File No. 763.72/2562
The Ambassador in Germany (Gerard) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 7, 12.15 a. m.]
3712. The Chancellor to-day addressed the Reichstag. After alluding to Germany’s favorable military and economic situation he said that no calm neutral could demand that Germany should not resist England’s starvation campaign, enforced in defiance of all international law. Germany was forced to defend herself; she recognized the just interests of the neutrals in the trade and commerce of the world but expected them to understand the consideration paid them and recognize her right and her duty to wreak retaliation with all the means in her power against the starvation policy which was a mockery of international law and humanity.
Speaking of peace terms, he said that it was impossible to discuss the English demand that so-called Prussian militarism must be utterly destroyed. The Polish question would be settled by Germany and Austria. History knew of no such thing as a status quo ante after such tremendous upheavals. Germany had freed from Russian bondage the peoples from the Baltic to Volhynian Lakes and would never give them back to reactionary Russia. The occupied territory in the west would not be given up without firm guarantees that Germany would be secure from attack and that Belgium would not be a vassal of England and France or a military and economic bulwark against Germany. There was no room for a status quo ante here either. The Flemish people would be supported in their just aspirations. There would have to be a different Europe after the war—a Europe of peaceable labor—and peace must bring the seeds of definite and final peaceful arrangement of European affairs.
The next speaker was a clerical who said that Belgium must be practically annexed.
[Page 24]The Socialist Ebert said that his party was absolutely opposed to any plans of conquest and would never consent to the retention of Belgium as demanded by the preceding speaker. He said the Socialists had only voted for the submarine resolution of the budget committee on the express understanding that as a matter of course the just rights of neutrals would be most scrupulously respected; that his party would (not in any?) circumstances consent to relentless submarine warfare. A better weapon against England’s starvation campaign was better and stricter organization of Germany’s food supply and the relentless enforcement of the necessary laws. He later spoke of electoral reform in Prussia; of the necessity of caring for the soldiers returning from the trenches; that they would return with the feeling that hereafter there must be equality in Prussia, and that the era of the reign of the favored few had finally passed, and that they would know how to break any reactionary resistance of the demand of the times, namely, that the spirit of the trenches must command recognition and the new race of the trench fighters find freedom and equality. The day of peace must be at the same time the day of civic equality.
[For the text of a resolution introduced in the Reichstag by the Socialist Party, voicing an expectation “that the Chancellor will very soon endeavor to bring about an understanding between the nations by initiating peace negotiations,” see telegram No. 3715, April 6, 1916, received April 7, from the Ambassador in Germany, post, page 224.]
For a summary of the discussion of peace terms in the Reichstag and the press, see telegram No. 3720, April 7, 1916, received April 8, from the Ambassador in Germany, post, page 226.]