Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1940, General, Volume I

764.71/251: Telegram

The Chargé in Germany (Kirk) to the Secretary of State

Berlin, August 30, 1940—4 p.m.
[Received 7:47 p.m.]

3821. My 940, April 12, 10 a.m.⁹¹ The Völkischer Beobachter in commenting on the Vienna conversations⁹² states that, “While the common efforts to achieve a peaceful clarification of the Rumanian-Hungarian differences have been in progress the International Danube Commission⁹³ has been forced to cease its activity. There is no place in the new Europe of institutions of this sort.” Mentioning the history of this Commission and repeating past German accusations as to its misuse by the British and French the paper concludes, “For these reasons alone the new arrangement which was long overdue proved urgently necessary and it removes a situation which was no longer anything more than a senseless remnant of past days.”

This is the first reference which has been noted in the German press to the final termination of the activities of the Commission.

The impression is current in Rumanian circles here that this decision refers only to the International Commission which administers the upper reaches of the Danube and that the European Commission⁹⁴ is to be permitted to continue to operate. The paper cited above describes the Commission only as being a creation of the Treaty of Paris and the exact significance of the change is thus left obscure.

Repeated to Bucharest and Budapest.

Kirk

91. Not printed.
92. Relative to the meeting in Vienna, August 20–30, 1940, of the Foreign Ministers of Hungary and Rumania with Joachim von Ribbentrop and Count Galeazzo Ciano, Foreign Minister of Italy, see infra.
93. The International Commission of the Danube for control of the fluvial portion of the river had been provided for in article 347 of the Treaty of Versailles signed on June 28, 1919; for text, see Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. xiii, pp. 57, 664. The Convention instituting the Definitive Statute of the Danube was signed at Paris on July 23, 1921; for text, see League of Nations Treaty Series, vol. xxvi, p. 175.
94. The European Commission of the Danube for control of the maritime course of the river was provided for in the Treaty of Paris signed on March 30, 1856; for text, see British and Foreign State Papers, vol. xlvi, p. 8. Later modifications of the Commission are noted in Foreign Relations, The Paris Peace Conference, 1919, vol. xiii, pp. 665–667.