Papers of the Interdepartmental Conference on Middle Eastern Affairs [‎121r] (241/290)

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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
Printed for the Foreign Office. April 1920.
SECRET .
I.D.C.E., 37th Minutes.
INTER-DEPARTMENTAL CONFERENCE ON MIDDLE EASTERN AFFAIRS.
Draft Minutes of a Meeting held at the Foreign Office on Tuesday, April 13, 1920,
at 5 r.M.
Present :
The Right Hon. the Earl Curzon of Kedleston, K.G., G.C.S.I., G.C.I.E.
(in the Chair).
Major-General Sir P. P. de B. Radcliffe,
K.C.M.G., C.B., D.S.O., Director of
Military Operations, War Office.
Lieutenant-Colonel W. H. Gribbon,C.M.G.,
W ar Office.
Sir George Barstow, K.C.B., Treasury.
Sir John Tilley, K.C.M.G., Assistant
Under-Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs.
Mr. E. Forbes Adam, Foreign Office.
Mr. L. Oliphant, C.M.G., Foreign Office.
Captain H. G. E. Lank, Director of Opera
tions Division (Foreign), Admiralty.
The Right Hon. E. S. Montagu, M.P.,
Secretary of’ State for India, India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Sir Arthur Htrtzel, K.C.B., Assistant
Under-Secretary of State, India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Mr. J. E. Shuckburgh, C.B., India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors.
Mr. C. C. Garbett, C.I.E., India Office The department of the British Government to which the Government of India reported between 1858 and 1947. The successor to the Court of Directors. .
Air-Marshal Sir Hugh Trenchard,K.C.B.,
D.S.O., Air Ministry, Chief of Air Staff.
Wing-Commander J. A. Chamier, C.M.G.,
D.S.O., Air Ministry.
7 J
Major H. W. Young, D.S.O. (Secretary).
Caspian Fleet.
✓
The Chairman said that the question of the Caspian Fleet had
to be considered in a twofold aspect; fiistly, theVdisposal of the ships
themselves, and secondly, the. disposal of the refugees on board
them, who appeared to be Denikinites from Petrovsk.
General Radcliffe sa.\d that there were 15 ships at Enzeli and
650 refugees, in addition to the crews. These refugees included
women and children. Two thousand officers and men of Denikin Is
army had left the fleet at Baku and were being looked after by the
Azerbaijan Government. The crews of the ships at Enzeli had at
first indignantly repudiated the terms on which we had offered to
repatriate them via Baghdad and Basrah. They had returned to
Baku, where they found that Denikin’s cause was lost. They had
now come back again to Enzeli and accepted our terms. These
terms did not, however, cover the 650 refugees. He gathered that
these refugees were mostly Russian women and children who were
not the remnant of Denikin’s army. They were probably relations
of the officers and crews off the snips, but this was not certain.
The War Office proposed that they should be treated in the
same way as the crews of the ships, and repatriated via Baghdad
and Basrah. The ships themselves should be handed over to the
British, the crews being landed with the exception of sixteen persons
per ship. The matter had been carefully discussed ‘by the War
B
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