Office of the Historian

852.00/6530: Telegram

The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Johnson) to the Secretary of State

London, September 23, 1937—7 p.m.
[Received September 23—3:20 p.m.]

605. My 599, September 18, 3 p.m.62

1.
The navy talks to take place between the French and Italian representatives in Paris next week are viewed by the Foreign Office with satisfaction. A high official in conversation this afternoon said that the fact that the talks were to take place between naval experts without political representatives of the countries was in his opinion a good omen. He said that the Italian demand for parity as a condition of accession to the patrol scheme would never have offered any serious difficulties to the British and the French as they had no desire to deny this parity. The attempt of the Italian press to regard the British and French concession of parity to Italy as a victory for Italy [Page 403] is regarded with amusement. As a matter of fact it has been made sufficiently clear that the piracy conditions in the Mediterranean had become a menace to British and French security; that the British and French therefore were resolved to abate the intolerable nuisance; Mussolini thus confronted with a genuine manifestation of Anglo-French determination has been realistic enough to accept the inevitable. In reaching this conclusion he has probably been encouraged by Germany, as the Foreign Office official again reiterated their opinion that Germany did not wish to become any further involved in Spain nor to increase her liabilities at the present time in the Mediterranean.
2.
The Foreign Office official in commenting on the talks yesterday between Monsieur Delbos and Signor Bova-Scoppa, the Italian permanent delegate to the League, said he thought they were all to the good and particularly if they served to disabuse the French mind of what has been almost “terror” in recent weeks, of possible large Italian reinforcements of troops in Spain. The Foreign Office, my informant stated, had made its own inquiries about this matter and had been unable to find satisfactory evidence that Mussolini was planning to send any large reinforcements to Spain.
3.
The official expressed his regret that no one during the meeting of the League Assembly had had the courage to tackle the question of Abyssinia. This merely means the postponement of an operation that in his opinion is inevitable and would be much better accomplished now.
4.
The official referred again to his conversation with me reported in my 599 of September 18, and said that the Italian decision to attend the naval meeting in Paris and her new outlook on the Nyon Agreement is further evidence to him of the mistake that was made in not having Mussolini in as an equal partner with France and Great Britain on the original undertaking. What has brought Mussolini to heel now is not persuasion or concession but the realization that his hand has been successfully called. His realization of Anglo-French determination would not have been any the less if he had been invited in the beginning to join them as a partner.
Johnson
  1. Not printed.↩