Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎4r] (7/348)

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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty s Government.]
Printed for the War Cabinet. February 1919.
SECRET.
Earl Curzon to the Earl of Derby.
(No. 283.) *
My Lord, Foreign Office, February 12, 1919.
THE French Ambassador came to see me this afternoon for one of those friendly
and personal, rather than official, conversations, in which he excels, but which not
infrequently develop into discussions of a serious and strictly official character. On
the present occasion he discoursed for considerably more than an hour upon several
aspects of the situation. .
To the first of these, namely, the proceedings of the Peace Conference in Pans,
the apparent slowness and delay in concluding peace with the enemy, and the proposal
to meet the Bolsheviks at Prinkipo, I need not specifically allude, because the
Ambassador did little more than repeat the views which he had urged on a previous
occasion, and which 1 have already placed on record.
I did, however, on this occasion state with much greater fulness than before the
opposite side of the case.
In reply to his reminder that the preliminary peace negotiations between h ranee
and Germany in 1871 had occupied but a few weeks before the signature ot peace, while
the territorial and other details had been left to be thrashed out afterwards and had
occupied a period of fifteen months, I urged that there was no analogy between that
case and this. The fate of Alsace-Lorraine was then determined by the completeness
of the German victory, the only two parties to the negotiations were France and Germany,
and the determination of the actual frontier was a small matter which could with
safety be postponed. Now, in the case of Germany, we were dealing not with one
frontier or with one State alone. I he whole of Europe was interested in the
settlement, the greater part of it was directly involved, the frontiers of < rermany could
not be determined without in the first place settling the frontiers of various other
States, and the solution of these matters, of which I gave Poland as an illustration,
was an indispensable preliminary to the drawing up of peace terms and their ultimate
dictation to the enemy.
I also explained to the Ambassador the point of view from which the British
representatives in Paris had advocated the Prinkipo suggestion. With a view to
ascertaining the French attitude, I asked him to tell me quite clearly, if he were
disposed to do so, which of the possible alternative policies towards Russia his
Government would favour. It was possible, I said, on the one hand, to pursue a
military and forward policy, to declare war against the Bolsheviks, to invade Russia
and destroy the Bolshevik Government. But this policy required large armies, which,
as I gathered, none of the great Allies were willing to provide, and an enormoiiB
expenditure, which none would accept.
M. Gambon agreed that this policy was out of the question.
A middle course might, I pointed out, be pursued by continuing to support the
various Russian political groups or quasi-Governments by such means as lay in our
power, without actually assisting them with troops or invading Russia.
This policy, the Ambassador thought, had already been rendered futile by its almost
complete lack of success. All the various Governments or groups to which I referred
were crumbling : the Ukraine had collapsed, Krasnof ,had disappeared, Denikin could
not be trusted to do anything effective, and Omsk seemed to be on the verge of failure.
He could not think that any good would result from a continuation of these futile
efforts.
M. Gambon accordingly favoured the third alternative, which was to abandon
these efforts, to leave the country, and allow Russia to determine her own fate. He
admitted the extreme undesirability and danger of a triumphant Bolshevism which
would probably combine with Germany to crush Poland and the other States on that
side, and which might easily become a menace to the world. But he saw no other