“The effect of the statement in India was that recruiting went up appreciably from that very moment....
“Now we are told: ‘That was an offer you made to Turkey, and they rejected it, and therefore you were absolutely free.’ It was more than that. It was a statement of our war aims for the workers of this country, a statement of our war aims for India. It is too often forgotten that we are the greatest Mohammedan Power in the world. One-fourth of the population of the British Empire is Mohammedan.... We gave a solemn pledge and they accepted it, and they are disturbed at the prospect of our not abiding by it.... There is nothing which would damage British power in Asia more than the feeling that you could not trust the British word. That is the danger. Of course it would be a fatal reputation for us....
“When the peace terms are published there is no friend of the Turk, should there be any left, who will not realise that he has been terribly punished for his follies, his blunders, his crimes, and his iniquities. Stripped of more than half his Empire, his country under the Allied guns, deprived of his army, his navy, his prestige—the punishment will be terrible enough to satisfy the bitterest foe of the Turkish Empire, drastic enough for the sternest judge. My right hon. friend suggested that there was a religious issue involved. That would be the most dangerous of all, and the most fatal. I am afraid that underneath the agitation there is not only the movement for the expulsion of the Turk, but there is something of the old feeling of Christendom against the Crescent. If it is believed in the Mohammedan world that our terms are dictated by the purpose of lowering the flag of the Prophet before that of Christendom, it will be fatal to our government in India. It is an unworthy purpose to achieve by force. It is unworthy of Britain, and it is unworthy of our faith.
“Let us examine our legitimate peace aims in Turkey. The first is the freedom of the Straits. I put that first for two reasons, which I shall refer to later on. It was put first by my right hon. friend, and I accept it. The second is the freeing of the non-Turkish communities from the Ottoman sway; the preservation for the Turk of self-government in communities which are mainly Turkish, subject to two most important reservations. The first is that there must be adequate safeguards within our power for protecting the minorities that have been oppressed by the Turk in the past. The second is that the Turk must be deprived of his power of vetoing the development of the rich lands under his rule which were once the granary of the Mediterranean....
“You can get the great power of Constantinople from its geographical situation. That is the main point. It is the main point for two reasons. The first is, when you consider the future possibilities of the Black Sea. You have there six or seven independent communities or nations to whom we want access. It is essential that we should have a free road, a right-of-way to these countries, whatever the opinion of the Turk may be. His keeping of the gates prolonged the war, and we cannot have that again. Therefore, for that reason, it is coming to an end. The second reason why the guardianship of the gates is important is because of its effect upon the protection of minorities. How do we propose that that should be achieved? Turkey is to be deprived entirely of the guardianship of the gates. Her forts are to be dismantled. She is to have no troops anywhere within reach of these waters. More than that, the Allies mean to garrison those gates themselves.... I was going to say that we have been advised that, with the assistance of the Navy, we shall be able to garrison the Dardanelles and, if necessary, the Bosphorus, with a much smaller force because of the assistance to be given by the Navy for that purpose. Turkey will not be allowed a navy. What does she want with a navy? It was never of the slightest use to her when she had it. She never could handle it. That is the position in regard to the Straits.
“What is the alternative to that proposal? The alternative to that proposal is international government of Constantinople and the whole of the lands surrounding the Straits. It would mean a population of 1,500,000 governed by the Allies—a committee representing France, Italy, Great Britain, and, I suppose, some day Russia might come in, and, it might be, other countries. America, if she cared to come in. Can anyone imagine anything more calculated to lead to that kind of mischievous intriguing, rivalry, and trouble in Constantinople that my right hon. friend deprecated and, rightly, feared? How would you govern it? Self-government could not be conferred under those conditions. It would have to be a military government.... It would require, according to every advice we have had, a very considerable force, and it would add very considerably to the burdensome expenditure of these countries, and it would be the most unsatisfactory government that anyone could possibly imagine.
“We had hoped that two of the great countries of the world would have been able to help us in sharing the responsibility for the government of this troubled country; but for one reason or another they have fallen out. There was first of all Russia. She is out of the competition for a very unpleasant task. Then there was America. We had hopes, and we had good reason for hoping, that America would have shared these responsibilities. She might probably have taken the guardianship of the Armenians, or she might have taken the guardianship of Constantinople. But America is no claimant now, and I am not going to express an opinion as to whether she ever will be, because it would be dangerous to do so; but for the moment we must reckon America as being entirely out of any arrangement which we contemplate for the government of Turkey and for the protection of the Christian minorities in that land.... I ask my noble friend, if he were an Armenian would he feel more secure if he knew that the Sultan and his Ministers were overlooked by a British garrison on the Bosphorus, and that British ships were there within reach, than if the Sultan were at Konia, with hundreds of miles across the Taurus Mountains to the nearest Allied garrison, and the sea with its great British ships and their guns out of sight and out of mind? I know which I would prefer if I were an Armenian with a home to protect.”[18]
The Prime Minister concluded his speech by saying that the Allies chiefly desired to take from the Turks the government of communities of alien race and religion, which would feel adequately protected when they knew that their former persecutors must sign the decree for their liberation under the threat of English, French, and Italian guns. Yet he could not dissemble his own misgivings.
In the discussion that followed Lord Robert Cecil said that, in any settlement with regard to Armenia, he trusted there would not only be a considerable increase in the present area of the Armenian Republic, but that Armenia would be given some access to the Black Sea in the north. Without that he was satisfied that the Armenian Republic would have the greatest difficulty in living. He earnestly hoped that every influence of the British Government would be used to secure that Cilicia should be definitely removed from Turkish sovereignty. He repeated once more that he was sorry the Turks were going to be retained in Constantinople, but that—
“No one wished to turn the Sultan out; the central thing was to get rid of the Sublime Porte as the governor of Constantinople. That did not mean turning anybody out; it merely meant that we were not to hand back Constantinople to the Turkish Government.”