File No. 860d.00/124

The Consul General at Moscow ( Summers ) to the Secretary of State

[Telegram]

466. According official Soviet gazette, National Commissariat Foreign Affairs addressed telegram German Ministry Foreign Affairs April 30 denying participation Russian troops in fighting in Finland as charged by Germany and quoting order to Petrograd Military Commissariat dated 29th directing inquiry in premises, punishment of guilty, if any, and immediate disarming of all troops crossing frontier of Russian Republic. Regarding participation of individual soldiers and officers in Finnish civil war, communication states same may be said about White Guards, as for instance, General Mannerheim. May 2, similar telegram communicates report of Petrograd labor commune that Finnish railway from Petrograd held by Russians as far as Beloostrov, that Finnish Red Guards being disarmed and no government money or property being allowed to be brought across frontier from Finland.

Referring German protest against reported landing 6,000 British troops at Murmansk, Commissariat Foreign Affairs has telegraphed Joffe,1 Berlin, in part as follows:

In reality no descent was made on Murmansk. The evacuation of a number of English and French military specialists formerly in Russia could not be effected at once. When White Guards began to advance on Murman district, which had practically no armed defense, German Government replied to our inquiry that regular troops were not taking part in these operations, that German Government could not answer for them. In these circumstances not surprising but [that] local Soviet appealed for help to English and French, who had still not left, against bands with which German Government refused to have anything to do. We did not protest against temporary appeal for protection by the Soviet to English and French, who had not had time to leave, but now we protest against a prolonged stay of the British at Murmansk.

Summers
  1. A. A. Joffe, Soviet Ambassador in Germany.