Papers on British policy and the Arab movement [‎159v] (322/380)

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upon the populations of these regions, and will have to limit themselves to . ensuring'
by their support and effective assistance that the Governments and administiations^|
adopted by these regions of their own free will shall be exercised in a normal way.
Tn other words, the peoples must be free to form what political groupings they
choose, to establish what Governments they choose within these groupings, and to
invite whatever outside Power they choose to assist them, without their freedom of
choice being hampered by dictation or compulsion at any point.
This being established, it will be convenient to consider the situation with regard
to contingency (b), which was that the arrangements agreed upon among the Allies
might have to be altered or only realised in part. This contingency has, in fact, been
brought into operation by the changes in the situation discussed above, and it is now
incumbent upon His Majesty’s Government to give “ equitable consideration to the
maintenance of the balance of power in the Mediterranean’ in whatever “alteration
or arrangement of the provinces of the Ottoman Empire” will result, under the new
order of things, from the war.
It is, indeed, almost certain that this new order in lurkey will itself automatically
maintain the balance of power in the Mediterranean as between the Allies, for, in
place of the Ottoman Empire, as it existed before the war, there will arise no french,
Italian, or British dominions or protectorates assigned to each Power on some ratio,
whether equitable or not, but entirely new and independent national btates, and tne
frontiers of the Allied Powers towards Turkey will remain where they stood under the
status quo.* Some, or even all, of these new States will no doubt desire foreign
assistance for setting them on their feet, and will be at liberty to ask for the good
offices of whatever Power they choose ; but, in accepting such an invitation, the Power
which is freely chosen w r ill in no sense be obtaining any of the “ advantages mutually
agreed upon in the various treaties, even though that Powder is invited voluntarily by
the inhabitants of an area w r hich had been pledged to it under the Agreements over
the inhabitants’ heads. The choice will be theirs, not ours, and we cannot be respon
sible for maintaining the balance of power where it is affected by action other than
our own.
7. The above considerations suggest a line of policy which might be taken, in regard
to French and Italian claims, by His Majesty’s Government. Our Allies cannot in
principle contest that the populations of Turkey, including the Turks themselves, are to
constitute their own Governments, as this is specifically accepted in the joint Anglo-
French Declaration, from which Italy cannot dissent. Nor are any of them likely to
propose that the new independent national States shall be left severely to themselves
in case they ask for foreign assistance. It seems to follow inevitably that there should
not only be freedom for the Arabs, Turks, Armenians, &c., to invite what Power they
like, but that the various Powers should be free towards each other to accept *such
invitations. Any private arrangements among the Powers by which some agreed to
refuse invitations of assistance for the benefit of others, would obviously be simply a
roundabout method of imposing those very restrictions on the liberties of the new
States which we are professing to rule out.
At the same time, we are bound in loyalty to take the balance of power into
equitable consideration in any manner which the new circumstances may permit, and
we can at least make sure that, in the areas allocated to each Power under the Agree
ments, that Power shall have the fullest opportunity for obtaining the suffrages of the
inhabitants, and shall have no impediment placed in its way by the other Powers. We
should do well, however, to make it clear from the outset that we cannot either practise
or countenance any form of coercion, and that, as we shall not exert pressure upon the
inhabitants of the areas originally assigned to us to opt for our assistance, so also we
shall not consider ourselves debarred from accepting an invitation from the inhabitants
of other areas, if they genuinely and spontaneously turn to us.
The upshot, then, is this. The contingency calling for a revision of the Agree
ments has in fact arisen owing to the general consensus that the peoples of Turkey
must determine their destinies themselves, and by the terms of our pact we are bound
to give equitable consideration to the maintenance of the balance of power in adapting
the Agreements to the new circumstances. We propose to do so by preserving equality
of opportunity for the several Allies to secure, by the free choice of the inhabitants of
their respective areas, such part of the rights accorded to them in these areas under the
* This applies only to the balance of power in respect of Turkey, since, when the whole Mediterranean
is taken into account, Italy’s gains in the Adriatic will upset the balance to her advantage and to the
disadvantage of Great Britain and France.