740.00119 European War 1939/135: Telegram
The Ambassador in France (Bullitt) to the Secretary of State
[Received 3:55 p.m.]
2686. Champetier de Ribes said to me this morning that the French Government had received no information whatsoever from either the [Page 525] Belgian or the Dutch Government with regard to their decision to make a peace appeal until 7 o’clock last night.
It was his opinion that the Dutch and Belgian Governments had been driven to this action because of the fear of the Queen of the Netherlands that Germany really must invade the Netherlands unless the Netherlands should be prepared to permit German occupation of the entire country except the quadrilateral of Amsterdam, Haarlem, The Hague and Rotterdam.
In his opinion the German Government might make good its threat or it might be that the German threat was designed merely to enlist the Queen of the Netherlands and the King of the Belgians as recruits in Hitler’s peace offensive.
The most gloomy hypothesis was that the Queen of the Netherlands had decided to permit the Germans without fighting to occupy her country except for the quadrilateral cited above; but felt she must have an excuse in order not to shock her people and the public opinion of the world too profoundly. The excuse might be the rejection by France and England of her peace appeal.
He went on to say that neither the King of the Belgians nor the Queen of the Netherlands could in reality have the slightest hope that their peace appeal might be successful in ending hostilities. Before the peace appeal both the French and British had made too clear their determination to fight on until Poland and Czechoslovakia should have been restored. The question therefore was: What sort of a maneuver lay behind the proposal?
The French and British Governments were in consultation as to the reply which should be made.
It was indeed astounding that the King of the Belgians, the independence of whose country existed only because France and England had refused to make peace so long as German troops were on Belgian soil, should now be attempting to obtain a precarious and momentary safety for his country at the expense of Poland and Czechoslovakia.
There was of course not the slightest chance that the appeal would be accepted by the French and British.
Champetier de Ribes said that the Belgian Ambassador had asked to see him this afternoon and that he might have this evening some sort of certain information that would be authoritative. Up to the present time neither the French Ambassador in Belgium nor the French Minister in the Netherlands had been able to shed any light whatsoever on the hidden motives behind this maneuver.