Jean-Jules Jusserand to Woodrow Wilson

I sent yesterday, by order of my Government, an important letter to the Department of State concerning the question of a Japanese action in Siberia. A copy will be, I believe, placed to-day before you by care of the acting Secretary.

I take the liberty of calling your attention to the facts and reasons which cause my Government to earnestly desire that you might now favor a plan, the usefulness of which seems to be demonstrated by the more recent news received from those regions and from Japan.

From Japan we have the confirmation that the Government is ready to proclaim in emphatic terms its desinterestedness, which would go a long way to allay Russian misgivings. The Japanese Government is ready to work in agreement with the United States and their co-belligerents, hoping moreover that America might assist them with the kind of supplies they may need.

We are informed that Mr. Krupensky, Russian Ambassador to Tokio, is of opinion that, provided the declaration of desinterestedness be positive, Japanese help will be welcome, and that he is ready to assist in making the object and limitations of that action better understood by his own compatriots.

From Irkoutsk, the information comes that the Japanese would be welcome.

No undertaking of such importance in these troublous days, can of course go without some drawbacks. But, in the eyes of my Government, they are not to be compared with the advantages, the chief of which is the keeping open for us all and the shutting to the enemy, of the trans-siberian route, for us henceforth the only means of access to Eastern and Southern Russia.

Such military forces as may exist in those regions being small, composite and ill trained, the probabilities are that the one of the two parties which may first occupy the line would not meet much difficulty. It seems, therefore, exceedingly desirable that the first to do so be one of us.

Commending the whole situation to your wise consideration, I beg you to believe me, dear Mr. President,