Office of the Historian

462.00R296/4176: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Edge) to the Acting Secretary of State

Paris, June 28, 1931—2 p.m.
[Received 3:30 p.m.]

370. [Paraphrase.] With reference to your telegram No. 295, June 27, 1 p.m.90 Although your telegram No. 298, June 27, 10 p.m., is wholly clear and will be forcefully presented to Flandin in our informal conversation planned for 9 o’clock tonight, nevertheless, as a result of the Sackett conversation you may be interested in having the reaction of the French to the German aloofness. [End paraphrase.]

The German disinclination to accept the French proposal has been commented on several times by the French Ministers, especially by Laval and Briand, to the effect that German Government was receiving infinitely more under the Hoover plan and much more under the French reply than Von Hoesch, the German Ambassador to France, had intimated they expected or would be glad to get when he called at the Foreign Office just 2 days before the President’s announcement. They feel of course that with the strong arm of the United States supporting German Government that she will insist on 100 percent of the Hoover proposal, but on the other hand they do not feel that she could allow any of the proposals for her relief to fail. Furthermore, it is felt that if she is unable to repay approximately $140,000,000 in 5 years there will be little likelihood of repaying of this or any other amounts in 35 years.

On the other hand there are the difficulties caused by the fact that the French will endeavor to use their key position to impose certain political conditions on Germany:

(1)
Disarmament (Briand referred yesterday to the abandonment of the construction of the German Ersatz Preussen class which would he said enable France to reduce her naval program and thus help both security and the budgets of the world).
(2)
The abandonment of the Austro-German Customs Union project, and
(3)
The cessation by Germany [of activity] in the French spheres of influence in Central Europe and the Balkans. These three problems form the basis of a French argument for some form of control in the expenditure of the money released to Germany.

Edge
  1. Not printed; it referred to a telephone conversation with the Ambassador in Germany.↩