841.857 P 43/46: Telegram
President Wilson to the Secretary of State
[Received 10:30 p. m.]
Are we sufficiently informed as to the facts in the case of the Persia to form a judgment and plan for a course of action? I would very much like your candid advice as to whether you think it best that I should return to Washington at once. I would suggest a message like the following to Penfield:
“Having just received the reply of the Austro-Hungarian Government in the matter of the Ancona and having formed a most favorable impression of the friendly and reasonable attitude of the Government and of the probability of an amicable and satisfactory settlement, we are the more deeply disturbed by the news that reaches us of the destruction of the steamship Persia. Please make immediate inquiry at the Foreign Office concerning the facts, express the grave solicitude of this Government and seek assurances of early and very serious action on the part of the Austro-Hungarian Government [Page 513] in the case, in the spirit and upon the principles so frankly set forth in its last note to us concerning the Ancona”.88
- This message was sent Jan. 3, 1916, 10 a. m.; see Foreign Relations, 1910, supp., p. 143.↩