File No. 811.2222/13528a
The Acting Secretary of State to the French Ambassador ( Jusserand)
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of Your Excellency’s note of the 18th instant [ultimo?]1 in respect to the signature of the convention between the United States and France for compulsory military service of the citizens of either country in the territory of the other and in respect to the status of French delinquents inducted into the military service of the United States.
I understand that Your Excellency states in effect that delinquents who have not responded to the colors or who have deserted are immune from French jurisdiction while they are in the military service of the United States and wear the American uniform under Mr. Ribot’s note of August [April?] 27, 1917, to Mr. Sharp2 and [Page 719] the exchange of notes between Your Excellency and the Secretary of State of January 3 and 14 last;1 that delinquents who have not registered at the consulates for the French draft or have not answered the call to colors and who are residing in the United States and shall have served during the war in the ranks of the United States at the French front, will be considered as having met proportionately the military obligations put upon them by the law of France in accordance with Mr. Ribot’s note of August [April?] 27, 1917, and the circular of the French Ministry of War of June 3, 1915; that delinquents who have deserted from the French military forces before the United States entered the war and who stay in or return to France at the close of hostilities, will not be absolved from trial by court martial for their offense, but the military courts will be recommended to take into account any service rendered by them at the French front; and that delinquents who have deserted from the French military forces after the United States entered the war will be considered as coming under the terms of the exchange of notes between the Secretary of State and Your Excellency, of June 7 and July 3 last.2
Taking into account the assurances of the French Government, and the understandings arrived at by the exchange of notes of January 3, and 14, and June 7, and July 3, of this year, I shall be pleased to proceed to the signature of the convention for compulsory military service, but the United States desires not to be understood as having waived its right of interposition should particular cases arise after the war on behalf of Frenchmen who may have become naturalized citizens of the United States, in accordance with its traditional attitude toward the expatriation and naturalization of aliens in the United States and its policy of giving naturalized citizens of the United States while abroad the same protection as is accorded to native-born citizens.
Accept [etc.]
- Not found in the files.↩
- Not found in the files. According to a note of July 8, 1918, from the French Minister for Foreign Affairs to the American Ambassador in France, transmitted in the latter’s despatch No. 6411 of July 11, communicating the same information as is referred to above, the date of Mr. Ribot’s note was Apr. 27, 1917. (File No. 811.2222/12914.)↩
- Post, pp. 735, 736.↩
- Post, pp. 745, 746.↩