Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎255r] (509/544)

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i. BALFOUR: 1 think that you might give some to Bulgaria and some to
Oteece ; hut whatever you give to Bulgaria, and whatever you give to Greece, you will
eaye a large population to be managed by the mandatory Power. That is a matter
which, I think, you will find a very great difficulty. I think that it might make the
Americans shnnk from the task. I agree with you that they are the best people to do
it. 1 am not pressed personally by the naval argument; but I see that great obstacle
in the way.
I see anothei obstacle. What we want is a permanent settlement, a permanent
peace in that part of the world. A mandatory Power is, from the nature of the case,
transitory ; that is to say, it may be transitory. The mandatory Power holds his land
upon a lease. He holds it indefinitely ; but it is only a lease. It is not held in
possession. Therefore you will have this area, which is coveted, and passionately
coveted by Greece, and coveted, and passionately coveted by Bulgaria, always there in
in the possession, which is a merely temporary possession, of some nation which has
no personal interest, so to speak, in what she holds ; no interest at all, in fact, in
keeping it except as the mandatory Power. There will therefore be perpetual
intrigues which will go on. Constantinople will still be the cause of eternal
disagreements among the neighbouring States, and you will not have that fixed
and permanent settlement in that part of the world which we hope to have. Those
are difficulties which it is easy to state and not easy to solve. If 1 could see a
solution to them I should myself go in for doing what I think Lord Curzon
desires to do, and what certainly Sir Eyre Crowe desires to do, which is sending the
urks back to their native highlands, and of course neutralising the Straits, and
handing over that particular part of the country which you cannot make over to
Greece or to Bulgaria into the hands of some mandatory Power which can only be as
tar as I can see, America. J
LORD ROBERT CECIL : I recognise the enormous difficulties of any settlement
of tins question. Mr. Balfour has stated them with great power as far as America is
concerned. May it not be said that the difficulties he has pointed out will exist what
ever you do, even if you leave the Turk there ? 1 have rather reluctantly come round
to the view which 1 did not hold at first, that it would probably be better to get rid of
ic i urk altogether. Just think what you would have if you left the Turks there,
ou would have the Sultan there with a very much shorn Empire in Asia. You would
have the Powers m control of the Straits and necessarily very much in evidence there
Somebody would have to he there. I do not know whether it would be a mandatory
Power or whether it would be an international Power. In any case you would have them
all round there. 1 hey would be going in and out of Constantinople. You would
have the fact that at one period of the war we had definitely promised that Constan
tinople should be occupied by the Russians, and that as late as the beginning of 1917
we had laid it down as part of our terms that Turkey should be turned out of Europe
altogether, and it seems to me quite mcredible in those circumstances that the Sultan
should be in anything but a very dicky ” position. Then you would have surrounding
him the Greeks, who are passionately anxious to have Constantinople, and the Bulgarians
who are equally passionately desirous of having it, and if the Russians ever revile the
Russians wil be equally passionately anxious to have it. I think the atmosphere of
intrigue would be prodigious, and to have Turkey there in the centre in just the situation
they have always lived in, and always enjoyed, and always made capital out of when they
were playing one set of Powers against the other, would be a very serious matter, I think
There would be immediately a party formed. Some people would back the Greeks, and
some the Bulgarians, and some the Russians, and you would have the Turks enjoying
rt m the middle and creating trouble, as they always have created trouble between the
Western Powers by that means. That seems to me to be a powerful argument.
Indeed, if I may say so, it is exactly Mr. Balfour’s argument which has driven me to
the conclusion opposite to that at which he has arrived. I quite agree that whatever
you do the situation cannot be very tolerable. I admit that if the alternative is an
m ernational occupation of Constantinople, with a Frenchman in one position and an
Englishman in another, and an Italian in another, I rather incline to think that I should
prefer to leave the lurks there. But if you can put the Americans in (I do not see
anybody else that could possibly be put in), then, on the whole, I believe that that
would be the position which is most likely to be permanent. Mind, I quite agree with
Mr. Balfour; I think that the difficulties of getting the Americans to go there are
enormous. Unless you can cut off practically the whole of the territorv and o ive it to
the Greeks, leaving a very small hinterland to Constantinople, I do not believe —
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