763.72119/9182: Telegram

The Special Representative ( House ) to the Secretary of State

133. The French Government has made the following changes in scheme of procedure submitted in my number 109:3

Article N under I should read:

“For matters not concerning the treaty of peace properly speaking between belligerents, but the general new organization intended to bring about the peace of the world, the decisions of the Congress must be unanimous. (This applies also to question of procedure, unless the minority registers a formal protest). [”]

Fifth [Fourth?] paragraph under II should read:

“It is necessary that a decision be reached with regard to our Allies who have treated with the enemy without our recognition of these treaties; Roumania and Russia; the interest of the latter country could be defended by an invitation to Allied committee with which Russian advisers could be associated. [”]

[Page 353]

Eighth [Seventh?] paragraph under number II should read as follows:

“Finally, the enemies; Germany, Bulgaria, Turkey, Bavaria, German-Austria and Magyarie. The conditions of the participation of enemy states should be defined: for example, it would not be admissible for the twenty-five states of the German Empire to avail themselves of the rupture of the bond of federation to pretend to register each one a vote in the deliberations and votes.”

Second paragraph under number III should read as follows:

“The work must evidently be divided between preparatory commissions composed solely of members chosen amongst the plenipotentiaries with the addition of technical, legal, financial, geographical, military, naval, industrial and commercial experts, having a consulting vote.”

Fifth paragraph under number III should read:

“The necessity of defining and limiting delegations of the powers is imperative. While at the same time reconsidering engagements made by the British Government with regard to its principal colonies, it would be well to define precisely the limits of this special representation, which should be embraced in the total British representation.”

Clause A under IV should read:

“Right of peoples to decide their own destinies by free and secret vote combined with the principle of the guarantee of the rights of minorities. A certain homogeneousness of states should be reserved [preserved?] however. The principle to be applied to Bohemia, perhaps to the Tyrol, to the south of the Brenner, to Dalmatia, to Luxemburg, et cetera. [”]

The fourth paragraph of B under IV omitted, it should read:

“Another principle could be introduced with advantage at the very start: that of the holding [?] of merchant vessels and colonial territories in the possession of the powers on August 1st, 1914. This would avoid the dangerous campaign waged by the Germans and supported by certain imprudent and suspected elements amongst the Allies, tending to the neutralization of the great African colonies for the purpose of making a kind of universal domain for commercial intercourse. [”]

The following paragraph omitted under IV. Should follow after paragraph beginning “Finally this Congress,” et cetera.

“Nor can the fourteen propositions of President Wilson be taken as a point of departure because they are the principles of public right which may inspire the negotiations, but which do not possess the concrete character indispensable for approaching the precise regulations of concrete stipulations.”

[Page 354]

Under A—Settlement of the War—article 7 is added reading as follows:

“Stipulations of a moral nature, recognition by Germany of the responsibility and preferences of its rulers, which would emphasize the ideas of justice and of responsibility, and would legitimize the measures of punishment and precaution taken against her. Solemn repudiation of the violation of the right of nations and of the crimes committed against humanity.”

Edward House
  1. Supra.