893.0146/896a: Telegram
The Secretary of State to the Ambassador in China (Gauss)
267. Reference decision of the Government of the United States to withdraw the American marine detachments which it has maintained ashore in China.
With regard to the withdrawal of the marine detachments from Peiping, Tientsin and Chinwangtao, please inform the Minister for Foreign Affairs that the United States Government hereby makes reservation of its rights under the Final Protocol signed at Peiping on September 7, 1901.80 The Embassy at Peiping should send a communication in the same sense to the Senior Ambassador for the information of the Protocol Powers.81 The Consul General at Tientsin should notify the Senior Consul at Tientsin, for the information of his colleagues representing Protocol Powers, of the withdrawal of the marine detachment at Tientsin and should make a similar reservation of rights.82
[Page 583]It is suggested that the commanding officer of the United States Marine Forces in North China should take steps to notify his military colleagues in the Diplomatic Quarter at Peiping, as well as in Tientsin and Chinwangtao, in regard to the withdrawal of the marine detachments at those places.83
Sent to Chungking. Repeated to Peiping, Shanghai and Tientsin. Peiping repeat to Tokyo.
- Foreign Relations, 1901, Appendix (Affairs in China), p. 312. The Ambassador in China so informed the Chinese Minister for Foreign Affairs (Quo Tai-chi) in a formal note dated November 17 (893.0146/909).↩
- This was done by the Counselor of Embassy in China (Butrick), at Peiping, on November 17 (893.0146/901).↩
- The Consul General at Tientsin (Caldwell) on November 17 sent notices of reservation of rights to the appropriate consular authorities of the protocol powers except those of Austria, Hungary, Germany, and the Soviet Union (893.0146/897).↩
- This was done by the commanding officer of the United States Marine Forces in North China (Ashurst) on November 28 (893.0146/907).↩