Austro-Hungarian Reply to the Swiss Peace Note, December 27, 1916

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WWI Document Archive > 1916 Documents > Official Communications and Speeches Relating to Peace Proposals 1916-1917 > Austro-Hungarian Reply to the Swiss Peace Note, December 27, 1916


Austro-Hungarian Reply to the Swiss Peace Note, December 27, 19161(2)

                                        [TRANSLATION]

     The undersigned, Minister for Foreign Affairs, has had the honor to
receive the esteemed note of December 23d, in which the Minister
Plenipotentiary of Switzerland, Dr. Burckhardt, was good enough
to communicate to us, under instructions, the desire of the Swiss
Federal Council to endorse the initiative taken by the President of the
United States with the belligerent Governments for the purpose of
ending the present war and of effectively providing against all war
in the future.
     The noble efforts of President Wilson received a most cordial wel-
come from the Imperial and Royal Government, to which it gave ex-
pression in the note delivered yesterday to the American Ambassador
at Vienna, a copy of which is attached hereto with the request that the
Minister of Switzerland be good enough to bring this document to the
attention of the Swiss Federal Council.
     The undersigned. Minister for Foreign Affairs, permits himself to
add that the Imperial and Royal Government views the endorsement
by the Federal Government of the efforts of President Wilson as the
expression of the noble and humanitarian sentiments which Switzer-
land has manifested since the beginning of the war with regard to all
the belligerent Powers and which it has put in practice in so generous
and friendly a manner.


1Le Figaro, Paris, December 28, 1916.