851.5018/47: Telegram

The Chargé in France ( Matthews ) to the Secretary of State

727. Department’s telegram 484, September 17, 5 p.m. and other correspondence concerning foodstuffs:

Senator Bardoux has returned from Paris for a few days and I saw him yesterday. He stuck to his story that the Germans some weeks ago had demanded delivery of 58 per cent of all cattle, et cetera, but stated that happily the French had been able to resist this demand. He was somewhat vague on the subject and I am inclined to think that his information may have been somewhat inaccurate.

Professor M. Macheboeuf of the Bordeaux Medical Faculty and former fellow of the Rockefeller Foundation is at present technical and scientific adviser of the Supply (Ravitaillement) Ministry. He [Page 552] confirms (my telegrams 596, September 20, 5 p.m., and 687, October 4, 5 p.m.21) that the Germans are requiring delivery of 1,000,000 hogs and 500,000 cattle.

The former he says will seriously deplete French breeding stocks and further aggravate the food situation. The Germans have likewise already taken 350,000 cattle, he states. Apparently these demands cover the whole of France, but insufficiency in occupied France means that much will be taken from unoccupied France. He also said that out of recent ship arrivals at Marseille from Algeria some percent of sheep, or between 16 and 18,000 head were taken by the Germans.

Macheboeuf, in a report which he has prepared, expresses anxiety over the future: he believes that malnutrition will be sufficiently serious this winter to result in epidemics, particularly of influenza, around February or March. (A similar view is expressed by Pierret, Director General of the International Health Office, as reported in Embassy’s despatch 11, September 27.22)

The possibility of serious food shortages has been brought home by the recent rationing. There is resentment here that German officials in France are given ration cards considerably in excess of the French. The Government is now, I am told, considering the question of added prisoner ration cards to permit families of French prisoners in Germany and occupied territory to forward them foodstuffs. The French realize that the obligations of feeding war prisoners is German but they seem convinced that unless they send food from here the undernourishment of French prisoners of war will be seriously aggravated.

Matthews
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