Office of the Historian

740.00/821: Telegram

The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State

[Extract]
Paris, April 15, 1939—7 p.m.
[Received April 15—5:15 p.m.]

749. I discussed the present political situation at length with Bonnet45 today.

He said that yesterday, officially on behalf of the French Government he had asked the Soviet Ambassador in Paris46 to request his Government to offer immediately a unilateral guarantee to Rumania in case of German aggression against Rumania. At the same time he had added that if the Soviet Union should be ready to enter into an agreement with France for immediate assistance in case of war similar to the Anglo-Polish agreement47 the French Government would be prepared to enter into such an agreement with the Soviet Union. Bonnet added that Great Britain yesterday had made a similar proposal to the Soviet Union.48

[Page 234]

Bonnet said that negotiations with Turkey had proceeded in the most satisfactory possible manner. The Turks had replied like courageous gentlemen. They were prepared immediately to enter into agreements with France and England for automatic mutual assistance similar to the Anglo-Polish agreement and in addition were contemplating giving a unilateral guarantee to Rumania and Greece.

Bonnet said that the new Spanish Ambassador Lequerica had reviewed the general situation with him yesterday.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Bullitt
  1. Georges Bonnet, French Minister for Foreign Affairs.↩
  2. Yakov Zakharovich Suritz.↩
  3. The British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, made a statement on March 31, 1939, in the House of Commons announcing unilateral assurance to Poland. He added that the French Government had authorized him to state that it stood “in the same position in this matter” as the British Government. An Anglo-Polish communiqué of April 6, 1939, made the assurance reciprocal. The permanent agreement of mutual assistance was signed at London on August 25, 1939. British Cmd. 6106, Misc. No. 9 (1939): Documents Concerning German-Polish Relations and the Outbreak of Hostilities between Great Britain and Germany on September 8, 1939, doc. Nos. 17, 18, and 19, pp. 36–39.↩
  4. For British proposal, see telegram No. 182, April 15, 6 p.m., from the Chargé in the Soviet Union, supra.↩