations on this question had been in progress since last November; that the British viewpoint,—or perhaps he should say the viewpoint of the Foreign Office at London,—was that these negotiations between the French and Italians, in which the British had acted more or less in the nature of go-between, had gradually whittled away the differences [Page 361] until the British Foreign Office felt that the points of view of both France and Italy were now clearly defined and that the distinction between them was not great, simply three or four thousand tons, and one eight thousand ton cruiser. In other words, that the situation was as described in your telegram. On the other hand, the French point of view,—as the British Embassy in Paris understood it,—was quite different; the French claiming that, in the final analysis, in spite of anything that might be said to the contrary, the Italians were still insisting on parity, although the use of the word was being avoided in the proposed scheme of settlement. Only the evening before, Tyrrell said, he had at last succeeded in obtaining from the French a definite statement of their position. Their objection was not only that the so-called Craigie proposals65 called for the acceptance by the French of less than their minimum demands, but that it would leave the French at the end of the stipulated period, that is by 1936, with one hundred thousand tons of obsolete tonnage as compared with only eight thousand tons of obsolete, or more or less obsolete, Italian tonnage, thus cutting down the present margin of French superiority by some ninety odd thousand tons. Lord Tyrrell said that he had done his best to point out to the Foreign Office in London the French point of view, but that they refused to take the French position seriously. He said that he expected to see M. Briand that afternoon, adding that he would be glad to come to see me immediately after this conversation in order to put me “au courant” of the situation. The principal thing, Lord Tyrrell added, was that his Government, as well as our Government, should realize that the French along with all other countries were influenced by internal political conditions and allowance should be made for this fact. It was arranged that, in view of the fact that Lord Tyrrell was to see M. Briand that afternoon, I should do nothing until hearing from him further in the matter.
On the following morning, Saturday, February 7th, Lord Tyrrell called on me and informed me that on the previous afternoon, just after my call, he had received a telephone message from the Foreign Office in London instructing him to inform Briand that the British Government would like to have Craigie come over to Paris for a talk with Massigli. Briand had expressed his entire willingness to have the conversations renewed in the hope that some further headway could be made, and it was arranged that Craigie should come from London and meet Massigli on Monday, February 9th. The Ambassador assured me that he would keep me informed of the results of the conversations and suggested that, in view of the previous contacts which he had had with Massigli, Armour should get in touch with [Page 362] the latter following the Massigli-Craigie conversations and inform Massigli frankly that the British Embassy had advised us that the talks had taken place and that we would like to be informed of the French version of the result of these conversations in order to make the French point of view known to our Government. (In this connection Tyrrell said that he thought it particularly important that the French Government should have an opportunity to present its point of view to our Government direct and not through the intermediary of the British: that some days before in the House of Commons on a question relative to the Franco-Italian negotiations a member of the Government had replied that the American and Japanese Governments were being kept fully informed. This reply, he heard, had been somewhat loosely translated in the French press and the Government here had, he felt, rather jumped at the conclusion that the British Government had gone further than to keep us informed: that they had perhaps attempted to win us over to their, the British, point of view in the whole question, and he, Tyrrell, thought it important that the French should have such an idea dissipated which could best be done by the manner outlined above, namely, the offer, by our Embassy, to listen to the French side and transmit it to Washington for its information.)
In the meantime, Lord Tyrrell agreed with me that it would be better for me to refrain from discussing the matter with M. Briand until the results of the conversations between Massigli and Craigie were disclosed.
I asked Lord Tyrrell what he thought would happen if these conversations terminated without resulting in any agreement. He replied that he felt that there were still two methods of procedure: First, that an effort should be made for a further naval construction holiday to be participated in by all five of the nations which took part in the recent London Naval Conference.66 He felt that this might be possible as no doubt all of the nations were anxious to reduce their budgets, and, moreover, this principle had already been carried out for some time by France and Italy.
Second, there was also the possibility of returning to the idea of a Four Power Treaty, giving France such protection, through an escalator clause, as might be deemed necessary in order to obtain her participation.
We then went on to a general discussion as to the effect of failure to reach some agreement on the forthcoming general League of Nations disarmament conference.67 I indicated, as set forth in your telegram under reference, that failure on the part of the five nations to agree [Page 363] on something tangible at this time would have an adverse effect on the proposed general conference as it would be quite obvious to all the nations that, if the five principal nations could not agree on a restricted naval program, it would be virtually impossible for fifty odd nations to agree on a disarmament proposal which was more comprehensive in its nature. Tyrrell agreed with me that this was true, but he also agreed with me that the time had not arrived to stress this feeling to the French.
On February 11th, in my telegram No. 56, February 11, 6 P.M., I informed you that the Craigie-Massigli conversations, begun on Monday, had to be discontinued on the following day owing to the illness of Massigli. Massigli’s illness continuing, it was found impossible to renew the conversations until Thursday evening. On Wednesday, February 11th, I lunched with the British Ambassador, and Craigie was also present, which gave me an opportunity to talk over the matter with Craigie after the luncheon. He told me that he felt that his revised proposals, permitting the French Government a superior tonnage of approximately 235,000 tons formed a reasonable possible basis for agreement between the French and Italians and that Massigli seemed reasonably favorably disposed toward them. As to the question of obsolete tonnage touched upon above, Craigie felt that this would not present an insuperable difficulty. (In my telegram, however, I pointed out to the Department that I was not as sanguine perhaps as Craigie in this regard as I had reason to believe that the position of the French Ministry of Marine, referred to in my telegram No. 49, February 7, 4 P.M., remained unchanged.) Craigie went on to say that he had a tentative understanding with Massigli that the Ministry of Marine would withhold the presentation of their 1931 program, which was scheduled to be sent to the French Chamber that week, pending the result of these conversations, but admitted that he was somewhat perturbed over the possibility that Massigli’s illness, which was postponing the conversations, might interfere with this understanding.
Craigie’s fears appeared to be justified, as on the following morning I was informed by our Military Attaché that he had learned from a reliable source that the naval program had been presented to the Finance Committee of the Chamber the evening before, that is to say, some hours after my conversation with Craigie. This program, as set forth in my telegram, provides for the following: One, 23,000 ton battleship; two light cruisers, one of 7,500 tons and one of 6,100 tons; two submarines and other vessels of the unlimited category as forecasted at the London Naval Conference,68 totalling altogether 43,000 tons. Craigie, when this program was shown to [Page 364] him, stated that it agreed with his information except that he understood that France would insist on one submarine only. That, however, may represent the difference in the attitude of the French Foreign Office and the Ministry of Marine.
With reference to the above program, it might be pointed out that the two changes of importance seem to be: First, the building of 6.1 inch gun cruisers rather than 10,000 ton Washington cruisers; and second, the reduction in submarine tonnage below what is required for replacement of out-of-date tonnage this year. In the light cruiser category, that is, 6.1 inch gun, I am informed that the French have four in service and one building, while the Italians have six built, four building and two appropriated for.
On the night of February 12th I understand that Massigli was well enough to receive Craigie and the conversations were resumed on that evening and continued yesterday and to-day. Yesterday morning Craigie telephoned the Embassy to call my attention to a telegram published in Le Matin that morning, bearing a Washington headline, and apparently sent by the French Radio Agency, which telegram was as follows:
“In spite of pessimistic telegrams from Paris, the officials of the Department of State announce they have received information from an authorized source indicating a real progress in the Franco-Italian negotiations relative to the limitation of naval armaments, and declaring that it was not to be feared that Great Britain would be obliged to use the escalator clause of the London treaty70 because a Franco-Italian agreement will be reached to complete the edifice of the recent naval treaty.”
Other papers carried a similarly optimistic article, although not stating affirmatively that an agreement would be reached.
A telegram published in the Paris edition of the New York Herald, which apparently was a Washington message or at least so dated, stated:
“Although newspaper despatches from France are pessimistic about the outcome of the Anglo-French conversations on naval limitation now going on in Paris, State Department officials announced to-day that they had received authentic reports indicating ‘real progress’ in the negotiations between France and Italy regarding limitation.
“They declared they had no apprehension that the British Government would be forced to resort to the safeguard clause of the London naval treaty because of Franco-Italian competitive building.”
Craigie said that, in view of the undoubted opposition here on the part of various officials, notably at the Ministry of Marine, he was proceeding with great care and expressed concern lest the French [Page 365] might draw the deduction from these telegrams that the optimism in Washington was based upon something received from him, presumably through this Embassy, and he felt that such an impression would only tend to strengthen the hand of the opposition. As he seemed to be so worried over this, I thought it best to bring the matter to your attention, which I did in my telegram No. 62, February 13, 1 P.M.71 I shall, of course, not fail to keep the Department informed of further developments, but I do not anticipate that I shall have much to report until the beginning of next week as I understand that Craigie is remaining in Paris for some days longer in order to continue the conversations, and in view of my agreement with Tyrrell I do not wish to press the British too hard, at least until Craigie has had an opportunity to thrash the matter out thoroughly with Massigli.
Respectfully yours,
- No. 49 and No. 56 not printed.↩
- Norman Armour.↩
- See telegram No. 31, November 20, 1930, from the chairman of the American delegation on the Preparatory Commission, Foreign Relations, 1930, vol. i, p. 180.↩
- See Foreign Relations, 1930, vol. i, pp. 1 ff.↩
- See pp. 471 ff.↩
- See article 8 of the London Naval Treaty, Foreign Relations, 1930, vol. i, p. 113.↩
- Article 21 was the so-called “escalator clause” of the London Naval Treaty.↩
- Not printed.↩