File No. 763.72119/1801
The Minister in Belgium ( Whitlock) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 17, 11.11 a.m.]
133. Not long ago, under the seal of great confidence, I learned from an English friend, who is an officer in the British secret service, that Count de Torring, a Bavarian and a brother of the Queen of the Belgians, had had a conversation with Peltzer, Belgian Minister at Berne, in the Dutch Legation in Berne, on the 27th March, in which Torring had broached the question of peace with Belgium. I took the opportunity to inform Hymans that I knew of this fact and to reproach him mildly with not having told me. He said that he had informed the British and French Governments as guaranteeing powers and by a rather striking coincidence was just on the point of telling me when I introduced the subject. I told Hymans that I thought that the American Embassy should be kept informed by its [associates] in the war of all that was going on and he quite readily agreed. He gave me the following details:
On or about the 15th March the Dutch Minister at Berne informed Peltzer that De Torring wished to see him. Peltzer asked for instructions of his Government and was authorized to meet Torring hinting [merely?] to listen to what he had to say, but was instructed to make no definite reply. Peltzer met Torring at the Dutch Legation at Berne on the 27th March. After inquiring about the health of the royal family Torring said that in Germany there was much favorable sentiment to Belgium, that while he was not authorized to make any proposals he felt assured that a peace could be arranged [Page 289] provided Belgium would give guarantees for her neutrality, for disarmament and for resumption of economic relations with Germany. He also said that the German Government regretted that Belgium had not made a more formal response to Hertling’s speech of the 24th [25th] February than that implied in the brief interview which Hymans had given to the press. Peltzer reported these facts to his Government.
On the 30th June Peltzer again met Torring at Dutch Legation and made to him as instructed by the Belgian Government the following declaration:
Belgium did not wish the war. Unjustly attacked, she has endured it for the defense of her honor and her independence. On different occasions the Belgian Government has formulated in good faith and clearly the conditions of a just peace, so far as Belgium is concerned. She defined these conditions with an especial precision in her response of the 24th [August] last to the Pontifical message of the 1st August 1917.1 The lack of precision in the intentions with regard to Belgium expressed by the Chancellor in his discourse of the 25th February last has not permitted the Belgians to make any other declarations than that to which the Minister for Foreign Affairs confined himself in recalling the demands formulated in our note to the Pope. It is for the German Government to explain itself. The Belgian Government could reply (pourrait répondre) if on the German side authorized declarations were made that would permit it, the Belgian Government, to talk without compromising the national future for which the Belgian people have sacrificed themselves.
In the course of this conversation Torring asked what effect a “satisfactory” declaration on the part of the German Government in regard to Belgium would have on “the other problems created by the war and on the continuance of the war itself” and asked Peltzer to meet him again on the 15th July, that is, today. Hymans has just told me that he has instructed Peltzer to ask the Dutch Minister at Berne to inform Torring that the Belgian Government considers the moment inopportune to continue the conversation and to ask him to postpone his visit. There the matter rests.
Hymans says that Belgian Government feels it to be its duty not to reject, without examination in [concert] with its allies, any serious offer of peace, and it is to be presumed that in the event of the failure of the offensive which began to-day Torring may renew his efforts, especially in view of Hertling’s speech of the 12th July. Hymans feels that the attitude to be assumed in such an exigency should be carefully determined beforehand and if such proposals are renewed he will wish to have your views as well as those of the President.
- See Foreign Relations, 1917, Supplement 2, vol. I, pp. 175 and 162–164, respectively.↩