File No. 763.72119/738
The Minister in Belgium ( Whitlock) to the Secretary of State
[Received 9.30 p.m.]
83. De Broqueville has taken Pope’s peace message to the front to submit it to the King to-night. The response will be negative. While Belgium of course will be guided by the decision of London, Paris, and Washington, the opinion in Government circles is wholly against any peace negotiation on any bases that do not fully meet the aspirations of the Allied powers and involve destruction of power of [Page 166] Prussian militarism caste and this I am sure is the opinion of the people in Belgium who have had to endure all that the other belligerents endured and the German yoke besides. Before I left Belgium, people from all classes told me to say that they wanted no peace that did not respond to the aspirations of free men.