Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎95v] (190/348)

Article 6 , in which the Government of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey
declared that the rights of minorities solemnly recognised in the National I act
will be confirmed by them on the same basis as that established by the conversations
on this subject between the Entente Powers and other Allies such as Poland -01
other European enemies—such as Hungary—called for a serious explanation. In the
first place it did not appear to apply to Cilicia only, but to be of general application
to all Turkey. It was in direct opposition to the provisions of the Ireaty of Sevres
for the protection of minorities, by which the French Government had assumed the
responsibility for the protection of minorities in their zone of special interest under
the Tripartite Agreement. If this article were accepted, it would appear that France
had not only not recognised her responsibility under that Agreement, but had pledged
herself to new minority provisions on the lines of the treaties made in Europe. I he
provisions of these treaties were quite inapplicable to Turkey, and it would appear
that this point had been conceded by the French Government independently and to
the detriment of any general negotiations for peace that might remain to be concluded
between Turkey and the whole of the Allies.
Article 8 provided for a wholesale revision of the northern frontier of
Syria, under which a large tract of territory was apparently to be handed over by
France to the Angora Government without any reference to, or consent on the part of,
the rest of the Allies. I reminded the Ambassador that the whole of this territory had
been conquered from Turkey in the war, not bj 7- French troops, or even by Allied
troops, but by British troops alone. In our loyalty to our engagements with the
French we had handed over the whole of Syria to them, and when the Treaty of Sevres
was drawn up we had without protest, on the assumption that they would receive the
mandate for Syria - which, in passing, I remarked they had not yet done—been
willing to settle a frontier entirely in accordance with their views. And yet a large
slice of territory within the mandated area, which did not belong to them, which
they had no right to distribute, and which was still, in the absence of peace, vested
in the hands of the Allies, had now been handed over to Angora as a part of the price of
the Franklin-Bouillon agreement. When we were discussing the Mesopotamia frontiers
with the French last year a good deal had been said about Nisibin and Jeziret-
ibn-Omar, which we had eventually agreed to include in the mandated area of Syria,
and yet these places, which were of great strategic importance to Mesopotamia, were
now about to be handed back by France on her own account to Turkey. Nor was
this all. It appeared from the provisions of the same agreement that Turkey was to
receive the track of the Bagdad Bailway between Choben-bey and Nisibin, and, still
worse, that the Turks were to have the right to use that part of the Bagdad line
which might lie in the French sphere for the military transport of their troops. In
other words, France was about to authorise the transport of Turkish troops from
Konia to Nisibin with a view—it might very well be—to an attack by Mustapha
Kemal upon the British mandated territory in Mesopotamia.
Supposing that we had made an arrangement of this sort, involving a serious
possible risk to the French area in Syria, would not the French Ambassador have
come down in a great hurry to Downing Street, and would he not be addressing me
in language of even greater surprise than that which I was now employing to him ?
There were further provisions in the agreement which seemed equally to call for
explanation, but a detailed enumeration of these would appear in the memorandum
which I promised to send to the Ambassador. I must, however—1 went on to say—
ask him some serious questions about the letter from Yussouf Kemal Bey addressed
to M. Franklin-Bouillon which accompanied the agreement. Was this a letter which,
though detached, was to be regarded as forming a part of the agreement? What did
its very ominous phraseology mean ? What was the nature of the reply which the
French Government had sent or contemplated sending to it? I noted that in the
first paragraph the Angora Foreign Minister expressed a hope that the French
Government would undertake to settle in a spirit of cordial friendship all the questions
relating to the independence and the sovereignty of Turkey. What did this mean ?
M hat relation had this to the evacuation of soldiers or prisoners from Cilicia ? The
language seemed to indicate that the Angora Government at least expected in return
for their favours some large measure of support from the French Government in
matters of a very much wider than local concern.
In the second paragraph of the letter the Grand National Assembly declared its
willingness to grant concessions to the French for the iron, chrome and silver mines in
the Harchite Valley, and announced its readiness to consider with the utmost good-will
any other requests lor concessions for mines, railways, ports or river which might be