Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎134r] (267/348)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
EASTERN (Turkey), j t \ oCCfyiL^-c*^ [March 6.]
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[E 2471/5/44 J 0 No. 1.
The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston to M. Gounaris.
Your Excellency, Foreign Office, March 6, 1922.
I HAVE considered with the utmost care the note which you addressed to me on
the 15th ultimo, and desire to express my appreciation of the perfect candour with
which you have expounded to me a situation that id indubitably fraught with the
gravest anxiety to the Greek Government and nation. I can only express a hope that
the military position in Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. is less immediately critical than your note would lead
me to think, and that the remarkable patriotism and discipline of the Hellenic armies,
of which so many illustrations have been furnished in the' campaigns of the last few
years, will not'fail them in any emergency tliat may conceivably arise.
2. As regards the financial position, your Excellency has yourself detailed the
inception of the negotiations by which it was hoped by your Government to raise a
substantial loan in the London market. His Majesty’s Government have, as you know,
endeavoured, within the limits of their publicly declared neutrality and of the
engagements entered into with their Allies, to lighten the difficulties by which these
negotiations were attended ; and if, as I am informed, they have failed to produce the
desired result, this would appear to have been due in the main to obstacles connected
with the commercial, rather than with the political, aspects of the proposed
transaction.
3. In these circumstances, the wisest course is unquestionably to expedite the
diplomatic solution of the anxious position in which all are placed. I deeply regret
that owing to circumstances over which His Majesty’s Government have had no
control the proposed meeting of the Allied Ministers in Paris has been so long
delayed. An Italian Ministry having however now been formed, I have hastened to
propose that the conference should meet in Paris on the 13th March—a date which at
the moment of writing seems likely to be again postponed for a few days to meet the
convenience of the new Italian Minister for Foreign Affairs. I have little doubt that
the first subject that will come under examination there will be the Anatolian question ;
and I earnestly hope that a solution may be found which will be acceptable to both
parties and may relieve you of the more serious apprehensions by which you are
assailed.
4. Your Government has already placed itself, in accordance with the advice
which I ventured to tender to you last autumn, in the hands of the Allies, and I doubt
not therefore that in a similar spirit of confidence and good faith you will be prepared
to listen to such counsels as may be offered to you from Paris with regard to the
immediately existing situation.
1 have, &c.
CURZON OF KEDLESTON.
r 7982 /—l] d