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  4. Document 1235

File No. 763.72/1194

The Ambassador in Turkey (Morgenthau) to the Secretary of State1

American Embassy,
Constantinople, November 8, 1914, 10 p.m.
[Received November 9, 4 p.m.]

[Telegram]

4. I have just received the following telegram from our Consul General at Beirut:

I have just received an official communication from Damascus beginning as follows:

Consul General of the United States of America, Beirut: I have informed the French and British Consuls of the following: In case of the bombardment of an open town in Syria the subjects of these two countries will be prevented from leaving the town. For each Mussulman killed by the bombardment of an open town we will shoot three British or French subjects. The material damages which will be occasioned by the bombardment will be compensated by the property seized of the said subjects.

I decline all responsibility if the bombardment of an open town provokes a massacre of the Christians. Commander Army Corps, Colonel Jemal .

I visited Girls and Robert Colleges to-day and found everything there perfectly normal.

American Ambassador
  1. Transmitted to the British and French Ambassadors November 11.↩