763.72 Su/148
The Military Representative on the Supreme War Council (Bliss) to the Secretary of State
My Dear Mr. Secretary: I beg to acknowledge receipt of your very kind personal letter of September 17th,12 in which you refer to my letters of August 31st and September 3rd13 which enclosed for your information certain resolutions and minutes of the Supreme War Council.
I appreciate very deeply your kind words about my work here. They came at the psychological moment, because I was just recovering from an attack of the grippe, in some one of its Protean forms, [Page 161] which has literally cursed Europe during this year. I suppose it finds its natural pabulum among these under-nourished and under-warmed populations. It leaves one for a time somewhat depressed and not inclined to take the most cheerful view of things. Naturally, your appreciative words have had a very bracing and tonic effect.
I enclose you herewith some documents that may be of interest to you. You know of the persistent efforts made by our European associates in this war to get the United States to formally approve and commit itself to a policy of action in Russia which is counter to the one which the United States Government has adopted for itself and which was very clearly and solemnly declared to the ambassadors of Great Britain, France and Italy in your Note of (I think) July 22nd [17th] last.14 Some of them seem to think that there cannot be such a thing as a conscientious policy in such matters; they are inclined to altogether divorce conscience and policy.
That Note plainly declared the policy of the United States, and at the same time, said that the United States Government did not assume to criticise or to interpose objections to such other policy as the European Allies, in their wisdom, might choose to adopt. In accordance with its declared policy, the United States informed the European Allies on September 27th [26th] that it would send no more troops to North Russia.15 The reason for this I assume, is (among other things) because it was evident that these American troops were intended to be used in a form of military intervention to which the United States Government would not commit itself.
Nevertheless, and only a few days after your declaration of September 27th, Mr. Clemenceau directed the French Military Representative on the Supreme War Council to bring this subject again before the Military Representatives. The French Military Representative did this in the form of the drafts of two proposed Joint Notes, to be passed by the Military Representatives and to be presented by them to the Supreme War Council (which includes, of course, the President of the United States). I enclose herewith, in the original French, a copy of each of these drafts.16
One of these proposed Joint Notes sets forth a plan of general military intervention in Russia, quite counter to the declared policy of the United States. It also assigns to the United States a specific share in this intervention. If submitted to the President and approved by him, it would require him to reverse the action taken in the declaration of September 27th (about sending additional American troops to Archangel) and also to formally approve a [Page 162] line of policy counter to that which he had already declared to be the policy of the United States in Russia.
The second of these Joint Notes related specifically to the sending of American reinforcements to Archangel.
Manifestly, as I have understood my instructions on this subject and the general attitude of the United States toward it, I could not sign either of these Notes.
The Secretary of War, Mr. Baker, happened to be here, on the very day of his departure for the United States. I formulated my views in a letter addressed to him, stating the general attitude which I proposed to take provided he believed it correct.
The Military Representatives met to consider these subjects on the morning of October 7th. I was unable to be present in person, on account of my illness, and I therefore submitted my views in the paper, herewith, dated October 6th, and marked “A”.17 I thought that this paper made perfectly clear the fact that I could not sign the Joint Notes because that involved a request for the President of the United States to formally approve a policy counter to his own declared one, and because the sending of further American troops involved their employment in the execution of such a policy.
For some reason, which you may guess (I can only attempt to guess it, myself), the French Military Representative then requested whether I would not sign the note relating to the general policy of intervention in Russia, provided he omitted the clauses in which specific reference was made to participation by the United States. This is in line with the manifest determination to get the President to approve the policy of the European Allies in Russia, even though he should not participate in the execution of such a policy. Of course I could not be a party to putting such a request up to the President of the United States. I therefore submitted to the Military Representatives a second statement dated October 7th (herewith, marked “B”).17
The European Allies know quite well that they have no occasion to ask the President to approve their policy in Mesopotamia, or Palestine, or Macedonia. Why do they insist on his approving it in Russia? I suspect that it is because they feel that effective intervention in Russia, on the scale which they contemplate, can only be carried out by the resources,—men, material and money—of the United States.
With kindest regards [etc.]
- No copy of this letter found in Department files.↩
- Neither printed.↩
- Foreign Relations, 1918, Russia, vol. ii, p. 287.↩
- See ibid., p. 546.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Not printed.↩