Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎210r] (419/544)

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MR. BALFOUR: I must put in a plea about the Italians. This is by way of
being advice, as I understand it, which we give to the Cabinet ?
LORD CURZON: Yes.
MR. BALFOUR: It is impossible to consider these things wholly apart from
treaties by which we are solemnly bound to give compensation to Italy in Asia Minor
for anything France gets in the Eastern Mediterranean. That is a more solemn
treaty, if anything, than the Sykes-Picot Agreement.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: I should like to do something which will surprise
Lord Curzon. I should like to let Cyprus be independent, and Italy be the pro
tecting Power.
MR. BALFOUR: That would not console her at all.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: Give her a position in the Eastern Mediterranean.
LORD CURZON: That is unthinkable.
MR. BALFOUR: I do not take Lord Curzon’s view about Cyprus, but I have
kept it in my own mind as a possible pawn for dealing with Greece.
LORD CURZON: Please do not!
MR. BALFOUR: That would have an ethnological justification. To hand it
over to Italy has no justification at all.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: I do not see anything the matter with our answer
to Italy: “ If you like to have Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. on the same terms on which we are going to
have Arabia, you can have it.”
LORD CURZON: That is self-determination by the people?
LORD ROBERT CECIL: Yes. We could say “ We cannot give you anything,
but that is because you have chosen to ask such an unreasonable thing.”
MR. BALFOUR: Yes. I simply wanted to put in a caveat
LORD ROBERT CECIL: The time has come for some candid friend to say to
the Italians: “ You are in a fair way to make yourselves the most detested people in
the whole of Europe; you have quarrelled with the Greeks, with the Slavs, and with
the French; you are in process of quarrelling with us, and you have been at war
with all the Germanic Powders; you really must try and rearrange your policy in a
way that will not land you in a positive disaster.” I would like to say that to
Sonnino.
MR. BALFOUR: You must recollect, whatever we think of the Italian per
formances in the war, if they had not come in we should have been in a very
embarrassing position.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: Certainly we should, from a blockade point of view.
MR. BALFOUR: The price we paid them to prevent that embarrassment was
the 1915 treaty. I cannot tolerate the idea that we get all the advantage, have the
goods delivered, and then not pay the stipulated price. All I say is that we should
put in “subject to fair arrangement being made with Italy.” I want it to be
noticed, because it was a tripartite arrangement as between France, Italy, and
Britain, and it ought not to be put aside.
LORD CURZON: We have never discussed it here. We have looked upon it
as a matter for yourself and the Foreign Office. We are dealing with Syria as the
case is put before us. I took it that the whole of this was subject to whatever agree
ment you might think it necessary to arrive at with regard to Italy later on.
MR. BALFOUR: If that was put in as a phrase, I should be content.
LORD CURZON: We will put in a phrase at the end to meet you.
ADMIRAL HOPE: I suppose it is understood that the French will not be
permitted to turn Alexandretta into a naval base, or fortify it in any way?
LORD CURZON: That would be contrary to the Sykes-Picot Agreement, if
I remember aright. It was to be a free port, at any rate for ourselves.
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