793.94/5769
Memorandum by the Under Secretary of State (Castle) of a Conversation With the Second Secretary of the French Embassy (Bousquet)
Mr. Bousquet came to see me with a telegram from his Government, which stated that the Chinese appeared to be moving troops in very large numbers into the zone in the vicinity of Shanhaikwan, that this troop movement might seriously interfere with the operations of the railroad between Tientsin and Peiping. The French Government wanted to know whether if this should happen the United States troops would be willing to associate themselves with the other international troops in keeping the railroad open. I told Mr. Bousquet that it seemed obvious that it would be all to the advantage of the Chinese troops to keep the railroad open themselves and that, after all, they were in Chinese territory. He said this was quite true, but that, nevertheless, we could not tell what the make-up of the troops would be, that it might be a mixture of regular troops and bandits and that there might be pretty extensive destruction of the railroad property. I told Mr. Bousquet that, of course, I could not answer his question off hand, that the whole situation was very complicated, that I knew the international troops stationed there in connection with the Boxer Protocol were supposed to keep open certain of the property between Peiping and Tientsin in case of internal disorder, but that if there should be a movement of Japanese troops from Shanhaikwan, one could hardly speak of the resulting trouble as “internal disorder” and that it would be, therefore, necessary to consider very seriously what action, if any, should be taken. I told Mr. Bousquet that it was obvious that the French Government was making no particular proposal in this case and that all I could say to him was that if the other Governments or any of them having troops in the region should make us a very definite proposition with regard to maintaining the situation, we would, of course, consider that proposition sympathetically. I said it stood to reason I could not assure him of our agreement in advance since it might seem to us that the proposition made was thoroughly unwise. Mr. Bousquet said that he quite understood, that [Page 30] he felt the message from his Government was largely an intimation of the fact that there might be trouble necessitating international action.