763.72112/2200¾: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Page) to the Secretary of State
[Received January 23—4:30 a. m.]
3622. Great Britain’s allies, especially France, strongly insist on Great Britain’s allies [sic] tightening the economic pressure on Germany. Public opinion here also has become earnestly aroused and demands an absolute blockade. The Government cannot long resist this demand for the country is convinced that a [decisive] victory depends on it. If the war end as a draw Europe will remain under a burden of armaments and there can be no hope of a continuing [continuous] peace. The Allies believe that [the question] may largely rest with us whether the war shall end as a draw. If we so object to a blockade as to cause an indecisive peace, Ally opinion will hold us responsible for the burdens of armaments and the political complications that will follow.
The following information which comes to me indirectly from an official source illustrates my meaning: Japan has forced [the tentative consent of some of the Allies to her] acquiring and retaining certain large advantages and privileges after the war ends. She wishes to set up a sort of Monroe Doctrine behind which it is feared she would exploit China and dominate the Pacific. England withholds her consent and has provoked an angry attitude by Japan, who wishes to secure her spoils and privileges while England is helplessly engaged in the [war with] Germany. The British Government . . . is for the moment helpless. England’s final attitude to Japan must depend largely on the [feeling] at the end of the war between England and the United States. If the United States should oppose the blockade [of Germany] and the war should end as a draw, Japan will be able to extort her full demands because England will need her Navy indefinitely on this side of the world. If the United States acquiesce in the blockade and the war ends with German defeat, both England and the United States will be in the way of Japan’s aggressions and [Japan will be checkmated.] The only hope therefore of a permanent peace lies in such a decisive defeat of Germany as will prevent a new era of armament and a new set of dangerous complications both in Europe and in the Pacific; and a decisive [defeat] may depend on the degree of active sympathy we show by our attitude to the forthcoming blockade.
[Page 307]Our attitude to the blockade therefore will have far-reaching results for us and for the whole world. Permanent peace [depends on the] active sympathy of the two great English-speaking nations. There is [no other] practical and enduring basis [for] it. Besides nothing else can long save us from war. We are the larger in white population and potentially the stronger of these nations [and] permanent peace cannot come without our active sympathy with the smaller empire which is now spending [itself to withstand] the assault [of] military monarchy on free government. If we accept the forthcoming blockade as England acceded to [accepted] our weaker blockade against the Confederacy we shall save the world from the aggressive ambitions both of Germany and of Japan. If we insist [on] technical objections in order to build up a code of naval and marine law, one or both the aggressive military monarchies will smash our legal structure in their assault on democratic civilization.
Events are pushing us to the necessity of a [sharp] decision. It may be a silent [decision] but it must be clear. We should already have been drawn into this conflict but for England’s complete naval supremacy over Germany. If the German Navy had the seas we should have been goaded into war. The only course that can insure peace for us in the future in the world-wide conflict between military monarchy and free government is such a direction of events as will bring an active sympathy between the British Empire and the United States. The forthcoming blockade will give probably the last tactical opportunity for such an active sympathy.
For these reasons this seems the critical moment of this war for us, a moment that demands a constructive and [decisive] suggestion. If you have such a suggestion, however tentative, that I may privately use it may secure a permanent peace after this war ends and change the course of history for a century.
I write this [profound] conviction having in mind only our own interests, our own security, and our own duty to our democratic ideals. This is our only practical lead [to insure a lasting peace.]