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The French Yellow Book


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No. 307 :
M. LÉON NÖEL, French Ambassador in Warsaw, to M. Georges Bonnet, Minister for Foreign Affairs. Warsaw, August 31, 1939.

(Received by telephone at 150 p.m.)

M. BECK has just telephoned to me so say that he is giving a favourable reply to the British Government and that he is willing to enter into direct negotiations with the Reich on the bases previously set forth by Lord Halifax. The Polish Government is ready, subject to reciprocity, to take the measures necessary to avoid any frontier incidents, and suggests that for the duration of the proposed negotiations a "simple" modus vivendi be applied to Danzig. Finally, the Polish Government expresses a wish to know what form of international guarantee the British Government had in mind, and trusts that Poland can also count for the future upon the good offices of Great Britain to facilitate the application of any agreement reached.

M. Beck informed me at the same time that, bearing in mind our suggestions, he is asking his ambassador to request an audience at the Wilhelmstrasse in order to resume contact. M. Lipski is instructed to state that the Polish Government gives a reply in the affirmative to the memorandum by which the British Government informed the Polish Government last night of the former's conversations with the Reich on the subject of the possibilities of a peaceful settlement of the dispute.

M. Beck insists that the reply which he has just made to the British Government be kept secret both in Paris and in London.

LÉON NÖEL.

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