§ LORD BUCKMASTERMy Lords, may I ask the noble Marquess who leads the House whether he can give us to-day any information as to recent events that have transpired in Paris?
§ THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTONMy Lords, in answering the Question which the noble and learned Lord put to me yesterday, and which I asked him to postpone until to-day, I am afraid I may have to place a certain strain upon the patience of your Lordships. But I think you will pardon me in view, on the one hand, of the very great interest which the proceedings in which I recently took part in Paris have excited in all parts of Europe, and, in the second place, because of the very wide extent of ground which it will be my duty to attempt to cover.
The stages by which we have arrived at the present situation in the Near Eastern problem—the recent stages—have been as follows. It was in August, 1920, that the Powers signed in Paris the Treaty of Sèvres. That Treaty, though signed by all the Powers including Turkey herself, remained unratified, in the main because of the emergence in Asia Minor of the strong Nationalist movement which is associated with the name of Mustapha Kemal. With a view of terminating the unhappy hostilities still continuing between the Greeks and the Turks we proposed, and held, a Conference in London in March of last year, to which both Greeks and Turks were invited; and to them the Powers there represented made offers with a view to the conclusion of peace. Those offers were, unhappily, not accepted by the two parties concerned, or where they were accepted by one they were rejected by the other.
The next stage occurred in June of last year, when I went to Paris to hold a meeting with representatives of France and Italy, and when we agreed formally to offer mediation to the two belligerent 986 countries. Again, I am sorry to say, our efforts proved futile, the Greek Government at that time being unwilling to place her interests in the hands of the Allies. The conflict in Asia Minor continued. I need not here or now pursue its varying fortunes. Suffice it to say that the Greeks, although successful in their preliminary advance, failed to reach their supposed objective which was Angora itself. On the other hand, the Turks, though they succeeded in repelling this movement, were unable to push back the Greeks behind the strong military position which they had taken up defended by the line of railway in the heart of Asia Minor.
There the situation has remained ever since. I have long felt, and indeed every one of us has felt, that a peaceful settlement of this prolonged conflict was necessary. It was necessary, in the first place, in the interests of Turkey, who, whatever the fortunes of the present state of the war, has been exhausted by seven and a half years of fighting and stands urgently in need of a settlement of her future. It was equally necessary in the interests of Greece, who, though she was invited into Asia Minor by the Powers assembled in Paris in 1919, has undoubtedly, in the prosecution of that campaign, exceeded the limits both of her financial and her physical ability.
It is equally necessary in the interests of the Powers themselves, who have found their authority impaired and their solidarity shaken, or at any rate menaced, by the continuance of this warfare, and, as many here will at once remind me, it is perhaps more especially necessary in the interests of the Mahomedan populations not only of Europe but of Asia as well. We know the strong feelings that have been excited among our own Moslem fellow-subjects in India, excited by suspicions very often exaggerated and illegitimate and by propaganda which has not erred upon the side of moderation or of truth. And this interest has, I think, been shared by the whole of the civilised world which is sick of this continuance of war and longs, in Asia as elsewhere, to settle down to normal conditions of tranquillity and of peace.
For a long time I at any rate have held the conviction that only by the closest unity between the great Allied Powers themselves could this solution be attained. It could not, in my view, be reached by separate Agreements made between Turkey 987 and the Powers individually, still less by allowing the Turks, in pursuit of their familiar tactics, to play off one party against the other, with a view ultimately to coercing the one that was left out and in that way of extracting the terms which they desire. As long ago, therefore, as last autumn, I assumed the responsibility of suggesting that the first stage in the process of pacification would be a meeting between the Foreign Ministers of the three Allied Powers principally concerned—France, Italy and ourselves—at Paris, to arrive at the basis of this common agreement which I have described as so essential.
Meanwhile, in London, in October last, when the Greek Ministers were here, we succeeded in obtaining from them, after a full and frank discussion, a promise to place their own interests in the hands of the Allies. The suggested Conference was to have taken place in Paris immediately following the meeting at Cannes in January. It will be in the remembrance of your Lordships that, firstly owing to the retirement of M. Briand, and afterwards to changes in the Italian Ministry, an interval of unfortunate but inevitable delay occurred, and for these reasons it was not until last week that we were all able to meet at Paris.
We spent five days there in prolonged and certainly laborious, but very friendly, discussion of the problem in all its aspects. The conclusions at which we arrived, which, I believe, are endorsed by the Powers whom we represented, were unanimous in every respect. We ended our proceedings by issuing a Declaration or Memorandum which contained, in the first place, our proposals, or at any rate a general summary of our proposals, and secondly, a justification of the broad grounds on which they were put forward. It was quite a new procedure in these international Conferences, but in making this proposal at Paris, which I am glad that my colleagues accepted, I felt that we had nothing to conceal in anything that we proposed, that the sooner our I proposals reached the combatant parties—and we sent them by telegram—the better it would be, and further, that in making them and in soliciting success for them we needed the support of the public opinion of the world. Our Declaration was accompanied by a formal invitation to the Turks and the Greeks to meet our 988 High Commissioners in some part of Turkish territory within three weeks of the date of our invitation, in order to discuss in greater detail the proposals which we have ventured to submit. Should this invitation be accepted by them, we shall send to both the Turks and the Greeks the full text of the Resolutions which we passed at Paris and which were the basis of the Memorandum to which I have referred.
My remarks this afternoon will be confined to a running commentary on that public Declaration, with such further explanations as may seem to be required to elucidate the text, and if, at the conclusion of my remarks, it be found in order for any noble Lord to ask me a question about anything that I may have said or about the subject as a whole, I will do my best to give him such information as he may desire.
Our first proposal at Paris was that an Armistice should be concluded between the two belligerent parties. I had already had the advantage of conversations here with two representatives of the Turks, the Foreign Minister of the Constantinople Government, Izzet Pasha, who came to London for the purpose, and a representative of the Angora Government, Yussuf Kemal Bey, who occupies the position of Foreign Minister in that organisation, and accordingly, when I went to Paris and renewed this proposal there, I was making a suggestion with which the public was already familiar.
It seemed to me to be necessary that an Armistice should be the first stage because, on the one hand, the Greeks, to whom we proposed to submit an invitation to withdraw from their position in Asia Minor, could not be expected to respond to an invitation of that description if they were to be exposed to attack by the Turkish forces when engaged in retirement, and, on the other hand, the Powers themselves could not be expected to undertake and supervise the responsibilities of the withdrawal, if they were liable to be exposed to a recurrence of hostilities while engaged in that task. The conditions of the proposed Armistice were drawn up in Paris by the military authorities who were assembled for the purpose, sitting under the presidency of Marshal Foch, and they provided, firstly, for the complete cessation of hostilities between the two parties for a period of three months, to be auto- 989 matically renewed until the two belligerents had accepted the preliminary conditions of peace, and, secondly, for the attachment of Allied military commissioners to both parties, in order to see that these conditions were faithfully observed.
In sending this proposal for an Armistice, which we did by telegraph, both to Greece and to Turkey, we asked for an immediate reply. Greece, as your Lordships will have seen in the Press, accepted the Armistice. A reply from Turkey, where the difficulties of communication to distant Angora are no doubt greater, has not yet been received. It will have been observed that this invitation to agree to an Armistice was accompanied by an intimation that the Armistice would be followed by steps for the evacuation of Asia Minor by the Greeks. We felt it only right that, as that was the policy upon which we were united, the Turks should, at least, have an assurance in advance that this was in contemplation, and whether it was right or wrong to have invited the Greeks in the first instance to Smyrna, in 1919—always be it remembered that it was an invitation extended, and a suggestion made, to them rather than an initiative of their own—we believe there to be a general recognition, even in Greece at the present moment, that that occupation can no longer be maintained.
Our next task, supposing the Armistice to be accepted, was to draw up the conditions under which the evacuation of Anatolia by Greece will take place. This, again, was clearly a military and not a political question. It had already been exhaustively considered by the Allied Generals at Constantinople, and they had prepared a plan for the purpose. When we came to Paris this plan was submitted to the Committee of Inter-Allied Generals that sits there under the presidency of Marshal Foch, and it was speedily found that both sides—both the military authorities at Constantinople and those in Paris—were agreed as to the essential conditions under which the withdrawal should take place.
These conditions will be published as soon as the Armistice is accepted. They provide for the progressive retirement of the Greek forces in Asia Minor, under the supervision of Allied officers, from a succession of zones; that is to say, proceeding from the interior, one zone after another is evacuated, while arrangements 990 are made to take back the troops to the coast. While this is going on steps have to be taken to set up again a Turkish civil administration in the successive zones as they are left free. Further, as you will realise, we have to secure the avoidance of direct contact, which might be fraught with great danger, between the two belligerent Armies—the avoidance not only of contact but, what might be much more serious, of collision between the two belligerent Armies. Lastly, when we carry this progressive retirement down to the coast, we have to arrange for the embarkation of the Greek forces from ports either on the Marmora or on the Mediterranean. It was also obviously desirable to provide, as these operations are carried out, for the maintenance of conditions of order and security in the regions evacuated, and to prevent any sudden exodus or flight of the populations in that area, whether such flight be the result of necessity, or of compulsion, or of fear.
The task of closely supervising these arrangements will be undertaken by a mixed Commission of Allied Generals and Admirals at Constantinople. It is obvious that the operation will be a difficult and prolonged one. The Greeks have, at the moment, in Asia Minor a force estimated at about 180,000 men. Then you can easily imagine the large aggregation of stores, depôts, and the like, which attend the operations of such a body of men. It is calculated, accordingly, by the Generals, that the process of evacuation which I have described will, under most favourable conditions, occupy about four and a half months. But if it is successfully carried out with the good will and with the acquiescence of both Greeks and Turks, your Lordships will recognise the truth and the purport of what we said in our Declaration, namely, that if these proposals are accepted by both parties the recovery of Anatolia by the Turks, which is believed to be their principal national aspiration will have been attained without any further sacrifice of treasure or life by them. Correspondingly, the retirement of the Greek troops will be effected with honour.
Should this operation be successfully accomplished, the Turkish sovereignty in Asia will exist unimpaired from the Mediterranean on the South to the Straits and the Black Sea in the North, and from the borders of Transcaucasia, Persia and 991 Mesopotamia on the East to the shores of the Ægean.
Assuming the success of these proposals, assuming the recovery by the Turks of the large areas which I have just geographically described, the question that then came immediately under our notice, and which demanded the most serious and anxious consideration, was the steps to be taken for the protection of the minorities left in the regions concerned. And here we must remember that, when you speak of minorities, you have equally to safeguard the interests of minorities left under Turkish rule in Asia, and of Moslem minorities left under Greek rule in Europe. The same measure of protection, in so far as it is required, must obviously be extended to both.
In Asia the minorities whom we had to consider consist in the main of Greeks, Armenians—of both of whom there are, as you know, very large aggregations indeed—Jews, and, in the more easterly portions, Nestorian or Assyrian Christians. In Europe the minorities consist in the main of Turks—although there are some other minority populations in Greek possessions—in Western Thrace, in Eastern Thrace so far as that is to be conceded to the Greeks, and in Thessaly. Here our desiderata were fourfold. In the first place, we desired to ensure to those minorities the security of all the guarantees that it was found two or three years ago necessary to introduce into the European Treaties with enemy Powers for the protection of minorities there; secondly, to secure, notably for the minorities in Asia Minor, the protection of the additional guarantees, very substantial as they were, that were proposed in the unratified Treaty of Sèvres; thirdly, to procure the retention or, where they had been rescinded, the restoration of the old ecclesiastical and educational privileges accorded to minorities in Asia and in other portions of the Turkish dominions under the law of Islam; and, fourthly, to provide any fresh guarantees that might be required, either by the conditions of the minority, or by the circumstances of the place in which they were found. In fact, what we want to do is, instead of trusting to casual provisions here or there, to formulate a new code of international observance, to be drawn up in the first place by an Inter-Allied Conference for future observance by the parties concerned.
Our next step, advancing a stage further, was to contemplate placing the execution 992 of this new code of International Law under the general and effective supervision of the League of Nations. And here let me observe, in passing, that among the many justifications for the work of that body, difficult and sometimes truncated as it has been, will be found, not only the general recognition that its work and its functions are indispensable in certain international conditions, but also the recognition, whenever we get to close quarters with questions at Paris or wherever it may be, that the League of Nations is in itself the most effective instrument, and, indeed, in some respects the only instrument, for carrying out the kind of policy to which I am now referring.
Your Lordships will recollect that, under the European Treaties the League of Nations has been generally placed in custody of the minority provisions in the Treaties. But since then the League has taken a further step which will render its intervention more effective. It has appointed a High Commissioner at Constantinople, who has just taken up his functions, and who will be able to exercise a general supervision over the work of the League in the Turkish dominions. Accordingly, we proposed, at Paris, to invite the League of Nations, after consultation with Greece and Turkey—always assuming, as we have done, that after peace has been ratified Turkey will apply for admission, and will herself be admitted, to the League of Nations—we proposed to invite the League to appoint Special Commissioners for the supervision of these minority clauses in Europe and in Asia.
We shall draw the special attention of the League to particular areas where these minorities are found to exist, and we shall propose to them that they shall appoint Commissioners to pay periodical visits to the areas concerned, and, in conjunction with the local authorities, to concert measures for the fulfilment of the duties which they will have undertaken. We shall also propose that the reports of these Commissioners shall be laid annually before the Assembly of the League, so that the nations there represented—and your Lordships know what a wide ambit that phrase covers—will be in a position to secure the faithful execution from year to year of the stipulations to which the League of Nations, if it accepts our invitation, will have given its guarantee. In this way we shall hope to give to the protection of minorities in 993 the future an international sanction, and if Turkey herself is represented, as I have indicated that she will probably desire to be, upon the League, she will be able to see, in so far as she is concerned, while the rest of the Powers will exercise a similar responsibility on their own account, that the conditions are scrupulously observed.
Among the minorities to which I have referred, and whose cases we carefully considered, the one which has attracted the widest attention and sympathy is the Armenian community. That minority—am speaking of it in relation to the large populations by whom it is surrounded—has always deserved and received special consideration, perhaps more particularly in this country, on account of the long and chequered and melancholy history of the Armenian people, of the cruel sufferings to which they have been subjected, and not less on account of the pledges and assurances which not we alone but the Allied Powers in general at the beginning of the war, and at various stages during the war, have given as regards the desirability of constituting some form, if that were possible, of independent national existence for the Armenian races as one of the objects, and it has always been hoped one of the consequences, of the war itself. We at any rate in this country have never forgotten those assurances. At every stage, at every meeting that I have attended, the battle of the Armenians has been fought with strenuous and loyal activity by the representatives of Great Britian, and I am divulging no secret, and making for myself no unreasonable claims, when I say that no more active defender of their interests on those occasions has been found than myself.
In the Treaty of Sèvres it was sought to create an independent. Armenian Republic round the nucleus of the small Armenian State, formerly included in the Russian dominions, of Erivan, and to add to that State a number of districts taken from the neighbouring vilayets. At the same time we invited the President of the United States of America, then President Wilson, to give an arbitral decision ascribing to this contemplated State such portions of those Turkish vilayets as he might deem, upon an examination of the case, to be reasonable and fair. He gave his award in December, 1920, but, for reasons with which your Lordships are familiar, it has never been found possible to give effect 994 to it. At the London Conference in March last year we proposed to the Turkish representatives, notably to those who came from Angora, that they should recognise the rights of Armenia to a national home on the eastern frontiers of Turkey, and should accept the decision of a Commission appointed by the League of Nations as to the territory to be transferred from Turkey to Armenia.
At the same time, no one can deny that the situation has visibly changed, even during the last twelve months, and that it has changed in this respect in a manner which is detrimental to the fortunes and the chances of the Armenians. This has been due to the events—I will not call them the accidents—of war, and the position at the present moment is this. In the north-eastern provinces of Turkey in Asia, to which I referred just now, the bulk of the Armenians have fled across the border to the little Armenian State of Erivan. There does exist there at this moment a small semi-independent Armenian State in the territory formerly a part of Russia. That State is now under a form of Soviet administration, and the degree to which it may be regarded as an Armenian national focus or centre is a matter upon which I am not in a position to pronounce.
In Cilicia, on the other hand, where there were large numbers of Armenians—though always in a minority of the population—when the French evacuated Cilicia under the terms of the Agreement concluded by M. Franklin Bouillon, the bulk of the Armenians, not trusting to the tender mercies of the Turks, or to the assurances given to the French by the National Assembly of Angora, poured down in unrestrained numbers from the interior to the sea-coast, taking ship wherever they could at the port of Mersina, and fleeing in a disorganised rabble to Cyprus, Beirut, Alexandretta, and other towns in that part of Syria. There large numbers of these unhappy people are to be found at the present moment in a state of semi-destitution, and only a few thousands, according to our latest information, remain in Cilicia.
I have always felt that, somewhere or other, a place ought to be found where these fugitives could be collected, where perhaps they might be joined by Armenians from other parts of the world now living in exile, and where they could create for themselves a home of political and cultural 995 independence. Whether it will be possible to set up such a home either in the north-eastern areas to which I have referred or in any part of Cilicia, it is impossible for me at this moment to say. Obviously, none of the European Powers is in a position to organise Armies, to move troops, or to provoke a renewal of conflict, even in that cause. That can only be effected by agreement. Accordingly, we decided at Paris to invite the co-operation of the League of Nations, over and above the various minority provisions to which I have referred, and of which they are to be asked to take charge, to place themselves in special supervision of this Armenian problem in order to obtain for the people, if that be possible, the satisfaction of their traditional aspirations for this national home.
There is another and also a very powerful—at any rate, a very numerous—Christian minority in Asia Minor to be found at and in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. In the town of Smyrna, in the Cheshme peninsula to the west of Smyrna projecting into the Mediterranean, and the town of Aivali, a little further to the north, a large majority of the inhabitants are Greek, and other Greek populations are to be found scattered along the coast and in the interior. It is quite likely that large numbers of these Greeks may, when the Greek forces retire, decide to retire with them and to proceed to Europe, but it is obvious that with a population of the size to which I referred this cannot be anything but a very partial solution, and there will be large numbers who desire to remain, either because they are rooted to the soil, or because they are reluctant for other reasons to leave, or because they recognise, with justice, that their commercial or their agricultural interests are bound up in the future destiny of the country.
Undoubtedly, special guarantees will be required, after evacuation has taken place, for the safety of this population, and for their due representation in the future administration of the localities concerned. In the towns to which I have referred means will have to be taken to ensure that they have an adequate voice in the local administration. Here again we propose to invite the co-operation of the League of Nations, which will consider the question in the general treatment of minorities. A certain parallelism will be found to exist between the conditions of 996 Smyrna in Asia and Adrianople in Europe, to which I shall refer a little later. In the one case, the interests of the Greek and, in the other, of the Turkish population have to be provided for, and we shall endeavour to secure that the guarantees that are given to the one community in the one place shall be equally accorded to the other in the other place.
I now pass to the question of the Straits. This is a question which had to be decided, in the main, by military and naval considerations, and in pronouncing upon it we acted upon the unanimous advice of our authorities. The broad considerations which animated us were these. In the first place, the Powers can never again consent to a position in which the mouth of the Straits, which after all is an international channel, should be closed by the attitude or the forces of any individual Power. We recalled the terrible sacrifices that were forced upon us, in particular, the prodigious burdens that were entailed upon our nation far more than any other, by the closure of the Straits; the long protraction of the period of the war which it entailed; and, indeed, broadly speaking, the ruinous and disastrous consequences which it imposed upon the Allies.
There was, therefore, common accord, to which I think general assent will be given here, that Turkey could not, in any rearrangement, be left in command of both shores of the Dardanelles. On the Asiatic side of the Straits the restitution of Turkish sovereignty over Anatolia entails the admission of Turkish civil authority over the area on the southern side of the Channel, but we felt that that admission must not be made the means by which a revived Turkey could, from that position, at any time in the future menace the free entrance to the Dardanelles. Accordingly, while the Turks are left at Chanak, on the Asiatic side of the mouth of the Straits, the demilitarised zone which it is proposed to draw in the interior will be thrown back to the boundaries of the sanjak, a distance of sixty miles or more, so that in that area no Turkish Government will be able at any time to prepare positions which might enable them to command, or even menace, the entrance to the Straits. This demilitarised zone will be visited and inspected from time to time by Allied officers.
I now pass to the European shores of the Straits. Here we have an area in which the Greek population is in a preponderance. 997 Gallipoli is, in the main, a Greek city; but it is a place where the Allied occupying garrison can best be placed, where lie the bones of thousands of our fellow subjects who perished in one of the most heroic ventures of the war, and where their graves are to us in the nature of a most sacred charge. Accordingly, we propose that the European shores of the Straits shall be constituted a zone of Allied military occupation as far as Rodosto on the Marmora. Within that zone the military authority of the Allied Powers, military and aerial, and naval, will be supreme, and to them will be attached Allied officers to inspect the whole of the demilitarised zone. In the opinion of the military authorities, and it was upon their advice that we acted, this will constitute a sufficient guarantee for the safety of the Straits in future against any recurrence of the experience of 1914 to which I have referred.
As regards the navigation of the Straits, the control of the traffic, the organisation of harbour works and other services, the International Straits Commission, as it was proposed under the Treaty of Sèvres, will remain. This will be a body on which all the Great Powers will be represented, as well as America if she cares to join. There will also be represented upon it those States who have local or neighbouring interests, who are concerned, for mercantile or other reasons, in the free passage of the Straits, such as Greece and Rumania; and to this body, when the Treaty has been ratified and they have been admitted to the League of Nations, Turkey, Bulgaria, and Russia, if she satisfies those conditions, will one day be admitted. It is proposed, as it was in London a year ago, that the Chairmanship of that body should be placed in the hands of a representative of the Turkish Government. I have observed in some organs of the Press that because we did not say much about this matter in our Declaration it has been supposed that the International Commission has been dropped or has disappeared. That is not in the least the case. It remains with the full powers and functions as set up in the Treaty of Sèvres.
Let me here add a few words about the demilitarised areas, because they constitute the main guarantee against military danger in the future. The demilitarised area will not be confined to the two sides of the Dardanelles. It will extend to the islands lying outside the mouth of the Dardanelles 998 and commanding its entrance, to the islands inside the Marmora, and to the peninsula of Artaki, the most considerable stretch of land which projects into the Sea of Marmora from the Asiatic shore. When we approach the Bosphorus the demilitarised zone will be extended on the Asiatic side to the area of the peninsula of Ismid, which is now controlled by the Allied forces, and is known as the neutralised zone. On the European side of the Bosphorus and the Marmora the whole of the shore, from Constantinople on the east and the mouth of the Maritza on the west, to the Bulgarian frontier on the north, with a small exception, will be demilitarised and placed under the inspection of Allied officers.
Thus, whether you look at the situation from the Asiatic sick or from the European side, our military authorities have provided for us and guaranteed an area of neutralisation where no force can be allowed, which, in their opinion, constitutes a sufficient security both for the Straits and the Bosphorus, and against the resumption of hostilities by either of the two Powers who are now engaged in war in that part of the world.
These arrangements bring me, in a natural geographical sequence, to the question of Constantinople itself and the question of Thrace. It was long ago decided. I think two or more years ago—that Constantinople should be given back after the war to the Turks, both as the seat of the Caliphate and as the natural and historic capital of the Turkish Empire. The Powers at no time have had the desire—for military, quite apart from political, reasons, but for both—to remain in prolonged, still less in perpetual, occupation of that city. A year ago, in London, we offered as part of our terms to evacuate Constantinople when the Treaty of Peace had been ratified. That promise will be fulfilled at as early a date as is practicable after the ratification of the new peace which we now have in view. The Sultan, who will remain in Constantinople, will be allowed to maintain a force, limited in numbers but sufficient for the purpose, in the city of Iris Government.
On the other hand, in dealing with Thrace—I am now speaking of Eastern Thrace—we were faced with these facts. By the decision of the Powers at Paris the Greeks had been placed in occupation of Eastern Thrace. There their forces are 999 now; they are in effective military occupation and have control of the civil administration of the country. In considerable parts of this area and in several of the towns they have a decided majority of the population. It was felt, therefore, that it would not only be unjust but impracticable to call upon the Greeks to evacuate not merely Anatolia, under the conditions which I have already described, but the whole of Eastern Thrace as well, and apart from the fairness or unfairness of any such attempt, I say that it would be impracticable because were the Greek Armies invited to retire from Thrace at the present moment we should be unquestionably confronted with a direct negative from them, and I am not aware of any force in existence which could successfully turn them out. At the same time, we felt that there was great force in the contention that, if Constantinople were restored to Turkey, it should, as the seat of the future capital of the Turkish dominions, be free from the military menace or the disagreeable situation of a neighbour close at hand with whom it had recently been at war and from whom it is severed at present by many unfortunate antipathies of religion and race.
In the Treaty of Sèvres we had drawn the frontier line on the European side of Constantinople at the military, lines of Chatalja, a situation which, as you know, owing to its topographical features, constitutes a real military, protection of the capital. This line is, at the closest point to Constantinople, 25 miles distant and, at the furthest point, 70 miles distant. Last summer at Paris I suggested, and, again I brought it before the Conference when it recently met in Paris, that this frontier, to meet the objections I have named, should be thrown back to a distance of about 80 miles from Constantinople to a line popularly known as the Midia-Rodosto line.
The problem was, in the main, a military and strategical problem, and accordingly we referred it to the military authorities at Paris last week, our main desideratum being to provide adequate security for the protection of the capital and for the territory left to the Turks in Europe. They unanimously recommended to us a line drawn front a place or the neighbourhood of a place called Ganos on the Marmora to the Bulgarian frontier in the north, on the western side of the mountain massif of Stranja. This is a line, as they assured us, 1000 of definite geographical and strategical value. It will leave to Turkey the eastern parts of Eastern Thrace, including the town of Rodosto, the population of which is pre-dominantly Greek, and the trade of which also is largely Greek, and for which, in our arrangement, we shall have to secure special commercial facilities of access to the interior.
On the other hand, it will leave to Greece the whole of the western part of Thrace, including the towns of Baba Eski and Kirk Kilisse, with the railway that joins them, as well as Adrianople, but a special stipulation will be required, as I have already indicated, for the protection of the population, and for the protection of the religious buildings and institutions of Adrianople, somewhat parallel to the conditions that will be required for the Greek populations in Smyrna.
Observe again, that with the exception of a small band around Adrianople in which the Greeks will be allowed to maintain certain forces as a guard against the Bulgarian frontier, the whole of these two areas of Eastern Thrace, Turkish and Greek, will be demilitarised so that neither part can constitute a military danger to the other. Such is the solution that we offer of the Thracian problem. It is a partition. No partition, whether decreed in Silesia or anywhere else, ever excites much enthusiasm. Neither will this; but it is the best solution that in the circumstances we felt we could offer. It appeared to us to be consistent with justice and to bear in mind the stern and incontrovertible facts of the case. It is certainly a much better solution than, before I went to Paris, I was told from every quarter that I could possibly secure.
There remained—and I apologise for keeping your Lordships so long, but I have to cover, with such compression as I can, a really very vast field of study—there remained three questions which we discussed at some length. The first was the future of the armed forces of Turkey. We started by recognising the principle that we could not admit in any case that Turkey, and Turkey alone of the enemy Powers in the recent war, should be permitted to recruit her forces by conscription in the future. Conscription has been forbidden in the Treaties to Germany, to Austria, to Hungary and to Bulgaria. It could not, of course, be conceded to Turkey without at once entailing a demand which, logically, 1001 it would have been impossible to resist for the revision of all the other Treaties in that respect. There were two other reasons. The retention of conscription in Turkey would have perpetuated an injustice to the non-Moslem populations of Turkey in the future, against whom the law of conscription has been wielded with most oppressive effect in the past. Further, it would be a great injustice to the peasant population of Anatolia, who have been constantly called away from their homes and from their fields to take part, entirely against their will, in the military ventures of Turkey in different parts of the East. At the same time, recognising the difficulty that might be found in constituting straight away a volunteer Army in Turkey, we said that we should be prepared to consider with the Turkish Government in an amicable spirit a determination of the period within which the voluntary system of recruiting must be established in that country.
As regards the armed forces of Turkey, in the future they will consist partly of gendarmerie and partly of certain special elements for the protection of the frontiers and otherwise. I can best state my case in figures. The Treaty of Sèvres provided for a future Turkish force of gendarmerie of 35,000 and special elements 15,000, or a total of 50,000. The London Conference last year increased those figures to: gendarmerie, 45,000; special elements, 30,000; or a total of 75,000. This problem also we referred to the military authorities in Paris last week, and they unanimously recommended a slight increase of these numbers—namely, gendarmerie, 45,000; special elements, 40,000; or a total of 85,000; and they arrived at these figures on a consideration of the forces that had been allowed to other enemy Powers in the Treaties following upon the war, in relation to the populations of those countries. Further, they told us that they considered it would be adequate for the protection of the reconstituted Turkey of the future. In the organisation of the gendarmerie no doubt the Turks will find it desirable, and, indeed, necessary, to apply to the great Powers for the provision of European officers to assist in the organisation and instruction of those forces. Such assistance has already been rendered in the creation of such forces of gendarmerie as now exist in Turkey, and I have no doubt that application will be made with regard to the larger force to which I have referred, 1002 and, if made, it will be willingly granted by the Powers.
There remain only two other subjects. The first is finance. As regards finance I do not propose, at the tail end of so long a statement as this, to trouble your Lordships by any attempt to enter into details on this very complicated subject, but this I may say that the financial provisions which we recommended were drawn up by the European financial experts who were summoned front Constantinople for the purpose, and they represented their unanimous advice. These proposals are in the direction of giving to Turkey very considerable control of her finances, subject to the recognition by her of her pre-war debts and of the payment of charges and indemnities arising directly out of the war. We sum up our provisions in a passage in the public Memorandum which I need not trouble your Lordships by quoting. These provisions will, I think, be found to be generous to the Turks. They will give to Turkey that amount of financial independence which will enable her, while discharging her due obligations, to assume responsibility for the regulation of her own II finances and for the development of her indigenous resources in the future.
As regards the Capitulations, which is the third and last subject to which I will refer, and to which European opinion naturally and rightly attaches the greatest importance, we were anxious to secure to Turkey the largest measure of economic independence consistent with the due protection of the nationals of our respective countries. For this purpose we propose to set up in Constantinople, within three months of the coming into force of the Treaty of Peace, a Commission composed of the representatives of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and Turkey, to prepare, with the assistance of technical experts representing the other Capitulary Powers, proposals for the revision of the Capitulary régime in fiscal matters. These proposals provide for fiscal equality between foreign and Turkish subjects while safeguarding the former against excessive taxation and abuses in collection, and for any necessary modifications of the Customs Taxes with the consent of the Powers concerned. As regards the Capitulations in judicial matters we repeat our offer made before to set up a similar Commission to prepare a scheme of judicial reform to replace the Capitulary system, 1003 which will continue provisionally pending the introduction of the proposed scheme. This Commission will be at liberty to recommend either a mixed or a unified judicial system.
I have now, I think, covered the whole ground, and I am most grateful for your kind attention. I have given, or endeavoured to give, a conspectus of the general lines of the proposed settlement. Those proposals represent, I am glad to say, the main object for which I went to Paris, namely, the unanimous conclusion of the three great Powers. They appear, so far as I can see, to have been generally approved by public opinion in this and other countries and to be regarded as on the whole a fair and equitable solution of perhaps the most difficult problem that has confronted any body of men during the last fifty years. I observe that it has been stated somewhere that these proposals are not an ultimatum. That is inherent in the circumstances of the case, but I hope it may not be inferred from the use of that phrase that we are disposed to depart from the broad fundamental outlines of the policy I have sketched or to embark upon a protracted process of haggling in order that, by breaches in the fabric here and there, the whole structure may eventually be brought to the ground. We have not attained unity in order to see that unity destroyed by encroachments or infractions which will impair the general symmetry of the plan or once again place the Near East in the melting pot.
We all desire peace, but a peace which is just to all parties, and which will prevent the renewal of a struggle which is disastrous to both sides. It is in this spirit that in our Declaration we have commended these proposals firstly to the fair consideration of the parties principally involved—namely, Turkey and Greece themselves—and, secondly, to the opinion or what I may call the enlightened conscience of the world which has, I submit, long regarded this dismal and protracted struggle with disquietude and dismay, and which expects all parties, particularly those who have the authority, now to combine to restore to Eastern Europe and the parts of the Near East contiguous to Eastern Europe the necessary conditions of tranquillity and order.
§ THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYMy Lords, I do not intend to make a speech. The very important statement to which 1004 we have listened requires very much more consideration than could be given to it as we listened to the noble Marquess, in order to enable us profitably to discuss it. I rise only for the purpose of putting a question arising out of the statement. I gather that a great deal of weight is thrown upon the intervention of the League of Nations in carrying out the arrangements for the protection of various parts of the subject populations in Asiatic Turkey which are contemplated by these proposals. In particular, I understand that the fate of the unfortunate Armenians—about whom I thought the noble Marquess spoke in very proper terms—is to be largely protected by the intervention of the League of Nations. I did not understand that any definite arrangement has been come to by the noble Marquess and those with whom he acted, but that they handed over, as it were, to the League of Nations the protection of the Armenians and their future fate. What I should like to ask is: What procedure is it proposed that the League of Nations should pursue for the purpose of carrying out this obligation or Mandate which has been given to them by the Powers at Paris? The League of Nations have, of course, no armed forces at their disposal. They are not, as I understand, in a position to speak with authority, except in so far as they are supported by the action of the Powers which they represent. Of course, the noble Marquess is far more familiar with the Covenant of the League of Nations and its proceedings than I am, but I do not remember any procedure under that Covenant by which there is an opportunity of bringing force to bear upon any recalcitrant Power, except after agreement by the Powers concerned.
I hope, of course, with the noble Marquess, that the intervention of the League of Nations may be effective in protecting the Armenians and in providing for their future, but I think it would probably be of great assistance to the League of Nations if they could know what force they had to rely upon in the event of their making a proposal which the Turks would not accept. I observe that in the course of his statement the noble Marquess said that the reason why the Powers themselves had not come to an arrangement about Armenia was that they had no troops at their disposal for the purpose of enforcing such an arrangement. If that be true of the Powers themselves, it appears to me 1005 that it would be equally true of the League of Nations, which can act only through these very forces which the Powers themselves say that they do not possess. I say this, not because I do not hope that the League of Nations may be successful, but because it would seem to be better, before hope is indulged in, that the League of Nations, or those who represent it in this country, should have some idea of what they can rely upon before they proceed to act. Of course, it may be that they are expected only to advise the Turks, but I am not quite sure that that will be very effective by itself.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYMy Lords, I should like to endorse what the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has said. The anxiety with which we have all been awaiting the account which the noble Marquess promised us of the outcome of the proceedings at Paris has, I think, in the minds of many thousands of people, concerned itself chiefly with the question of the protection of minorities. There has been a great deal said to-night which, I think, will be encouraging and satisfactory to many people with regard to the Dardanelles—a region which will have sacred associations for so many thousands of English homes for all time; with regard to conscription; with regard to Constantinople itself; with regard to the Capitulations. Some of these results may be disappointing, but some of them, I think, will be satisfactory.
The noble Marquess has given us with fullness, in a speech remarkable throughout for its lucidity, an account of the difficulties concerning either the settlement of the Armenians in a particular region of Asia Minor, whether it be in Erivan or in Cilicia, or the leaving them scattered here and there where they may have no home which can properly be called their own. I yield to none in my appreciation of the efforts which I am quite certain that the noble Marquess has made throughout all this matter to deal, with the utmost possible care and with the greatest effectiveness which is available, with the extraordinarily difficult problem of the protection of these Christian minorities.
But I could not help feeling, as Lord Salisbury has just, said, that we have passed on this matter to the League of Nations without really understanding what that means. The League of Nations is a 1006 very large phrase, and means a very large thing, and I believe that, in many departments of the work which lies before it, the League of Nations is going to be a power, not in Europe only, but throughout the world in years to come. I have advocated it in many places on that ground. But when we are told that this problem, for which we have been seeking a solution, is to be, so far as I can understand, simply referred to the League of Nations to do their best in the matter, I agree with what the noble Marquess, Lord Salisbury, has just said as to our extreme anxiety to know by what practical means the League is to give effect to any endeavour that it makes.
We are in this matter, in England, pledged up to the hilt that something practical should be done. It would be quite in vain, and it would be useless and unnecessary here, and, indeed, hardly fair after all that the noble Marquess has done, were we to recapitulate simply the terms in which promises have been made, alike by the Prime Minister and the noble Marquess himself as representing the Foreign Office. We have been told, and the Armenians have been told again and again, that we might count upon this: that when the war was over, they should, at all events, not be handed back again to the tender mercies of those who, for hundreds of years, have misused their powers to the extent that they have. I could quote many references, if it were necessary, but it is quite needless to call attention to them to-night. But when we say that this matter is now left to the League of Nations, is it not really a kind of camouflage, a kind of screen to shield those who find it impracticable to fulfil the promises that they have made?—and I do not deny that it may be impracticable.
The League of Nations can, in many respects, act without the need of force of a military or financial sort behind it. But, in this particular matter, if guarantees are to be secured, we want to know how the League of Nations is going to carry them out. What is the kind of guarantees expected? Whatever they are, how is the League of Nations going to secure the fulfilment of these guarantees, any more than the Powers themselves could do so? I suppose it is hardly unfair to say that inadequate help given to a community, settled like the Armenians in Erivan and Cilicia, has the reverse of a good effect, because it serves as an irritant to the Turk, who feels the ineffectiveness of it, and yet 1007 finds the inconvenience, the mischief, and, no doubt, the practical harm of the disaffection, which is encouraged by the idea that European power is behind those who are thus disaffected.
Let no one suppose—I am quite certain that the noble Marquess himself will not suppose—that I underrate his own activity, his own perseverance, his own personal enthusiasm in this matter, or, so far as I know, those of the Prime Minister also. The difficulties are enormous, but do not let us be led away to-night by supposing that we have reached what I think the noble Marquess called an equitable solution of this matter by merely stating that it will be left to the League of Nations. I should be very grateful if the noble Marquess were able, for our comfort, to expand for us a little what is meant by the phrase he used and the capacity which it may have of encouraging our hopes in this very difficult, sad and desolating matter.
§ THE MARQUESS CURZON OF KEDLESTONMy Lords, the questions put by the noble Marquess and by the most rev. Primate seem to me entirely legitimate questions, and I will endeavour to reply to them so far as I can. I would certainly deprecate as a just interpretation, either of my remarks or of the spirit of our proposals in Paris, the idea that we are simply, so to speak, shuffling this question on to the shoulders of the League of Nations, that we are proposing a mere camouflage to disguise our own incapacity. That is not my reading of the case, nor do I think it is a fair interpretation of the situation. When the Powers concluded the minority Treaties in Europe, and when the supervision of those Treaties was placed in the hands of the League of Nations, I do not remember either that the League of Nations in accepting the responsibility, or that public opinion said: "Oh, but the League of Nations have no forces with which to carry it out." That is true enough, but the devolution of the responsibility upon their shoulders was, with, unanimous consent, accorded at that time and was accepted by them.
I endeavoured in my remarks to point out how widely the situation has developed since those Treaties were concluded. I pointed out that the League of Nations now have a special representative in Constantinople. I pointed out that new arrangements are now proposed. It is suggested that they should have special Com- 1008 missioners in all the areas in question—I need not name them, although they might be inferred from my speech—areas in Asia, six or seven in number. Those Commissioners would sometimes be resident there, would sometimes be visitors there, and would be in contact with the local authorities, both with the minorities and, in the case where the minorities were Christian, with the Turkish authorities. In the East it has been found a hundred times over that the presence of a European officer is the most effective guarantee against anything going on that is wrong.
I further suggested that these officers should report, at such periods as may be determined, to the Council of the League itself and we made the further suggestion at Paris, which is a new one, that these reports, instead of being confined to the attention of the Council of the League, should go before the Assembly of the League, where they could be examined, criticised, and reported upon by the large body of the representatives of the nations there collected. Those, my Lords, are all in the nature of guarantees. They are guarantees, in the first place, for local supervision, and, in the second place, for supervision by the public opinion of the world. They will be far more effective, I think, than anything yet proposed.
Then the most rev. Primate says to me: "That is all very well, but in the last resort what are the forces—what are the armed forces—behind the League?" The absence of armed forces did not prevent the League of Nations from having handed over to them the decision of the exceedingly vexed and difficult question of Silesia, which the Powers were unable, with their armed forces, to come to an agreement about. It did not prevent the League of Nations from undertaking an examination of that question, from arriving at a decision about it, from declaring that decision to the two parties principally concerned, who were separated from each other by local differences quite as acute as any prevailing in Asia Minor, and it did not prevent that decision from being amicably carried out as it is being done at the present moment. Then the League of Nations had assigned to it a little time ago the question of the Aaland Islands in the Scandinavian waters. That was a question upon which we were told Sweden and Finland were prepared to go to war, and that they were on the verge of hostili- 1009 ties. We referred it to the League of Nations. They had no troops to send there. They had no ships to navigate those waters. They had only the sanction of an absolutely impartial investigation, and the moral support of the public opinion of the world to the decision arrived at. After it had been arrived at, what happened? Both parties, who had been at each other's throats, accepted the decision, and are loyally carrying it out.
Do not suppose that because the League of Nations has no armed forces that, therefore, even its physical influence is small. That is not the case. The influence of the League of Nations is, of course, in the first place moral, but the support of the public opinion of the world is in the nature of a physical sanction, very often more effective than that of arms itself. Let me put to the most rev. Primate the alternative. If he says the League of Nations, for the reasons he indicated, is rather an ineffective or powerless instrument to carry out its great purposes, what is his alternative? The only other alternative is the use of the armed forces of Europe. Does any man in this House really think that with the fullest desire to secure for the Armenians everything that we have over and over again pledged ourselves to try to secure, France, or Great Britain, or Italy is going to raise battalions here to send them out to Cilicia? Why the French have just made an agreement in order to get their forces out of Cilicia. Are we to send forces to Erivan? No, everyone knows it is a thing that it is impossible to do. We have to face the conditions of the times. Within those conditions we have to be loyal to our pledges and to do what we can.
The plans that we have devised at Paris, let me remind the most rev. Primate, are not merely to be notified to the League of Nations, but they are to be embodied in the conditions we are sending to the Greeks and the Turks. They are part of the arrangements we are now proposing. Those arrangements will, I think, if successfully carried out, really give a much greater protection than the noble Marquess and time most rev. Primate have thought, and what I would urge public opinion to do, instead of seeking the impracticable and the impossible, is to concentrate on giving every possible support and authority that can be given to the League of Nations in accepting the invitation which we are about to address to them.