Office of the Historian

500.A15A4 General Committee/857: Telegram

The American Delegate (Wilson) to the Secretary of State

Geneva, April 3, 1934—6 p.m.
[Received April 3—2:15 p.m.]

824. My telegram No. 822, March 23, 2 p.m.

1.
From the best information obtainable the French are surprised and cheered by the receptive attitude of the British towards strengthening the guarantees of execution. The French ascribe this change in British attitude to growing apprehension in Great Britain at Germany’s aviation development. How this will affect French attitude as outlined under paragraph 2 of my 822 is still problematical.
2.
Aubert87 has informed Mayer that the French are endeavoring to reconcile the British instinct for “an agreement” with the French instinct for precise undertakings. To this end the French are working on a series of definitions along the lines of a “criminal code”. Pushing the principle of the punishment fitting the crime to its logical conclusion the French would group the different infractions in several categories. A number of remedies or sanctions would be allotted to each category, the decision as to which of those several sanctions [Page 39] would be applied in a particular case being left to the Permanent Disarmament Commission to determine at the time. In this manner the French would know the extent of the British commitment in the event of any particular type of infraction while the British would have their commitment limited in accordance with the gravity of the offense. The actual choice as to which action is to be taken Would be determined in relation to a particular case and at the time it arose. Aubert feels therefore that they are on the eve of laborious negotiations and the French have no desire to hurry the British in these negotiations.
3.
As to what will happen in respect to the Conference in the near future one can but guess. Massigli told me yesterday that he thought the Bureau on April 10 would do nothing but set a date for the General Commission. In any case it would appear that the French will make every endeavor not only to prevent the action of the Conference from interfering with Franco-British negotiations but to utilize the Conference machinery in the way most adapted in their minds to further these negotiations.

Repeated to London for Davis. Mail copy to Paris and Rome.

Wilson
  1. Louis Aubert, member of the French delegation to the General Commission.↩