File No. 812.00/17529
Special Representative Rodgers to the Secretary of State
Ten tonight, Subsecretary of State for Foreign Affairs called and presented reply to Department’s March 18, 6 p.m., use of railways Chihuahua transportation supplies troops; requested transmission the text of the note, as follows:
Querétaro, March 19, 1916.
Having reported to the citizen First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army in charge of the Executive Power of the Union with your note of to-day’s date in which you quote the text of a message received by you from the Department of State of the United States, by order of the said high functionary, I beg you to transmit to the said Department what follows by way of reply:
The note referred to has caused great surprise to the Mexican Government, for it had not until now received any official notice from the Government of the United States that American troops had crossed into Mexican territory or that they were at or near Casas Grandes, his Government’s surprise being made the greater from the fact that negotiations through the proper channels and occasioned by the Columbus incident are under way at this very moment to perfect agreements as to the terms and conditions of the convention that is to govern the passage of troops from one to the other country in the sense of the spirit of the note dated the tenth of this, month addressed by the Government over which the citizen First Chief presides to the Government of the United States of America. The Mexican Government cannot but wonder at the fact that the said troops should have crossed the boundary line and entered our territory without previous agreement, official communication, or notice of any kind and reached, as stated in the note referred to, a place which, as is Casas Grandes, is much more distant from the boundary line than any other point which, under previous treaties, have been the extreme limit in cases of pursuits. To the end of maintaining unalterable the good relations that have always existed between the United States and Mexico, the citizen First Chief of the Constitutionalist Army in charge of the Executive Power of the Union deems it necessary, in order to act with full knowledge of the facts of the case in a matter of such great moment, that the Department of State of the United States of the North be pleased to furnish to the Government over which he presides with information as to the circumstances under which the passage of American troops into Mexican territory was effected at El Paso, their number, the branch of the service to which they belong, the name of the officer in command, the place where they are, and the causes which occasioned their crossing.
[Page 498]Hoping that you will be pleased to transmit the foregoing to the Department of State of the United States and impress it with the necessity of its prompt answer to the points set forth in the note above quoted, permit me to avail myself [etc.]
Aguilar,
Secretary of Relations.
This unquestionably represents attitude Carranza himself. As the Foreign Office raised no such question when representation presented and explained this morning, it was stated tonight there is absolutely no official information in the War Office here as to the presence of American troops in Mexico. Unofficial report received stating American troops are in Mexico but whereabouts and destination unknown. Believe representation presented to-day afforded desired opportunity for general query as above.