761.6211/227: Telegram
The Ambassador in the United Kingdom (Kennedy) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:52 p.m.]
1882. Preliminary reaction of responsible officials of the Foreign Office to the German-Russian agreement announced at Moscow yesterday93 are: (1) that it caused no surprise here; (2) that as far as it is possible to assess the motives of the Russian Government there is nothing to indicate any change or deviation from what are believed to be the basic Russian purposes and desires: (a) for all of the Western nations to exhaust themselves fighting each other, with Russia outside ready to take any advantage that suits her of their ultimate weakness; (b) the historic, nationalistic desire of Russia to recover Russian Poland, the Baltic States and Bessarabia, in fact any territory that was ever under Russian sovereignty. (In this purpose Russia is no different to [from] the Russia of Catherine the Great and the nineteenth century); and (c) the desire to prevent Germany from becoming the controlling factor in the Balkans and the determination to keep from the Black Sea, with the eventual object of securing effective control of the Dardanelles.
Whether the present agreement with Germany will affect any or all of the basic purposes of Russia is a matter of conjecture. As the present situation and set-up are seen by the Foreign Office, Russia would gain no real advantage in pursuance of her objectives by becoming involved in a world war; viewing the situation in the light of what would appear to be Russia’s own selfish interests a full fledged military alliance with Germany would therefore seem unlikely. On the other hand the British Ambassador at Moscow reports that Ribbentrop was received with really unprecedented enthusiasm by the Soviet officials and that there is a possibility that this enthusiasm may carry the Soviet Government toward aggressive adventures which would be at variance with their past policies and perhaps even at variance with the material interests of Russian [garbled group]. As a merely preliminary view, Sir William Seeds thinks that the test of Russia’s immediate intentions with regard to the Western war will be whether her proposals for a general peace are brought forward through a third power or whether the initiative will be taken by the [Page 462] Soviet Embassy in London. If the latter procedure should be adopted Seeds suggests to his Government that Russia be reminded of the advantages which would come to her through following up recent suggestions for an Anglo-Russian trade agreement and conversely that if Russia did enter the war on the side of Germany, it would mean the complete disappearance of her foreign trade (except in the Baltic) including that with the United States which was mentioned.
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