Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎254v] (508/544)

Mr. Montagu seems tc think that the process of driving the Turk eastward is on the
whole rather fatal to British prestige in India; but the process of driving the Turk
eastward is one which has been going on rapidly really for two centuries at least—more,
1 think. The Turk, as we all know, once occupied Hungary, Roumania, Serbia, and went
up to the gates of Vienna. He had all the North of Africa, the islands of Greece, the islands
of the Eastern Mediterranean. The w’liole process of history in that part of the world has
been to steadily drive him back. If anybody would look at the map of the Turkish
Empire as it was, let us say—I will take it at landom—in 1650, and a map of what it
is at the present time, he would have ocular demonstration of the fact. The question is,
therefore, ought this process to be stopped at this last and critical stage? Ought not,
in other words, an Oriental race go back to an Oriental country, and can we not
quite truly say to the Mahommedan world, “ We have no objection to Mahommedanism,
but we do not think that Europe is the place for it ? ” However, it really turns upon
this. That argument turns upon a knowledge of Indian feeling, about which 1 am a
very poor authority: I believe, however, that it is true that you could leave the 'l urk
in Europe and could leave him in possession of Constantinople, and yet preserve the
waterways of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, and I do not think that it would
require very large powers to do so, or any great force or any great cost of money. It
would be under international guarantees. An authority rather in the nature perhaps
of the Danube authority would have a certain police force. There would be
no forts, there would be no beet, there would be no means of taking the place by
a coup de wain, which would have the least chance of success, by the Turks. I do
not think that the operation of keeping these waterways open is either very
costly or very difficult, or in any way impracticable. That would leave the Turk with
his powers at Constantinople somewhat shorn. It would leave the Sultan living
there, if he chose to live there, with a control over the Christian populations of Turkey
in Arabia. I personally am not, therefore, moved with the argument that it is a
difficult thing to carry out, and I am not very much moved by the argument that it is
a good thing to keep the Turk in Europe. My own views are that I should like to see
him expelled, and I think this is a proper opportunity for expelling him ; but I am not
quite sure that anybody listening to Lord Curzon’s able statement of the case would
quite feel all the difficulty that J am moved by when I think of how this European
population, a mixture of Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and odds and ends, is to be
governed if the Turk goes. Lord Curzon says, I think with justice, that you could not
give these regions to Bulgaria, neither do I believe that you could give them to Greece.
Is it conceivable that the Americans would take over the government of a considerable
area ? As far as I understand it has a considerable population.
LORD CURZON: Is not the question partly dealt with in one of the Foreign
Office papers, in which I read (it was news to me) that some sort of arrangement had
been arrived at by M. Venizelos with the Governments of Roumania, Serbia, and our
other Allies in that part of the world, by which the Greeks were to undertake the very
responsibilities that you are speaking of, were to penetrate into Eastern Thrace, were
to take the islands of the Marmora, were to occupy the territories belonging to the
Turkish Government in which their population was numerically in the ascendant, and
that that would be a partial solution of the difficulties you are putting?
MR. BALFOUR: They would have the parts of Eastern Thrace, but I do not
think that they were to have all these territories. I never heard this.
LORD CURZON : The idea was that the Greeks are to get Gallipoli and Rodosto.
SIR EYRE CROWE : I think so, as far as I understood it.
MR. BALFOUR: I will not argue about that. I do not know where Sir Eyre
Crowe gets this information. It has not come to me as far as I know. All that has
come to me is that M. Venizelos with the Serbian Minister and the Roumanian Minister
came and solemnly informed me that they saw their way to an arrangement that would
satisfy all those three Balkan Powers; but they did not tell me what the arangement
was, nor did they give me the smallest hint of what it was. So 1 am not qualified to
speak on that.
LORD CURZON : I was only mentioning it as a partial answer to the question
you were putting, “ What is to become of the populations outside Constantinople
To that I made the reply that some sort of arrangement appeared to be under
discussion.