862.20/1047
The Acting Chairman of the American Delegation to the Disarmament Conference (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 12.]
Sir: I have the honor to refer to League document C/85th Session (Extr.) P. V. 2 (1) containing the resolution of April 17th of the Council of the League of Nations with regard to Germany’s unilateral action respecting the military clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, especially Part III of that resolution in which the Council requests a committee composed of thirteen States “to propose measures to render the Covenant more effective in the organization of collective security and to define the financial and economic measures which might be applied should in the future a State, whether a Member of the League of Nations or not, endanger peace by the unilateral repudiation of its international obligations.” May I recall to the Department that the scope of this proposal applies to Europe alone.
This committee, known as the Committee of Thirteen, met on May 24th and had before it the text of a memorandum which the French Delegation had written (COSC–2). Later on in the discussions, which continued for several days, the British Delegation also presented certain suggestions (COSC–5 (1)). After a preliminary consideration of the subject, the Committee named two sub-committees—one of jurists and the other of economists and financial experts—to go into these two phases of the problem, the sub-committees to take up their work the latter part of June and the first of July, respectively. There is to be another plenary meeting of the Committee on July 25th.
These memoranda and suggestions, copies of which I enclose,45 will give the Department a more detailed idea of the agenda of the Committee. At the same time I also enclose a copy of a memorandum of a conversation I had with Monsieur Jean Paul-Boncour,45 of the French Delegation, on Thursday, May 30th, at the conclusion of the first plenary session of the Committee. Monsieur Paul-Boncour had [Page 286] been instructed by his Government to inform me of the progress of the meetings. I therefore report it to you in some detail.
Since this date, I have taken occasion to discuss the work of the Committee of Thirteen with various members of the Secretariat. I did so in particular relation to the British attitude toward the work, since, according to Monsieur Paul-Boncour (see page three of my memorandum) the British showed quite a change of position and evidenced a much more serious attempt to grapple with the problem.
The principal British representative in the League Secretariat told me confidentially that he felt the work of this Committee was “eyewash”; that while the French wish to give the impression of being serious, he doubted very much if they themselves were interested other than in creating a certain amount of irritation vis-à-vis Germany, to add an item in the general program of menacing Germany by encirclement and otherwise. My informant told me that he was quite certain that the British were not at all interested in pursuing this matter other than to show a willingness, if pressed, to discuss it for the sake of their French friends; that no one but the French wished to continue with the Committee’s work during the summer and that it was only out of politeness to the French insistence that the other countries represented fell in with the time-table. Furthermore, this member of the Secretariat felt that there were insoluble obstacles to accomplishing anything concrete along the line of the Committee’s mandate; that so much depended upon what nation was guilty of the unilateral breach, who were the neighbors of that State, what were the particular essential products or vulnerable financial features of the offending State and, similarly, of the neighboring States. Then there was the all-important question of the non-Member States, having in mind especially America, in relation to the supply to the offending State of key products or financial assistance. Indeed, this member of the Secretariat considered that once you enter into a detailed analysis of the problem in the manner indicated above, you find it is impossible to fix any definite rules in advance of the particular occasion. To do so with any accuracy it would be necessary to take each State, determine the essential military raw products which it must import, determine the countries from which it could best import these articles, do the same vis-à-vis finance, determine the present political relationship one to another of these several States, and thus have a table which would define the economic, financial and political relations of each State of the world in a given set of circumstances.
It is scarcely necessary more than to mention this to see how impossible it was to expect anything concrete from this Committee, in view of my informant. He summarized by saying that this Committee’s [Page 287] report to the League would be either honest or dishonest. If the former, it would show the insuperable difficulties and bring about an abandonment of the objective. If a dishonest report, it would gloss over the objections and attempt, for political purposes, to paint a picture which simply wasn’t true. I found that this member of the Secretariat, as indeed every other with whom I have discussed the matter, except the French and their allies, believe it is only a rather unfortunate consequence of the action which the French took, for internal political reasons, in bringing the question of Germany’s breach of the Military Clauses of the Treaty of Versailles before the Council.
Another member of the Secretariat of a neutral character, who had followed the Committee closely, felt very much the same as my other informant. With regard to the British attitude he commented upon a marked change after the first day—that in the beginning the British were cool and showed a lack of interest in the whole proceedings, but the second day they seemed to change rather radically and appeared to take an interest. He felt, however, that this was more apparent than real and was based merely on an effort to placate the French in line with the “united front” idea. My informant spoke of the help which Massigli had been to the British during the Abyssinian discussion at the Council (for which Massigli, we understand, was somewhat called down by Laval). This other member of the Secretariat was not quite sure whether the French purpose in pushing this Committee of Thirteen was merely with the idea of its being part and parcel of the “menace” or encirclement policy, or whether it was not something more subtle and typical of the French mind. He repeated a remark he had heard from one of his French colleagues in the Secretariat several days ago to the effect that once you put into effect a policy of economic and financial sanctions “the descent to war is very rapid”. My informant thought it quite possible that the French might be hoping to entangle the British and others in a policy which, if once embarked upon, would in all practicality lead to hostilities and so gain by roundabout methods the adoption of a position by the British and others which could not be arrived at directly. In other words, according to my informant, the French may be thinking that they could implement Article 16 of the Covenant, indeed even anticipate it in a state of “peace”, by the more innocent method of considering certain limited economic and financial action in the event of further treaty repudiation in Europe, read [re?] Germany; for example, with respect to the de-militarized zone in the Rhineland.
Furthermore, this member of the Secretariat told me in some detail of the difficulties, of which I had heard from other sources, that had arisen in connection with the naming of the juridical and economic [Page 288] sub-committees. It appears that a great effort was made by the French to confine membership of these committees to the former Allies, every attempt being made until the very last moment to prevent the Hungarians, Poles and Dutch from being named on the committees. There was also a query in my informant’s mind as to why Chile should have accepted membership on a sub-committee dealing with a matter avowedly European in the scope of its mandate. What was the quid pro quo?
I also discussed the question of the work of the Committee of Thirteen informally with the principal British financial expert in the League. I found him in general accord with the basic idea of the opinion of the other members of the Secretariat to the effect that the work of the Committee would not seem to be of any special value with a view to determining upon practical measures of economic and financial sanctions against the unilateral breach of treaties.
My informant discussed at some length the difficulties inherent in any such attempt, reviewing previous studies he had made in relation to Article 16. He said that of course the country the French had in mind was Germany, and that he had looked into this question in some detail with especial reference to non-Member States. He had found, for example, that practically all of Germany’s key importations could be supplied, in some measure at least, by Japan—that is to say, Japan, Korea or Manchoukuo.
Financial embargo my informant considered not worth discussing and as of no real value whatsoever.
As regards economic sanctions, these were as apt as not to be equally disturbing to the embargoing country, especially with regard to exportations. The mechanical difficulties involved were of course tremendous. In fact, considering the essential “reality” of French thought, my informant wondered why the French could be considering such ideas. He could only guess that they considered this a part of their whole security scheme and wanted to call attention to it at this moment for some particular political reason. My informant did not believe that the British were much interested in the idea, although they were quite willing to explore it, as much as anything else for politeness’ sake vis-à-vis the French.
I do not wish to make too much of the work of this Committee of Thirteen, but this description may be of interest to the Department in epitome, as indicating the subtleties, suspicions, intrigues and general tenseness of the present European situation, and having rather a close relation in general to the subject of guarantees of execution and collective action studied here in committee last summer during Disarmament Conference work.
Respectfully yours,