Papers Relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, Volume XII

Paris Peace Conf. 181.9202/10a: Telegram

The Commission to Negotiate Peace to General Bandholtz

Paris, August 13, 1919.

1. [From Polk.] Your Mission’s two telegrams of yesterday’s date August 12th⁸ were considered this afternoon and the Supreme Council sends the following reply which you will please deliver to your colleagues:

“Interallied Military Mission, Budapest. We quite recognize that you cannot avoid having relations with any de facto government holding power in Budapest. You will however bear in mind that according to our information the Government of the Archduke Joseph⁹ has as yet little authority and has not so far been accepted by the country. We are most desirous of dealing directly with any genuine Hungarian Government in order to settle Terms of Peace and resume normal economic relations. But you must not be committed to any administration which has not authority to speak for the Hungarian people. While it will therefore be your duty to listen to anything the Government has to say you must remember that it has not yet been accepted by those for whom it proposes to speak.

The Mission of Allied Generals is invested with the authority conferred on it by the Supreme Council. It is not qualified from a military point of view to give direct orders to the Rumanian Generals but it is qualified to communicate to them the views of the Allied Powers.

If the Rumanian Government is decided not to break off from the Allied Powers, it will give its Generals the necessary orders to conform to the decisions of the Conference.

The Conference cannot believe that the Rumanian Government will by refusing to conform to the views of the Allied Powers, take a decision so serious in its consequence.

(signed) G. Clemenceau”

For your information the last three paragraphs of the foregoing reply will be communicated to the Rumanian Government.

In order to avoid confusion it is suggested that the Mission number its telegrams. Polk.

Am[erican] Mission

8. See HD–30, minute 1, vol. vii, p. 677.
9. The Social Democratic Government of Hungary was overthrown on August 6 and replaced by a government headed by Archduke Joseph. See HD–26, minute 1, and appendix A (iv) to HD–28, ibid., pp. 603 and 657.