No. 336 :
M. Corbin, French Ambassador in London, to M. Georges Bonnet, Minister for Foreign Affairs. London, September 1, 1939.

(Received by telephone at 535 p.m.)

THE British Government, in a statement issued to the Press last night, was at pains to emphasize the fact that the German proposals to Poland, broadcast one hour previously, came as a surprise and that these had never been officially communicated to them. The proposals had been hurriedly read over once only to Sir Nevile Henderson on the previous night.

It is a fact that when the British Ambassador asked Herr von Ribbentrop to let him have the text of what had just been read over to him, he met with a refusal.

The German Secretary of State put the paper in question back into his pocket. I should like to draw the Government's attention to this action, in view of the fact that the German Government has endeavoured to compromise the British Government by affirming that it had definitely exercised a mediatory function.

Corbin.