740.0011 European War 1939/12323: Telegram
The Ambassador in France ( Leahy ) to the Secretary of State
[Received 11:30 p.m.]
729. In confirming the fall of Damascus this morning Rochat told us that in the light of the invasion of Russia10 the affair in Syria seems “of secondary importance now.” “We have” he said, “done enough to save our honor” and only hope it will be quickly over.
[Page 748]We have received reports from several independent sources, one from our Embassy in Berlin and another from a friend in the Foreign Office, that the French have been sending or endeavoring to send troop reinforcements to Syria through Germany and Italy to Salonika and thence by boat. We asked Rochat concerning the truth of these reports and he denied them indirectly. “We have” he said “endeavored to find ways of getting reinforcements to Syria largely to relieve our hard pressed elements there, but we have been unable to find a way. Naval circles issue similar denials but we learn on good authority that a trainload of French soldiers en route through Germany was actually stoned by the local populace at Belfort.
- For correspondence on wartime cooperation between Germany and the Soviet Union prior to the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, see vol. i, pp. 116 ff.↩