852.00/3014: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received September 5—9:30 a.m.]
835. The Foreign Office issued a communiqué yesterday categorically denying allegations which have appeared in the Right press here and in foreign papers to the effect that the French Government was not living strictly up to its embargo on the export of war munitions to Spain.
With regard to stories that carloads of war material passed the frontier at Irun for a few days prior to the fall of that city, I am reliably informed that there were in fact instances of this sort but that the railway cars came originally from Barcelona and were merely sent in transit and under seal through French territory.
Despite the report of the recent delivery of Italian planes at Vigo which has caused the Communists here, who have recently been relatively quiet on the Spanish situation, to intensify their demands that the Government should raise the embargo, I am of the opinion that the French Government is continuing to make every effort to live strictly up to the terms of its embargo.
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