Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎97r] (193/348)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty s Government.]
EASTERN (Turkey) f Noveni wer 5. i
CONFIDENTIAL. Section 1.
[E 12164/1/44 No. 1 .
The Marquess Curzou oj Kedleston to the Count de Saint-A via ire.
Your Excellency, Foreign Office, November o, 1921.
ON the occasion of our interview on the 3rd November. I undertook to send
you a memorandum containing the principal points arising out of the draft agree
ment concluded between M. Franklin-Bouillon and the Angora Government, and
also the accompanying letter to M. Franklin-Bouillon from Yussouf Kernel Bey
to some of which I had called your attention, although it was not possible in the
course of a single conversation to refer to all.
1 commenced by reminding you that in the earlier part of the present year I
had asked M. Briand personally whether M. Franklin-Bouillon had any official
mission, and had been definitely assured by him that he was a private person and
rather a busybody, in fact- who was going to Angora in connection with the press
or for purposes of his own. Further, in July of the present year, when M. Briand
was conducting negotiations with Bekir Sami Bey on oehalf of the Angora Govern
ment, M. Briand had in an official note assured us that no general engagement had
been or would be entered into by France on the general question of peace between the
Allies and Turkey without a close agreement with the Allies, and especially with
the British Government. Finally, when M. Franklin-Bouillon went a second time
to Angora in September, and we had again enquired as to the capacity in which
he was acting, the French Government had admitted that he had some sort of official
mission, but M. Briand had added that he had been forbidden to discuss with the
Angora Government the larger questions of peace, and had been only empowered
to negotiate, on behalf of the French Government, with regard to French prisoners,
the protection of minorities in Cilicia, and other points involved in the evacuation
of Cilicia by French troops.
Relying upon these categorical assurances, I had taken no further steps in the
matter, but, on the contrary, had pursued here the policy of close and unwavering
co-operation with the French in every aspect of our Middle Eastern policy. Only
during the last week I had been conducting negotiations with the Greek Ministers,
and in spite of their pressure. I had insisted upon the duty incumbent upon me of
acting only with our Allies, and had only yesterday successfully persuaded the
Greeks to place themselves unreservedly in the hands of the latter. Fresh from
this successful effort in the interests of the alliance, which I though boded so well
for the future, it was with feelings of astonishment and almost of dismay that I
had read the provisions of M. Franklin-Bouillon’s agreement, as to which I could
not avoid asking a number of serious questions, and which I could hardly believe
that the French Government would be prepared to accept in its present form.
The points of the agreement as communicated to His Majesty’s Government
which seemed to me to call for special explanation were the following:—
Article 1 provides that with the signature of the agreement “ the state of war
will cease between the high contracting parties.” Clearly, this phrase implies
something more than a local armistice, because a state of armistice is still technically
a state of war. Nothing is said as to whether the agreement is provisional pending a
general peace between the Allies and Turkey or whether it is intended to have purely
local scope. The latter could hardly be the case, as some of the articles appear to be
of general application to Turkey. ' It is presumed, therefore, that the agreement
establishes a state of peace between France and the Grand National Assembly.
It would also appear that the agreement involves formal recognition by France
of the Grand National Assembly of Angora as the sovereign authority in Turkey,
in which case a peace concluded with Angora would be contrary to the Franco-
British Treaty of the 4th September, 1914, and to the London Pact of
November 1915.
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