Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎197v] (394/544)

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much alarmed at our having sent a division there. Lt may be necessary, but 1 was
never consulted about it. I was rather shocked when I. heard it, and am still. I think
you are going to find it a great military burden. 1 cannot get a platoon for places
much nearer home because there are no troops to give, and then I find that troops are
being sent to the furthest parts of the world. Putting that out of account, I believe
the very suggestion that Great Britain is for an indefinite time—which we will announce
to the Conference we hope will be short, but which we do not limit—intending to
occupy militarily the road to the oilfields of Baku there are plenty of other things to
say about it—is damning and settles the questiom
LORD CURZON : \\ hy should it shock the Peace Conference that we should do
it rather than the French ?
MR. BA PFOUR : I would not give it to the French or to either. You must not
allow these little people to be crushed by the Russians, if you mean to set them up,
which we ought to do. Although that has been assumed rather boldly by this
Committee, I am in favour of it, so 1 do not quarrel about that. But from the way
e are treatin^ the outskirts of ftus- ia, we are going to have trouble about it. I would
not allow these people to he attacked from the outside by any big Powers, and I
would exercise through the League of Nations a controlling influence which would
prevent them carrying their squabbles and their frontier fights beyond a certain point.
For myself I think they will settle down.
LORD CURZON : Plow would you prevent them from being crushed by Russia
unless you had a military force?
MR. BALFOUR : If Russia is in a position to crush them, why not ? We should
not go there to protect them from the Russians. It would be folly, from a purely
military point of view, for us to try and keep a military force there.
LORD CURZON : 1 do not want to protect them against anybody ; I want to *
give them a chance of standing on their own feet.
MR. BALFOUR : Who is going to knock them down except themselves?
LORD CURZON : No one, 1 hope. They want order in the country, and the
ports of Batum and Baku will not be able to function in the ordinary way until order
is re-established. If you read the papers, you will see that they have not the
organisation or the strength at the present moment to do it. 1 believe that they will
ask that some force, either an international force, or at any rate the force of some great
Great Power, should remain for the time being to help them. We are on the spot, and
I think we shall be asked to do it.
MR. BALFOUR : If we are asked seriously to do it, and being honestly reluctant,
if it is pressed upon us I think we ought to say to the Conference that it is very
inconvenient, and say genuinely that it is, and will be, a burden upon our limited
mditary resources, but we will look into it. I would not take the trouble to come to a
decision on it until we are 'honestly pressed by these people. I am dreadfully afraid, in
spite of Lord Curzon’s disclaimer, that if we say, “ Oh, well, of course we will do this ;
we do not want to do it, but here we are ready to do it if you press us,” that that
attitude will be fatal. It urnst be quite genuine and serious reluctance, which on
examination would not be got over. Leaving that point, which is an international
point, when we come to the point of the defence of India, 1 hope the General Staff* will
be a little careful about the demands they make upon us about India. Every time I
come to a discussion—at intervals of, say, five years—1 find there is a new sphere
which we have got to guard, which is supposed to protect the gateways of India. Those ,
gateways are getting further and further from India, and 1 do not know how far west
they are going to be brought by the General Staff*. Remember, before the war there
was really a great military Power in occupation of these places, not a military Power,
separated as the French would be, by the whole vulnerable length of the Mediterranean
lying adjacent to her shores, and open to intolerable pressure from us of the naval kind.
It .was a great military Power which we could not hit, which we of all people were
helpless against. They had it and we did not tremble. We were rather anxious about
India, and always have been. India has always been a point which you have only to
mention, and the General Staff begin to show, quite rightly, signs of anxiety. But
what was our anxiety about India ten years ago? It was the Mesopotamia line, the
Baghdad line, and the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . That frightened them out of their wits. We
have stopped that, and the terrors excited by Mesopotamia are now excited by Trans-