765.84/4332½: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Minister Resident in Ethiopia (Engert)
209. Your 311, May 7, 10 p.m. [11 a.m.] Under instructions from his Government, the French Ambassador called today to inform this Government that the French Minister at Addis Ababa had been instructed to call in the “capacity of an official without diplomatic character” upon the Italian Marshal (1) “to express the wish to thank the Marshal for the help given by Italian troops to the French Legation” and (2) in order to “put himself in a situation to concert with the Marshal for the protection of French interests under his charge”.
The Ambassador also stated that on May 6 the French Ambassador in Rome had called personally on Mussolini to express the thanks of the French Government “for the quickness with which the Italian troops came to the protection of menaced legations in Addis Ababa”.