Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎20r] (39/348)

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•' CABIN
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
EASTERN. [May 8.]
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 1.
[71025] No. i.
Earl Curzon to the Earl of Derby.
(No. 749.)
My Lord, Foreign Office, May 8, 1919.
THE French Ambassador asked to see me this afternoon with reference to a note
which he had addressed to the Foreign Office on the 5th May, containing certain
proposals for the introduction of French troops into Syria. These proposals had not
previously been communicated to the War Office, and the latter were consequently not
in a position, at such short notice, to give a final opinion upon them. They contained
a plan for the embarkation of considerable French forces, both infantry and cavalry,
from Europe and Africa, with a view to a complete and extensive occupation of
Beyrout, Tripoli, and Alexandretta, as well as of Cilicia. Relying upon some statement
by General Allenby to the effect that he would be prepared to carry out any arrangement
of this nature that was agreed upon by the French and British Governments, the
Ambassador appealed to me to give prompt attention and early effect to the French
proposals. Incidentally, the Ambassador’s note contained a complaint regarding orders
which were alleged to have been sent by the British Commander-in-Chief to General
Francais Hamelin, who commanded the existing French forces in Syria, requiring him
to disband the Armenian Legion, and to send some French infantry and cavalry
regiments to Cilicia.
I said that neither I nor the War Office knew anything of the latter orders, which
were probably required by military considerations. I did, however, know - although
the Ambassador expressed considerable surprise at what I said—that the French
Armenian troops had proved to he thoroughly unsatisfactory ; that it seemed to me a
misfortune that troops of that nationality should have been chosen for the work
entrusted to them ; and that I thought the sooner they disappeared from the scene the
better. As regards the movements of the other French troops to Cilicia, I presumed
they were to take the place of the disbanded Armenians.
In reply to the Ambassador, I said that the question appeared to me to be in
the main not political, but military. Through the mouth of our Prime Minister in
Paris we had dissociated ourselves in a political sense from Syria. The fact that our
troops were in occupation was the result, not of any political design, but of the
circumstances of the war. On the whole, we should he glad to be relieved of the
responsibility of occupation, having much more useful purposes to which we could devote
our forces elsewhere. I said that I was quite prepared to submit the French proposals
to General Allenby, to be reported or acted upon by him from the military point of
view, hut that I made my consent subject to two reservations, which I wished to make
quite clear to his Excellency. The first was that the movement of French troops, if it
were sanctioned, should not be of sucli a character, either in point of numbers or in
respect of the time of their arrival, as to suggest that the British forces were being
hustled out of the country with a view to making way for the French.
To this his Excellency replied that his Government did not contemplate anything
more than a gradual and progressive augmentation of the French military strength in
that part of the world.
My second reservation was that the appearance and action of the French troops
should not be such as to prejudge the decisions of the Peace Conference with regard to
the future mandatory of Syria. France, I believed, expected to receive that mandate.
Very likely she would, though even this was not quite certain. For our part, we
neither expected nor desired to have it. But viewing the frequent warnings that had
been issued in Paris to the Poles, the Greeks, the Serbians, and other nations not to
compromise their case by seizing in advance territories which they might or might not
receive at a later date, I ventured to think it very undesirable that the French should
set a had example in the matter.
The Ambassador answered, with some cogency, that the Italians had already been
allowed to do it, and that if they were permitted to appear with Italian regiments at
Adalia and Konia, which were a part of the true Ottoman Empire, he could not see
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