Mr. Tower to Mr. Hay.
Berlin, December 17, 1902.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt on Saturday morning, the 13th of December, of your telegram in relation to the blockade of Venezuelan ports by the combined fleets of Germany and Great Britain and the attitude which the Government of the United States intends to take in order to maintain its rights during the continuance of a peaceful blockade.
Immediately upon the receipt of this telegram I proceeded to the ministry for foreign affairs, where I presented a memorandum of its contents to Doctor von Muehlberg, the under secretary of state for foreign affairs, who received me in the absence and as the representative of Baron von Richthofen, the secretary of state for foreign affairs. Doctor von Muehlberg accepted my communication with the assurance that he would bring it immediately to the attention of the Imperial Government.
Upon the following morning, Sunday, I returned to the ministry for foreign affairs by appointment, and had personal interviews there with Baron von, Richthofen and Doctor von Muehlberg, the latter of whom informed me, in further reply to my communication of the day before, that it had been the intention of Germany to confine the combined operations in Venezuelan waters to a merely peaceful blockade, but that Great Britain had declined to accept a proposal to that end [Page 422] made by the Imperial Government, and had insisted that the blockade should be warlike in character. He added that Germany had thereupon acceded to the wishes of Great Britain and had decided to unite in the establishment of a warlike blockade, though, as under the German law a measure of this kind could not be undertaken without the previously granted assent of the Bundesrath, the announcement of the warlike blockade would not probably be made until Monday or Tuesday, when it was expected that the necessary assent of the Bundesrath would have been obtained.
I inquired of Doctor von Muehlberg whether it was intended that the warlike blockade should be accompanied by all the conditions attending such naval measures in general, to which he answered that this was the intention of Germany and Great Britain. I inquired further whether it was intended to declare war, to which Doctor von Muehlberg replied, quite emphatically, that the united powers did not then intend to make a declaration of war or to take any hostile step beyond the declaration of a warlike blockade.
I have, etc.,