861.00/3704: Telegram
The Chargé in Denmark (Osborne) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received January 25, 4:07 a.m.]
3510. Legation’s 3410, January 6, 5 p.m. and 3419, January 7, 4 p.m. K. Ulmanis, Prime Minister of the Provisional Government of the Lettish Republic of Latvia, arrived here having fled from Libau with Ministers of Finance and Agriculture. They desire Allied intervention or failing that to be permitted to recruit volunteers in the United States and among the Allied and American forces in France and to be supplied with arms and ammunition, et cetera. Ten thousand men as a nucleus probably sufficient. From February to September next at least forty to fifty thousand tons of bread flour necessary for supplying cities and devastated country districts probably more than this depending upon the extent of Bolshevist ravages in the occupied sections. Loan of the sum of (a million) pounds also requested to be secured by Latvian natural resources such as the forests which are alone valued at 30,000,000 pounds. Presence of a commission believed necessary to superintend carrying out of the armistice terms by the Germans, who refused to allow military organization among the native population before their departure and finally only supplied arms et cetera to the Baltic Germans. Finally despatch of Allied war vessels to Libau is desired to maintain order and to remove the Lettish forces, about 1,000 men, should it be necessary to evacuate Libau.
Ulmanis, who has been six years in the United States, makes a very favorable impression. He leaves shortly for Sweden to recruit volunteers, believing with some outside assistance the Letts would repel the Bolsheviks as successfully as did the Estonians when the Finnish volunteer forces arrived. Repeated American Mission.