WHAT COUNT VON BERNSTORFF MIGHT REPLY TO MR. BRYAN
The Honorable The Secretary of State, Department of State, Washington. Mr. Secretary : IN so far as your Excellency's note requires the formal answer ' the German Government it will be replied to as soon as it has been possible to transmit it to Berlin and receive instructions from Berlin, a process which, by reason of the interference by Great Britain with oceanic cable communication, will be a matter of several weeks. Pending these instructions, however, I feel it incumbent upon me to reply to those particulars of your note which seem addressed to me personally. Of your Excellency's kind reference to my "long experience in international affairs" I trust I have a fitting appreciation, coming as it does from one whose services to his country in the sphere of international affairs have been so conspicuous as have been yours. I should, however, repudiate all the teachings of an experience which you are pleased to describe as long, were I to accede to the suggestion that the relations of two governments with one another should never be made a subject of discussion with a third govern-ment. Even within your own experience in affairs between nations, dating from March 4, 1913, it must constantly have been brought home to you that the relations between two governments often can not but powerfully affect the attitude of a third government, and that it is often a proper and pertinent subject of enquiry on the part of the third government whether the relations between the two others are such as might be thought to prejudice the cordiality which it is itself anxious to maintain. But especially is such an enquiry pertinent, and indeed inevitable, in the case of a nation which assumes the attitude of neutrality between belligerents. No diplomatic experience, short or long, conspicuous or inconspicuous, could have reached the conclusion that one Power is not entitled to enquire of another which professes full friendship for it, whether it is not allowing a third Power, with which the first is at war, advantages inconsistent with that friendship ; the object of the enquiry being to clear the minds alike of the Power enquiring and of the Powers enquired of, as to the mutual sentiments and aims of each. It is unfortunately the distinct impression of my Government. an impression which your Excellency's note correctly discerns and which, again unfortunately, it does not suffice to remove, that the submission of the Government of the United States to the invasion of its neutral rights, especially on the high seas, by Great Britain, is evidence of an attitude towards an enemy of my Government which the United States does not seem to assume towards us. Whether or not the United States is minded to maintain its posi-tion as a Sovereign Power, possessing for its merchant marine the right to sail the open seas freely and without other interference than is allowed by the well-understood and universally-accepted principles of international law, is a question which indeed lies be-tween the Government and the people of the United States and in which my Government assuredly has not the least intention nor desire to interfere. But when the yielding of those sovereign rights operates so greatly to the disadvantage of Germany that it cuts off
the supply of the necessities of life which the non-combatant people of Germany have during the course of many years been accustomed to obtain from the wide areas of the United States, and this not through blockade or other recognized practice of war but through the mere dictum of Great Britain acquiesced in by your Government. then certainly it becomes our proper enquiry whether the gravity of this attitude is thoroughly understood by the United States.
* * * In the second part of your note, your Excellency declares that the Government of the United States : "attempted to secure from the German and British Governments mutual concessions with regard to the measures those governments respectively adopted for the interruption of trade on the high seas." Noting your reminder that "there are many circumstances con-nected with these important subjects of which" I "make no men-tion," I venture on this point to call to your memory the circum-stance that to those attempts of your Government to secure from Germany and Great Britain concessions calculated to remove the restrictions on trade on the high seas, Germany made a full, com-plete and satisfactory response, declaring itself ready instantly to withdraw all limitations upon the freest navigation of the seas the moment the British Government consented to retire from its effort to deprive the non-combatant people of Germany of their right to purchase food and other necessaries of life of such neutral coun-tries as the United States. That your attempt was unsuccessful, therefore, was due solely to the persistent refusal of Great Britain alone to concede to the United States the privilege of a Sovereign State to navigate the sea, a privilege which the very words of your Excellency's note de-clared was requested "not of right"; and which was requested with no stronger statement of your desire than that neutral commerce "should not be interfered with by those at war, unless such inter-ference is manifestly an imperative necessity." (Note of Dec. 26, 1914). It is naturally difficult for my Government to understand how a great nation like the United States can voluntarily abdicate its po-sition as a Sovereign State, see its commerce interfered with, its right to send its ships on peaceful errands with lawful cargoes to unblockaded ports of a belligerent or even to neutral ports, and the right of its farmers and cattle-raisers to sell their products abroad to whom they will for peaceful consumption—without well-considered reasons and motives. And it is the natural desire of the German Government to ascertain whether these reasons and motives bear any relationship to the fact that the result of their operation is to the serious disadvantage of Germany in its struggle with England and her Allies. We could not be so uncomplimentary to the power and greatness of the United States as to believe that the explanation of her failure to assert her rights lay in any fear of the superior prowess of the Power which assumed to deny them.
* * * * * Coming to the third point, I have to say that your Excellency correctly understands my impression that it is perfectly within the choice of the Government of the United States to inhibit the trade in munitions of war, in view of the fact that the present sale and exportation or arms and ammunition trom the United States oper-ate solely to the advantage of Great Britain and her Allies and to the detriment of Germany. I note your Excellency's statement, in reply to my avowal, that the Government of the United States holds that "any change in its own laws of neutrality during the progress of a war" would be an unwarrantable departure from the strict principles of neutrality, and that the placing now of an embargo on the exportation of arms would be a violation of the neutrality of the United States. If the principle be sound that a nation may not alter its laws of neutrality during the progress of a war, then why has the Govern-ment of the United States submitted to the repeated and indeed continuous alterations on the part of the Government of Great Britain of its laws of neutrality during the progress of the present war ? By repeated Orders in Council the British Government has from day to day decreed alterations of its attitude toward neutral goods afloat, successively expanding both categories of contraband of war, extinguishing the presumption in favor of innocent cargoes, laying increasing burdens upon neutral commerce, and otherwise systematically depriving the United States of its natural right to exercise the power of a Sovereign State in the extension of the common neutral offices of unpartisan friendship to the enemies of Great Britain. Your Excellency cannot fail to remember that neu-trality has its rights as well as its duties ; if Great Britain systemat-ically violates and denies the neutral rights of the United States, by what logic other than that of intimidation or of partisanship, can she demand so strict and indeed unnatural an interpretation of your neutral duties? * * * * * * Furthermore, having respect to your Excellency's admonition based on my long experience in international affairs, I am con-strained to appeal to your own. Your Excellency had been engaged in diplomatic duties more than five months when (on August 27, 1913) the President of the United States, addressing Congress on the relations of the United States with the two Governments con-tending for supremacy in Mexico, declared that to forbid the ex-portation of arms or ammunition of war of any kind from the United States to any part of Mexico was to "follow the best prac-tice of nations in the matter of neutrality." The President then deemed it his duty "to see to it that neither side to the struggle now going on in Mexico receive any assistance from this side the border." "We cannot," he continued, "in the circumstances be the partisans of either party to the contest." It will naturally be a disappointment to my Government to learn that the United States Government now finds it out of the question to consider a course which less than two years ago the President addressing Congress solemnly declared to be in accordance with "the best practice of nations in the matter of neutrality." In seeking the explanation of this astonishing inconsistency my Government will hardly be disposed to attach much importance to the reason assigned in your note, namely : that any change in the policy of the United States on the subject of the exportation of arms, now that the war is in progress, would be in contravention of neutrality. And this by reason of the circumstance that, after he had (in accordance with the declaration I have just quoted) for nearly a year maintained the embargo on the exportation of arms into Mexico laid by his predecessor, and while the Mexican war was going on, President Wilson lifted the embargo. Did your Excellency then advise the President that "any change in its own laws of neutrality during the progress of war" would be an unjustifiable departure from the principles of strict neu-trality? How, then, did it come about that on February 3, 1914, the Presi-dent issued a proclamation in which he said: "Now, therefore, I, Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States of America, hereby declare and proclaim that, as the condi-tions on which the proclamation of March 14, 1912, was based have essentially changed, . . . the said proclamation is hereby revoked." How, then, did it come about that the statement given out at the White House simultaneously with the proclamation of February 3rd justified the new decree on the ground that "since that order (laying the arms embargo) was issued, the circumstances of the case have undergone a radical change."
When General Larranza appealed to tne rresiaent to nave regara to the actual facts and no longer to adhere to a mere legal neutrality which was actually not a neutrality but a partisanship—did your Excellency then advise the President that the change of policy with regard to the arms embargo would be "a direct violation of the neutrality of the United States?" This is the language which you put into my hands for transmission to my Government in answer to its representation that the exportation of arms from the United States in the present posture of the belligerents abroad lays upon Germany a hardship which the strictest neutrality does not require, and which a true, though unpartisan friendship, would not allow you to lay upon us. The Mexican embargo which the President first enforced and then removed was in formal operation against both General Huerta and General Carranza. The attitude of the United States was one of perfect and complete legal neutrality already before the Presi-dent altered it. It was more than that. It was on the face of it humane, for it is humane to restrict the supply of instruments of death. But there was one objection to the continuation of the embargo, in spite of its humanity and in spite of its formal neu-trality. Whatever it was formally, practically and actually, it was unneutral; it practically operated to the advantage of General Huerta, who had seaports and could import ammunition from Europe and Japan. Carranza, controlling only the northern Mexi-can border, could buy only in the United States. Your Government did not fail to take cognizance of these matters of fact, then. It resolved to convert the former attitude of legally correct, but morally spurious, neutrality into an attitude of prac-tical non-partisanship. Nor was it then deterred by the circum-stance that "any change in its own laws of neutrality during the progress of a war" was unallowable; your Government did not then "consider itself in honor bound by" such a fantastic view of duty. Further, it did not feel itself deterred from a change of attitude by the unfortunate circumstance that the change was not one dictated by the ordinary precepts of humanity. The old Mexican neutrality withheld arms from both belligerents; the revised Mexi-can neutrality, having regard for actual facts, gave back arms into the hands of both. In dealing with the war in Mexico, your Gov-ernment concluded to give weapons to both sides, because one side, through its superiority with regard to the sea, was able to get them elsewhere. 'What the German Government asks and, what it seems to us ordinary good faith, not to say the ordinary dictates of humanity, requires of the United States at this time is, that to-day, because both sides in the European quarrel cannot get them, it de-termines to withhold arms from both ; that to-day it has regard to facts with respect of the conflict in Europe as yesterday it had re-gard to the facts with respect of the war in Mexico ; that it assume a position alike of legal and of moral non-partisanship ; especially that to-day, reversing the conditions of the Mexican case, the assumption of this new and higher neutrality would be in line with the dictates of humanity—it would cleanse your hands of the blood of a struggle in which, on your own profession, your conscience is not engaged.
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I note your expression of regret that the language employed in my memorandum "is susceptible of being construed as impugning the good faith of the United States in the performance of its duties as a neutral." If the good faith of the United States is impugned, it will be, not by a Government and a people so disposed as are we of Germany to interpret all that the United States does in a spirit in full accord with the ties that bind us in amity, but by the acts themselves of a Government which had one rule of conduct toward belligerents in 1914 and has another rule of conduct toward belligerents in 1915; which regards Mexican revolutionists as of more consideration than an historic nation of seventy millions struggling for its life; which professes friendship for a people to whose enemy it maintains its "right" (which is undoubted) to sell weapons, while it abdicates its right to sell them food. Believe me, your Excellency's obedient servant. (Here would follow the signature of) COUNT J. VON BER.NST01417.