Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎92v] (184/348)

8
M. du Caix, their representative in Syria, who negotiated the armistice preparatory
to a treaty. They next made a separate agreement with Bekir Sami about Cilicia
and their prisoners, which was at once thrown over by Mustapha Keinal and the
National Assembly. Since then they have spent the best part of a year in trying to
negotiate a.substitute, first, in Paris, witli Bekir. Sami Bey (who was once again
thrown over by Mustapha Kemal), and secondly, at Angora, through the instrumen
tality of M. Franklin-Bouillon, who has paid two, if not three, visits to Angora,
and is believed, though officially disavowed by the French Government, to have
made or to be making some arrangement confined to French prisoners and the
Cilician frontier.
These examples are not particularly encouraging. Nor can I see the slightest
reason to suppose that had any Englishman, official or unofficial, been at Angora
during the last six months the results would have been very different. More
probably he would have experienced the fate of Colonel Rawlinson. The time
may come—I hope it may not be long delayed—when we can again attempt to
enter into relations with Angora, while not I hope forgetting that there is still
such a thing as a Government at Constantinople, to which our High Commissioner
is accredited, and without whose concurrence we cannot negotiate any settlement
at all. But isolated action will not help us to solve the larger problem any more
than it has already helped the Italians and the French. The problem remains
an international problem, and the steps now to be taken for its settlement are in
my judgment these :—
(a.) A very early effort to ascertain what are the bases on which mediation
can now take place with a reasonable prospect of success—such effort
involving an urgent conference with the Greeks, upon whom we alone
can exercise a friendly pressure, to be accompanied or followed by a
similar attempt to resume discussion with the Turks.
(b.) As soon as the bases have been provisionally determined, a meeting of the
Supreme Council to draw up the proposed revision of the Treaty of
Sevres.
(c.) A summons to Greeks and Turks to attend and receive the revised
conditions.
C. of K.
Foreign Office, October 7, 1921.
\