Papers written by Curzon on the Near and Middle East [‎164r] (327/348)

niROULATED TO TH E CABINET;
[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty’s Government.]
TURKEY.
[March 8 . |
CONFIDENTIAL.
Section 1.
[E 2569/1/44] No. 1 .
The Marquess Curzon of Kedleston to the Marquess of Crewe (Paris),
(No. 847.)
My Lord, Foreign Office, March 8 , 1923.
THE French Ambassador came to see me this afternoon with a proposal from
M. Poincare which he hoped that His Majesty’s Government would be in a position to
accept. It was that the Allied Powers should allow the Angora Government to enter
into private negotiations with the various European concessionnaires at Constantinople
and in Turkey with a view to concluding separate arrangements with them rather
than incorporate a general settlement in the contemplated treaty. When I asked who
the concessionnaires were, to what extent they were French, British or Italian, what was
their standing, what their numbers and what the interest that they represented, the
Ambassador, to whom the subject was evidently new, could not inform me. All that
he could say was that the bulk of these people or societies—he was speaking, of course,
in the main if not entirely of the French—had at different stages since the w r ar
concluded such arrangements with the Constantinople Government, and these were the
agreements which he hoped that the Angora Government would now ratify. The
object of the French Government in making the proposal was to humour the Turks,
who would be more likely to arrive at a suitable settlement if they were allowed
to negotiate in this way than if they were asked to accept an international treaty
that provided the same safeguards If the negotiations failed, M. Poincare’s proposal
then was that the guarantees already provided in the draft treaty should stand. If, on
the other hand, they succeeded before a new treaty was signed, w r e should take act of
these arrangements in a special official agreement or document signed by Turkey and
the Powers, in which the latter would claim the right to interfere in the future in the
interests of the concessionnaires to see that the stipulations of the various agreements
were faithfully carried out. This would be necessary in order to secure the right of the
Powers to intervene on behalf of their nationals, which might otherwise be disputed by
the Turkish Government in the future. The Ambassador asked whether I would accept
this proposal in principle. This 1 declined to do because, as I said, the subject was
new to me ; I did not recall it ever having been brought to my notice at Lausanne ; I
had no idea who or what the British concessionnaires might be ; I could form no
opinion whether this method of treating their case would be either feasible or just;
and I w r as considerably disturbed at the prospect of negotiations for a renewed treaty
being indefinitely postponed while these domestic pourparlers between the Angora
Government and the concessionnaires at Constantinople were going on. Surely the
right thing to do was to get to business again without delay, whether at Lausanne or
elsewhere, and the prospect of waiting while a squabble of indefinite duration took
place between the Turkish Government and these persons filled me with no small
alarm. I asked permission, therefore, to reserve my opinion and to make enquiries
before I could give any definite reply to the Ambassador. I conclude from M. Poincare
putting forward the proposal that it is one which will be favourable to French
interests, whatever it may be elsewhere, and that it is more than likely it may be
intended to cover some arrangement or offer that his representatives have already
made. I further mentioned the case of the Italians who would have to be considered,
since any action to be taken could only be international.
I went on to indicate to the Ambassador the right method, as I thought, of
dealing with the Turkish proposal to reopen the negotiations, but said that we must
wait till the official letter or proposal from the Angora Government should arrive.
1 had myself a fairly clear idea of the manner in which we should proceed, and in
all probability I should address the French Government on the subject. In the
meantime I called the attention of his Excellency to the fact that, whereas
M. Poincare had made it quite clear to us here that along with ourselves he regarded
the Montagna formida and the proposals put forward by M. Bompard at the last
moment concerning the economic section as having lapsed owing to their failure to
secure the signature to the treaty, which they had been put forward to effect,
nevertheless, no intimation of the French point of view had been conveyed to the