852.00/3855: Telegram
The Ambassador in Spain (Bowers), Then in France, to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received November 23—5 p.m.]
167. Viscount Mamblas formerly of the Foreign Office and close in [apparent omission] with leaders of the rebellion said in the presence of Thurston6 that the Havas Agency has announced the appearance in Cartagena waters of a number of submarines and that as the rebels [Page 572] have no submarines these must be foreign. He is sure they are not German and therefore must be Italian. Just learned, in connection with radio from the Kane, that there seemed to have been an explosion on the Government cruiser Cervantes in the harbor of Cartagena. This is a possible forerunner of what most people here expect from the Italian Navy.
- Walter Thurston, Counselor of Embassy in Spain, temporarily at St. Jean de Luz, France.↩