Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎159r] (317/348)

CIRCULATED TO THE CABINET..
[This Document is .the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government.]
TURKEY. [February 15.]
CONFIDENTIAL. Section 2.
[E 1904/1/44] No. 1.
The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston to Sir R. Graham (Rome).
(No. 256.)
Sir, Foreign Office, February 15, 1923.
THE Italian Ambassador called upon me this afternoon and covered in his
conversation the principal points in which the Allied Governments are for the moment
concerned. He spoke of the agreement which has just been concluded between the
French and Italian Governments at Paris for some sort of consortium in respect of
concessions in Turkey, and he earnestly pleaded for the participation of the British
Government in this arrangement, in order that it might take the place of the ill-fated
Tripartite Agreement of li» 20 .
I could give no opinion upon this point, inasmuch as I had not seen the text,
which had, indeed, only reached the Ambassador himself this morning. Nor was he
more explicit when I asked him whether, if His Majesty’s Government felt unable to
join, the agreement would become a Franco-Italian arrangement pure and simple, which
would forthwith come into operation. His Excellency told me that the agreement in
its present two-headed form had already been signed—from which I concluded that the
answer to my question ought to lie in the affirmative—but he was so desperately
anxious for the co-operation of His Majesty’s Government that he could talk little
about any other aspect of the case. He hinted, indeed—as we know to be the case—
that Fiance would have been quite willing to conclude the arrangement with Italy
alone, but the association of Italy with Great Britain at the present moment is so
obviously a cardinal feature of Italian policy, that in this as in every part of our
conversation it was almost the only point emphasised by the Ambassador.
I told him that I would give him a reply as soon as I had had time to study the
document.
He then turned to the Lausanne situation, and asked if I was completely satisfied
with the loyalty which the Italian delegation had there exhibited to the Allied cause,
and to Great Britain in particular.
I reminded him that there had been more than one anxious moment at the beginning
when both Signor Mussolini and Marquis Garroni had endeavoured to extract pledges
from myself before consenting to pull an oar in the conference boat; and I further
added that the tactics of the first Italian delegate, who was convinced that he was
always about to secure by subterranean methods what we had failed to obtain in the
conference, had in the end pro\ v ed the reverse of successful. Apart from this, I said
that Italy had generally shown herself loyal to the common cause, while my personal
relations with the Italian delegation had been of the most friendly character.
The Ambassador did not dispute the accuracy of my remarks on the two former
points, but he was mainly anxious to take credit for his Government that they had
abstained from the devious practices pursued by M. Poincare and the French delegation.
As to the treaty, he enquired what were my views as to the form in which, if
signed at all, it should be signed in the near future.
I replied that all I had hitherto said was that the British Government would be
quite willing to sign the treaty in the form in which the Allies had presented it, with
the addition of the numerous concessions which had been made during the last forty-
eight hours at Lausanne. Further than that I was not prepared at present to go,
because, on the one hand, I did not know what were the exact concessions on the
economic clauses to which M. Bompard was alleged to have been prepared to agree after
I had left Lausanne; and, on the other hand, 1 had not seen till this afternoon, when it
came by wire, the formula which Signor Montagna had proposed—also after 1 had left—
with regard to the Judicial Capitulations. The next move, I said, rested with the
Turks, and it was for them to suggest the conditions upon which they were disposed
either to renew the negotiations or to sign the treaty
In regard to the contention of the Angola Government that the Mudros armistice
no longer had any existence, this was a claim, I said, which we absolutely declined to
admit. On the contrary, it regulated the position of the Allies in 1 urkey to this hour.
[244 p—2]