862t.01/77: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Wallace) to the Secretary of State
[Received April 16—10:15 a.m.]
999. Mission. Carried out instructions contained in your 737 of April 12. In reply Millerand asked me to call your particular attention to his statement before the Chamber in which he had given the French Government’s position.
He emphatically stated that he contested absolutely the claim of the German Government that to restore order, it was necessary to send additional forces into the Ruhr. His information, based on reports of Belgian and British as well as French officers and officials, was entirely to opposite effect: the Ruhr workmen did not desire the Reichswehr’s presence. He particularly mentioned the fact that upon receiving the German request for permission to send in additional forces on April 2, the Belgian; British and French Rhineland [Page 326] High Commissioners had advised their Governments of their unanimous opinion that the sending of more troops was not necessary and should be refused.
Regarding your belief that occupation of more territory might lead to junction of German elements of extreme Right and Left, he stated that the Germans had expressed this fear but that actually nothing of the kind had transpired. The rest of Germany had viewed with complete indifference the occupation of the Frankfort region.
In answer to your inquiry regarding the phrase “completely evacuated”, he repeated his statement of April 5 to the German Chargé; namely, that the French forces would be withdrawn as soon as the German forces had evacuated neutral zone, that is, unauthorized German forces, and as agreement of August 8 was in full force at that date this statement referred to German forces in excess of those permitted by said agreement. The situation, in a sense, had changed since that time, as April 10, the date on which the agreement expired, had gone by. On April 8, however, the Germans had asked that the agreement be extended until July 10. He personally considered this request excessive but he was quite prepared to discuss it at the coming Supreme Council meeting at San Remo.36 Moreover, he was prepared now to go further and would withdraw the French troops from the neutral zone as soon as the German forces in excess of those allowed by agreement of August 8 were withdrawn. However, there appears small prospect of these forces being withdrawn by Germany as he had just heard that 8,000 more troops had entered neutral zone. Millerand made it quite clear that if the excess German forces were withdrawn tomorrow, he would evacuate the Frankfort area immediately.
Regarding the German request of April 8, he was not in principle opposed to permitting the forces strictly necessary for preserving order to remain in neutral zone, but it should be decided at San Remo whether the Allies should extend the agreement to July 10 as Germany requested, or for a shorter period, or whether they should make a different arrangement with Germany.
Replying to a question as to Millerand’s attitude toward the present Berlin Government he said that although ready to lend it his support, nevertheless he thought it leaned too heavily upon the military element and was too much inclined to listen to that element against workingman.
- For correspondence concerning conference at San Remo, see vol. i, pp. 1 ff.↩