740.00/590a: Telegram

The Secretary of State to President Roosevelt 39

3. From the Under Secretary. The British Ambassador who has just returned from England gave me this morning the text of a personal and secret message sent to you for your information by the British Government and received by telegram today. After referring to previous memoranda sent by the British Government to the French Government, the message states that the British Government has informed the French Government as regards Switzerland that if Germany invaded Switzerland and France thereupon declared war upon Germany, the United Kingdom would go to the assistance of France in the same way that they understood France would be willing to support Great Britain if Germany invaded Holland and Great Britain thereupon declared war upon Germany.

The remainder of the message reads textually as follows:

“In reply to the French arguments regarding Anglo-French solidarity in race of an unprovoked attack by Germany or Italy, His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom stated that joint action by Germany and Italy against the two Western Great Powers or against any one of them would clearly have to be resisted in common by the two Powers with the whole of their resources; indeed the obligations which His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom had assumed towards the French Government by treaty already cover the case of an unprovoked attack delivered upon France by Germany whether acting alone or in support of Italy. While it was possible that in the event of an attack on France by Italy alone France might feel that it was not necessarily in her interests that Great Britain should intervene if the effect of such intervention were to bring Germany into what might otherwise be a localized conflict, His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom were fully conscious that the risks to which the two Powers were severally exposed could not be disassociated. The French Government would have noted the Prime Minister’s statement in the House of Commons on February 6th. It was in the light of this situation that His Majesty’s Government in the United Kingdom had proposed to the French Government the extension [Page 21] of staff conversations as indicated in paragraph 2 of Lord Halifax’s shorter message of February 7th.40

The terms of this reply to the French Government are being communicated to the Belgian Government for their secret information.”

[Welles]
Hull
  1. Aboard the cruiser Houston in the Caribbean to view fleet maneuvers.
  2. Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1919–1939, Third Series, vol. iv, doc. No. 87, p. 83.