Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎186r] (371/544)

and different stage of the war. If the Americans can get us out well and good. If the
Americans, having come in late and, now that they have come in, possessing very
considerable powers of putting pressure on their various associated allies, choose to do
it, we can only congratulate ourselves upon their success. But it is all-important that
we should not only not do it ourselves, but that we should not either appear to do it
or really do it.
So far as the treaty of 1915 is concerned, or so far as the Sykes-Picot Agreement
is concerned, the Italians and the French think that we are bound in honour by
them. I never quite understood the inception of the Sykes-Picot Agreement, I
never thoroughly understood it, and do not understand it to this day. As regards
the Italian treat}?, its origin is quite simple and quite plain. The Italians practically
said, “ Our assistance is worth so much to the Allies ; if that assistance is to be given,
this is the price which must be given for it.” Is it unkind to say that they charact
eristically show the keenest desire that every penny of that price should be paid ?
We have engaged to pay it, and if they want payment I think we must pay without
i * bargaining. It is for the Chief of the Imperial General Staff to say—if it is worth
going back on it—whether it was worth giving that price for Italian assistance. I am
inclined to think that it was, and that if the Italians had not come in our difficulties
might have been very great, incompetent as many think the Italians have been in the
* actual conduct of the war. But, whether they were worth the price so extracted from
us or not, the price was promised, and I do not think we ought to do anything to
indicate that we propose to haggle over the terms now that the goods have been
delivered. They have come in, and among us we have been successful, and it is no use
going back and saying what proportion of the success is due to Italian competence in
the field or elsewhere, but at all events there is the fact.
LOUD CURZON : What is the precise application of your argument as regards
Italy in relation to this area we are discussing to-day?
MR. BALFOUR : Because they hang together. Perhaps I ought not to have
dwelt upon it for so long. That and the Sykes-Picot Agreement hang together in this
way. They were both arrangements which were made before America came in, and
both were made for a price connected with the war. The war is over, and the price in
both cases, so far as we are concerned, must be paid without chicanery. If the Americans
choose to step in and cut the knot, that is their affair, but we must not put the knife
into their hand. We will say, “You have the power in your hand, you go and do
it.” There is a danger, and a very real danger, and I am not at all sure that what
ever dexterity we use we shall be able to keep out of it altogether. I am sure
we ought to try, and sincerely try. That is all L have to say.
LORD CURZON : Do you think there is any chance of the President taking the
line 1 suggested ?
" ' MR. BALFOUR: I think there is a great chance.
LORD CLTRZON : And asking, before the beginning of the Conference, that these
engagements should be swept into limbo and wiped off the slate ?
MR. BALFOUR : I think there is a great chance of his wishing to do it, but
before he does it he will probably try the ground and make experiments. He will find
the Italians, and, I think, the French, perfectly furious at the suggestion.
LORD ROBERT CtfCI.L: The French are mad about it already.
GENERAL SMUTS : This is the question, whether we are going to help him or
them in this policy.
MR. BALFOUR : We should help him in cases of difference, at least, and in
regard to any place not touched by the Agreement we would help them, but how can
we help him in matters touched by the Agreement ?
GENERAL SMUTS : You mean in regard to these Agreements we should be
passive.
MR. BALFOUR: I think so. The Italian demands, if you look at them in the
light of reason or justice or anything else, except the price given for necessary assistance,
are outrageous. How the Italians could exist in Rhodes, where there is not an Italian
in existence, I cannot think. I only give that as a specimen.
GENERAL SMUTS : And the cutting up of Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. ?