852.00/7112
The Ambassador in Spain (Bowers), Then in France, to the Secretary of State
[Received December 23.]
Sir: I have the honor to announce that on Friday, December 10, representatives of the Basque Government called upon me to report that four hundred of the soldiers who surrendered to the Italian army at Santoña on written terms of capitulation, guaranteeing their lives, have been taken by boat to Bilbao. Some time has passed since they were condemned to death, and it is feared that their removal now is a preliminary to their early execution.
I know of nothing during the war so atrocious and contemptuous of the laws of war and the common instincts of humanity as the treatment of the Basques after the surrender on the terms agreed to in the capitulation. Considering all the circumstances, the utter helplessness of the Basques to find channels through which to convey their protests is pitiful and in this age almost incredible. They complain that despite the clear violation of the laws of civilized warfare they [Page 466] can find no nation that will transmit their appeal to Rome for the enforcement of the terms of surrender.
Thus far they have shown almost superhuman restraint in the public use of their written evidence of the perfidy to which they have been subjected. They have not given the terms of the capitulation to the press. This they have withheld lest its publication endanger the lives of the hostages demanded by the Italian army as a prelude to the negotiations. But the hostages have now been shot. The Basques are now afraid to give publicity to these executions lest the lives of hundreds of Basque prisoners be imperiled, and now four hundred have been sent to Bilbao.
These Basques are a simple, honest, contract-respecting Christian people utterly incapable of understanding the psychology of their enemies, and just as they were deprived of arms to defend themselves when attacked, they now find themselves deprived of the means of reaching their conquerors with appeals for the observance of the terms of capitulation.
Respectfully yours,