500.A15a3/528: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Edge) to the Secretary of State
575. Armour accompanied me on Thursday afternoon on my first official call on Tardieu. Almost immediately we began discussion of the London Conference. I laid stress on the deep interest which you and the President personally took in it. He categorically stated that an agreement could be arrived at in London, in fact must be arrived at. One thing, however he declared could prevent it and that would be if the British and ourselves came to London with an agreement concluded in advance by which the acceptance of our terms would be forced upon France and the other powers or else they would risk breaking up the [Page 305] Conference. He was assured by me that we had not advanced beyond the stage of the actual beginning of all negotiations, that further I could assure him that neither the British nor ourselves have the slightest intention of taking an unalterable formula to London, that a real reduction was our sole object. Then he repeated he could see no reason for not arriving at an accord. Two principal points that the French Government considered essential were stated to me by Tardieu:
- (1)
- Any agreement concluded in London would be subject to the approval of the Geneva Preparatory Commission. Also he believed it should be temporary, that is, limited to an approximate period of five or six years.
- (2)
- France desired the interdependence of land, sea, and air armaments.
The particular desire of the French Government, according to Tardieu, was to avoid a repetition of the occurrences of the 1921 Naval Conference in Washington, and their delegation would go to London with a clear outline of what they considered their necessities. It is the desire of France that its case be considered on its merits and that its position as a maritime power be sympathetically and carefully considered; its coast line included the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean and the Channel; its northern and western Africa colonies, Madagascar, Indo-China and others; its colonial population of 60 million and its 12 billion franc trade. The fear of France was that we would arrive upon a figure for ourselves and for the British which might be called x and that then a figure y would arbitrarily be assigned to France. What France wished to have allotted was a figure to which her actual defensive needs would correspond. He repeated that battleships only had been limited by the Washington Conference. No battleships since that time had been built by France. Battleships were an offensive weapon; submarines and cruisers were defensive weapons, but France desired an adequate tonnage based on its actual need in these weapons. This seemed reasonable to me and I said I thought France should keep to a reasonable minimum requirement rather than to a maximum intended to meet some almost inconceivable danger, when she estimated what was needed for defense; that what we all desired after all was a real reduction to bring to all nations corresponding relief in taxation.
The French Premier insisted that the 1925 law stated clearly and openly the requirements of France, that a reduction was made in these figures over those of 1914, and that in reality they constituted the present minimum requirements of France. The United States, he added, was the only country which had increased its figures and these had been increased 60 per cent (it was not made clear whether this increase was in tonnage or in appropriations but I assume the latter is referred to). Laughingly I replied that this seemed a [Page 306] technical question, and suggested that it would be better that it be discussed at the London Conference with our experts. He then stated that he would like to ask me a question in an informal and confidential manner; certain friends in the United States had informed him that during the President’s talks with MacDonald there had been discussion of the question of dismantling the British bases off the United States—Bermuda, Halifax, et cetera—but that MacDonald had received a telegram from Henderson to the effect that the British Government could not agree to the discussion of such a proposal. However, he admitted that they had told him that the Hoover-MacDonald talks reached no concrete results in this connection. That statement as an evidence of no final commitments or any details, I encouraged. I added that as already stated the British and ourselves had only discussed a starting point, consequently he could put all this out of his mind. Our effort had only been to smooth away extreme difficulties in order that the achievement of positive results in London might be made possible.
Tardieu next referred to the point which he had mentioned about ten days ago in an after-dinner conversation with Armour (reference is made to the Embassy’s telegram No. 555 of December 11) that is to say, he was afraid that the practical result of parity would be that the old system of alliances would be revived; that should parity be obtained by the British and ourselves the arbiter between the two of us would be Japan and both of us would attempt to reach an understanding with the Japanese; so that if a Mediterranean party was agreed upon by the French and Italians, in this situation the British would then be made arbiters.
My answer was that I [thought there was no?] more danger of alliances with reduced armaments than with larger navies as at present.
Tardieu in conclusion asked me if I did not think further informal talks between ourselves prior to the meeting in London would serve a useful purpose, that he thought that the more such matters were discussed by laymen, rather than by technical naval experts, the better. If I agreed to the usefulness of such talks, he asked how it would be possible to get in touch with and to include Gibson or others. To me the idea seemed a good one and so I told him. He then suggested in the near future a luncheon conference. Gibson has been asked by me to be ready in case Tardieu should desire to act upon this idea and it will in fact be encouraged by me. Before leaving I again stressed the [importance] which you and the President attached to success at the London Conference.
Tardieu’s answer was that we would and we must reach an accord; that it had seemed almost impossible during the war to find ships, [Page 307] men or munitions, but that together we had accomplished this, and our success in peace could not be less than it was during war.
My reply was that we apparently agreed as regards the real objective and there remained only an equitable means of reaching this to be worked out by our respective delegations; that if London failed, Geneva could accomplish nothing. A direct reference to the effect on British public opinion of French cooperation which has been suggested by Lord Tyrrell did not seem wise to me as it appeared that this might indicate collusion or evidence of too much of an advance understanding.
Sent to Brussels, Rome and London.
- Telegram in five sections.↩