Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎5r] (9/348)

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Indian experience should be any more Unfriendly to the French than one vrho had
served in Fmrope. 1 said that I should be able to place before M. Cam bon a series of
cases in which french officers had acted with extreme impetuosity and indiscretion,
and had in some cases required the protection and assistance of the British military
authorities, because of the unwisdom of their conduct. As regards French action in
Syria, 1 should like him to know that, whereas the French had arranged for a special
deputation from the Lebanon, whose impartiality and representative character were
open to grave doubt, to proceed from Beirout to Paris to advocate the claims of France,
the British authorities had consistently deprecated, and even refused permission for the
embarkation of, many other bodies who had wished to go to Paris in order to state the
anti-French side of the case. I said that 1 thought the Ambassador was mistaken in
thinking that the French were everywhere welcomed in the regions to which he was
referring, and that, had our attitude been really what he supposed, things might have
been made much less pleasant for them than had actually been the case.
As regards the particular incidents in Mesopotamia : I replied that the French
consul had not been encouraged to go to Mosul, because relief arrangements were
already adequately provided for by the military authorities in that region. I was not
familiar with the case of the French consul at Basra. I did, however, deprecate the
action which had been proposed by our military authorities with regard to the French
military attache in Bagdad.
In regard to Constantinople, I believed that the action of General Milne in respect
ol the banks was justified by him on military grounds, and as such fell within his
jurisdiction as the general officer in supreme military command. The Committee of
Union and Progress in Constantinople was in close touch with these banks, which were
also engaged in transactions with German institutions. The prompt suspension of the
banks therefore became a matter of military necessity. So little had it been intended
to affront the French and Italians, that controllers of those nationalities had been placed
in charge on the succeeding day.
M hen M. Cambon mentioned the subject of the unannounced arrival of the Emir
Feisal at Marseilles, I answered that I believed this had been due to a delay in the
arrival or decyphering of a telegram, and that really it was too absurd to suppose that
we could possibly wish to spring upon the French Government a surprise which,
inasmuch as the Emir was going first to their country, they had so many means of
meeting. But as regards the Emir Feisal, 1 said that the boot appeared to me to be
upon the other leg, and that I had noted with equal surprise and regret the line which
had been taken by leading French newspapers, even those supposed to be in close
connection with the French Government, with regard to the statement of his claims
which had been made by the Emir at a meeting of the Peace Conference last week.
It seemed to me almost an outrage that this Arab potentate, who had been deputed to
Paris to represent the views of his father—a monarch who had fought bravely on our
side and assisted us to win the war—should, because he stated the claims of his family
and race in an extreme form (a form for which we had no responsibility, and one
which contained proposals with which I did not in every instance agree), therefore be
denounced as a British puppet in receipt of British pay. •
I further said that I did not think that an amicable solution of these difficulties
was likely to be facilitated by the publication of carefully prepared schemes of French
administration, French acquisition, and even French annexation in the entire group of
territories from Palestine on the south to the Black Sea on the north, which were Being
promulgated in France. It was not surprising that claims of this description should
excite suspicion, and I agreed with the Ambassador in thinking that it was high time
that the air should be cleared.
I also asked leave to tell him quite frankly that, in my view, the main ground of
the irritation which existed, if it did exist, in Syria and Mesopotamia was the belief
that the French were disposed to take undue advantage of the conditions of the Sykes-
Picot Agreement, and to insist upon adherence not merely to the spirit but to the
letter of an arrangement which had been shown by the progress of events to be both
obsolete and impracticable; which both Governments knew must be superseded by
some other and better plan; and which indeed had already been to a large extent
cancelled by the Self-Determination Agreement of the French and British Governments
in November last. I asked why it should not be possible to admit at once that the
Sykes-Picot Agreement was impossible and out of date ; and thus to put an end to
pretensions based upon it, which were evidently the source of increasing friction
between the two countries. It was, I thought, the utmost pity that these petty
incidents should be allowed to occur, and that anything of such a nature should be