Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎160r] (319/348)

nmOAiLATF-P TO
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[This Document is .the Property of His Britannic Majesty s Government.]
TURKEY. [February 1<J.]
CONFIDENTIAL. Section 1.
[E 2023/1/44] No. 1 .
The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston to the Marquess of Crewe (Paris).
(No. 621.)
My Lord, Foreign Office, February 19, 1923.
THE liench Ambassador called upon me this afternoon to present a note from
his Government recording a conversation that had just taken place at Constantinople
between General I elle and Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. . Ihese two had apparently gone together
through the text of the treaty recently submitted, but not signed, at Lausanne, and
Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. had confided to the french High Commissioner his views as to the further
concessions which the Angora Assembly would in all probability demand. These
related chiefly to the financial clauses, the convention for the “ regime des etrangers ”
and the economic section, the last of which he desired to be excluded altogether from
the treaty. He was apparently prepared to accept the Montagna modification of the
formula with regard to the judicial guarantees. Finally, Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. had said that
after a week of debate at Angora he expected to be in a position to make definite
proposals to the secretary-general of the conference with a view to the renewal of the
discussions. I he conversation had left upon General Pelle the impression that Ismet
Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. both desired peace and was confident of being able to secure it.
I he reference to this conversation between the French High Commissioner and
Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. at Constantinople afforded me an opportunity, for which I was looking,
of calling the Ambassador s attention to the complaint which he himself had been
instructed by M. Poincare to make to Sir Eyre Crowe a few days earlier as to an alleged
conversation held under my instructions between the acting British High Commissioner
at Constantinople and Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. , in which I was supposed to have authorised or
suggested a separate negotiation without reference to my Allies. I said that this com
plaint, coming from M. loincare, w r as altogether intolerable, and that I could no longer
stand a situation in which wTiereas for more than three months I had never taken a
single step with the 1 urks at Lausanne without previously informing my colleagues, and
had merely sent a message to Ismet Pasha An Ottoman title used after the names of certain provincial governors, high-ranking officials and military commanders. at Constantinople strongly advising him to sign
the treaty in the form which it bore when I left Lausanne ; and whereas throughout
this period the Trench delegates had seldom passed a day without running round with
then private negotiations and separate intrigues with the Turks and whereas
M. Poincare himself was the real author of this clandestine procedure—the French
Ambassador should now come to the foreign Office with a complaint, utterly unfounded,
that I had done that of which M. Poincare and the French Government had been
habitually and consistently guilty. I asked his Excellency’s pardon for telling him
that I must beg him to desist in future from coming to the Foreign Office two or three
times a week with complaints from M. Poincare—as a rule of the most frivolous and
childish description as to what I had said or done, or not said or not done. Apart from
this absurd suspicion as to what had passed at Constantinople, to refute which I read out
to the Ambassador the terms of my instructions to Mr. Henderson, I gave his Excellency
two further illustrations of what had happened during the past week alone. The
first was M. Poincare’s protest, delivered by his Excellency himself to Sir Eyre Crowe,
against my mention of the word “ mediation ” in reference to the Ruhr in my recent
speech in the House of Lords. With the text of the speech in my hand I pointed
out to his Excellency that what 1 had actually said was that, while the newspapers
were talking about mediation, in the opinion of His Majesty’s Government intervention
of any sort was for the moment out of the question. Was I not at liberty to make
this perfectly innocent statement, for which I ought to have been thanked by
M. Poincare, without receiving a visit from his Ambassador to complain of my words ?
The second case was even worse. In the same debate Lord Grey of Fallodon had
deliberately challenged me to say whether or not it was true that the French Govern
ment had told the Turks at Lausanne that if the latter did not sign the treaty
they would be prepared to enter into separate negotiations with them. Lord Grey
had added that such an idea was in his view incredible, and that such
action on the part of any one of the Allies made international co-operation
absolutely impossible. In my reply I had taken no notice of this challenge. Why ?
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