Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎157r] (313/348)

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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
TURKEY.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[E 1245/1/44]
[February 14.]
Section 1,
No. 1.
The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston to the Marquess of Crewe (Paris).
(No. 527.)
Mv Lord, Foreign Office, February 11, 1923.
IT was with much surprise that I received at Lausanne on the 31st ultimo, at
the very moment when the treaty drawn up by the allied Representatives was being
presented to the Turkish delegation, your Lordship’s telegram No. 122 , giving the text
of a note addressed to you by M. Poincare, which contained a formal repudiation, on
the part of France, of the engagement entered into by her on the 5th September, 1914,
and an expression of the intention of the French government, in the event of the
allies being unable to conclude a common peace, to negotiate separately with Turkey,
in order to safeguard the special interests of France.
2 . In justitication of this threatened breach of a solemn compact entered into at
one of the gravest moments in the history of our respective countries, M. Poincare,
in his note, contends that the agreement of the 5th September, 1914, applied onlv to
the duration of the war and to the period necessary for the negotiation of peace, a
period which, so far as Turkey is concerned, he declares to be at an end, the recent
Grmco-Turkish conflict being, in his view, a separate war which has modified the
position of the allies to their disadvantage, and created a new situation altogether
different from that in which the Declaration of 1914 was signed. M. Poincare further
defends the position he had taken up by arguing that the prolongation of the war
with Turkey was the fault of Greece, supported by Great Britain.
3. I will deal presently with the first of these arguments. As regards the second,
it is not necessary to enter here into the vexed controversy as to the responsibility for
the hostilities which have for so long continued in Anatolia Peninsula that forms most of modern-day Turkey. . I need only recall that
they were the direct outcome of the despatch of Greek forces to Asia Minor in
May 1919 on a mandate from the Supreme Council in Paris. For this mandate the
French government shared full responsibility, and at a later date it was solemnly
confirmed fry the allocation of Smyrna to Greece under the terms of the treaty of
Sevres—a treaty that also bore the signature of France. The stimulus which the
presence of the Greek army of occupation in Asia Minor undoubtedly gave to the
Turkish nationalist movement, and the extent to which this movement rendered it
increasingly difficult to obtain acceptance of the treaty of Sevres, may well be adduced
as showing that the original decision of the Supreme Council represented a policy
incapable of practical realisation. The question now at issue, however, is not whether
the decision was wise or the reverse, but whether the responsibility for the trouble that
arose in its train was not incurred by France in an equal degree with Great Britain
and her other allies. To this question, there can be but one answer.
4 . The contention that the British government afforded assistance to Greece in
money and material has been repeated in almost every country, except in Greece itself.
It rests on no foundation. The Greek government obtained no money from His
Majesty’s government, and no munitions. But, according to the Greeks themselves, it
was largely from France that they obtained such material as they were able to
acquire. At the same time it is notorious that no inconsiderable portion of the
armament and the munitions which enabled the Turkish army ultimately to win the
victory over the Greeks and to expel them, root and branch, from Asia, came from
French sources and, in part, after the French retirement from Cilicia, from 4 rench
government stocks. Thus did PYance make a not insignificant contribution to the
progress and the result of that warfare which M. Poincare so justifiably deplores.
5. Not content with wrongly charging the British government with a special degree
of responsibility for the continued Greek resistance to the forces of Angora,
M. Poincare, in his note, bases a none too friendly attack on myself on the
correspondence which passed between M. Gounaris and me last spring. If he
will re-read the note which I addressed to M. Gounaris on the (ith March last, he will
find that I expressly stated that the only hope for Greece was to place her case in the
hands of the allied Powers and to trust to their diplomatic intervention to secure
peace. My note was couched in terms of courtesy in reply to the frank statement
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