500.A15A4 General Committee/681: Telegram
The Ambassador in Italy (Long) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received 2:20 p.m.]
144. Suvich35 told me last evening the German Ambassador36 had just returned from Berlin and had reported to him the progress of conversations between Hitler and François-Poncet37 which he proceeded to relate to me. In substance the situation is that very little [Page 323] actual progress has been made but the German position is being gradually defined. The Saar basin and disarmament form the basis of the conversations.
The Germans say the Saar is certain to declare for German nationality in the plebiscite of 1935 by an almost unanimous vote which will be so overwhelming that it will carry each geographical district and preclude the idea that any part of the basin will remain under the League of Nations or express a preference for adherence to France.
Even conceding the unanimity of opinion to be expressed in the future the Germans contend France will and that Germany will engage in an extensive campaign propaganda for the election and there will be during the campaign excited words and excitable persons on each side which may easily develop an “incident” with unfortunate results. So in order to avoid possible trouble in 1935 the Germans want an agreement now regarding the Saar in the form of concession from France anticipatory of the plebiscite resulting favorably to Germany.
The Saar question is injected into the disarmament discussions which have the following salient features:38 Germany (1) demands an army of 300,000. She says the French have 600,000 Continental troops not including Colonial armies. If France will reduce her armies Germany will reduce her demands but always asking one-half the number of French troops; (2) demands full arms, armament and equipment immediately for these troops in size and bore equal to the maximum permitted under the proposed disarmament convention with three collateral understandings, viz. (a) she permits the former allies to continue in possession of all armament above that limit on condition it be not replaced, (b) renounces all right to offensive armament such as heavy mobile guns, big tanks, bombing planes, et cetera and (c) accepts principle of armament inspection provided it is universal.
My informant stated this position had been informally communicated in substance to Phipps, the British Ambassador at Berlin and to the Italian Ambassador39 there.
Suvich also said François-Poncet was to see Hitler again within the week and was to express the French attitude toward the German proposals. He then said the week after next “we will seek some opportunity to talk with Germany and carry the conversations to a more definite point perhaps to the extent of getting something on paper”.
If I may properly inject a thought here I will emphasize the fact that the two powers carrying on these conversations are each committed to armament and not to disarmament; that these conversations are predicated upon the desire for armament; and that unless some powerful mollifying influence is soon exerted we will be back to 1914.
[Page 324]Suvich also said that Hitler’s position in regard to existing treaties was that he recognized as justly binding those to which Germany had voluntarily subscribed, such specifically as Locarno,40 but that Versailles41 and others which has been forced on Germany which he characterized as “diktats” and which he was obliged to obey, he felt justified in fighting every move under their authority. The League of Nations Covenant42 is considered by Hitler in the same category as the Versailles Treaty (even though Germany applied for membership under it) on the theory it is the instrument for enforcing that treaty.
As the League Covenant is being linked with Germany’s position I report here my conversation with Suvich on that subject.
He said that Italy felt the time had come to look, however, at the League and to view it from several points of view; (1) that without the adherence of the United States, Germany, Russia and Japan, a majority of the great powers of the world, the League was so much of a failure it must cease to have a world application or any real influence and must practically expire; (2) that even during the cooperation of Japan and Germany the mechanism of the League has been controlled by France through the subordinate action in her support of Belgium, Poland and the Little Entente and prostitution to too much selfish interference in the local politics of European states; (3) that the inequality of influence when compared with actual power and importance was equally illustrated by the necessity for England to resort to the expedient of Dominion membership in order to gain a vote commensurate with her prestige but that that very contrivance was the incentive to others to make alliances with some and political concessions to others in a contest for votes; (4) that the League has shown its present impotence in its efforts to handle the Far Eastern difficulty;43 and (5) that some of the obligations of membership were too difficult of observance such as the guarantees of article 10 (see my conversation with Sir Eric Drummond in my telegram number 135, November 21st44) for the reason that there was theoretically attached to the League a character of highmindedness, altruism, unselfishness and beneficence which it could not properly reflect because those qualities were not sufficiently present in the character of component states and it could not rise above its source.
However, Suvich felt there was so much of value in it that it should be saved and placed in a position to deal with world problems. This he thought could be done and that frank discussions of specific proposals [Page 325] would be helpful in achieving that end. Without being ready to make specific suggestions he thought that with a Council composed of England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Japan and the United States with the addition of one or two other major governments such as Poland and Spain for instance, the power of the League would be in the hands of the governments which really had the power; and that there might be subcommittees, one for the Far East, one for Europe and one for the Americas to act as the agents for the Council and to handle matters in their respective jurisdictions and to report to the League. He also thought that severance of the League from the Treaty of Versailles and the modification of some of its theoretical obligations would make it possible for a revised organization and a rejuvenated membership to constitute it a real world influence.
Of course the guiding influences suggested by Suvich are almost entirely European. The power is there because the armament is there. And that is just the trouble which the League is unable to cure and which the European Governments do not really want to cure.
It is officially announced today that the relation between Italy and the League will come up for discussion at the meeting of the Grand Council on December 5th.
The League and disarmament questions and central European political questions will be talked with Litvinov45 as will also economic questions between Russia and Italy and the means of payment of the money due Italy from Russia on former credit purchases and it seems likely Italy will sponsor Russian membership in a League revised according to Italian ideas and that she will have the powerful backing of Russia and Germany to force revision or wreck the whole plan and revert to a system of alliances in which Turkey will figure on the Italian side. But I really think Mussolini wants to continue the League revised to meet practical objections and to achieve some success in disarmament.
Mailed to Paris, Geneva, London, Berlin.
- Italian Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.↩
- Christian August Ulrich von Hassell.↩
- French Ambassador to Germany.↩
- See also note from the German Chancelor to the British Ambassador, December 11, p. 338.↩
- Vittorio Cerruti.↩
- Signed October 16, 1925, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. liv, pp. 289–363.↩
- Treaties, Conventions, etc., Between the United States of America and Other Powers, 1910–1923 (Washington, Government Printing Office, 1923), vol. iii, p. 3329.↩
- Ibid., p. 3336.↩
- For correspondence concerning the Far Eastern crisis, see vol. iii, pp. 1 ff.↩
- Not printed.↩
- Soviet delegate to the General Commission; People’s Commissar for Foreign Affairs.↩