Paris Peace Conf. 864.48/2: Telegram
The Acting Secretary of State to the Commission to Negotiate Peace
[Received January 7—12 noon.]
120. For Hoover. Following from French Chargé December 21st.
“As I recently had the honor to mention to you, Colonel House informed the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic that Mr. [Page 708] Hoover had sent to Trieste two ships with supplies intended to save the city of Vienna from anarchy resulting from the scarcity of food, and that with a view to protecting the cars needed for the purpose of transportation of the cargoes from attack by Italians or Jugo-slavs he intended to place them under the guard of American soldiers.
His Excellency, Mr. Pichon, answered that the plan met with no objection from the French Government; he added, however, upon Colonel House’s remarking about the straits to which the city of Vienna had been reduced by the lack of coal, that our humane feelings towards Austria should not lead us to forget that the Czecho-Slovak state is still laboring under her intrigues.
It appears from concurrent reports received at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic that the German Austrians in the selfsame moment of applying to the Czecho-Slovaks for coal are negotiating with the Poles in Czecho-Silesia who have seized the mines of that province and are daily sending carloads of coal to Germany. Again the German Austrians are, it seems, unceasingly supplying their compatriots in Bohemia with arms and ammunition so that they may if occasion arises use arms in claiming separation from the Czech-Slovak Republic.”