Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎178v] (356/544)

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LORD ROBERT CECIL: Of course, the French would be a formidable rival.
LORD CURZON : I must say that I am very much alarmed at the idea of the
French being there. If you have France there, with a control which will extend from
the eastern corner of the Mediterranean right across to the Caspian, our position will be
very assailable in the East. Trouble in Persia means trouble in Afghanistan, and then
you are brought right up to the borders of India.
LORD ROBERT CECIL : We must have somebody there. If you put the French
there you will exclude the Russians; then, if you put the Americans there they will
never hold it; they may come in, in a moment of enthusiasm, in order to keep up the
idea of a League of Nations, and in order to help Armenia, but they will never be there
permanently, they cannot.
(Lord Robert Cecil withdrew.)
MR. MONTAGU : May I ask General Smuts a question with regard to the
League of Nations and applying it to Mesopotamia ; would he apply it to Persia also ?
GENERAL SMUTS : Yes, to Persia, undoubtedly. I think it might be a good
solution. My point is to try and get America on to our side. President Wilson is
fighting for a League of Nations. If he can go back from the Peace Conference with
this point in his favour, that he has secured the League of Nations as a practical part
of a world-system, he will go a long way to meet us on particular points and help our
programme again, and really our programme is an unselfish one. I would try, therefore,
to get America into European politics ; it is no use her sitting outside. Let her under
take the burden and let her feel the responsibility.
LORD CURZON : The authorities of the 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. have been looking at it
from their point of view, and I should like to hear what they have to say.
GENERAL COX : I think we should be sorry to see any great Power in that
part of the country which would threaten us again in the same way as Russia has in
the past. I think it is important from a military point of view. We have been
through some bad times in the last six months, and we do not want them repeated.
LORD CURZON : I feel that strongly. A good deal of my public life has been
spent in connection with the political ambitions of France, which I have come across
in Tunis, in Siam, and in almost every distant region where the French have sway.
We have been brought, for reasons oi national safety, into an alliance with the French,
which I hope will last, but their national character is different. from ours, and their
political interests collide with our own in many cases. I am seriously afraid that the
great Power from whom we may have most to fear in the future is Fiance, and I almost
shudder at the possibility of putting France in such a position. She is powerful in
almost all parts of the world, even around India. Are we to place her in a position to
control this railway from Batum to Baku ? Batum is one of the main approaches to
India. France is a highly organised State, has boundless intrepidity, imagination, and
a certain power of dealing with Eastern peoples ; and the idea that she would sit
quietly there simply for the purpose of allowing Azerbaijan and the other States to
constitute themselves a strong people is out of the question, for the French are born
intriguers, as we have seen in the Lebanon and elsewhere. I can only say that
I should be most reluctant to lend a hand to a scheme which would place France in
a position of political authority in this region, and that I would sooner the States
fought it out among themselves, and that Russia ultimately came back.
MR. MONTAGU : Would you give Armenia to the Americans or to the French ?
LORD CURZON : To the Americans, speaking for myself. .
MR MONTAGU: Of course we do not like having the French there, any more
than anybody else does. Our chief fear at the moment is Pan-Turanian ism, and having
Mohammedan States right across. If you get a larger Armenia organised under a
European Power and Azerbaijan under a European Power, that fear will disappear.
What answer do you give to Lord Robert Cecil’s argument? If the Americans
will not have it and you do not want the French there, you will either have the chaos
you feared earlier in the afternoon, or you will have the Russian there again. I he
French cannot do much on that railway. Is there not something in that argument .