852.00/3882: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Bingham) to the Acting Secretary of State
[Received November 25—1:10 p.m.]
567. In a conversation at the Foreign Office today it was admitted that the French had, as reported in the last paragraph of my 561, November 23, 7 p.m.,10 exerted sufficient pressure to dissuade the British Government from according belligerent rights to the Spanish warring factions and the Foreign Office obviously considered its recent action as a makeshift measure which might well prove to be merely a temporary stopgap. I gathered that the Foreign Office would have preferred to have recognized Franco’s faction as a belligerent and accompanied the recognition with a statement setting forth fully the reasons therefor.
My informant personally characterized the position as absurd: Great Britain and France were recognizing a government no longer in power, Italy and Germany had recognized one that has not yet come into power, and none of the governments has recognized the real situation, namely, a state of belligerency arising out of civil war.
Foreign Office stated the British Ambassador had again been instructed to approach Franco in the matter of designating a specified safety zone at Barcelona; Foreign Office did not interpret Franco’s recent communication as proclaiming a blockade and was inclined to think its real intention was to clear Barcelona of neutral shipping so that if a Russian munitions ship arrived there it could be forcibly dealt with. Foreign Office again made reference to the extent to which Italy and Germany had allied themselves to Franco’s cause (my 545, November 19, 7 p.m.) and said that no doubt the situation was going to become increasingly complicated and difficult but that Great Britain had no intention of being dragged into a trial of strength.
Asked about conditions in Spanish Morocco, Foreign Office replied that they were ordered and quiet, that the use of the Moorish troops had had no political repercussion there.
- Not printed.↩