Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎16r] (31/348)

[This Docament is the Property of His Britannic Majesty s Government.]
r EASTERN.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[60671]
EASTERN DEPARTMENT
No. 1. / ' c ■ l
[April 22.]
Section 1.
Note respecting the Middle Eastern Question by Earl Curzon.
MY colleagues know how anxious I have been for some time as to the situation in
the Middle East, and the troubles, increasing from day to day, that seem likely to arise
from a failure to arrive at a solution. 1 circulate a note on the subject which I have
recently sent to Mr. Balfour.
C. of K.
April 22, 1919.
Enclosure 1 in No. 1.
The Present Position of the Middle Eastern Question.
I AM reluctant to criticise in London a policy which is being pursued in Paris, as
to the phases and reasons of which we are not fully informed, and for which there may
be many justifications not easily visible here. ‘ At the same time, there is such an
absolute concurrence of opinion from every authority whom I have seen, consulted, or
read, that the position is dangerous, and that the policy said to be favoured by the
Peace Conference is likely to produce widespread disturbance, if not disaster, that 1
should not be doing my duty if 1 were to observe silence.
Moreover, the Foreign Office here may at any moment be called upon to explain or
defend the Paris decisions, and to justify the consequences that seem likely to result
from them.
Finally, it may still be possible, by prompt decision or action, to avert some of the
worst evils, and to recover at least a portion of the ground that would appear to have
been lost.
I have had a summary prepared in the Eastern Department of the Foreign Office
which reveals the existing position of affairs in the Middle East: a position of divided
councils and conflicting ambitions among the Great Powers, of profound and increasing
unrest in the regions affected, of military insecurity, and of impending bloodshed and
chaos, that may rob us of many of the fruits of victory and create a standing menace in
the Middle East, both to the peace of Europe and to the security of India.
When the Peace Conference assembled the situation in the Middle East was much
as follows:—
The Allied Powers were in possession of Constantinople, where the Turkish
Government, if not cowed, was subservient. Our military power in the occupied
Turkish regions of Asia was sutficient to enable us to enforce not merely the agreed
terms of the Armistice but almost any supplementary terms that were found necessary.
The British were in secure possession of Mesopotamia up to and including Mosul, and
the form which the veiled British Protectorate of those regions was likely to assume
had practically been settled with the consent of the inhabitants. The British position
in Persia was, both in a military and political sense, extraordinarily strong. We were
still in Trans-Caspia, but were contemplating an immediate retirement, since accom
plished. The Caspian was in our hands and was being made the base of naval action
against the Bolshevik forces. British divisions occupied the'entire Caucasus, from the
Black Sea to the Caspian, and provided the only guarantees for peace, on the one hand
between the rival peoples : Georgians, Armenians, Tartars, Daghastanis, and Russians ;
and on the other hand between the nascent States and communities north and south of
the main Caucasian range and the forces of Denekin on the north—interested quite
as much in pursuing imperialistic ambitions and the recovery of the boundaries of Old
Russia as in fighting and crushing the Bolsheviks in Russia itself. In Asia Minor
(outside the region of British military occupation) no Allied forces had appeared. The
fate of Armenia was undecided, the bulk of the Armenians being fugitives from their
country. Apart from Armenia and possibly Cilicia, the partition of Asia Minor was not
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