MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF STATE

In a letter addressed to the Secretary of State on March 22nd last the French Ambassador states that, for general reasons relating to Macedonia and the minorities question, M. Briand does not favour recourse to the Council of the League of Nations in connexion with the recent bomb outrages in Yugoslavia and is not, therefore, prepared to authorise the French Representative at Belgrade to address the Yugoslav Government in language similar to that which His Majesty's Representative there has been instructed to hold.

This communication shows that the French Government have entirely misunderstood our invitation to them to send similar instructions to their Representative at Belgrade to those already conveyed to His Majesty's Representative there. They have evidently taken our action at Belgrade to mean that we favour an appeal to the League of Nations in connexion with the situation arising out of the recent bomb outrages. This is far from being the case. Our instructions to Belgrade were prompted by the fact that, in conversation with Mr. Henderson on March 12th, the King of Yugoslavia asserted that if the Bulgarian Government were unable to control the Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation they should “admit the fact so as to give the Yugoslav Government an opportunity of considering the best measures for dealing themselves with the present intolerable situation.” This statement seemed to indicate that the Yugoslav Government were considering the possibility of taking the law into their own hands. In view of the danger of such a contingency, it was thought imperative to warn them that we could not for a moment acquiesce in such action on their part, and to point out that if the situation did in fact become intolerable it would be their duty as members of the League to appeal to Geneva under Articles 12 and 13 of the Covenant. Moreover, failing such an appeal it would then be incumbent on ourselves to bring the situation to the attention of the League under paragraph 2 of Article 11 of the Covenant. In instructing Mr. Henderson to convey this warning to the Yugoslav Government, we pointed out that we should deplore the necessity for such an appeal. Indeed, the necessity for such an appeal to the League in the present connexion is the last thing in the world which we should wish to occur.