763.72119/2557½: Telegram
The German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Solf) to the Secretary of State
Mr. Secretary: Convinced of the common aims and ideals of democracy the German Government has addressed itself to the President of the United States with the request to reestablish peace.
This peace was meant to correspond with the principles which the President has always maintained. Its aim was to be a just solution of all questions in dispute, followed by a permanent reconciliation of all nations.
Furthermore the President has declared that he did not wish to make war on the German people and that he did not wish to impede with its peaceful developments.
The German Government has received the conditions of the armistice.
After a blockade of 50 months these conditions, especially the surrender of the means of transport and the sustenance of the troops of occupation would make it impossible to provide Germany with food and would cause the starvation of millions of men, women and children, all the more as the blockade is to continue.
We had to accept the conditions.
But we feel it our duty to draw President Wilson’s attention most solemnly and with all earnestness to the fact that the enforcement of these conditions must produce amongst the German people feelings contrary to those upon which alone the reconstruction of the community of nations can rest, guaranteeing a just and durable peace.
The German people therefore, in this fateful hour, address them-selves again to the President with the request to use his influence with the Allied powers in order to mitigate those fearful conditions.