Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1940, General, Volume I

740.0011 European War 1939/4706: Telegram

The Ambassador in Turkey (MacMurray) to the Secretary of State

Ankara, July 16, 1940—5 p.m.
[Received 9:25 p.m.]

125. My telegram 123, July 13, 5 p.m.⁷²

1. There has been a substantial relaxation of the nervous tension which had reached its culmination at the moment of the Prime Minister’s speech⁷³ and the Assembly’s note of confidence in the Government’s policy. The Assembly then adjourned for about a fortnight and the President of the Republic shortly left for a holiday near Istanbul; and there prevails generally a feeling that a crisis has been safely passed which might seriously have compromised this country’s relations with the Soviet Union if not handled by the Government with prudent firmness.

2. In conversation today the Minister for Foreign Affairs commented to me upon the effort of Germany to embroil Turkish relations with Russia by the publication of the despatches (of the last of which the Deutsches Nachrichten Bureau has now had to publish a corrected text) referred to in my previous telegrams including Number 120⁷⁴ and by the dissemination of rumors of Russian demands. The Minister thought the German attempt to sow dissension was prompted primarily by these calculations: First, hostile relations between Turkey and Russia would preclude the possibility of the Russian rapprochement with Great Britain which Germany fears; and second, involvement in hostilities with Turkey would considerably weaken the Russians whom the Germans do not wish to be (even as partners) too powerful. He also thought that a further motive may have been the belief that Turkey’s embroilment would make her more amenable to German influence.

3. He assured me that there was no indication whatever that the publication of the documents had had the intended effect of arousing Moscow’s suspicions of Turkey and likewise no reason to believe that the Soviet Government contemplates making any such demands as were rumored. The intrigue had therefore come to nothing but had given occasion for an assertion of this “country’s position which had not only reassured its own people but had had the result of toning down the asperity of the German press and radio references to Turkey. He also mentioned that the German Ambassador had come in the next day to express his cordial acquiescence in certain points on which the Turks had been insisting in the limited commercial agreement which is still under negotiation.

4. As to the Balkans he is still convinced that the Soviet Union has no present intention of pressing further into Rumania. He also believes that neither Hungary nor Bulgaria will resort to other than peaceful means to enforce their claims against Rumania—the former because of the attacks by the Axis Powers, and the latter partly for the same reason but also because of a sincere conviction that such action would be unwise in the long run. Denying the rumors that the Rumanian Government intends to withdraw from the Balkan Entente he told me that he had received its formal assurances that it would remain faithful to that alliance.

Repeated to Moscow.

MacMurray

72. Not printed.
73. Before the Grand National Assembly on July 12.
74. July 11, 1 p.m., not printed. The despatches published were concerned with the German White Book No. 6, issued by the German Foreign Office under the title Die Geheimakten des französischen Generalstabes, from which selected documents had already appeared in the daily press during July, purporting to show Allied intentions against the Soviet Union in the oil regions of the Caucasus and Baku, with the possibility of assistance from Turkey.