File No. 763.72119/488
The Ambassador in Great Britain ( Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 12, 12.10 a.m.]
5665. Your 4421, February 8, midnight. I immediately sought the Prime Minister with whom I had an interview yesterday afternoon. I reminded him of the purely personal and private nature of our conferences and told him that I now had a most important subject to put before him at the President’s command in this personal and private way.
I first told him the general substance of your telegram. He welcomed it and before I could mention details he answered every question I had prepared to ask him. The following is the substance of and in part the phraseology of his talk.
He knew that Austria was very eager for peace. She really never wanted war and surely there is no animosity between the British and the Austrians. The new Emperor was especially [Page 42] weary of a war that he had not made but had inherited. Besides Austria was obliged to stop in any event. If the Teutonic powers won she would be a vassal of Germany which would be worse for her than an Entente victory. Austria is now generalshipped and managed by Germany. Her very armies are commanded by Germans. She suffers most from economic pressure. “I know she wants to quit.”
Lord Grey said to me months ago when I first asked for the safe-conduct of the new Austrian Ambassador: “We no longer consider that Austria exists except as a convenient German fiction, for Germany dictates her policies, changes her Cabinet and commands her armies.”
Mr. George continued: “Of course the Austrian Emperor wishes as far as possible to save his Empire. We have no objection to his retaining Hungary and Bohemia. We have no policy of sheer dismemberment but we must stand by the nationals of our allies, such as the Roumanians, the Slavs, the Serbians, and the Italians. Their just demands must be met by the principle of nationality.”
But neither the British Government nor its allies could under straitened [present?] circumstances lose Italy as an ally. The blockade of Germany might be broken on the Austrian side. German troops and German officers who now hold the Austrian armies together could be released to strengthen the German line in more important places. Present military, submarine, and economic conditions [make it undesirable that we should?] even receive a formal offer of peace from Austria. The time for that has passed and has not yet come again. Present conditions must first change. The premeditated [premature?] retirement of Austria from the war might bring especial disadvantages to the Entente, Austrians released from the army would go to Germany and be added to German productive power. Austria is now an increasing military and economic burden to Germany and Germany will probably give in sooner with the load of Austria on her back than if Austria were out of the war.
The Prime Minister repeated that the British had not the slightest animosity to the Austrians whose future freedom in fact they wished to safeguard. The present question is purely a question of military expediency regarding the war as a whole and the removal from Germany of the burden of Austria now would add to the strength of Germany. “For these and other reasons,” the Prime Minister continued, “we cannot now even receive formally any peace offer from Austria nor authorize any discussion of peace with her on our behalf. We must look at the war as a whole, but if the President should see fit, acting for himself, to receive specific and concrete proposals from Austria, and should be able arid willing to transmit [Page 43] them to me through you in private confidence, I should, at the earliest moment, inform you when the time had come for us formally to receive and consider [them]. I shall be willing and in fact very glad to have such proposals proceed on the principles laid down in the President’s recent speech to the Senate. Free access to the sea may present difficulties but I should try to remove them.”
After the foregoing general declarations by the Prime Minister I put to him seriatim the several questions and propositions contained in your telegram:
1. Question: If the President should transmit officially to the British Government a specific and concrete proposal of peace from Austria what might he expect under present conditions?
Answer: The British Government could not now receive it without risk of weakening the Entente’s military and economic pressure and position.
2. Question: Would the Entente Governments consent that assurance be conveyed by the President to the Austrian Government that the older units of the Empire will not be taken from it?
Answer: The British Government could not under present conditions authorize any [assurance] to Austria. The British Government sees no reason to dismember Austria by removing Hungary and Bohemia but the peoples of the Entente Governments, such as Slavs, Roumanians, Serbs, and Italians, as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina, must by the principle of nationality be freed from Austrian control, but the British Government can not now authorize any representations on its behalf.
3. Question: Could Austria have a guaranty of free access to the sea if she should lose her Adriatic coast line?
Answer: This principle is not objectionable but there may be practical difficulties which, however, it may be possible to overcome when the time to discuss this subject arrives.
A necessary inference from the whole conversation is that the only proposal for peace that the British Government would officially receive under existing conditions is a bona fide proposal officially made by Germany [Austria?] at least as specific and concrete as the terms that the Entente powers set forth in their note to the President. Nothing else will be officially received until the issue of the submarine campaign and of the forthcoming great battle in France is decided. The Prime Minister then spoke with warmth and admiration of the President substantially as follows:
We want him to come into the war not so much for help with the war as for help with peace. My reason is not mainly the military nor naval nor economic nor financial pressure that the American Government and people might exert in their own way against Germany; grateful as this would be I have a far loftier reason. American participation is necessary for the complete expression of the moral judgment of the world on the most important [Page 44] subject ever presented to the civilized nations. For America’s sake, for our own sake, for the sake of free government, and for the sake of democracy, military despotism must now be ended forever. The President’s presence at the peace conference is necessary for the proper organization of the world which must follow peace. I mean that he himself must be there in person. If he site in the conference that makes peace he will exert the greatest influence that any man has ever exerted in expressing the moral value of free government. Most of the present belligerents will have suffered so heavily that their judgment also may have suffered and most of those that win will want some concrete gain, old wrongs righted, or boundaries changed. Even Great Britain, who wants nothing for herself, will be prevented from returning the German colonies. South Africa and Australia will not permit the giving back of lands that would make them neighbors to German subjects and give Germany secret submarine bases throughout the whole world. The United States wants nothing but justice and an ordered freedom and guaranties of these for the future. Nobody therefore can have so commanding a voice as the President. Convey to him this deep conviction of mine. He must help make peace if the peace made at that conference is to be worth keeping. American participation in the war would enable him to be there and the mere moral effect of this participation would shorten the war, might even end it very quickly.
The present Government is unique in English history. The Cabinet, which is constantly in session, now consists of only five men, the Prime Minister, Curzon, Milner, Bonar Law, and Henderson. … The Prime Minister, by public consent, is nearer to a dictator than any man in England since Cromwell. For reasons, therefore, not only of good form but also of principle I was obliged to ask his consent to speak to any other member of the Government. … He replied, “No. Speak to no one else for the present. I will take a few into my confidence and tell you whenever there [may] be anything to tell.”
I met Minister Balfour at dinner last night and from a remark he made to me I suspect the Prime Minister had told him of this conversation of a few hours before.