The Foreign Minister to the Fuehrer and Chancellor
The Foreign Minister to the Fuehrer and Chancellor
Source: Documents on German Foreign Policy vol. IV, p.543.
LEINFELDEN, August 7, 1935. RK. 6593.
Received August 9.
DEAR REICH CHANCELLOR: As was to have been expected London has of late been exerting renewed pressure in order to make us state our views on the question of the Pacts. While the British are in the main concerned about the Eastern Pact, the French are making efforts to revive the idea of the Danubian Pact as well. We know from confidential information that a new draft for a Danubian Pact has been worked out in Paris and sent to the Italians. The attached translation gives an idea of what this Danubian Pact is to look like. Although the Eastern Pact and the Danubian Pact in their present form are without any material significance and could, as far as this goes, be signed by us at any time, as they only repeat existing obligations or principles of general application, yet the fact of their conclusion and in particular the date and the State participating are of political importance. The renewed activity on the part of the British and French, in which the Italians appear also to be joining, seems to me to be primarily a diversionary tactic designed to conceal the pitiful part played by the League of Nations in the Abyssinian question and, in Britain anyway, to provide distraction for awkward critics of the Government's attitude to the Abyssinian conflict at present, by issuing information about the Pact questions. We have not the slightest occasion to lessen the difficulties which the British and French Governments are encountering by entering into negotiations on the Pacts which might only too easily cause us to be manoeuvred once again into the role of disturbers of the peace. Moreover, it appears to me, above all, desirable to await developments in the Italian conflict and the treatment of this conflict by the League of Nations. I have therefore given instructions that casual replies are to be given to attempts to induce us to state our views on the Pact questions and to say that we do not at present intend to make any statement, but rather to continue to observe the development and effects of the collective agreements in order not to enter into fresh treaties on a model which has already been recognised as unsatisfactory. No expression of our views should therefore be expected before October.
