File No. 763.72119/232
The Ambassador in France ( Sharp ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3.10 p. m.]
1754. In accordance with your circular telegram of the 18th2 I presented the President’s communication yesterday evening between 8 and 9 o’clock to Monsieur Briand, President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs, being the first opportunity offered me since its receipt and deciphering. Following your instructions, I sought to impress him with the earnest desire of the President to [Page 105] have the French Government give the most serious consideration to the suggestions contained in the communication, copy of which I left with him. I added that while the moment was not one which the President would have preferred for making it, yet the great object at stake warranted the step.
In the desire of better getting an expression of his views I took occasion to refer more specifically to certain paragraphs of the communication, my talk with him lasting about twenty minutes. His reception of the communication was very gracious and he assured me that he thoroughly appreciated the impulse which had prompted the President’s action and that his suggestion would receive the fullest consideration and study to which it was justly entitled as emanating from the President of the United States, and also because of the great sympathy which France felt for the people of the United States; yet he, quite frankly expressed the opinion that the nearly coincident occurrence with the proposal offered by the Central powers makes the President’s communication unfortunately timed, and had it come at another moment and under other circumstances it would not have been embarrassing. He also reiterated the belief expressed in the Senate yesterday by him, and by Lloyd George in the British Parliament, that the proposal made by the Central powers was a mere ruse having an insidious purpose to discourage and demoralize the forces of the Allies, adding that there were no terms of any kind offered in that proposal. There seems to be no doubt that the French Government at the present time is hostile to giving a favorable consideration to the proposal of the Central powers, and in this determination it is sustained by practically a united press.
Copy of circular instructions was forwarded to Consul at Havre as directed.