757D.00/114: Telegram
The Chargé in Belgium (Wilson) to the Secretary of State
[Received August 23—4:25 p.m.]
100. Foreign Office has just given me text of radio address which King Leopold will deliver this evening in the name of all the Oslo Powers.33 King will refer to increasing international tension and military preparations and assert that conflicting interests of states can be reconciled better before than after a war. He will state that the world’s conscience is awakening and announce that Oslo Powers express the solemn wish that the men upon whom depends the course of events will submit their differences and claims to an open negotiation conducted in a spirit of fraternal cooperation. They hope that they may be joined in this appeal by other Chiefs of State. Full text by mail.
- The King’s speech was delivered at the conclusion of a conference in Brussels of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. The Oslo group was so called from the convention signed at Oslo, December 22, 1930, League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. cxxvi, p. 341. A new convention, signed May 28, 1937, at The Hague, included Finland and Luxembourg with the original group; ibid., vol. clxxx, p. 5. For translation of speech, see British Cmd. 6106, Misc. No. 9 (1939), doc. No. 128, p. 185.↩