File No. 763.72/3186
The Ambassador in Austria-Hungary ( Penfield ) to the Secretary of State
[Received February 3, 8.15 a.m.]
1674. Following is text of note received from Minister for Foreign Affairs yesterday:
January 31, [1917].
The undersigned, Minister of the Imperial and Royal Household and of Foreign Affairs, had the honor to receive the communication of the 22d instant in which his excellency Frederic Courtland Penfield, had the kindness to communicate the message which the President of the United States of America addressed to the American Senate on the same day.
The Imperial and Royal Government did not fail to subject to an attentive consideration the contents of this significant manifestation full of high moral earnestness. It does not fail to recognize the sublime aims which the President had in view but before all else must point out that Mr. Wilson’s desire to pave the way for a permanent peace appears even now frustrated through the rejection which the offer of peace by Austria-Hungary and its allies has experienced at the hand of the enemy.
In August, 1914, Austria-Hungary and its allies took up the struggle which was forced upon them. The consciousness that it was a question of time, defense of their existence and vital interests, gave them strength to withstand the numerical superiority of their [Page 105] enemies and to achieve successes which those of the adversary can not approach. In 30 months of war these successes have been strengthened and increased. In the same measure in which the enemy’s plans of conquest have Come to naught, Austria-Hungary and its allies were able to consider their purely defensive aims as achieved. This moderate conception and the wish to avoid further useless bloodshed led to the peace offer of the four allied powers. Their adversaries blinded by the delusion that they can even yet give a favorable turn to the course of events and annihilate us have bluntly rejected this offer. They have demanded terms for the conclusion of peace which would assume the complete overthrow of the four allied powers and annihilation for their aims.
God and the world are witness as to who bears the guilt for the continuation of the war. In view of the intention of the enemy to conquer the armies of Austria-Hungary and its allies, to destroy their fleets and starve their peoples, the struggle must take its course on land and sea with all, even the sharpest weapons. The increased use of all means of warfare alone makes a shortening of the war possible. The enemies have already been intent upon stopping the maritime traffic of Austria-Hungary and its allies and preventing all importation by these powers. As on the other seas, so also in the Adriatic they have torpedoed without previous warning hospital ships such as the Elektra and unarmed passenger steamers such as the Dubrownik, the Biokovo, the Daniel Ernoe , and the Zagreb. Austria-Hungary and its allies of their part will henceforth apply the same method in that they will cut off Great Britain, France, and Italy from all maritime traffic and for the accomplishment or their purpose will from February 1, 1917, prevent by every means any navigation whatsoever within a definite closed area.
[Here follows a declaration regarding areas closed to commerce in terms identical with those of the second memorandum enclosed with the German Ambassador’s note of January 31, excepting the special proposals therein made concerning American passenger ships.]
This decision has also been made by Austria-Hungary with the intention of shortening the struggle by effective means of warfare and approaching a peace for which it, as distinguished from its opponents, contemplates moderate conditions which are not guided by ideas of destruction now as hitherto animated by the intention that the ultimate aim of this war is not one of conquest but the free assured development of its own as well as of other states.
Sustained by the confidence in the proved valor and efficiency of their military and naval forces and steeled by the necessity to frustrate the destructive designs of the enemy, Austria-Hungary and its allies enter upon this Forthcoming earnest phase of the struggle with bitter determination, but also with the certainty that it will lead to successes which will finally decide the struggle of years and thereby justify the sacrifice of wealth and blood.
In requesting his excellency the Ambassador of the United States of America to be good enough to communicate the foregoing to the Government of the United States of America the undersigned avails himself [etc.]