852.00/6738: Telegram
The Chargé in the United Kingdom (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:20 p.m.]
654. At a late hour yesterday an Italian volte-face rescued the Spanish Non-Intervention Subcommittee
from complete deadlock by acceptance of the British plan for withdrawing
volunteers from Spain, a breakdown of the discussions having appeared in
the morning to be inevitable. The Italian Ambassador announced at
yesterday afternoon’s meeting that his Government would agree to
withdrawal of volunteers without the preceding grant of belligerent
rights. The Italian plan outlined by the Ambassador was as follows:
The Italian Ambassador also confirmed that his Government agrees to the preliminary and immediate withdrawal of foreign volunteers in equal numbers from each side.
This is, of course, substantially the British plan of last July and the Italian Ambassador made rather a point of insisting that Italy by these proposals was adopting the British plan as a whole. However, Count Grandi’s proposal for the sending of a commission to Spain to discover the exact number of foreign nationals serving on each side is a somewhat radical departure from the British plan which only contemplated a commission to make arrangements for and supervise the withdrawal of foreign nationals. It obviously also would offer a leverage for dilatory tactics in carrying out the withdrawal and pessimistic observers see a sinister motive in this Italian suggestion.
There is naturally widespread speculation as to the reasons for the Italian action. In my personal view, neither the Italians nor the Germans really designed [desired?] a complete breakdown of the nonintervention machinery. The Russian demand that there should be no recognition of belligerency until after complete withdrawal of all volunteers, showed no abatement and the most probable explanation therefore of the Italian reversal seems to be that they realized that if some helping hand were not offered to the patient British endeavors there would be a complete collapse of the non-intervention efforts with perhaps unpleasant consequences for Italy. The sending of a commission to Spain to ascertain the number of volunteers on either side obviously will take a considerable time to accomplish its purpose and would offer the Italians an opportunity to sabotage the plan by continuing to send reenforcements to Spain. The British apparently are not acting on any such supposition and the Foreign Secretary is reported to have said last night that if the meeting of the committee tomorrow made such large advance as they made yesterday afternoon the problem would be very largely solved.
The following communiqué was issued last night at the close of the meeting:
“After hearing all the statements by the various representatives and after taking note of the substantial degree of progress achieved towards agreement on the main points at issue the representatives undertook to report to their respective governments the substance of the day’s discussion. The Subcommittee agreed that before the next [Page 432] meeting the Chairman should consider the machinery which would be required to give effect to the proposals under discussion”.
The full text of the Italian Ambassador’s statements has been published and will be forwarded by pouch today.84 The plan was accepted by all countries except Russia.
- Despatch No. 3484, October 21, not printed. Ambassador Grandi’s statement was published in the October 21 edition of the London Times.↩