Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎19r] (37/348)

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expected to cope with the feuds of the Daghestanis, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians,
and other warring races, and can these races in their turn be expected to stand the
strain of a sudden change of regime without getting out of hand ? Have the Italians
the men to deal with such a situation or the money to finance it? Does their record in
Tripoli and elsewhere justify us in supposing that they wdl he able to handle with any
chance of success such an exceptionally thorny problem as the Caucasus presents?
It may be urged that all these troublesome people should be left to cut one
another’s throats and that the Italians, having accepted the task from pure greed, may
quite fairly be left to get out of the mess as best they can. But unfortunately the
effects of the chaos in the Caucasus will spread far beyond its borders. The Armenians
will be the first to suffer. There are already serious troubles in Kars, and in the
Shusha, Erivan, and Naktchievan areas, and it may safelv be asserted that in the event
of any serious outbreak in the Caucasus not only will it be impossible to repatriate a
single Armenian to the six vilayets, but that the few surviving Armenians there are
likely to be massacred wholesale.
We have heard of trouble recently all over Turkey-in-Asia ; a British political
officer has just been murdered to the north of Mosul ; anti-Christian movements have
been reported from Diarbekr, Sivas, Samsun, and from many other places in the interior
which are out of our reach. General Allenby reports a state of unrest at Urfa, Aintab,
and Marash. It is becoming increasingly obvious that it only requires a sign for the
whole of Turkey in Asia to be up. Such a sign may well be given by the arrival of
the Italians in the Caucasus.
Black Sea —Nor is our position in the Black Sea entirely comfortable. Odessa has
fillen, and Sevastopol is in the occupation of the Bolsheviks. Our only line of supply
-—perhaps of retreat—lies through Constantinople, and at Constantinople we have few
troops and none too many ships, as the Admiral himself has recently complained; while
the forts of the Dardanelles stand undamaged behind us. It is true that the forts ate
occupied bv allied troops, but we have nothing to show that any preparations have
been made for their rapid destruction in case of an emergency'.
The Balkan States to the north are threatened with Bolshevism, and the effect of
our withdrawal from the Caucasus will proba* ly he to accentuate this tendency and
to spur the Bolshevik leaders to fresh efforts in every direction, including the far north.
III.— Anglo-Fi'ench Relations at Constantinople.
Constantinople .—Meanwhile at Constantinople itself the situation between the
French and ourselves shows no improvement. General Franchet d’Esperey continues
to assert himself and to dispute General Milne’s claim that the whole of turkey in
Asia is an exclusive British military sphere, and that the French have no right to
interfere there. French pretensions in this direction ha\e, indeed, recently increased,
an- 1 , whereas th- y were willing to acknowledge until recently that both Powers had
equal military rights in the unoccupied parts of Asiatic Turkey, it appears from the
despatches most recently received from Constantinople that General Franchet d’Esperey
is now ad\ ancing the theory that the whole of Turkey not in our actual occupation
falls within the sphere of his military command as “ Commander-in-Chief of the Allied
Armies in the East.”
This question of the delimitation of the French and Br itish military zones is one
of vital importance, and the Foreign Office and His Majesty’s High Commissioner at
Constantinople have been urging for months past the necessity of reaching an early
agreement with the French on the subject, but so far their efforts have proved unavailing,
and the visit of the C.I.G.S. to Paris, made at the instigation of Lord Curzon, appears
to have brought us no nearer to a solution. The question is primarily a military one,
but it hinges on the interpretation to be placed on the Convention concluded at Paris
on the 23rd December, 1917, and on the resolution reached at the meeting of the
allied premiers in London on the 3rd December, 1918, and the framers of these resolu
tions can alone say what their intentions were, or modify or alter the terms of these
resolutions to suit changed circumstances.
No political principle vital to us is involved, and there would appear to be no
objection so far as the Foreign Office is concerned, to conceding to the French a sphere
of military activity on the Asiatic side. The important thing is not the size or
extension of the respective spheres, but the definite fixing of a line on either side of
which the respective military forces can act in complete independence without risk of
overlapping and consequent friction. With goodwill on both sides the solution of this
• problem ought to present no insuperable difficulty, and our military authorities will