763.72111/3288½
Memorandum by the Secretary of State of an Interview With the Austro-Hungarian Chargé (Zwiedinek)
Baron Zwiedinek came this morning to see me about certain circulars which are being sent by a person calling himself Count von Ferri, copies of which are attached.25 He wished to assure me that [Page 94] the Austrian Embassy and officials had nothing to do with this propaganda and did not countenance it in any way, and said he believed there was a family of Ferri in Austria but he did not know this man.
The Chargé asked me if I had seen the letter which had been published in one of the morning papers which purported to be from the Embassy and dated August 24, 1914. I told him that I had seen it in the New York Times (a clipping from the Times is annexed);26 he said that he did not wish to deny the letter, but he had no recollection of ever having written it and presumed he signed it in the regular course and that it was written by someone else; that there was no intention to obtain American passports for Austrian reservists and that the obtaining of passports of other neutral countries did not seem to be an invasion of the sovereignty of the United States. I made no comment but thanked him for his frankness. I asked him if Consul-General von Nuber had obtained false passports and he said that he did not know, but he presumed the reservists were given money to defray their expenses in attempting to reach Austria and that the responsibility rested with them if they did obtain passports of other countries.
He asked me as to the situation in the Ancona case and I gave him a copy of the instruction to Ambassador Penfield, dated December 6th,27 telling him that it would be made public next Monday. I said to him that the admission of the Admiralty at Vienna that the sinking of the Ancona had been by an Austrian submarine had created very considerable astonishment in this country as the conduct of other submarine commanders of the Austrian Navy had been of a nature to expect humane conduct on the part of its officers; that I could not view the sinking of the Ancona as anything but a wanton and murderous attack and that I felt the only way that Austria could regain the good opinion of the American people was by complying fully with the demands of this Government. He told me that he would communicate at once with his Government and see if something could not be done to meet our wishes.
The Chargé was in a highly nervous state and evidently laboring under great emotion.
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- Foreign Relations, 1915, Supp., p. 623.↩