861.24/168: Telegram
The Latvian Prime Minister (Ulmanis) and the Latvian Minister for Foreign Affairs (Meierovics) to President Wilson
[Received at the White House August 17, 1919.]
After two and a half months interruption40 the Provisional Government of Latvia with your well-disposed aid and confident of your further support have recovered on July 5th the power of the state in the capital of Latvia, Riga, and has been reconstructed in the form of an coalitional and labour Cabinet where the national minorities are widely represented. In the course of five weeks the coalitional Government under extraordinary difficulties have done their best to organize their army for the struggle with the enemies of the whole civilized world, anarchy and Bolshevism, to supply food for the starving population as well as to secure peace, order and legitimate power within the country. However the Provisional Government of Latvia are powerless to carry out their tasks without your immediate help. Latvia and the Latvian nation which from the very beginning of the war up to the present time have de facto been your most faithful associates have sacrificed everything within the limits of their weak forces to contribute to the victory. Even today the Latvian Army without arms without clothing and without boots and shoes hold the front against the Bolsheviks. The devastated country sacrifices her last to the war. But the Government are powerless to continue the struggle without arms, ammunitions, money, food and equipment. The Bolsheviks on the contrary have money, arms and everything they want. The Latvian Army cannot keep the front without rifles against machine guns and artillery. The soldiers cannot be kept in the trenches without clothing and barefooted especially considering the approaching autumn. Without all these means it is impossible to offer efficacious resistance to [Page 703] the increasing propaganda both at the front and in the rear of the Bolsheviks and the Russian and German reactionaries sympathizing to each other. Considering the uttermost urgency of the matter the Provisional Government of Latvia regards it their duty to entreat Your Excellency to supply Latvia with money, arms, food, clothing and ammunition. If Latvia could hope her request which has been specified and tendered to your Government by her representatives five weeks ago being complied with we entreat Your Excellency to the help being sent without delay. Without immediate help everything would be lost, therefore we beg to insist on the situation being extremely critical.
1742.
Minister for Foreign Affairs