740.0011 European War 1939/3140: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received May 18—9:12 p.m.]
749. Personal for the President and the Secretary. I had a long talk with Reynaud at 8:45 this evening. He had just come from General Headquarters. He pointed out on a map in his office the exact positions.
The German drive at the moment is directed north northwest against the general district of St. Quentin and Valenciennes.
Reynaud asked me please to telegraph you immediately and say that the tanks in this area were still proceeding steadily toward the Channel. The immediate objective of the Germans was to cut off the French Army which was in the Antwerp region and was one of the best of the French Armies. The secondary objective was to take all the Channel ports and cut off contact between France and England. Since France was inferior both in numbers of soldiers and in quantity of material to Germany the result would be, if the Germans should reach the Channel, that although France would continue to fight to the bitter end the German machine would swing down and finally take Paris.
The experience of the present war had proved that whereas armies during the last war moved at the rate of 4 miles an hour, today they can be moved at 30 miles an hour. As a result conquests could be carried out with incredible speed.
[Page 229]The war might end in an absolute defeat of France and England in less than 2 months.
He felt that it was his duty as Prime Minister of France to let you know that the situation was in his opinion as serious as it could possibly be.
Reynaud then said that he had thought of handing me a formal note for transmission to you stating the following.
The French Government was deeply and profoundly grateful to you for everything that you had done to assist in obtaining available war materials in the United States. It was obvious however that with the best will in the world sufficiently great quantities of material could not be obtained in the critical period of the next month to give the French Army the material equality which was essential.
He felt profoundly convinced that if the French Army should be defeated Great Britain would be strangled in short order by German submarines based on French ports and by German airplanes based on France and the Netherlands and Belgium. He was equally convinced that Hitler would have little trouble in installing Nazi regimes in many countries of South America and that in the near future the United States itself would be menaced as directly and completely as France was today.
He had noted the change in public opinion in the United States during the past few days. It would be an enormous encouragement to France and England and it would be in his opinion of immense influence in Italy if you should be able to make a public statement that if France and England should be defeated the vital interests of the United States would be threatened and that the United States in defense of its vital interests could not permit the defeat of France and England.
He then concluded by saying that he was fully prepared to put what he had said to me in a written note tomorrow if you should care to receive this communication from him in the form of a written note.85 It was obvious that Léger had communicated the substance of what I had said to him, Léger, this afternoon. (See my No. 744, May 18, 5 p.m.)
I said that I did not exactly understand his aim in making this communication. I pointed out that a statement from you as to defense of vital interests of the United States had no such weight as a similar statement from the Prime Minister of England or of France since Congress alone had the power to declare war and I felt certain that Congress would not at the present time declare war on Germany. Such a statement by you therefore would be a word without physical force behind it and words without force today counted for little.
[Page 230]Reynaud then said that he could not believe that the Congress of the United States would not be ready to face the facts which were that the defeat of France and England would be followed by the defeat of an isolated America.
I said that I agreed with him that Hitler would attack the Americas as soon as he should be physically able to do so, but that I could not imagine that public opinion in the United States, however far it might have progressed during the past few days, was ready to envisage a declaration of war since in point of fact the people of the United States were aroused because of the realization of their own military weakness and were, I was certain, determined not to send American soldiers to Europe and were keenly conscious that they had virtually no airplanes to send to Europe and that the American fleet was properly stationed in the Pacific.
Reynaud then said that at any rate such a statement by you would have the greatest effect in heartening the French and in discouraging the Germans and Italians and then turned to another subject and left this one in the air.
The truth seems to be that he had not thought the matter out and that he desired to send a note for the record which was forestalled by my conversation with Léger this afternoon.
Before I left him however he asked me once more to be sure to transmit this message to you immediately and to ask for a reply.
I hope that you will let me have an appropriate answer as soon as possible.
I entirely agree with Reynaud as to the gravity of the situation and I feel certain that if Hitler should be able to conquer France and England he would turn his attention at once to South America and eventually attempt to install a Nazi government in the United States. I do not see however the exact value of a declaration of the sort that Reynaud wants. To have value such a declaration would have to mean that we would go to war in the near future.