793.94/8827: Telegram
The Ambassador in China (Johnson) to the Secretary of State
[Received July 18—10:20 a.m.]
256. 1. The French Ambassador informed me last evening that he had received instructions to go to Nanking to be near the Government. When I told him of Department’s instructions to me he said he would request Paris to authorize him to go if and when I do.
2. Once more he spoke of what the powers might do to ameliorate the situation. After discarding the Nine Power Treaty and the League Commission he said that he found one basis for common action to which he thought no objection could be raised by Japanese or Chinese, namely, the Boxer Protocol and specifically that provision thereof which provides that communication shall be kept open to the sea. He remarked that he believed the Chinese wanted an excuse for signing an agreement with the Japanese and expressed the belief that if the Boxer Protocol powers insisted on communication being kept open this would give them the necessary excuse. He reasoned that fighting here would close off communication. If the protocol were observed by both sides there would be no fighting. The Chinese could excuse their act on the ground that they had to sign to prevent fighting and thus prevent a violation of the protocol. I remarked that the net result might be to turn resentment from their negotiations to us as the ones who had forced them to sign away their rights. I also pointed out that the line was in the hands of one of the Protocol powers from Chinwangtao to Tientsin and that that power threatens to take over the line from Tientsin to Peiping.
3. I do not believe that the time has come when I can be of use in Nanking. If the Japanese do attempt to force their way into Peiping, [Page 201] I think there will be some value in my being present here to witness the act and the means. I do not believe that they will go so far as to bomb this city or main street fighting here for the purpose of ousting the 2700 soldiers of the 37th Division guarding its gates.
4. The French Ambassador told me yesterday that he told Shima of the Japanese Embassy, who came to him on another matter, that if the Japanese Army bombed the city or started street fighting inside the walls, they would stand before the world as murderers of women and children. He expressed the hope to Shima that he would communicate his views to the Japanese Ambassador now at Tientsin.
Repeated to Nanking and Tokyo.