Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1914, Supplement, The World War

File No. 763.72111/561

The German Ambassador (Bernstorff) to the Secretary of State

German Embassy,
New York, October 31, 1914.
[Received November 2.]

[Translation]

Mr. Secretary of State: The French commission for the purchase of war material now in New York will, I am told, try to buy in a roundabout way, through purchasers for Mexico and South America, a large quantity (three to four hundred thousand) of Krag-Jörgensen rifles for the French or Russian army.

According to a declaration earlier made by the War Department, no arms of any kind should be let out of the possession of the Government as long as the European war lasts. I should therefore be obliged to your excellency if you would most kindly intervene to see that the American Government may also prevent purchases by neutral countries which would be merely employed as channels of transit.

Accept [etc.]

J. Bernstorff