861.00/5457: Telegram
The Ambassador in Great Britain (Davis) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 2:55 p.m.]
3287. Your 6081, October 15th, 4 p.m.62 Your 3443, October 15th, 7 p.m.63 to American Mission and Stockholm’s 4147, October 17th, 5 p.m. to Department.64 In course of informal discussion with Foreign Office on 22nd, I am advised as follows: About a month ago the three Baltic States of Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania, represented to British Government that they would be obliged to open peace negotiations with Russian Soviet Government unless British Government would recognize them as de jure independent with which support however they could continue. On September 26th in identic telegrams British Government replied that it had “already recognized the autonomous existence of the Governments of the Baltic States” and that the question of de jure recognition of independence cannot be decided by British Government upon its own responsibility in severance from its Allies and that determination of this question was therefore a matter for the Peace Conference or for the League of Nations as its sequel. The telegram further stated that British Government may give the fullest measure of safeguards to an effort to secure the legitimate aspirations of the Baltic Provinces so far as consistent with a final and peaceful settlement in northeastern Europe.
Foreign Office observes that this enunciation goes further than that contained in Department’s note to Lithuanian National Council65 with which however they express themselves as pleased and in sympathy. Regarding recognition of Kolchak, in which connection the activities of Kolchak, Denikine, and Yudenitch must be considered [Page 729] as coordinated into one government, the matter is under discussion and if it be deemed advisable make formal representation we shall be duly informed.
As will be seen from the above the British Government lays great stress upon the impossibility of keeping separate the idea of the integrity of the Russian nation with the Baltic States in enjoyment of autonomy and that of the independence of such portions or any other portions of the former Russian Empire. American Mission, Paris, informed.