793.94111/86: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 10 p.m.]
1505–7. For the Acting Secretary only. Your 545, October 22, 7 p.m. Léger61 telephoned me this morning at about 11:50 and asked me if I could come to the Foreign Office at once to discuss with him a message from Washington to Chautemps. Before I had time to leave the Embassy he telephoned again to say that Delbos preferred to have me call on him.
I saw Delbos at 12:20 p.m. He had on his desk a large map of China and French Indo-China with which he illustrated his remarks. He said that Chautemps had asked him to see me at once because of the message from the President to Chautemps which had been transmitted through you and Henry. He hoped that I would explain to the President that the French Government had had no desire whatsoever to prejudice the possibility of solution by agreement at the Brussels Conference. He felt that he was as idealistic in his attitude toward foreign affairs as anyone in the world; but it was necessary to measure one’s idealism against the hard facts of any situation.
The facts were that through a number of representatives the Japanese Government had informed the French Government that unless the shipment of munitions to China through French Indo-China should cease, the Japanese would seize the large island of Hainan which is a Chinese possession at the entrance to the Gulf of Tonkin and in addition the Paracel Islands the sovereignty of which has been for a long time in dispute between China and France. Furthermore, the Japanese had said that they would destroy that portion of the French railroad from Tonkin to Yunnanfu within Chinese territory.
Delbos went on to say that this railroad was the most expensive railroad per mile that had ever been built. It was a constant succession [Page 638] of tunnels and bridges and all traffic on it could be interrupted comparatively easily by bombardment from the air. The Japanese statements therefore had not been idle threats. The new railroad from Tonkin to Kwangsi had not been completed but was being used as a motor road over which shipments of munitions of France were being sent in trucks. This road ran much closer than the railroad to Yunnanfu to the positions that the Japanese had already occupied in Kwangtung and it would be possible to bombard it even more easily than the railroad to Yunnanfu. Moreover the Japanese Government had intimated politely that at some future date an attack on French Indo-China might not be out of the question. The fact was that France had no means of defending French Indo-China today. It was impossible to send the entire French Fleet from the Mediterranean to Indo-China at the present time.
The French Government had reconsidered the question of shipments through French Indo-China at a meeting of leading members of the French Cabinet yesterday afternoon. It had then been decided that in spite of the decision of the French Government to stop this traffic, which decision had been communicated to the Chinese and Japanese, the French Government would in fact continue to permit shipments of munitions through French Indo-China to China if those munitions had already been ordered and were on the way. Delbos asked that this decision of the French Government should be held as an absolute secret. It would have the effect of permitting the continuance of shipments through Indo-China until the Brussels Conference had had a chance to meet and consider this question.
If at the Brussels Conference the other signatories of the Nine Power Pact should decide that they should all continue to support China by shipments of munitions and by permitting the transit of munitions the French Government would gladly agree to continue shipments through Indo-China but on condition that the other parties to the Nine Power Pact should agree in case Japan should take reprisals against French Indo-China that they would take similar reprisals against Japan.
I made no comment on this statement other than to say that the Chinese Ambassador had telephoned to say that he wished to see me urgently and that he was to lunch with me immediately after my conversation at the Foreign Office.
I asked whether or not the French Government had communicated to the Chinese Ambassador the decision of the French Government of yesterday afternoon to permit in fact the continuance of shipments through Indo-China. Delbos replied that the communication had not been made and that he would be glad if I should make the communication to the Chinese Ambassador after having impressed on him the necessity of keeping this information absolutely secret.
[Page 639]I said that I would do so and made the communication to Wellington Koo an hour later.
Delbos and I agreed that no mention whatsoever should be made of the President’s message to Chautemps or of the reply.
You will perceive that Delbos’ formal statement to me this morning in reply to the President’s message to Chautemps was substantially the same as his statement to me last night (reported in my numbers 1496 to 1504 [1500] of October 23) with the exception that last night Delbos did not mention the decision which had just been made to continue shipments pending a decision by the Brussels Conference. Blum’s statement to me last night (reported in my telegram 1497, October 23, 1 p.m., section 2) gave this additional fact. I believe that Delbos’ statements give an honest picture of the situation and are entirely sincere.
- Secretary General, French Foreign Office.↩