851.48/113: Telegram
The Chargé in France (Matthews) to the Secretary of State
[Received 1:30 p.m.]
1201. My telegram 1195, December 30, 4 p.m.24 Flandin25 said that there was one urgent problem which he wished to take up immediately and hoped that I would bring to the serious attention of my Government: namely France’s need for wheat supplies. Recent estimates make it quite clear, he said, that there will be a period of at least 7 weeks before the next crop is available in which unoccupied France will be completely without wheat supplies unless imports can be arranged. Present supplies will be completely exhausted by March 31 and a minimum of 6,000,000 quintals of wheat and 2,000,000 quintals of corn for live stock are needed to carry France through. This wheat and corn can be purchased in the Argentine and on the question of funds he understands from Ambassador Henry-Haye’s recent conversations with the Department that we are inclined “to take a sympathetic view with regard to unblocking the requisite dollars”.26 It is the matter of transportation which presents the real problem. France, he said, has sufficient ships in our ports if she is permitted to use them and there comes the question of the British blockade on which he is asking our help. He said that among the memoranda of his predecessor he found notes indicating British willingness to discuss this matter at Madrid but owing to the fact that they tied the problem to parallel conversations on general political questions this was unfeasible.
Given the present state of Franco-German relations and the German attitude it seems out of the question to have political talks with the British at the present time. He therefore hopes that we will use our good offices with the British to get authorization for the passage through the blockade of a number of shiploads of wheat. He said that the French Government would be willing to give any sort of guarantee that the wheat would be consumed entirely in the unoccupied zone. He emphasized the urgency of the question and the [Page 557] Government’s fear of serious social disturbances if help is not forthcoming.
I said that I should be glad to report the matter immediately to my Government but that in turn I should like to ask him two questions: I said that I had taken an interest in reporting the food situation to Washington last summer and at that time the French Minister of Agriculture had indicated that wheat stocks principally in the occupied territory would be sufficient to carry the whole of France safely through the winter. What was the cause of this complete change of view? He replied that it was due entirely to faulty estimates of the 1940 crop and the poor quality of the wheat harvested. I asked if it was not due in part to heavier German requisitions than anticipated and he flatly denied that this was the case. He could not deny, however, that the Germans had used some stocks for their army of occupation. I asked whether there was sufficient wheat in the occupied zone, in case the Germans would permit its shipment to unoccupied territory, to see the country through and he replied in the negative. He said that the occupied zone has barely enough for its own needs. He went on to say that one thing of which the Germans had plenty was wheat in view of the supplies from the Danube basin, etc., and that if this help were given France now it would in no way assist Germany.
I reiterated that I would promptly transmit his request. (Perhaps I should add that I have shown the foregoing to Allen of the American Red Cross and that in the absence of precise figures he is not yet convinced of a serious deficiency in wheat supplies.)