Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎22v] (44/348)

between British and Fiench officials in the Middle East, and had complained to me of
the attitude of our representatives. i reminded him that I had enquuecl m ( t ^
whole of these cases, and in the great majority of them had been able to return mos
satisfactory replies. Now. however, it was incumbent upon me to point out a numuei
ot cases in which it appeared to me that the trench themselves had not s io.mi t in
attitude of friendliness and conciliation, the alleged absence of which in ourselves ne
had so earnestly and repeatedly deplored. . .
The first of these incidents had arisen in Persia. It was now some months since the
Ambassador himself had come to me to explain that the French Government had been
approached with a view to appointing a Financial Adviser in Persia and to interesting
themselves generally in the affairs of that country. He had, upon instructions trom
Paris, consulted me as to the advisability of the French acting in this sense and had a. the
same time assured me that the French desired to disinterest themselves from acquiring
any infiueiice in a country which clearly lay within the political ambit, of .Tieat n
' I had accordingly on that occasion asked his Government to desist from any action o
the sort referred to, and he had given me a promise to that eficct. What, there
fore, was not my surprise to learn that the new French Minister in lehran,
M. Bonin, had signalised his arrival there by a display of quite exceptional acfivitv
in the interests of his country, culminating in an attempt to extract from the
Persian Government permission to appoint not less than fourteen .officials to t le
Ministries of the Interior and of Justice in the Persian capital. I said that such an
influx of Frenchmen into Tehran, however excellent they might be, and however
useful in their professional spheres, could not fail to mean the practical absorption of those
two departments by the French, while it ran the risk of reproducing in Tehran once
aa-ain that, unfortunate competition and rivalry between European Powers, upon which
the Persian Government had relied in the past, and which had been the source of so
much international trouble. If France desired to disinterest herself in Persia, why
should she wish to have Frenchmen in the service of the Persian Government at all ? > It
was perfectly clear that, when the war was over, whatever .might happen.at the Paris
Conference, Persia would require both financial and administrative assistance from
outside. To whom, in such circumstances, could she turn but to Great Britain 2 What
other Power would have the real interest or would be able find the money ? Persia had
always been an Indian interest of considerable importance ; but now that her territories
lay between those of India on the one hand and of Mesopotamia on the other, both
regions under British administration, it would really be making gratuitous mischief to
introduce any other European competitor on to the scene. I felt sure that the French
Government^ if appealed to, would desist from an attempt, not only inconsistent with
their previous utterances, but likely to breed the very quarrels they deplored.
M. Gambon told me that this was the first he had heard of the matter, and it
greatly surprised him. He was not at all convinced that M. Bonin had acted under
instructions from the French Government. He was a gentleman of active and
ambitious temperament, who had previously been consul in Cairo, and he was not at
all unlikely to be affected by the well-known morbus consularis. M. Gambon would not
hesitate, when he returned to Paris presently, to mention the matter to M. Clemenceau.
For the moment, all that w T as necessary for him to do was to repeat the assurances as to
‘ French action or inaction at Tehran which he had already given.
I pointed out to him, before leaving the subject, that it w r as a matter on which I
felt seriously, that I regarded the action of M. Bonin as distinctly provocative, and
that he must understand my reference to the matter to be in the nature of a formal
protest.
The next subject upon which 1 complained to the Ambassador was the recent
conduct of the French High Commissioner in Constantinople. I reminded M. Gambon
that, whjen he and I discussed the difficulties that arose there some weeks ago, he had
himself laid down the proposition that they would all be solved if the High Com
missioners of the Great Powders, instead of acting independently of each other, would
meet together and make their decisions and issue their communications as the result
of the combined action of the three or four. He and I had, indeed, just concluded a
tentative agreement to that effect. And yet, what had happened in Constantinople ?
The Grand Vizier had recently expressed a desire that he should be heard in Paris
on behalf of his countrymen. As to the grounds upon which this petition was either
made or granted, I said that I myself was still in doubt. If a Turkish delegation
was to be invited to Paris to receive the peace terms which had been agreed upon by
the Powers, the position would be analogous to what it had already been in the case of
Germany and of Austria, and I presumed to what it would be in the case of