File No. 8111812/497.
[Untitled]
Washington, July 13, 1914.
To the Diplomatic Officers of the United States.
Gentlemen: Referring to the Department’s instructions of September 17 and November 25, 1913,6 with regard to the invitation extended by the President to foreign nations to send representatives and as many of their national war vessels as they may deem proper to Hampton Roads in 1915 for the purpose of participating in the celebration of the completion of the Panama Canal and the opening of the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, I enclose herewith, for communication to the Governments to which you are respectively accredited a memorandum of the ceremonies incident to the naval review. The memorandum is tentative and slight changes therein may be found advisable.
In bringing this program to the notice of the Government to which you are accredited you will inform that Government that the Navy Department contemplates supplying coal to such foreign vessels as may desire it before the departure of the international fleet for Panama. The coal will be supplied to foreign ships at the same price as that paid by the United States naval vessels. In order, however, that foreign ships may be enabled to take on coal before their departure from Hampton Roads it will be necessary, in view of a possibility of bad weather and the presence of ice in the harbor, that they arrive at Hampton Roads a longer time before their final departure than otherwise would be the case; consequently you will request that foreign ships arrive at Hampton Roads between the 10th and 15th of February next, and that this Government be furnished at the earliest convenient date with the following information:
- Number of ships to be sent;
- The size of these ships;
- The amount of coal carried by each; and
- The steaming radius of each.
I am [etc.]