462.00 R 294/221: Telegram
The Chargé in Belgium (Thaw) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3 p.m.]
Referring to the Embassy’s number 49, May 22, 3 p.m.
The Foreign Office has today recalled the note upon which my telegram was based because of a “serious error” made in the preparation of the note at the Foreign Office, and has substituted the following:
“I beg to inform you that, after having examined the draft of the agreement prepared by the experts of the Belgian, French, British and Italian Governments, to settle the expenses of the American army of occupation, the Belgian Government has decided to consent to the suppression of paragraph 2 of article 6 of that draft. The Belgian Government declares, however, that, if it consents to sign the draft thus modified, it is because it interprets article 248 of the Treaty of Versailles, the scope of which it has no intention of limiting in signing the said agreement, as permitting in favor of the Allied and Associated Powers that ratified the Treaty of Versailles, protection of the priority of reparations and other charges proceeding from this treaty on the engagements and obligations of Germany.”