Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎160r] (319/544)

[This Document is the Property
of His Britannic Majesty’s Government]
Printed for the War Cabinet. December 1918.
SECRET.
E.C. 39th Meeting.
WAR CABINET.
EASTERN COMMITTEE
4
Minutes of a Meeting held at 1, Carlton House Terrace, S.W, 1, on Wednesday,
November 27, 1918, at 3’30 p.m.
Present:
The Right Hon. the Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E.
(in the Chair).
Lieutenant-General the Right Hon. J. C.
Smuts, K.C.
The Right Hon. E. S. Montagu, Secretary
of State for India.
The Right Hon. Lord Robert Cecil,
K.C., Assistant Secretary of State for
Foreign Affairs.
General Sir H. H. Wilson, K.C.B., D.S.O.,
Chief of the Imperial General Staff.
The following also attended :—
The Right Hon. Sir Louis Mallet,
G.C.M.G. [Knight] Grand Cross of [the Order of] St Michael and St George (accolade). , C.B., Foreign Office.
Mr. L. Oliphant, C.M.G., Foreign Office.
Sir Arthur Hirtzel, K.C.B., India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Mr. J. E. Shuokburgh, C.B., India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Lieutenant-General Sir H. V. Cox, iv.C.B.,
K.C.M.G., O.S.I., Military Secretary,
India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Lieutenant-Colonel L.
Lieutenant - General Sir G. M. W.
Macdonogh, K.C.M.G., C.B., Adjutant-
General to the Forces.
Major-General W. Thwaites, C.B.,
Director of Military Intelligence.
Sir Henry Erle Richards, K.C.S.I., K.C.
Mr. R. Mowat.
Captain E. Abraham, Assistant Secre
tary, War Cabinet.
Storr, Secretary.
Middle Eastern
Questions, with a
View to the Peace
Conference.
1. THE Chairman said that the Committee was now charged
with the very difficult task of preparing for the Peace Conference
the case in regard to the Turkish territories which had passed into
our occupation or under our sway. Sir Erie Richards, who was
present at the Meeting, had been entrusted by General Smuts, on
behalf of the Government, with the task of drawing up our case in
a proper form for presentation to the Conference, and the Committee
had thought it desirable that he should come and hear a full dis
cussion of all the points to be raised. I he (Chairman said, that .he
was anxious to avoid, that afternoon, a confused discussion in which
the interests and future of Mesopotamia would be mixed up with
those of Syria, Damascus, Armenia, and Palestine. 1 hese were all
parts of the same great problem, but he proposed that the Committee
should consider them in turn at subsequent meetings. The
Chairman, proceeding, said that the case which they had to present
to the Peace Conference fell into geographical divisions. First, the
countries extending from Basra just above the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. through
Baghdad and Mosul to the confines of Kurdistan (>n the north ,
second, further to the north, the question of the Kurds, which is
closelv connected with the Mosul vilayet; further north again, the
difficult Armenian question ; then to the west, the question of the
Arab State which was already in partial existence at Damascus,
under Faisal; the difficult subject of his relations with the French ,
the degree to which we are, or ought to be, bound by the :>ykes-
Picot Agreement; the area of French influence to be reserved for
them, in one form or another, in the Lebanon and neighbouring
districts, and finally the question of the future of Palestine. Ihe
Chairman said he proposed that afternoon to discuss the problems
of he long Eastern strip from Mosul in the North to the Persian
B
[365—42]