Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎156r] (311/348)

P.IRnill ATED TO THE CABINET.
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majestys Government.]
TURKEY. [February 14.]
CONFIDENTIAL. Section 2.
[E 1638/1/44] No. 1.
Memorandum communicated to French Ambassador.
(Confidential.)
THE memorandum, bearing date of the 7th instant, communicated to this Office by
the Count de Saint-Aulaire, calls attention to certain observations made, on the
instructions of the Secretary of State, by Sir Eyre Crowe in conversation with the
Ambassador on the preceding day, on the subject of what passed at Lausanne, in the
closing stages of the conference, before its recent adjournment.
2. The memorandum contains a number of statements on the respective roles played
by France and by Great Britain at that conference, which it is now unnecessary to
discuss further, since they have been fully dealt with and answered in Lord Curzon’s
despatch to Lord Crewe, of which a copy will by now he in M. Poincare’s hands.
3. M. Poincare is good enough to ascribe to a complete misunderstanding certain
views expressed by Sir Eyre Crowe, notably as regards an intention of the French
Government to throw upon Great Britain the responsibility for a rupture of the peace
negotiations with Turkey, and to follow this up by obtaining in favour of France special
advantages in the East by the conclusion of a separate peace.
4. His Majesty’s Government are only too glad to take note of, and unhesitatingly
accept, M. Poincare’s assurance that no such intention has ever been harboured by the
French Government. He is, however, quite mistaken if he believes that the remarks
made by Sir Eyre Crowe, to which reference is evidently made, purported to be founded
on any pretended secret information in the possession of His Majesty’s Government.
Their views of the attitude of the French Government are based on nothing less
authoritative than French official communications and official acts, and if they have
misunderstood the views of the French Government, they do not feel that they are to
blame in the matter.
5. The contention of the French Government that the pact of 1914 had lapsed
and that France was now free to make a separate treaty with Turkey in order to
safeguard particular French interests, had been formally advanced in M. Poincare’s note
to Lord Crewe of the 30th January. The memorandum under reply does not repudiate
it. It only declares that M. Poincare’s communication on this subject was restricted to
the British and Italian Governments and that the French Government never informed
Turkey. They must, however, be aware that the French thesis was fully expounded
in the columns of the “Temps” newspaper, in a form which, rightly or wrongly,
created the impression that it represented the opinions of the Quai d’Orsay. There can
be no doubt that it was so understood by the Turkish delegation at Lausanne.
6. The assurance that the claim to the right to conclude a separate peace with
Turkey was but a theoretical reservation, on which the French Government had had no
intention, so far, to act, is welcomed. But His Majesty’s Government may be pardoned
for not having so understood it, and they note with regret that it leaves the future still
uncertain.
7. As regards Sir Eyre Crowe’s allusion to an apparent intention on the part of
the French Government to throw the responsibility for the failure to conclude a peace
with Turkey on this country, this can be correctly understood only by reference to the
context in which it was made.
8. Sir Eyre Crowe prepared a careful note recording what had passed at the
interview with Count de Saint-Aulaire immediately afterwards, whilst his memory was
still quite fresh. It may therefore be permitted to quote from that record the passage
relating to this particular point.
9. The note recites how the French Ambassador pressed for the acceptance of a
proposal put forward by M. Poincare, that the Allies should agree to sign the treaty as
presented to the Turkish delegation at Lausanne, but with the omission of the whole
of the economic clauses, and to accept the Turkish declaration concerning the judicial
regime, not in the form agreed upon T>y the Allied delegations, but in the form demanded
by the Turks, with some amendments proposed by the second Italian plenipotentiary.
Sir Eyre Crowe, having explained certain contradictions in the terms in which this
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