File No. 763.72116/592
The Minister in Switzerland (
Stovall) to the
Secretary of State
No. 4592
Berne,
September 24, 1918.
[Received October 15.]
Sir: With reference to the Department’s
telegram No. 1926 of May 17, and previous correspondence relative to the
appeal of the International Red Cross at Geneva concerning the use of
asphyxiating and poisonous gases, I have the honor to transmit herewith
enclosed a translation from the Neue Zurcher
Zeitung of September 20, 1918, giving a translation of the
answer of the German Government to this appeal.
It is interesting to note in this connection that Germany delayed making
any answer to this appeal until her armies were everywhere upon the
defensive.
I have [etc.]
[Enclosure—Translation]
Extract from “Neue Zurcher Zeitung” of September
20, 1918
The German Government has sent the following answer to the appeal
against the use of poisonous gases addressed by the International
Red Cross to all the belligerent powers:
The German Government has given this appeal the serious attention it
gives to all propositions whose aim it is to ameliorate the
sufferings caused by the war. This appeal has been all the more
attentively read because German military headquarters had always
been led by the feeling that the belligerents ought not to use
methods of the sort. It is the opinion of German military
headquarters that methods of this sort are against the simplest laws
of humanity. The German Government, at the second Hague peace
conference, warmly supported the international agreement which
forbade the use of all poison or poisoned weapons, as well as
weapons, bullets or materials which would be likely to cause
unnecessary suffering. So long as the conduct of the enemy did not
force the German Government to resort to other measures the German
military headquarters did its best, during the present war, to
prevent unnecessary suffering. In this attempt it did not allow
itself to be influenced by the fact that Germany’s enemies, as was
to be seen from the speeches of the leading statesmen, constantly
emphasized their desire to annihilate Germany and to conduct the war
along lines reminiscent of the darkest periods of history. The
German Government left to the enemy the innovation of bringing on to
the battlefields of Europe uncultured peoples who performed
notoriously the most shameful deeds, the idea of meting out the most
dreadful fate to peaceful citizens, women and children and old
people who were so unfortunate as to fall into their hands, and of
[Page 788]
making themselves
representatives of all those crimes against which the German
Government had protested a year ago. In spite of all this the German
people has resorted to no measures of revenge nor has it adopted the
type of warfare of its enemies, just as the German press has scorned
to answer the attacks of the enemy press when they call the Germans
“Huns” and “barbarians.”
In the matter of poisonous and suffocating gases the German
Government has to state that it resorted to this means of warfare
only after it had been in use by the enemy for some time. The enemy
had put the greatest hopes in the discovery of the French engineer
Turpin. But, after all, a feeling of responsibility for its own
people made it impossible for the German military headquarters to
renounce an effective if dreadful means of warfare for the mere
purpose of sparing the enemy sufferings which the enemy itself was
at that very time inflicting only too readily. The German Army communiqués announced the use of poisonous
gases by the enemy on the 1st of March, 1915, whereas the German and
French communiqués mention the German gas
attacks for the first time on the 24th of April. It is, therefore,
evident that it is not the place of the German Government to make
propositions concerning the limitation of the use of poisonous or
suffocating gases. On the other hand it would be quite contrary to
the humanitarian spirit which permeates the German people, the Army,
and the Government with its Parliament, to refuse this proposition
which suggests the lessening of the sufferings of the war. Were the
countries at war with Germany to make propositions to the German
Government on this subject, the German Government would weigh the
propositions and the question in general carefully in an attempt to
see how these propositions would coincide with the vital interests
of the German people and whether or not the guarantees given by the
enemy would assure the latter’s keeping its word.
