Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎179v] (358/544)

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Turkish nucleus there on the very edge of Persia. It is one of the nastiest prob ems of
the lot, this Azerbaijan question. Does the War Office wish to say anything, irom the
military point of view, about the whole Caucasian question ?
GENERAL THWAITES : I think the points have been covered by what the
members of the Committee have said. It seems we have opened up now, from the Black
Sea, a new route to India, and it is all important to us to safeguard it. It has. been
suggi sted that America should administer this part of the world, or h ranee, but it has
not been suggested that we should be there, and it seems to me the country that ought
to be on th s important line of communications is ourselves.
GENERAL SMUTS : But can we do it ?
LORD CURZON : We are getting so much already. We are going to get the
colon es in Africa ; we are going to get, under some disguise or other, the whole of
Mesopotamia—that seems absolutely certain. If anybody looks after Persia it must be
ourselves ; and really to go into the Caucasus, quite apart from whether it would be
possible or not—and about the possibility I agree with General Smuts
GENERAL TH WAITES: We are going to occupy it; we have got troops
en route now' to occupy the line of communications. There are very few lines of
communication in this region, and the very fact that w'e are occupying the railway is
quite sufficient to keep the country quiet, in the region of the railway, at any rate.
There are several reasons why w r e are going there at the present moment, hirst of all,
with regard to the position in Trans-Casp.a, it is difficult to separate Irans-Caspia from
this question, because we have a line of communications which is helping us to back up
General Malleson, helping us to keep command of the Caspian and maintain order in
the Caucasus, and helping us to enforce the terms of the armistice, for which the lurks
are showing every disrespect in the world. Once having settled ourselves on this line
of communications, it would be difficult to say how r soon it should be taken away, or
how r soon it would be desirable to have it taken away.
LORD CURZON : That is true. But it rather points to what I said in my
former observations, that there will have to be some sort of military control, perhaps
embracing some form of civil administration, for a time to come.
GENERAL THWAITES: Yes, by us. Then there is another consideration as
regards the Americans. I do not know whether you know that the American Army is
going home as quickly as it can. I do not think the Americans are going to commit
themselves to any military occupation in this part of the world, far away from thoir
own country. It is a long way away from their base. That is the one point 1 should
like to make. I can only go back to the other matter, the importance of the new line
of communications with India, which seems to me to point very much to the fact that
we ought to be sitting there ourselves, and nobody else.
LORD CURZON : That will be very difficult, and I am afraid we cannot carry it
further to-day. When we meet again on Thursday, I really do not think, in the
circumstances, it will be any good resuming this discussion. We have pretty well
covered the ground. We had better go on to Palestine and Syria.
MR. MONTAGU: Yes; I do not think we should get any further. We have
still to go back to Mesopotamia at some time.
LORD CURZON : For what purpose?
MR. MONTAGU : On the question of who is to be the Amir, if we have any.
LORD CURZON : We shall have to go back to that when we get the answers to
the telegrams which have been sent. Arising out of Mesopotamia, there is a question
we forgot the other day. The telegram* sent out from 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. was a telegram
to Captain Wilson, at Baghdad, asking him to consult with Miss Gertrude Bell and any
other specially qualified officer, to advise us-as to the steps to be taken to ascertain the
views of the Arabs as to whether they would like a single Arab State from Mosul in the
North to the Gulf in the South, a united State ; and if so, whether they would like it
to be under a single head, a native head ; and, thirdly, in that case, who should be the
man. We left out of sight the question of the Kurds. We were talking about Mosul
in its hitherto political condition as a Turkish vilayet, but we must remember that the
Kurds are quite a different people from the Arabs, and while the Arabs in all these
* E.U. 2552.