File No. 763.72/1043
The Ambassador in France (Herrick) to the Secretary of State 1
Paris, October 3, 1914.
[Received 4:10 p.m.]
[Telegram]
163. The following is a translation of third-person note from Foreign Office dated Bordeaux, September 28, in reply to communication made in accordance with your circular September 23.
The Ministry for Foreign Affairs has the honor to state that Germany having taken the initiative in hostilities against the French and Belgian possessions in the conventional basin of the Congo, the Government of the Republic has been obliged to beg the Spanish Government not to act on a request for good offices which at the suggestion of the Belgian Government it had already addressed the former in conformity with Article 11 of the Berlin Act.
Under these circumstances it is no longer possible for the French Government to avail itself of that article with a view to obtaining during the present war the neutralization of the possessions of belligerent powers situated in the conventional basin of the Congo.
- Transmitted to the Ambassador in Germany, October 5.↩