Paris Peace Conf. 185.001/11
The Minister in Switzerland (
Stovall
) to the Commission to
Negotiate Peace
No. 11
Berne
, December
11, 1918.
[Received December 18.]
Sirs: I have the honor to transmit herewith
for your consideration copies of a translation of a protest addressed to
the associated Governments by Dr. Solf, Secretary of State of the German
Foreign Office, objecting to certain measures which Marshal Foch is
alleged to have taken in regard to evacuating certain occupied
territories on the left bank of the Rhine. I beg to add that the
enclosed documents were transmitted to the Legation under cover of a
note from the Swiss Political Department dated December 10, 1918.23
I have [etc.]
[Enclosure]
Translation of a Statement by the German Secretary
of State in the Foreign Office (Solf)
On December sixth General Foch forwarded a decision to the Armistice
Commission, according to which the traffic of food stuffs and all
traffic between the evacuated country of the left bank of the Rhine,
with the neutral Zone and thereby with the remaining parts of
Germany, would be stopped, for the reason that the maintenance of
the Blockade during the Armistice had been provided for.
The German Government is in duty bound to raise the sharpest protest
against such an arrangement for this one-sided decision is in
absolute contradiction to the clear text of the Armistice agreement.
The measure proclaimed and which has already been carried out in
part, gives to the existing Blockade an expansion of blockade
measures on land which are in contradiction to the nature of the
Blockade and foreign to all peoples since the times of the British
Continental Blockade against France. The above quoted condition of
the Armistice agreement relative to the Blockade is therefore also
properly found in the section “Clauses Navales” and requires the
maintenance of the Blockade only “to the present extent”. The above
decision means a very important increase in severity and extension
of the Blockade, under which German women and children of the
country of the right bank of the Rhine suffer greatly; they are
dependent on the importation of milk and other perishable food
stuffs from the evacuated territories, the more so as the German
people have not yet
[Page 50]
received
a revictualling whatsoever through the Allies as promised in the
afore-mentioned Blockade agreement of the Armistice.
This determination further nullifies the terms of the last paragraph
of the VI Article of the agreement, according to which “no general
or state measures are to be adopted which would have as their
consequence a depreciation of the industrial plants or a diminution
of its personnel”. Through this stoppage of traffic, the absolutely
necessities of material importation of raw materials and
semi-manufactured goods for the maintenance of the industrial
situation is made impossible, whereby their depreciation must
result. The inability for production necessitates “diminution of the
Personnel”. Lack of work and new misery in the arbitrarily cut off
territories which are absolutely German are unavoidable consequences
of this. The German Government therefore proposes that these
questions be regulated during the negotiations relative to the
prolongation of the Armistice to the effect that without prejudice
to the right of supervision of the Allies complete liberty of
traffic between the evacuated territories and other parts of Germany
be guaranteed.
