Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎36r] (71/348)

[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Governm*^ ]
[1050 if 2]
[October 22.]
Section 2.
[144897] No. 1.
Earl Curzon to the Earl of Derby.
EASTERN.
CONFIDENTIAL.
(No. 1266.)
My Lord, Foreign Office, October 22, 1919.
IN the course of my conversation with the French Ambassador last week, he
mentioned, in tones of pious regret, a very insulting message which M. de Fleuriau,
after an interview of an entirely different character, had been instructed to leave in
the Foreign Office with regard to the alleged armament of the Syrian forces of
the Emir Feisal. This note I had declined to receive, and it had been returned to
M. de Fleuriau. The Ambassador admitted that its tone was of an unusual character,
and he expressed no surprise at its rejection ; but he informed me incidentally that it
had the distinction of having been composed by M. Clemenceau himself.
This afforded me an opportunity of entering at some length into the successive
notes of a not dissimilar character which had been handed in by the French Government
in the course of the last six months, culminating in the recent exchange of high
explosive shells between M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George.
The Ambassador, speaking from the standpoint of the old diplomacy, deeply
deplored that these matters should be taken out of the hands of the respective
Foreign Offices, and that language should be employed which did not strictly conform
to the old traditions. He greatly disliked this form of fusillade, which, he thought,
excited tempers and rendered settlement difficult.
I suggested to him that an even greater cause of the friction that had arisen
between our two countries in respect of the Middle East was the nature and language
of the communications which the French Government had thought fit to make. The
French language was a medium, I said, singularly well adapted to innuendo and
invective, and the scribes in the French Foreign Office had taken full advantage of the
openings thus afforded to them. We, on the other hand, were a stupider people with
a less flexible instrument; but I asked the Ambassador to contemplate what would
have been his feelings had he received from me during the past six months a series of
messages of the character and tone to which I had referred ? I could imagine the
speed with which he would have come to the Foreign Office and the vigour of the
protest he would have made. Throughout this campaign in France, whether it had
taken the form of official notes or of articles in the press, issued with the connivance,
if not under the direct inspiration, of the French Government, I had never
once retaliated. I had never seen a pressman on the subject, I had not even
suggested an article. But, I said, if I turned my attention to the matter, even
through the doubtful and clumsy medium of the British tongue, I thought I could
make myself nearly as disagreeable as the French, and the Ambassador must not
be surprised, if this campaign were continued, should he one day find himself the
recipient of a note that was a conscious, though feeble, imitation of the French style.
Alluding to the recent interchange of messages and telegrams about the visit of
the Emir Feisal to London and Paris, I said that we were quite prepared to challenge
the verdict of public opinion, and to publish the entire papers at any moment when they
might be called for. It would then be seen how conspicuously loyal we had been
throughout in our obligations to the French, how unfounded were the charges of which
we had been the victims, and how monstrous were the calumnies by which we had been
assailed. In the event of the matter being pushed to extremes by the French Govern
ment, we should not hesitate to make public the whole of these papers, and to leave the
verdict to be pronounced by the public opinion of the world at large.
Once again the Ambassador deplored to me the alleged necessity for delaying the
solution of the Turkish problem in (leference to the illness of President Wilson and the
scruples of the United States. He could not see now—he never had been able to
see—why the matter should not be taken in hand and settled. He hoped that this
might still be done soon.