'Papers relating to transfer of Middle Eastern Affairs to the Colonial Office and creation of a new Department there, 1920-1921, with Cabinet notes of Milner, Montague, Churchill, self, and others' [‎17v] (34/136)

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reduction could be effected right away. But I cannot urge too strongly, that at this
critical juncture it is necessary to take a wider view. It really is essential to take
account of the military position in the Near East as a whole, at any rate nntil ^°me
semblance of order is re-established in all these distracted countiies. W<“ niay (
“ deflate ” too fast. This is just one of those cases, in which precipitate reduction, t le
rage for immediate saving, is likely to involve us in much greater and quite unnecessary
expenditure in the long run.
In this connection I am quite unable to understand how we can afi< id to
disinterest ourselves in what may happen in Persia. II we are ever to hold
Mesopotamia with such moderate forces as the Secretary of State lor ar contem
plates, and which are certainly all that w r e ought to require, we must have a stable
and a friendly Persia on our flank. With a chaotic or, worse still, a hostile I ei sia
our position in Mesopotamia would be untenable, or only tenable at such a cost, that
we should certainly end by giving it up. ...
I will not dwell on the strong reasons .which we have in any case for maintaining
the arrangement between us and Persia, which at great pains and cost and with, as
I venture to think, great diplomatic skill, we have recently succeeded in concluding.
By all accounts Persia, under its present Government, has made in the past twelve
months greater strides in the establishment of order and the revival of trade than she
had done in many preceding years. It will be a great blow to our credit and influence
in the East, if all we have done in Persia is to he wiped out, and that country once
more plunged into anarchy. From the material point of view, too, the loss will be
serious. Our economic interests in Persia are considerable, in one important respect
almost vital. But for the moment I am mainly concerned with the reaction of events
in Persia, which may or may not be regarded as directly concerning us, on our position
in Mesopotamia, for which country we undoubtedly are responsible.
It is urged that an invasion of Mesopotanua from the Persian side is an improbable
contingency. That may be so to-day, but the position would wear a different aspect
if Persia were to become part of a Bolshevik Empire extending from Archangel to
the Persian Gulf The historical term used to describe the body of water between the Arabian Peninsula and Iran. . It is not, however, so much a question of direct invasion. It is
not only or mainly by the employment of military force that Bolshevism has swept
over Siberia, over Turkestan, and is now sweeping over 1 ranscaucasia, but by a
combination of menace from without with propaganda stirring up all the internal
elements of disorder. That is the danger which threatens Persia to-day, and that is
the danger, which would threaten Mesopotamia to-morrow, if Persia were to be engulfed,
as Siberia, as Turkestan, as Trans-Caucasia have already been, by the Bolshevist wave.
Is it not self-evident that under such conditions the peaceful development of Mesopotamia
under British influence would be impossible? We might indeed, though I don t
believe we would, hold on to it, but we could only hold it with a large army maintained
at a deterrent cost.
The question is, what can be done to keep this danger at a distance ? The best
solution, if it is a possible one, would be peace—a real peace—with Russia. I do not,
of course, mean peace at any price. On the contrary, I regard it as a condition sine
qua non that Russia should desist from making mischief, whether by direct invasion
or by stirring up internal disorders, not only in India and those parts of South-Western
Asia, which we actually occupy, but in Persia and Afghanistan as well. And personally
I am quite convinced that she has so much to gain by getting rid of our hostility, that
she would be prepared to give such an undertaking. It may be said that she would
not keep it. But in that case, i.e , if she is resolved to go on attacking us, we have got
to fight her. whether we like it or net, and we should surely be in a much stronger
moral position to do so if she had made peace with us and broken it. My own belief,
however, is that she would keep it, at any rate for a time, and even the gain of a
certain amount of time would be of immense advantage to us under present
circumstances. And that for two reasons—
1. We do not know in the least what will happen in Russia in the immediate
future. It may well be that, if she is let alone, internal problems will
engage all her energies, or a government may emerge, which will be less
dangerous to the world than archer present rulers with their programme of
universal revolution.
2. We ourselves urgently require some little time in which to turn round and try
to stabilize the position in all South-Western Asia, where everything is still
“ at a loose end,” not to mention the repercussion of the unsettled state of
this whole region upon Egypt and India. Our own position in Persia and
Mesopotamia, the French position in Syria and Cilicia, the future of all the