Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎207v] (414/544)

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LORD CURZOJN : In everything you have stated I respectfully concur, and at
one of our earlier meetings-—I do not think you were present—I quoted Mr. Stevens,
who has been our Consul in that region for 20 or 30 years, and who 1 holds rather
advanced and rather jingo views about the situation. I quoted him as having said
that the garrison required for the purposes you name was only 10,000 men. I think
it may very likely be less, and certainly the idea of our troops wandering up into
the mountains and civilising the tribes or anything of that sort never enteired into
my head. I attach importance to holding Batum at one end, Tiflis in the centre,
and most of all to holding Baku at the eastern end. I think the line of communica
tion from isea to sea and the projection Any method by which the earth’s curved surface may be transposed (or projected) on to a flat surface. of the pipe-line will be objects of great inter
national importance for some time to come. As our troops are already on the spot
m occupation of all these places, it seems to me inevitable that they should stay there
for a time. I would not think of doing more than recognise the existing facts, and,
secondly, saying—and I attach great importance to this—that if any outside Power
is brought in to act as a mandatory or to assume protective functions for this area
I hope it will not be France. I should be sorry if it was America. If any Power
is compelled to take it up, only in the last resort might we be called upon to con
sider it.
MR. BALFOUR: Do we not talk round this table, with regard to these bar
barous places like Daghestan, in the same way as we talk of giving a chance to the
weaker States in Europe to civilise themselves ?
LORD CURZON: Daghestan, if I may interrupt, is really not concerned in «
this. The Daghestanis, as you have pointed out, are a set of turbulent mountaineers
to the north of the Caucasus. It does not matter to us what they do. The important
communities here are two : first, the Georgians, who are an advanced, intelligent,
and cultured community, with whom we should never attempt to interfere except by 1
way of giving support and encouragement; secondly, a much more difficult element
at the eastern end, on the Ca’spian, namely, the Tatars. That is really the crux
of the whole thing. When you talk about the Daghestanis going to Baku, there is no
question of it. It is a question of the Armenians and the Tatars going there, and
they are mutual enemies. Pending the solution of that difficulty we may have to
settle the oil question also.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: That is not really what this resolution says. Per
sonally, I think it is an impracticable policy, but I think it is intended to guard only
the pipe-line.
LORD CURZON : The railway. ,
LORD ROBERT CECIL : Yes. If a Great Power is required for a period to
maintain order or to offer protection to the States concerned, that is a great deal
more than guarding the railway.
MR. BALFOUR : In our conversations we have always gone rather further.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: As far as the railway and the pipe-line are concerned,
it appears to me that particularly the railway will have to be a subject which, if the •*
League of Nations is to come into being at all, will have to be dealt with specially.
These international communications will be like a great river way, you will have
to have some special provision to deal with them.
MR. BALFOUR : I agree.
LORD ROBERT CECIL : You have got a Danube Commission, and things of
that kind. As things get more complicated in the world you will have to go on and
have the Vistula under some kind of international control, the Danube and the Rhine,
and this railway.
MR. BALFOUR : You will have more difficult things than that. You will have
to have some railways.
LORD ROBERT CECIL: Yes, this railway and other railways. I think this
is really the kind of thing. It will have to be dealt with on quite a different system.
It might be possible, to go back to Lord Curzon’s original suggestion, to have some
kind of international force to guard a railway. When it was not a question of
administering a country, but merely of guarding a railway, it might be done by an
international force.