world say when it sees that not even German chaplains, doctors and nurses are permitted to visit them! History will one day reproach you severely if you have the intention of allowing this state of affairs to continue until the conclusion of the peace preliminaries. It is not a question of criminal prisoners. Therefore give the order that the German civilian and war prisoners be liberated from all the Allied countries. First send back all the wounded and sick, the interned civilians and the war prisoners who have been in the hands of the enemy for more than 18 months, especially the fathers of families. Marshal Foch himself has designated these categories as those which inspired the most sympathy. Until their situation is decided grant to all the civilian and war prisoners an alleviation of their situation. Give them a greater liberty of movement outside the camps, until nightfall. Remunerate their labour, exactly like that of your own workmen. Abolish the postal censorship and the systematic delay in the sending of mail, for which there is no longer a military reason. Extend the rights of correspondence. Have all mail sent immediately through the occupied territories and have the sealed cars containing packages coming from Germany taken as far as the camps. Give them the same food as your own population. Give them the opportunity of buying food freely. Improve their clothing. Free them from the green uniform of those condemned to forced labour and from the stigma of the "P. G." Soften the disciplinary measures for punishable acts committed up to the day of the new prolongation of the Armistice. Permit immediately the chaplains, doctors & nurses & delegates of the German Red Cross to enter the Prisoner of War camps in all the Allied countries, to restore the broken spirits of the German prisoners of war and civilians. I have a special word to devote to the Medical personnel. Article 12 of the Geneva Convention stipulates the immediate return of the doctors and of the sanitary personnel whose services are no longer necessary. Numerous members of the sanitary service are in this position, having been left with the wounded and sick in the evacuated territories. I expect this article of the Geneva Convention to be followed. The least that one can demand is that personal liberty be accorded the sanitary personnel until their repatriation. Grant them the pay and the allowances which are due them by virtue of Article XIII of the Geneva Convention and give them the freedom of postal service. Gentlemen, I cannot leave the chapter of our prisoners of war without once more expressing the unanimous request of the whole German people. Begin the evacuation of our prisoners of war at Abbreviation for "prisonnier de guerre." 'Red Cross convention of 1906 for the amelioration of the condition of the wounded of the armies, Foreign Relations, 1907, pt. 2, p. 1024. once. At the first news appearing in the press on the subject of the renewal of the armistice manifestations have come to me as I have explained from all parts of Germany. They are summed up in the cry: "Immediate return of our prisoners of war". The German National Assembly, the legitimate spokesman of the German people adopted a resolution containing the same request. I request that the seriousness and the humane motives of this movement, with all its lasting importance, be grasped. The German people requests foremost and expects with certitude from the present negotiations that the retention by force of our prisoners of war be terminated. I can content myself neither with the assurance that this question will be considered by the Allies nor with the assurance of Marshal Foch that he will support this request to the Allied Governments. I must have the assurance that the evacuation of the German prisoners of war will commence immediately. No one with humane sentiments can demand of me that I take the responsibility of formulating another demand in this question than that which I set forth. Since one has seen manifested in the occupied territories the effort made to deprive them of normal relations with the unoccupied Closing of the territories, the German Armistice Commission has drawn attention to the serious injury to the whole German economic life which will be caused by this separation between regions important for production and consumption. Although promises have always been given us at Trèves and Luxembourg, normal relations have nevertheless not been re-established. At the last negotiations in Trèves, I remarked that the freedom of relations could not in any way endanger the safety of the Allied arms. This is especially true for the liberty of economic exchanges. The authorisations of exchanges given in cases of specie can in no wise satisfy the existing needs. It is only a general suspension of the stopping of exchange of products from the left bank to the right bank of the Rhine and vice-versa which can create the situation in which the economic life can maintain itself and attain its goal. Numerous exploitations will have to follow them shortly if there is no change. This is true of the factories of the right bank as much as those on the left bank, according to the location of the sources of their raw materials and of the region where they send their products. Marshal Foch himself has indicated the results of the dismissal of workmen during the course of the preceding negotiations at Trèves. If it is the intention of the Entente to prevent the Bolshevist disorders and intrigues, freedom of circulation can contribute a large part. I emphasise also the detriment to the spring planting as a result of the fact that the arrival of seeds has become almost impossible. Many small market gardeners and workmen of the occupied zone must count upon the sending of small quantities of grain from the non-occupied territory. As long as these shipments of grain by postal packages are not assimilated to packages of food an unendurable situation will last. It is also necessary that the circulation of persons between the occupied regions and the non-occupied regions be rendered freer. I understand perfectly that Marshal Foch wishes to prevent the introduction of germs of Bolshevism into the Allied armies. But there is nothing to prevent guarantees against this possibility from being found. Moreover it is an indignity for a civilised people to be submitted after the end of a state of war to such restraints in its relations by railroad and by mail with the territories belonging to its country as is actually the case here. Family and business relations are rudely interrupted. The youth in the schools in certain parts of the occupied territory must needlessly lose the necessary time for their instruction, because there exists no faculty in the occupied territory where they live and because they are prevented from going to another school. These are infringements of the right of free personal disposition and find no justification in the treaty of the Armistice of November 11th. I therefore request that this unendurable state of affairs end and that the economic and postal as well as personal circulation between the occupied and the unoccupied regions be made free. Permission of I request for the Members of the National Assembly a permanent permission to travel in either direction without hindrance and I request also for them the freeNational Assembly dom of postal relations. (Illegible) I cannot commence these negotiations moreover without making a vigorous protest against the new excess of power on the part of the Allies. Although Marshal Foch had declared at Trèves January 16 that no owner of mechanical material bought a second time (verb left out), a certain number of directors of factories, and managers have been arrested and punished. Contrary to Marshal Foch's conception, according to which the guarantee provided by Article VI of the agreement of 11 Nov. applies only to espionage, I have succeeded, opportunely, in having this point of view applied as a guarantee covering also the buyers of machines coming from seizures in the occupied territories, and covering persons charged with the execution of liquidation procedure. I maintain this point of view, and raise a protest against the arbitrariness with which these arrests have been made. In order to avoid all pretexts of arrests, the decree above-cited was issued to obtain the restitution of the machines. You expressly assured us that there would no longer be this question of new arrests of industrial persons as soon as such a decree had been promulgated. The persons in question are innocent, and justice forbids punishing the innocent. I therefore request the immediate liberation of those who have been arrested and condemned. (Illegible) The Allies have not ceased in their attempts to give a wide interpretation to the financial agreements arrived at, especially regarding that of 13 Dec. '18, attempting to extend para. 4 of this agreement to cover all Germany. If this interpretation is desired for the said para., it can be done only on the principle of reciprocity. Moreover: this is not part of the armistice. I am ready to accept the immediate establishment of a commission to treat this question independently of the armistice. For the protection of private property is to the interest of both parties. Alsace-Lorraine The Expulsion of Germans from Alsace-Lorraine continues. Those expulsions have meanwhile reached such a number that they justify the conception of "evacuation", even in the French acceptance of the word with which Germany cannot entirely agree. In these circumstances women are treated in a way that is truly revolting. Alsace-Lorraine throughout is hermetically sealed. In this country, the near relative of a person in the unoccupied zone may be ill, or may die, without this person receiving the least word. Thus tragedies are taking place daily which will cause their full share of pain to the interested persons and to the whole world, but only when these barriers have once again been reopened. There is no reason for this state of things. I must raise a particularly keen protest against the fact that the French have confiscated private property of Germans (and to a large extent have put it under an organ for sequestration) in the territories occupied by them. The state of an armistice, which should be the beginning of a state of peace, furnishes no justification whatever for this measure. I raise a protest also against the fact that the National Assembly had to open without the presence of the representatives of Alsace-Lorraine to transmit the wishes of their country. The legal situation of Alsace-Lorraine is not modified by the fact of an armistice. Contrary to Germany's authorizing the Alsatians in 1871 to take part in the elections for the French National Assembly, France did not permit the elections for the German National Assembly in Alsace-Lorraine. I find myself obliged to make a most serious protest against the attitude of the Allies towards the defence of Germany against the ambitions of the Poles for conquest of certain parts of Germany. Defence Against the Polish Ambitions for Conquest It is unheard-of that the German authorities in the territory coveted by the Poles in the East of Germany be prevented from taking part in its public life. Such an attitude is one the [that] Vol. I, p. 541. leaves a person without knowing whether to attribute it to a complete misconception of conditions in the East, or to regard it as the final straw of foreign intermeddling with the interior independence of a people. The subject of Polish intrigue and ambition is being struggled for on German soil. It is not we who are the aggressors, but the Poles, who, in Posen, have everywhere assumed the offensive militarily. The best proof of the absence of any aggressive intention on the part of Germany is the absence of any military preparation on their side. For this sole reason, the Poles were able to obtain certain successes. The menace that the Poles are developing against the most important railroad lines of the East, confirms their very broad, offensive intentions. The objection that the Poles are a bulwark against Bolshevism is rendered untenable by the fact that Polish agitation especially in upper Silesia, but also in the provinces of the North, is working in close communion with Bolshevism. The Bolshevist agitators are, almost without exception, Poles. The Poles seem to have the intention of creating a state of general insecurity to have the pretext of intervention for the sake of re-establishing order. The German people cannot permit itself to be deprived of the right, and will not permit itself to be deprived of the right to protect itself against the insolent encroachments of the Poles on its own territory, with what forces it possesses. Germany has accepted the 14 points of Wilson, but the Allies have too. But the 11th point does not say that Germany has bound itself to stand aside inactive if the Poles attempt to appropriate by violence portions of German territory. The 11th point no more gives the right to the Allies of forbidding the German people to defend themselves from similar encroachments. The right of the German people to the undiminished possession of its entity within the framework of Wilson's points, and to defend this entity against all attacks, remains eternal and unassailable. I raise still another protest against the fact that, among the ships used for the evacuation of French prisoners of war, the restitution Retention of of which had been guaranteed us by the Allies, 5 have been taken away from us simply without a word of explanation, and contrary to the previous assurances. The agreement regarding navigation of 17 Jan. at Trèves gives the Entente no right to seize German ships by violence. In the Agreement regarding navigation of Trèves, the German people put at the disposition of the Entente its merchant fleet, to help Agreement the food-supply of the world, and to secure its own food-supply. The Allies have already bound themselves, in the agreement of 11 Nov., '18, to accept the duty of turning over the food necessary for Germany throughout the duration of the armistice. Since then, long negotia |