HOW GERMANS TREAT AN AMBASSADOR
This document is quoted from the French "Yellow Book," page 152:
From Copenhagen
French Yellow Book No. 155
M. Bapst, French Minister at Copenhagen, to
M. Doumergue, Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Copenhagen, August 6, 1914.
The French Ambassador at Berlin, M. Jules Cambon, asks me to communicate to your Excellency the following telegram:
I have been sent to Denmark by the German Government. I have just arrived at Copenhagen. I am accompanied by all the staff of the Embassy and the Russian Chargé d'Affaires at Darmstadt with his family. The treatment which we have received is of such a nature that I have thought it desirable to make a complete report on it to your Excellency by telegram.
On the morning of Monday, the 3rd of August, after I had, in accordance with your instructions, addressed to Herr von Jagow a protest against the acts of aggression committed on French territory by German troops, the Secretary of State came to see me. Herr von Jagow came to complain of acts of aggression which he alleged had been committed in Germany, especially at Nuremberg and Coblenz by French aviators, who according to his statement "had come from Belgium." I answered that I had not the slightest information as to the facts to which he attached so much importance and the improbability of which seemed to me obvious; on my part I asked him if he had read the note which I had addressed to him with regard to the invasion of our territory by detachments of the German army. As the Secretary of State said that he had not yet read this note I explained its contents to him. I called his attention to the act committed by the officer commanding one of the detachments who had advanced to the French village of Joncherey, ten kilometers within our frontier, and had blown out the brains of a French soldier whom he had met there. After having given my opinion of this act I added:
"You will admit that under no circumstances could there be any comparison between this and the flight of an aeroplane over foreign territory carried out by private persons animated by that spirit of individual courage by which aviators are distinguished.
"An act of aggression committed on the territory of a neighbor by detachments of regular troops commanded by officers assumes an importance of quite a different nature."