Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎75v] (150/348)

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His Excellency went on to repeat his former asseverations that if heisal and
Abdullah were chosen the French nation would infallibly believe that they had been
cliosen on the special ground that they were enemies of France.
I protested most vehemently against this unwarrantable inference, and pointed out
to the Ambassador that we had entered into relations with Feisal long before the
French were aware of his existence ; that we had made the treaty with King Hussein
which brought the Arabs into the war ; that we had made the march with Feisal that
captured the Hedjaz Railway and ended in the conquest of Syria ; that we, and not the
French, had captured Damascus and placed Feisal in power there; that at no stage in
our transactions with him had Feisal fallen out with us ; that the french themselves
had accepted him at the first conference in Paris as plenipotentiary at the Board ; that
they had had frequent and amicable relations with him since that time; and*that
because they had chosen to fall out with him, or to fight him at Damascus, 1 did not in
the least see why we should reverse the whole of our policy of the last three years and
treat as an outcast the man with whom they had failed to get on. In any case, to
accuse us of favouring Feisal because he was an enemy of franco was a really
unwarrantable suggestion, inasmuch as, on almost every occasion—and there were
many—when the British Government or Foreign Office had been brought into contact
with Feisal during the last two years, we had insistently—in season and out of season—
pressed upon him, at the cost sometimes almost of rupture, that we were bound by
obligations to our French Allies which must be similarly accepted by them, and that, if
they were not so accepted, it would be impossible for us to fulfil our own engagements.
When the Ambassador replied to this that the French would never forgive or
form any other opinion about a man w T ho had shed the blood of Frenchmen, and that
they had even been unable to allow such a person to cross the soil of France on his
return to his own country, I remarked that a similar consideration did not seem to have
deterred them from corning to terms with Mustapha Kemal, who had probably slain a
great many more Frenchmen than Feisal had ever done, or from establishing cordial
relations with Mustapha Kemal’s principal lieutenant, Bekir Sami Bey, who had lately
l)een clasped in their embrace both at London and in Paris.
The conversation ended by the Ambassador remarking that he had discharged his
duty by acquainting me with the views that were universally entertained in his country,
and by my pointing out to him that 1 had been equally candid in my reply.
1 am, &c.
CURZON OF KEDLESTON.