793.94/8993: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in Japan ( Grew )
128. Department is informed from London19 that British Embassy at Peiping states that the senior commandant has been informed by the Japanese liaison officer that the Japanese intend to launch, regardless of whether the withdrawal of the 37th Division is proceeding satisfactorily, a general attack against all Chinese forces both within and without the city of Peiping.
Please confer immediately with the British Embassy and, in your discretion, take action on lines parallel with British Embassy’s action toward dissuading Japanese authorities from proceeding with any plan for military operations which would be likely to endanger lives of American nationals. You may use, as a part basis for such action, the fact of the presence of large numbers of American nationals in Peiping, rights of this country along with other countries under the Boxer Protocol,20 and assurances given by the Japanese Government during the present crisis, especially an assurance given this Government in writing, when the Japanese Ambassador, on July 12, called on me and gave me a memorandum21 from the Japanese Government, numbered paragraph 6 of which concludes:
“In any case the Japanese Government is prepared to give full consideration to the rights and interests of the Powers in China.”
The Department has sent a similar telegram to the Embassy at Peiping22 with the request that Peiping report immediately to the Department and repeat its telegram to you.
Report by telegraph and repeat your telegram to Peiping.
- See telegram No. 505, July 27, 1 p.m., vol. iii, p. 271.↩
- Signed at Peking, September 7, 1901, Foreign Relations, 1901, Appendix (Affairs in China), p. 312.↩
- Foreign Relations, Japan, 1931–1941, vol. i, p. 318.↩
- The Embassy office at Nanking likewise was informed July 27 and 29.↩