File No. 763.72119/2377a
[Enclosure—Translation]
The German Secretary of State of the Foreign
Office (
Solf) to
the Swiss Foreign Office for President Wilson
In accepting the proposal for an evacuation of the occupied
territories the German Government has started from the
assumption that the procedure of this evacuation and of the
conditions of an armistice should be left to the judgment of the
military advisers and that the actual standard of power on both
sides in the field has to form the basis for arrangements
safeguarding and guaranteeing this standard. The German
Government suggests to the President to bring about an
opportunity for fixing the details. It trusts that the President
of the United States will approve of no demand which would be
irreconcilable with the honor of the German people and with
opening a way to a peace of justice.
The German Government protests against the reproach of illegal
and inhumane actions made against the German land and sea forces
and thereby against the German people. For the covering of a
retreat, destructions will always be necessary and are insofar
permitted by international law. The German troops are under the
strictest instructions to spare private property and to exercise
care for the population to the best of their ability. Where
transgressions occur in spite of these instructions the guilty
are being punished.
The German Government further denies that the German Navy in
sinking ships has ever purposely destroyed lifeboats with their
passengers. The German Government proposes with regard to all
these charges that the facts be cleared up by neutral
commissions. In order to avoid anything that might hamper the
work of peace, the German Government has caused orders to be
despatched to all submarine commanders precluding the torpedoing
of passenger ships, without, however, for technical reasons,
being able to guarantee that these orders will reach every
single submarine at sea before its return.
As the fundamental conditions for peace, the President
characterizes the destruction of every arbitrary power that can
separately, secretly and of its own single choice disturb the
peace of the world. To this the German Government replies:
Hitherto the representation of the people in the German Empire
has not been endowed with an influence on the formation of the
Government. The Constitution did not provide for a concurrence
of the representation of the people
[Page 381]
in decision on peace and war. These
conditions have just now undergone a fundamental change. The hew
Government has been formed in complete accord with the wishes of
the representation of the people, based on the equal, universal,
secret, direct franchise. The leaders of the great parties of
the Reichstag are members of this Government. In future no
government can take or continue in office without possessing the
confidence of the majority of the Reichstag. The responsibility
of the Chancellor of the Empire to the representation of the
people is being legally developed and safeguarded. The first act
of the new Government has been to lay before the Reichstag a
bill to alter the Constitution of the Empire so that the consent
of the representation of the people is required for decisions on
war and peace. The permanence of the new system is, however,
guaranteed not only by constitutional safeguards, but also by
the unshakable determination of the German people, whose vast
majority stands behind these reforms and demands their energetic
continuance.
The question of the President, with whom he and the Governments
associated against Germany are dealing, is therefore answered in
a clear and unequivocal manner by the statement that the offer
of peace and an armistice has come from a Government which, free
from arbitrary and irresponsible influence, is supported by the
approval of the overwhelming majority of the German people.
Solf
Berlin
, October 20,
1918.
