File No. 763.72/344
The French Chargé d’Affaires (Clausse) to the Secretary of State
Manchester, Massachusetts, August 10, 1914.
[Received August 12.]
[Translation]
Mr. Secretary of State: I was surprised to read in the press the declarations which the representatives of Germany and Austria saw fit to make to your excellency as to the way hostilities were started. It seems to me that in communicating their declarations to the press the representatives of those two powers did not realize the objectionable features of such polemics arising in a great neutral country between the representatives of foreign powers at war. This has not heretofore been the practice of diplomacy. I shall not make it mine, and believe, in the present instance, that no attack is worthy of retort. I should, however, consider myself guilty of dereliction if, after becoming aware of incorrect statements made to the head of the foreign policy of this country, I should not rectify them in accordance with the facts as they have come to me from my Government.
The assertions of the Chargé d’Affaires of Germany at Washington agree in substance, anyway, with the written declarations of the Ambassador of that power to the French Minister of Foreign Affairs. When, on the 4th of August, Mr. de Schoen asked for his passports and announced that the German Empire considered itself to be in a state of war with France, he alleged that the German executive and military authorities had positive knowledge of hostile acts said to have been committed on German territory by French military aviators charged with flying and throwing bombs over German territory; the Ambassador added that aviators were also reported as having violated Belgium’s neutrality by flying over her territory.
[Page 55]The French Minister of Foreign Affairs immediately disputed those unfounded charges and called attention to the fact that he had, as early as August 2, addressed a note to the German Government in which he protested against the characteristic violations of the French frontier that were being committed, for two days, by detachments of German troops. On the same day, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs, in his instructions to the Ambassador of the Republic at Berlin requesting him to ask for his passports, directed him to enter formal protest against the violation of the neutrality of Luxemburg by German troops, made known by the Prime Minister of Luxemburg, and against the ultimatum delivered to the Belgian Government by the Minister of Germany at Brussels to force on that Government the violation of Belgium’s neutrality and demand facilities on Belgian territory for military operations against France.
The foregoing, as well as events subsequent to the beginning of hostilities between Germany and France, makes it plain that the Berlin Government maneuvered with the intention of shifting upon France, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, the responsibility for the act of aggression, and the very act itself, with the sole purpose of influencing and determining the action of the Rome Government and diverting to its own advantage the opinion of the world.
Be pleased [etc.]