711.5112France/373: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Herrick) to the Secretary of State
193. Following is translation of note received at 4 o’clock from the Foreign Office:
“Mr. Ambassador: By your letter of June 23 last Your Excellency was good enough to transmit to me a revised text of the draft treaty for the renunciation of war accompanied by the interpretations given to it by the United States.
I beg you to convey to the Government of the United States the interest with which the Government of the Republic has taken cognizance of this new communication, which is suited to facilitate the signature of the treaty whose successful conclusion is equally close to the hearts of the French and American nations.
First of all it follows from the new preamble that the proposed treaty indeed aims at the perpetuation of the pacific and friendly relations under the contractual conditions in which they are today established between the interested nations; that it is essentially a question for the signatory powers of renouncing war ‘as an instrument of their national policy;’ and also that the signatory power which hereafter might seek by itself resorting to war to promote its own national interests, should be denied the benefits of the treaty.
The Government of the Republic is happy to declare that it is in accord with these new stipulations.
The Government of the Republic is happy moreover to take note of the interpretations which the Government of the United States gives to the new treaty with a view to satisfying the various observations which had been formulated from the French point of view.
These interpretations may be resumed as follows:
Nothing in the new treaty restrains or compromises in any manner whatsoever the right of self-defense. Each nation in this respect will always remain free to defend its territory against attack or invasion; it alone is competent to decide whether circumstances require recourse to war in self-defense.
Secondly, none of the provisions of the new treaty is in opposition to the provisions of the Covenant of the League of Nations nor with those of the Locarno treaties or the treaties of neutrality.
Moreover, any violation of the new treaty by one of the contracting parties would automatically release the other contracting powers from their obligations to the treaty-breaking state.
[Page 108]Finally, the signature which the Government of the United States has now offered to all the signatory powers of the treaties concluded at Locarno and which it is disposed to offer to all powers parties to treaties of neutrality, as well as the adherence made possible to other powers, is of a nature to give the new treaty, in as full measure as can practically be desired, the character of generality which accords with the views of the Government of the Republic.
Thanks to the clarifications given by the new preamble and thanks moreover to the interpretations given to the treaty, the Government of the Republic congratulates itself that the new convention is compatible with the obligations of existing treaties to which France is otherwise a contracting party, and the integral respect of which is necessarily imperatively imposed upon her by good faith and loyalty.
In this situation and under these circumstances, the Government of the Republic is happy to be able to declare to the Government of the United States that it is now entirely disposed to sign the treaty as proposed by the letter of Your Excellency of June 23, 1928.
At the moment of thus assuring its contribution to the realization of a long-matured project, all the moral significance of which it had gauged from the beginning, the Government of the Republic desires to render homage to the generous spirit in which the Government of the United States has conceived this new manifestation of human fraternity, which eminently conforms to the profound aspirations of the French people as well as of the American people and responds to the sentiment, more and more widely shared among peoples, of international solidarity.
Please accept, etc., (signed) Aristide Briand, Paris, July 14, 1928.”
- Telegram in four sections.↩