In this document the Committee said they were sorry that Lord Curzon on December 17, 1919, expressed a doubt about the possibility of the total realisation of the Armenian scheme, according to which Armenia was to stretch from one sea to the other, especially as the attitude of America did not facilitate the solution of the Armenian question. After recalling Lord Curzon’s and Mr. Lloyd George’s declarations in both the House of Lords and the House of Commons, the British Armenia Committee owned it was difficult, if the United States refused a mandate and if no other mandatory could be found, to group into one nation all the Ottoman provinces which they believed Armenia was to include; yet they drafted a programme which, though it was a minimum one, aimed at completely and definitely freeing these provinces from Turkish sovereignty. It ran as follows;
“An Ottoman suzerainty, even a nominal one, would be an outrage, as the Ottoman Government deliberately sought to exterminate the Armenian people.
“It would be a disgrace for all nations if the bad precedents of Eastern Rumelia, Macedonia, and Crete were followed, and if similar expedients were resorted to, in reference to Armenia. The relations between Armenia and the Ottoman Empire must wholly cease, and the area thus detached must include all the former Ottoman provinces. The Ottoman Government of Constantinople has for many years kept up a state of enmity and civil war among the various local races, and many facts demonstrate that when once that strange, malevolent sovereignty is thrust aside, these provinces will succeed in living together on friendly, equable terms.”
The British Armenia Committee asked that the Armenian territories which were to be detached from Turkey should be immediately united into an independent Armenian State, which would not be merely restricted to “the quite inadequate area of the Republic of Erivan,” but would include the former Russian districts of Erivan and Kars, the zone of the former Ottoman territories with the towns of Van, Mush, Erzerum, Erzinjan, etc., and a port on the Black Sea. This document proclaimed that the Armenians now living were numerous enough “to fortify, consolidate, and ensure the prosperity of an Armenian State within these boundaries, without giving up the hope of extending farther.” It went on thus:
“The economic distress now prevailing in the Erivan area is due to the enormous number of refugees coming from the neighbouring Ottoman provinces who are encamped there temporarily. If these territories were included in the Armenian State, the situation would be much better, for all these refugees would be able to return to their homes and till their lands. With a reasonable foreign support, the surviving manhood of the nation would suffice to establish a National State in this territory, which includes but one-fourth of the total Armenian State to be detached from Turkey. In the new State, the Armenians will still be more numerous than the other non-Armenian elements, the latter not being connected together and having been decimated during the war like the Armenians.”
Finally, in support of its claim, the Committee urged that the Nationalist movement of Mustafa Kemal was a danger to England, and showed that only Armenia could check this danger.
“For if Mustafa Kemal’s Government is not overthrown, our new Kurdish frontier will never be at peace; the difficulties of its defence will keep on increasing; and the effect of the disturbances will be felt as far as India. If, on the contrary, that focus of disturbance is replaced by a stable Armenian State, our burden will surely be alleviated.”
Then the British Armenia Committee, summing up its chief claims, asked for the complete separation of the Ottoman Empire from the Armenian area, and, in default of an American mandate, the union of the Armenian provinces of the Turkish Empire contiguous to the Republic of Erivan with the latter Republic, together with a port on the Black Sea.
In the report which had been drawn up by the American Commission of Inquiry sent to Armenia, with General Harboor as chairman, and which President Wilson had transmitted to the Senate at the beginning of April, 1920, after the latter assembly had asked twice for it, no definite conclusion was reached as to the point whether America was to accept or refuse a mandate for that country. The report simply declared that in no case should the United States accept a mandate without the agreement of France and Great Britain and the formal approbation of Germany and Russia. It merely set forth the reasons for and against the mandate.