740.0011 European War 1939/12973: Telegram
The Consul General at Beirut (Engert) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3:10 p.m.]
285. At 2 o’clock this morning I was shown a printed leaflet (which had presumably been dropped from a British plane) addressed in French to General Dentz by General Wilson calling on the former to declare Beirut an open city and requesting him to send a message to that effect by a messenger with a flag of truce to the nearest Allied outpost. If by half past five this morning such a message was not received [apparent omission] would take all measures necessary to occupy the city and would hold General Dentz personally responsible for losses of civilian lives and property.
I immediately got in touch with the High Commissioner who received me a little after 3 o’clock. He had not yet seen the [apparent omission] and as soon as he had read it he said angrily “I can tell from the language that this comes from Catroux and not Wilson. Especially the reference to my having surrendered Paris proves it. I shall [Page 767] ignore it. If General Wilson wants to communicate with me he can send a parliamentarian. These leaflets are propaganda addressed to the inhabitants rather than a message to me.”
After this and similar outbursts I said somewhat coldly that I had not come to disturb him in the middle of the night to discuss points of military etiquette with him. I did not know whose turn it was to dispatch a parliamentarian but it seemed to me this was a well-intended warning issued in good faith which required immediate attention. The General replied that he had survived before—e. g., see second paragraph of my 242, June 24, 11 a.m.—he could not suddenly make an open town out of a naval base but that he had no intention of fighting in the streets of Beirut. The British had not yet pierced his outer defenses and as soon as they did he would offer no further resistance. I replied that by that time it might be too late as his so-called outer defenses were already within easy range of the city, not to mention the fact that yesterday afternoon his heavy shore battery at Ras Beirut, i. e., within a few hundred yards of the American University and various Consulates, had for hours bombarded the British positions near Khalde. I felt the British had shown very commendable self-restraint in not immediately sending over some bombers to silence these large guns in which case a section of the residential city in that neighborhood might well unavoidably be destroyed too.
General Dentz admitted this and said he would give immediate instructions that the heavy guns of [apparent omission] Beirut do not fire on the British positions unless British naval units shelled French positions. He also said his anti-aircraft guns would not fire on British planes provided no bombs were dropped. I said it was extremely important that this information be at once communicated to the British and asked if he could not send some one with a flag of truce to say at least that much and that he would not fight nearer than Khalde. He said he could not do that because the morale of his troops would suffer if it became known that an emissary had gone to parley with the enemy. But when I insisted he compromised by saying he would try and get through to the British by radio and wrote the message out in my presence.
At 4:30 a.m., he telephoned me to say that he could no longer use the radio station and was therefore unable to get in touch with the British. I begged him to send a messenger after all and when he again refused, I offered to go myself in order that only the fewest possible number of his forces should know about it. But he remained obstinate and I could do nothing but point out to him that he was assuming a very grave responsibility for no reason except that appeared to me personal pique. I added that my Government would [Page 768] not understand it if a thousand American lives and property were needlessly endangered or harmed.
It is respectfully requested that especially substance of section 329 of this telegram be immediately conveyed to the British military authorities. I am very much afraid that General Dentz is utterly insincere in everything he says and does and is only playing for time hoping against hope that in the end the Germans will save him yet.
Repeated to Vichy. Please repeat to London and Cairo.
- The two preceding paragraphs.↩