Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎256r] (511/544)

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ADMIRAL HOPE : I think that they will, I do not say that there is any reason.
They had the very slightest interest possible in Beirut in Syria, but they kept ships
there. I say that it would be a considerable embarrassment to us if they did have a
big squadron there. , .
With regard to the Straits themselves, the proposition of the Admiralty is that the
waterways should be administered by machinery similar to the Danube Commission.
That has" really the administration of the waterways, the lights, pilots, the provision of
marks, regulations for the ships passing, the payment of dues as they come along.
They would have absolutely no jurisdiction ashore, provided that the forts and fortifica
tions have been destroyed. If they have been destroyed, and there are no guns on the
banks of the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles and Bosphorus
Commission need not have the slightest administrative work on shore.
The Danube Commission bad no administration over Galatz. They merely regulate
the waterways.
LORD CURZON : Where do they sit ?
ADMIRAL HOPE : Their headquarters were at Galatz.
SIR EYRE CROWE : Yes.
ADMIRAL HOPE : Supposing that the guns and the fortifications are destroyed,
there is no need for anything beyond a small force.
MR. BALFOUR : We should refuse to allow Turkey to have a navy ?
ADMIRAL HOPE : That is assumed.
LORD CURZON : I have never heard the assumption explicitly stated before. I
think it ought to be assumed.
ADMIRAL HOPE : If the Turks were turned out of Constantinople they would
still have the south shore. Chanak has just as much influence on the waterways as
Constantinople has. You must push the Turk out of Chanak too. Supposing that
after the Crimean war, or the war of 1868, we had insisted on the demolition of the
forts and the freedom of the waterways through the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus
the whole influence of the Turks would probably have died out.
LORD CURZON : If the Turks were turned out.and the forts were demolished,
it would equally apply to the southern side of the Straits as the northern.
ADMIRAL HOPE : Yes.
LORD CURZON : Why, then, need you turn him.out ot Chanak ?
ADMIRAL HOPE : The argument was that, if he remained at Constantinople, he
would still have some political effect over the European Powers in the administration of
the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus.
LORI) CURZON : No, the argument was that he would be able to resume his old
game of intrigue.
LORD ROBERT CECIL : The prestige of Constantinople is the real thing.
ADMIRAL HOPE : Provided that there are no fortifications and that the
administration of the waterways is in international hands, it really does not matter.
MR. BALFOUR : May I ask one military question ? This is a purely military
or naval question. I remember a discussion—I was at the Admiralty, in tact, at the
time when much of it was going on—whether you could force the Dardanelles and how
you could force them, and 1 rather came to the conclusion that you could make the
place almost intolerable for passenger ships without having any forts at all, by having
heavy howitzers right back from the shore, 4 or 5 miles back from the shore, right in
the middle of Constantinople. In the old days the forts were the things ; but you can
make it very difficult now without forts. I can quite imagine that if the Turks have
actual control of Constantinople and of the unfortified lands on each side of the
Bosphorus and of the Dardanelles they could put, inland, batteries of a very temporary
kind if they had the guns somewhere about, and could have places marked and have
everything ready, and could make the place almost impassable, and then if they had
had stored mines and torpedoes they could make the thing very difficult, although
every permanent fortification were removed. I do not know whether that point of
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