Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎44r] (87/348)

[Tins Document & tftt Property of His Bntanmc Majesty s GovernmentJ
EASTERN.
[March 17.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 1.
[E 1800] No. 1.
Earl Curzon to the Earl of Derby.
(No. 955.)
My Lord, Foreign Office, March 17, 1920.
IN the course of a conversation with me this afternoon, M. Cambon spoke seriously
about the unfortunate position that had arisen in Constantinople owing to the conflict
of military authority there. «
Commencing with a historical account of the stages by which the present situation
had been reached, he said that the general view upon which the French Government
had acted, and from which they could not possibly recede, was that the command of all
Allied Forces on the European side of the Straits appertained to the French, while the
British were in charge on the Asiatic si<le. This partition had formed the basis of
the agreement arrived at in December 1918, and in substance it had never been
departed from since. Speaking in his private capacity, M. Cambon said that he was
quite ready to admit that General Franchet d’Esperey had shown an almost complete
lack of tact and judgment. Some of his proceedings which the Ambassador named
had been well qualified to excite extreme irritation, and the French Government were
so conscious of this fact that they were quite willing to withdraw him as soon as this
could be done without conveying a personal affront and to replace him by another
French commander, General Guillaumat, who was well known to the British, and had
established excellent relations with them in the course of the war. But when General
Guillaumat arrived upon the scene the French Government must insist that his
command should be identical with that of General Franchet d’Esperey, and that he
should be in supreme charge of the Allied armies in Cojistantinople, just as he was of
all the Allied Forces in Turkey-in-Europe. The position of the French Government,
M. Cambon added, would be gravely compromised if they were to acquiesce in any
other solution.
I replied that our difficulties were not less serious, and indeed were even greater,
because with us it was a question, not merely of national pride or prestige, but of
practical expediency on the spot. I was afraid that, in existing circumstances, my
Government could not accept—and in fact the War Office had never been willing to
accept—the proposition that General Franchet d’Esperey was in supreme command
when he entered the walls of Constantinople. On the contrary, it was the British and
not the French who had been charged with supervising the military terms of the
armistice. Constantinople had been specially reserved as a sphere of British military
command. In the proceedings at Constantinople which culminated in the military
occupation of the city yesterday, by far the greater part of the occupying force had
been supplied, not by the French, hut by the British. Indeed, my information was that
. the French and Italians had afforded as little assistance as they could, and had done
their best to throw the entire onus and responsibility upon the British. Such had been
their attitude at Constant!no])le throughout the recent crisis. General franchet
d’Esperey had conducted himself with a want of tact so supreme that I had seriously
considered, a short time ago, upon the urgent request of the War Office, making a
demand for his recall by the French Government. I had desisted from doing so only
because of the crisis that had arisen. So long as there was an army of the East such as
existed in the days when an attack upon Constantinople by land was anticipated by the
Allied forces, so long was the authority of General Franchet d’Esperey not only natural
but expedient. That army, however, had disappeared. General Franchet d Esperey
was usually elsewhere than in Constantinople, and it was intolerable that, at critical
moments, he should descend upon the city, where the burden of military responsibility
and military action had rested almost exclusively in British hands, and should oust a
British commander from the post of authority. The British Government, I felt sure,
would not acquiesce in any such solution.
I went on to say that, on the present occasion, General Franchet d’Esperey had
shown once more how ill-fitted he was for his post, and in how high-handed a manner
he interpreted his responsibilities. We had just heard from General Milne that, upon
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