Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎127v] (254/348)

exhaust the possibilities of coercion which might be applied in many forms,
urged the Ambassador to press upon his Government the deep consideration oi this
matter before the discussions in Paris began. One such form of pressure 1 did indeed
indicate in my conversation, and that with a particular object. 1 his might be a
withdrawal of the permission accorded to the Turks (equally with the Greeks) at
the last meeting in Paris to purchase arms, munitions and stores, not, indeed, from
the Allied Governments, but from any private firms who chose to supply them.
I told the Ambassador that I was well aware that French firms had taken ample
advantage of this permission, and that Mustapha Kemal had been largely supplied
by them, but the French had gone even further, for, in spite of the pledge against
Government action, M. Briand had handed over to the Angora Turks, when
evacuating Cilicia, large military stores, a great number of rifles, and no small
amount of ammunition, on the plea that they would be useful for the gendarmerie
whom it is proposed to set up. M. Franklin-Bouillon had frankly admitted the
gift, but had excused it, as did the Ambassador, on the ground that its dimensions
had been greatly exaggerated.
I observed that, whether its dimensions were great or small, it was a deliberate
violation of an Allied agreement, and tended to emphasise the suspicion and dislike
with which we naturally regarded the whole Franklin-Bouillon transaction. 1 he
Ambassador, I am inclined to think, entirely shares my views about the latter, for
he informed me with some satisfaction that he had declined to meet that voluble
negotiator when he had recently been in this country.
Count de Saint-Aulaire pressed me to name a day when the suspended
conversations in Paris might begin, but I declined to do this for the moment,
remarking that the return of Lord Allenby next week and the necessity of discussing
the Egyptian situation with him would necessarily occupy me for the best part of
the week after the opening of Parliament, while the news which had just been
received of the fall of the Italian Ministry rendered it more than doubtful whether
they would be able to participate at an earlier date.
Before concluding our conversation, the Ambassador said a few words to me
about the impending conference concerning Tangier. As he appeared«to be a little
uncertain about the assurances given to me by M. Briand and M. Poincare, I
repeated them to him. He suggested—not, I am afraid, without deliberation—that
the subject of the conversations was to be the assurance by France to Great Britain
of guarantees for the maintenance of our commercial and strategical position at
Tangier.
I assured him at once that that was not the least the case. The conference was
to be a tripartite one between France, Spain and ourselves. It was to deal, not with
guarantees to Great Britain or to Spain, but with the internationalisation of the
town of Tangier. I proposed to take up the negotiations from the stage at which
they were dropped in 1914. soon after the beginning of the war, and the object was
to set up, not a ridiculous form of petty municipal administration, such had recently
been proposed by the French, but a genuine form of international government for the
town.
The Ambassador enlarged to me upon the interests of France in the place,
especially in connection with the projected railway, which was to be the starting
point of a great transcontinental system leading to her possessions in the heart of
Africa.
This, I said, was important and would have to be safeguarded, but France must
not forget and could not ignore that Tangier was not in or adjacent to the French
protectorate of Morocco, but was actually in and surrounded by the Spanish zone.
Further, that the cjreat majority of its population were not French but Spanish, and
that the Spanish claims to influence there could not, therefore, be denied.
Upon the Ambassador remarking that the Spanish policy was that of annexation
pure and simple, I observed that whilst this might have been the case, and I w^as not
sure that an analogous policy had not been in the minds of some Frenchmen, the
Spanish Government now knew perfectly well that any such solution was out of the
question. I had myself told them quite eandidlv that their only chance was an
international regime. They had accepted this and I did not imagine for a moment
that they would seek to depart from it. That was the basis upon which our conversa
tions must begin.
• When I said that I supposed that the Ambassador, from his long Moroccan
experience, would be invited to represent his country, he said he thought this
extremely unlikely, because he would be regarded as prejudiced in the matter.
I am, &c.
CURZON OF KEDLESTOX.