Papers of the War Cabinet's Eastern Committee [‎251r] (501/544)

are much reduced by the sufferings due to the war. The population of Asia Minor was
ten millions, of Armenia and Kurdistan two and a half millions, of Mesopotamia two
millions, of Syria three and a half millions, of Arabia one million. If we add together
the whole of the last-named groups which are going to he taken from Turkey in any case,
and which amount to nine millions, we leave in Asia Minor a population of ten millions
for the Turk, as compared with the less than two millions that are still under his rule
in Europe.
MK. BALFOUR: By “Turks” you mean Turkish subjects; you do not exclude
Greeks ?
LORD CURZON : I am including everybody for the moment. The exact
proportions of the Greeks, Turks, Armenians, &c., in the whole area it is difficult to
determine. When we come to Constantinople it is easier to determine the exact
proportions. Constantinople, at the beginning of the war, was believed to have nearly
one million of people. At the present moment I expect it has decidedly less than three
quarters of a million. However, the actual total is immaterial The proportions are
important. From a comparison of the various tables of statistics that 1 have been able
to refer to, 1 fancy that the following is about the truth, and it is very material in
helping us to arrive at a decision. Out of every hundred people in Constantinople
approximately forty are Turks, twenty are Greeks, nineteen are Armenians, fourteen
are Jews and other foreigners, and the balance is made up by a floating residuum. I hus,
you see, even in Constantinople itself, contrary to the belief, I believe, entertained by
most people in this country, perhaps by some of us at this table, the Turks are not a
majority of the population.
Those are the factors as regards population with which we have to deal.
To what extent are we committed with regard to Constantinople by anything that
has been said by us or by our Allies during the war ?
In the earlier days of the war, in March 1915, Mr. Asquith’s Government entered
into an engagement with the Russian Government, if the war was successful, to hand
over to Russia not only Constantinople but a substantial strip of territory on both sides
of the Straits. This strip of territory subtended not only the Bosphorus, but the Sea
of Marmora and the Dardanelles, nnd it would have placed Russia not only in
possession of the city itself, but of the whole of the approaches to and the exits
therefrom. It is unnecessary for us to discuss here the wisdom or the policy ot that
act. I profoundly deplored it at the time, because I regarded it as fraught with great
danger to the common cause, and even to Russia herself, who, I think, would have
suffered irremediably had she been persuaded to come down from the North and
embark on the wholly different sphere of politics which the possession of Byzantium
would have opened out before her. That is, however, only a dictum ot my own.
Russia has disappeared from the scene, the arrangement has lapsed, and we need not
spend more of our time in considering it.
The second stage was when, in January 1917, we drew up, in conference with our
Allies in Downing Street, the famous declaration of our aims in reply to the American
note. I forget the exact terms employed ; but we did distinctly include in that
statement the expulsion of the Turk from Europe. Slight apparent modifications of that
attitude have been visible since. Our Prime Minister, in a speech which he made in
January of the present year, used this language. He said that Great Britain did not
challenge the maintenance of Turkey or of the Turks in the homeland of the I urkish
race with its capital at Constantinople. Asia Minor is not the homeland of the
Ottoman Turks. But without debating that point, still less is Turkey in Europe their
homeland, and therefore when he spoke of the homeland with its capital, if he meant
that the capital was in any way connected with the homeland, of course he was saying
what was historically and ethnically inaccurate. What exactly he meant by his
statement 1 do not recollect. I think that it was made at a moment when we were
hoping to persuade the Turk to give in, and it was considered desirable to say something
somewhat reassuring to him.
A little later, in fact only a month or so ago, Lord Robert Cecil, (he will correct me
if 1 am wrong) made a statement in the House of Commons, in which the words, as 1
have them here, were as follows. He said “ A great deal is to be said for the ejection
of the Turk from Constantinople; but do not forget that Constantinople is a
predominantly Turkish capital.”
LORD ROBERT CECIL: Yes. .
LORD CURZON : Just before you came into the room I ventured to point out to
the Committee that that was inaccu^te, because, so far from it being a predominantly
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