Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎200r] (399/544)

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LORD ROBERT CECIL : No. It is to be part of the deal with France over the
Sykes-Picot Agreement.
GENERAL SMUTE: To get her out of the south ?
LORD ROBERT CECIL: Yes, that is the point. This map, with a piece of
tracing paper over it, shows exactly what is contemplated.
GENERAL MACDONOGH: We had the same thing at St. Jean de Maurienne.
We offered one thing to the Italians in exchange for another, and came back having
lost both.
GENERAL SMUTS : My feeling is that we are so pledged in good faith to the
Arabs that we must do anything we can for the Arabs. They have been our Allies,
they look to us to see them through this business, and it is not really a case as
Mr Balfour argued at the last meeting, of our having signed our word m the Sy-es-
Picot Aoreement. On the other side you have to put our Allies, who are looking to us
and who°rely on our good faith to see them through. Whatever we can do to help the
Arabs out of their trouble I think we must do.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: That is the basis of my view about the whole thing.
GENERAL SMUTS : You did not argue that at all.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: I had said that at a previous meeting and I did not
want to repeat it. That is my whole basis. I should not dream of advocating anything
about this, because it does not matter to me a straw. I take that view, because these
regions would be a most awful curse to any country.
GENERAL SMUTS : Get France entirely out of the south, under the Sykes-
Picot Agreement.
GENERAL WILSON : We should like the Foreign Office to tear up their own
agreements, of course, but it is rather a dangerous thing, because an agreement
arrived at is found to be inconvenient, that another agreement is come to.
GENERAL SMUTS : There are two dangers ; one is that it is dangerous to leave
a militaiy Power like France in Syria; the other is that it is dangerous to put another
military Power on this route in Asia Minor. Supposing you were to balance these two
dangers against each other, which would you prefer ? . Supposing we could get rid of
France on the Syrian front
GENERAL WILSON : Of course the Sykes-Picot Agreement had more to do
with oil than the I rench.
GENERAL SMUTS : I assume that, too. The whole point Lord Robert proposes
is to get rid of the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
GENERAL WILSON : By giving away Georgia, and these other places ?
GENERAL SMUTS: Yes.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: What it comes to is this. On Map 2 A* with the
tracing paper over it you will see what is contemplated It shows the Arab countries
as coming within the British sphere, and leaves a tiny httle bit of the Lebanon to the
French, and that is the only thing they get out of the Sykes-Picot Agreement so tai
a6 the Arabs are concerned. On the other hand, you extend their Armenia so as to
include the whole of Armenia, including Russian Armenia I think, personally if you
go to that extent you will have to let them be the mandatory it they wish tt I think
they will be extraordinarily silly if they do it, but .1 they wish it they must be allowed
to be the mandatory for Georgia, Daghestan, and Azerbaijan, because I agree wit i t le
opinion of Lord Curzon that whoever has Armenia will be so close to these four
Caucasus republics that it will be almost impossible to have one 1 ower as the mandatoiy
Power for the four Caucasus republics and another lor Armenia. That still seems to me
to be a sound argument, but if the military authorities attach great importance to the
French not coming into the four republics as the mandatory, 1 would not mind
personally. I am sorry, but I am not convinced by the military argument, although 1
dare say i am entirely wrong.
LORD CURZON • You will remember that at our last meeting we were
discussing the revision of the Sykes-Picot Agreement and confining the French to the
* E.C. 2525.
[365—38]
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