852.00/4693: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 8:55 p.m.]
212. In conversation this morning with an official at the Foreign Office we were told that the French Government is greatly concerned over the question of foreign intervention in Spain. They have definite information that large numbers of Italian soldiers have recently landed in Spain and are continuing to leave Italy for Spain: also that important shipments of artillery, airplanes, and munitions are being sent to Spain from Italy and Germany.
This official said that France was being placed in “an impossible situation” regarding this matter. He said that the last thing that the French Government wanted to do was to regain freedom of action and openly permit shipment of war material and passage of volunteers to Spain as Italy and Germany were now doing. He said that if the Italians and Germans continued in this way and if no agreement could be reached in the London Committee where Portugal doubtless on behalf of others was blocking agreement he said that the Government was at present considering the advisability of taking a strong attitude and “threatening” that if Germany and Italy continue to send troops, et cetera, to Spain, the French Government would resume its freedom of action. The trouble with this, he said, was that if the “threats” proved ineffective the French Government would then be obliged to abandon its nonintervention policy and this the French Government had no desire nor present intention of doing.
This official stated that the Spanish situation had again become extremely serious—“as serious as at any time during last summer”. He went on to say that there seemed to be good reason for believing that the Italians and Germans had come to some sort of an understanding under which Italy would take the lead in the Spanish situation and Germany the lead in Central Europe. In this connection he stated that the Foreign Office had the impression that efforts to isolate Czechoslovakia particularly as regards Poland and Rumania were meeting with some success.