File No. 763.72116/107
The Secretary of State to the German Ambassador (Bernstorff)
Washington, January 6, 1915.
Excellency: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note of the 5th ultimo, calling attention to “fresh violations of the Geneva convention as weft as to Section II, Article 23(e) of the Hague convention of July 29, 1899, by the British Government,” in the use of dumdum bullets. I can assure your excellency that I am not unmindful of the spirit in which you bring to the attention of this Government the improper practices which are alleged to have occurred in the conduct of the present war. But while this Government may take these statements and charges under consideration it is, in its effort to maintain a strict neutrality in the present conflict, obliged to refrain from investigating their truthfulness or making any comment in regard to them. The time will come, however, when the truth may be impartially determined, and when the judgment of the world will be passed upon the charges made by the various belligerents of violations of the rules of civilized warfare.
Your excellency also states that the British Government have ordered from the Winchester Repeating Arms Company 20,000 “riot guns,” Model 1897, and 50,000,000 “buckshot cartridges” for use in such guns. This Department saw a published statement of the Winchester Company, the correctness of which the company has confirmed to the Department by telegraph. In this statement the company categorically denies that it has received an order for such guns and cartridges from, or made any sales of such material to the British Government, or to any other government engaged in the present war.
Your excellency further calls attention to “information, the accuracy of which is not to be doubted,” that 8,000,000 cartridges fitted with “mushroom bullets” have been delivered since October of this [Page 809] year by the Union Metallic Cartridge Company for the armament of the English Army.
In reply I have the honor to refer to the letter of December 10, 1914,1 of the Remington Arms-Union Metallic Cartridge Company of New York to your excellency, called forth by certain newspaper reports of statements alleged to have been made by you in regard to the sales by that company of soft-nose bullets. From this letter, a copy of which was sent to this Department by the company, it appears that instead of 8,000,000 cartridges having been sold, only a little over 117,000 were manufactured and 109,000 were sold. The letter further asserts that these cartridges were made to supply a demand for a better sporting cartridge with a soft-nose bullet than had been manufactured theretofore; and that such cartridges cannot be used in the military rifles of any foreign powers. The company adds that its statements can be substantiated and that it is ready to give you any evidence that you may require on these points. The Department is now in receipt from the company of a complete detailed list of the persons to whom these cartridges were sold. From this list it appears that the cartridges were sold to firms in lots of 20 to 2,000 and one lot each of 3,000, 4,000, 5,000. Of these only 960 cartridges went to British North America and 100 to British East Africa.
If, however, you can furnish the Department with evidence that this or any other company is manufacturing and selling for the use of the contending armies in Europe cartridges whose use would contravene the Hague conventions, the Government would be glad to be furnished with this evidence, and the President directs me to inform you that, in case any American company is shown to be engaged in this traffic, he will use his influence to prevent so far as possible sales of such ammunition to the powers engaged in the European war, without regard to whether it is the duty of this Government upon legal or conventional grounds to take such action.
In view of the publicity which has been given to your excellency’s complaint addressed to the Department in these matters it is taken for granted that there can be no objection on your part to equal publicity being given to this note and the letter of the Union Metallic Cartridge Company addressed to you on December 10, 1914.
Accept [etc.]
- Not printed.↩