File No. 763.72111/1930

The German, Ambassador (Bernstorff) to the Secretary of State

[Translation]
J. Nr. A 2341]

Mr. Secretary of State: I have the honor to deliver to your excellency the enclosed memorandum on German-American trade and the question of delivery of arms.

Accept [etc.]

J. Bernstorff
[Enclosure—Memorandum—Translation]
J. Nr. A 2341]

The various British orders in council have one-sidedly modified the generally recognized principles of international law in a way which arbitrarily stops the commerce of neutral nations with Germany. Even before the last British order in council, the shipment of conditional contraband, especially food supplies, to Germany was practically impossible. Prior to the protest sent by the American to the British Government on December 28 last, such a shipment did not actually take place in a single case. Even after this protest the Imperial Embassy knows of only a single case in which an American shipper has ventured to make such a shipment for the purpose of legitimate sale to Germany. Both ship and cargo were immediately seized by the English and are being held in an English port under the pretext of an order of the German Federal Council (Bundesrat) regarding the grain trade, although this resolution of the Federal Council relates exclusively to grain and flour and not to other foodstuffs, besides making an express exception with respect to imported foodstuffs, and although the German Government gave the American Government an assurance, and proposed a special organization whereby the exclusive consumption by the civilian population is absolutely guaranteed.

Under the circumstances the seizure of the American ship was inadmissible according to recognized principles of international law. Nevertheless the United States Government has not to date secured the release of the ship and cargo, and has not, after a duration of the war of eight months, succeeded in protecting its lawful trade with Germany.

Such a long delay, especially in matters of food supply, is equivalent to an entire denial.

The Imperial Embassy must therefore assume that the United States Government acquiesces in the violations of international law by Great Britain.

Then there is also the attitude of the United States in the question of the exportation of arms. The Imperial Government feels sure that the United States Government will agree that in questions of neutrality it is necessary to take into consideration not only the formal aspect of the case, but also the spirit in which the neutrality is carried out.

The situation in the present war differs from that of any previous war. Therefore any reference to arms furnished by Germany in former wars is not justified, for then it was not a question whether war material should be supplied to the belligerents, but who should supply it in competition with other nations. In the present war all nations having a war material industry worth mentioning are either involved in the war themselves or are engaged in perfecting their own armaments, and have therefore laid an embargo against the exportation of war material. The United States is accordingly the only neutral country in a position to furnish war materials. The conception of neutrality is thereby given a new purport, independently of the formal question of hitherto existing law. In contradiction thereto, the United States is building up a powerful a rills industry in the broadest sense, the existing plants not only being worked but enlarged by all available means, and new ones built. The international conventions for the protection of the rights of neutral nations doubtless sprang from the necessity of protecting the existing industries of neutral nations as far as possible from injury in their business. But it can in no event be in accordance with the spirit of true neutrality if, under the protection of such international stipulations, an entirely new industry is created in a neutral state, such as is the development of the arms industry in the [Page 158] United States, the business whereof, under the present conditions, can benefit only the belligerent powers.

This industry is actually delivering goods only to the enemies of Germany. The theoretical willingness to supply Germany also, if shipments thither were possible, does not alter the case. If it is the will of the American people that there shall be a true neutrality, the United States will find means of preventing this one-sided supply of arms or at least of utilizing it to protect legitimate trade with Germany, especially that in foodstuffs. This view of neutrality should all the more appeal to the United States Government because the latter enacted a similar policy toward Mexico. On February 4, 1914, President Wilson, according to a statement of a Representative in Congress in the Committee for Foreign Affairs of December 30, 1914, upon the lifting of the embargo on arms to Mexico, declared that “we should stand for genuine neutrality, considering the surrounding facts of the case...” He then held that “in that case, because Carranza had no ports, while Huerta had them and was able to import these materials, that it was our duty as a nation to treat them (Carranza and Huerta) upon an equality if we wished to observe the true spirit of neutrality as compared with a mere paper neutrality.”

If this view were applied to the present case, it would lead to an embargo on the exportation of arms.