The British warning to France was heeded by Premier Poincaré. When Lord Curzon called at the Quai d’Orsay on October 6, he was informed that instructions had been sent to Constantinople for the French to agree with General Harington in rejecting the Kemalist demand that Eastern Thrace be turned over to Turkey immediately. But the attitude of M. Franklin Bouillon, negotiator of the Angora Treaty, at the Mudania conference the previous day showed that what France really wanted was the return of Constantinople and Eastern Thrace to the Nationalist Turks without serious or effective guarantees.
The French have a clarity of vision that Teutons and Anglo-Saxons do not possess. If they seem more selfish and cynical and hard-hearted than ourselves it is only because they do not possess our comfortable faculty of deceiving ourselves into believing that motives are mostly actuated by altruism rather than self-interest. The intellectual honesty of the French people shocks us when they apply it to their own actions, for we have never learned how to be honest with ourselves. To the Anglo-Saxon mind naked motives are like nude women; we know there are such things but our modesty clothes them!
The French look at the freedom of the Straits as something akin to the freedom of the seas. It is a comfortable formula without any meaning. For is not freedom that which one enjoys through the exercise of superior strength? And is it possible to enjoy freedom without denying it to others? The seas are free to the British, and the affirmation of this freedom for themselves is the negation of it to others. The British (I am still presenting the French point of view) would think that they had lost the freedom of the seas unless they were able to go where they pleased and do what their interests dictated in time of war. Now for the Straits. Although Italy is wholly and France partly and Great Britain not at all a Mediterranean power, the one of the three possessing no littoral in the Mediterranean controls both entrances to it. The French and Italians have never heard the British advocating the dismantling of Gibraltar and the application to the Suez Canal of the Sèvres Treaty provisions for the Dardanelles and Bosphorus. From the point of view of her allies, what does Great Britain mean by the freedom of the Straits? They believe that she conspired with the Greeks to close the Straits, which necessitated drastic counter-moves. And now that these counter-moves have succeeded, why all this great fuss over neutral zones? At the bottom of it (au fond, as the French love to say in summarizing the discussion of a problem or an argument), what the British want is immunity for their fleet from the inconveniences created by nature to free movement in and out of the Black Sea. Once this immunity is granted them, they will be in a position, owing to their naval superiority, to make it valueless to any other nation. By the treaty negotiated at Washington, France and Italy were asked to agree to a naval ratio of 1.75 to 1.75 in proportion to Britain’s 5. Together they are asked to accept 3.5 to Britain’s 5. As long as this naval proportion holds by treaty, the freedom of the Straits is valuable only for Great Britain and the United States.
Let us take a concrete illustration. Let us say that the treaty settlement does have guarantees that are effective, that the neutral zone is established and controlled, and that the Bosphorus and Dardanelles are without fortifications. The British fleet is able to pass at will from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea and vice versa. Its cruising-radius, and hence its power, is extended to the vast Black Sea regions. But does that freedom work out in the same way for Russia and France and Italy? The Straits are free, yes, but the mistress of the seas, for that very reason, would be able to attack the Russians in their own waters, and then, backed up against the “free” Straits, oppose at either end to any comer (except the United States, who is not interested in that part of the world) a floating barrier of fortifications more powerful than any that ever could be erected at the mouth of the Bosphorus on the Black Sea or the mouth of the Dardanelles on the Ægean Sea. Again, in case of war, if the Straits are free, only the British merchant marine could pass freely in and out of the Black Sea.
One objects that we must consider the good faith of England; and the Anglophile declares that England never abuses her power and that her word is as good as her bond. Yes, that is a powerful argument for us Americans, now that we have our 5 to 5 ratio. It was a powerful argument before, because we were neither trade nor political rivals of our cousins across the sea. But we must get it into our heads that the French and Italians and Russians do not look upon the British as most of us do. The British are a potential enemy. History has demonstrated that nations change alliances bewilderingly. The foreign policy of France (and of Italy) in the Near East always takes into consideration the superiority of the British fleet and the possession by Great Britain of Gibraltar, the Suez Canal, and Malta. Whatever steps can be taken to lessen the menace of British sea-power, or, at least, to prevent its becoming a greater menace, are justifiable and worth risking much. As they do not believe Bolshevism will last for ever, French and Italians look upon Russian influence dominating Constantinople as less of a danger in war and far, far less of a stumbling-block to commerce in peace than British control there.
Since Italy has got over her fear of an internal Bolshevist movement, and since France has become convinced that Poland will never replace her old Muscovite ally as the “guardian of civilization against German barbarism” on the eastern marches, there has been a marked tendency in Rome and Paris to talk about the obligations of the Entente secret treaty of 1915. The French, especially, are apprehensive of the moment when a regenerated but thoroughly nationalistic Russia, upon whom France will be able to depend far more than upon Great Britain and the United States for aid against a German recovery, will ask how her friends looked after her interests abroad during the years of misfortune and humiliation. They want to be able to say that they had prevented Great Britain from corralling Constantinople. In Greek hands it might not have been possible to consider Constantinople as a tempting morsel to bait the imperialistic ambitions of convalescent Russia. With an international neutral zone established and the freedom of the Straits guaranteed, the new Russia (although realizing even more bitterly than the two Mediterranean powers the exclusive advantage of this régime to Great Britain) would have her hands tied and would owe nothing but resentment to France. With the Turks back on both sides of the Straits, France can make a secret treaty with Russia by which Turkey will follow Greece as a sacrifice to the exigencies, to the superior interests, of European powers. Why not? France has much less reason to regard Turkey than Greece with a feeling of affection or obligation. Greece was trussed and delivered up as a victim to Kemal Pasha. If ever betrayal of the Turks is the price of winning back Russia in an offensive and defensive alliance against Germany, who would be foolish enough to protest on the score of honor?
I hold no brief for British or French, for Italian or Russian, for Turk or Greek. I have tried not to wander into by-paths but to present here the facts concerning the Straits. It is true that these facts present a sorry picture of international morality. But is it not important for us to analyze the motives actuating the principals in this stupendous diplomatic battle? For only in this way shall we come to understand how futile would be the solution proposed so glibly, i. e., that the League of Nations control the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus. For, from the world point of view, there is no separate problem called the Question of the Straits, unless we decapitalize Straits, and cut out the definite article. There is a question of straits, by which we mean all international waterways. The League of Nations can rightly be suspected of being an agent of particular interests, plotting in the interests of some nations against other, until its champions are able to convince themselves and public opinion in the nations whose representatives sit on the League Council that the League can exist and function only as an instrument of impartial administration and justice.
If the United States is willing to give up the Panama Canal to the League, and Great Britain is willing to give up Gibraltar and the Suez Canal to the League, we have the right to criticize French and Italian policy on the Bosphorus, on the ground that these powers have less faith in the League than ourselves! But by what right do we expect these two powers to entrust their interests in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea to the League of Nations when we neither have given the example nor will promise to follow it? And what can we possibly find to say to Russia or Turkey, the countries most interested?