Accordingly, on March 9, 1921, there was signed at London a Franco-Turkish agreement terminating hostilities in Cilicia. The Turkish Nationalists recognized the special religious and cultural interests of France in Turkey and granted priority to French capitalists in the awarding of concessions in Cilicia and southern Armenia. French interests in the Bagdad Railway were confirmed. In return, France was to evacuate Cilicia, to readjust the boundary between Turkey and Syria, and to adopt a more friendly attitude toward the Government of the Grand National Assembly.[16]
The Italian Government was only too glad to have so excellent an excuse for throwing over the Treaty of Sèvres, which had thoroughly frustrated Italian hopes in Asia Minor to the advantage of Greece. Italian troops, furthermore, had been driven out of Konia and were finding their hold in Adalia increasingly precarious; the Italian Government had neither the disposition nor the resources to wage war. Therefore, on March 13, 1921, the Italian and Turkish ministers of foreign affairs signed at London a separate treaty, providing for “economic collaboration” between Turkey and Italy in the hinterland of Adalia, including part of the sanjaks of Konia, Aidin, and Afiun Karahissar, as well as for the award to an Italian group of the concession for the Heraclea coal mines.[17] The Royal Italian Government pledged itself to “support effectively all the demands of the Turkish delegation relative to the peace treaty,” more especially the demands of Turkey for complete sovereignty and for the restitution of Thrace and Smyrna. Italian troops were to be withdrawn from Ottoman soil.[18]
During the summer of 1921 further negotiations were conducted between France and Turkey for the purpose of elaborating and confirming their March agreement. The outcome was the so-called Angora Treaty, signed October 20, 1921, by M. Henri Franklin-Bouillon, a special agent of the French Government, and Yussuf Kemal Bey, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Government of the Grand National Assembly. This treaty formally brought to an end the state of war between the two countries, provided for the repatriation of all prisoners, defined new boundaries between Turkey and Syria, and awarded valuable economic privileges to French capitalists. It obligated the French Government “to make every effort to settle in a spirit of cordial agreement all questions relating to the independence and sovereignty of Turkey.”[19]
The Bagdad Railway was given a great deal of consideration in the Angora Treaty. The Turks wanted possession of the line because of its great political and strategic value; French capitalists sought full recognition of their previous investments in the railway, together with a controlling interest in its operation. A solution was reached which fully satisfied both Turkish Nationalists and French imperialists. The Turco-Syrian boundary was so “rectified” that the Bagdad Railway from Haidar Pasha to Nisibin was to lie within Turkish territory, whereas formerly the sections from the Cilician Gates to Nisibin lay within the French mandate for Cilicia and Syria.[20] In return for these territorial readjustments the Turkish Government assigned to a French group (to be nominated by the French Government) the Deutsche Bank’s concession for those sections of the railway, including branches, between Bozanti and Nisibin, “together with all the rights, privileges, and advantages attached to that concession.” The Government of the Grand National Assembly, furthermore, declared itself “ready to examine in the most favorable spirit all other desires that may be expressed by French groups relative to mine, railway, harbor and river concessions, on condition that such desires shall conform to the reciprocal interest of Turkey and France.” In particular, the Turkish Government agreed to take under advisement the award to French capitalists of concessions for the exploitation of the Arghana copper mines and for the development of cotton-growing in Cilicia.[21]
Thus France sought to make herself heir to the former German estate in Asiatic Turkey. Her capitalists became the recipients of the kilometric guarantee for which German concessionaires had been so freely criticized. And in some respects the conditions of French tenancy were questionable. The old Bagdad Railway concession had prohibited the Germans, under any and all circumstances to grant discriminatory rates or service to any passenger or shipper.[22] The conditions of French control of the line, however, recognized only a limited application of the principle of the “open door”: “Over this section and its branches,” reads Article 10 of the Angora Treaty, “no preferential tariff shall be established in principle. Each Government, however, reserves the right to study in concert with the other any exception to this rule which may become necessary. In case agreement proves impossible, each party will be free to act as he thinks best.”[23]
During the spring of 1922 the concession for the operation of the French sections of the Bagdad Railway, as defined by the Angora Treaty, was assigned to the Cilician-Syrian Railway Company (La société d’exploitation des chemins de fers de Cilicie-Nord Syrie.) The Mesopotamian sections of the line, from Basra to Bagdad and Samarra, were under the jurisdiction of the British Civil Administration for Irak. From Haidar Pasha to the Cilician Gates the Railway was being operated by the Turkish Nationalist Government, although its utilization for commercial purposes was seriously curtailed by the Greco-Turkish War.[24]
British Interests Acquire a Claim to the Bagdad Railway
The Angora Treaty met with a distinctly heated reception from the British Government. During November and December, 1921, Lord Curzon carried on a lengthy correspondence with the French Embassy at London, in which he made it perfectly plain that the British Government considered the Franklin-Bouillon treaty a breach of good faith on the part of France, in the light of which Great Britain must possess greater freedom of action than would otherwise be the case.[25]
Lord Curzon called into question the moral right of the French Government to enter into separate understandings with Turkey or to recognize the Angora Assembly as the de jure government of the country. He insisted that a revision of the frontier of northern Syria “could not be regarded as the concern of France alone”: