Evening star., 1932-11-21
EUROPE'S 1917 PLEA
FOR AID RECALLED.
Frantic Appeals Evidenced in
Papers of BaIfour, Page
and Admiral Sims.

The pleas of Europe in 1917 for funds
to combat submarines and save the gold
standard were even more impassioned
than those to the United States Is
years later for reconsideration of agree
ments under which those funds should
be repaid.
The frantic messages which resulted
in many loans now included in the
| $11 900, 100000 in war debts owed the
United States were made public today
| by the State Department.
Dispatches of Lord Balfour, British
secretary of state for foreign affairs;
Walter Hines Page, American Ambas-
sador to London; many other contin-
tinental statesmen, and Admiral w. S.
| Sims, show the pressure under which
| President Wilson and Secretary Nc
Adoo of the Treasury sanctioned loans
of approximately $4,000, 100000 that
year to Great Britain, France, Italy,
Russia, Belgium and Serbia.
Page Warned Of Disaster.
On June %, 1917, Ambassador Page
said: Financial disaster to all the
European allies is imminent unless the
United States Government advances to
! the British enough money to pay for
and added:
Unless we come to their rescue we
are all in danger of disaster Great
| Britain will have to abandon the gold
standard
"Anti-submarine craft which cannot
be assembled in the submarine zone
almost Immediately may come too late
There is therefore possibility that this
war may become a war between Ger
many and the United States alone"
Admiral Sims, special assistant to
Page, reported from Queenstown, Ire
land, on June 26 that 1.-The war will be
won or lost in this submarine zone with
in a few months
On April 6, the day the United States
declared war against Germany, Page
sent to Secretary Lansing a note from
Balfour, saying:
Our (the United Kingdom's) power
to finance, not merely ourselves but all
our allies, has inevitable limitations, and
If the burden could be diminished by
direct arrangements between the United
States and the various allied countries,
immense assistance would thereby be
given toward the efficient conduct of
the war"
House Calls Council Farce.
The report of the American mission,
headed by Col E. M. Mouse, which at
tended the inter-allied conference Of
November 90 to December 3 and dated
December Is, 1917, was extremely pessi-
mistic
THE Supreme War Council as at
present constituted Is almost a farce"
the report stated over Houses sigma
ture.
There is but little coordination
anywhere between the allies" the re-
port continued. "Jealousies are every
where rife. None of them at heart
like one another, and doubt whether
any of them like us. Fortunately
a like condition exists in the central
alliance
Unless a change for the better comes
the allies cannot win, and Germany
may. For six months or more the
ground has been steadily slipping away
from the allies.
Outside of England and France it
is questionable whether the rest of the
alliance is a liability or an asset. 1t
would certainly have been better If none
OF the smaller nations in Southeastern
Europe had entered the war. Greece
and Italy would have been more useful
as neltrals than as allies. They are
drag on both the men and resources
Of the entente. England would have
come out of the war better If she had
fought the central empires alone. She
would have taken the German colonies
and driven her commerce from the
seas"