File No. 763.72119/912½
The Italian Ambassador ( Macchi di Cellere) to the Secretary of State 1
free translation of the note handed by the vatican to the english minister accredited with the holy see on the 28th of september, 1917
The closing of the Swiss-Italian frontier having prevented the transmission of the diplomatic courier during several days, the Holy See has received with delay the answers of Germany and Austria to the papal appeal for peace.2 The undersigned Cardinal Secretary of State of His Holiness hastens now to send to Your Excellency an authentic copy of that document.
Germany’s answer contains an explicit acceptance of the first and second paragraph of the Pope’s appeal. Of the other four paragraphs the acceptance is implicit on the face of the various parts of the answer. As concerns the words: “agreeable with the peace manifestation of the Reichstag of July 19, ultimo” the Holy See has particular and strongly founded reason to believe and proclaim that they must be understood in the sense that Germany accepts the third and fourth paragraph of the papal appeal.
In Austria’s answer the acceptance of the Pope’s proposals, including the fifth and sixth paragraph, is even clearer. The answers [Page 230] having been prepared jointly, it seems that there can be no doubt that they complete each other.
It would undoubtedly have been desirable that, in the interest of peace, the answers had been explicit on all single points. It must be recognized however that, even as they are, they leave an open door to an exchange of ideas. If therefore the Governments of the Entente, moved as they are, by the desire to restore peace in the world, do not refuse to enter into negotiations, the Holy See is disposed to lend its assistance to ask for further explanations on the points which may be suggested.
So far as general disarmament is concerned, it is desired by everybody and is the foundation of peace and prosperity. His Holiness in deference for the warring powers, did not deem proper to indicate in his letter the means to attain and maintain it, thinking it better to leave the question unprejudiced and wait for the favorable occasion to determine it.
But His Holiness thinks that the only practical and easy means to reach this end is the following: by agreement among the civilized nations including nonbelligerents, compulsory military service is simultaneously suppressed. At the same time an international tribunal of arbitration is instituted for the purpose of defining all international controversies and sanctioning the complete isolation of any nation that might try to re-establish compulsory military service or should refuse to submit to arbitration any international controversy, or should refuse to submit to the decision of the arbitration tribunal.
Even leaving aside any other consideration, the recent example of England and America prove that the volunteer system furnishes the contingent necessary to the maintenance of public order but does not furnish the enormous armies that are required to carry on a modern war.
Once compulsory military service is, by common agreement, suppressed and the volunteer system is established in its stead, general disarmament would follow almost automatically without any perturbation of the public order and with all the consequences regarding the establishment of such permanent peace as is possible in this world and the restoration, in the shortest possible period, of the ruined finances of all nations. This without touching on other advantages the importance of which anybody can readily see.
Compulsory military service has been for over a century the cause of many evils. The remedy for such evils lies in the simultaneous and reciprocal suppression of compulsory military service. Once this is suppressed, it could not, even in the present constitution of the Central Empires, be re-established without a parliamentary law the passing of which is improbable for many reasons, [Page 231] especially in view of the fact that it would require the approval of the people, as has been even recently said in a document by a highly authoritative personage.