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How far West?: Lord Curzon's

Transcaucasian (Mis)Adventure and the
Defence of British India, 1918–23
Sean Kelly
Published online: 21 Feb 2013.
To cite this article: Sean Kelly (2013) How far West?: Lord Curzon's Transcaucasian (Mis)Adventure
and the Defence of British India, 1918–23, The International History Review, 35:2, 274-293, DOI:
10.1080/07075332.2012.761143
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2012.761143
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The International History Review, 2013
Vol. 35, No. 2, 274–293, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07075332.2012.761143
How far West?: Lord Curzon’s Transcaucasian (Mis)Adventure and

the Defence of British India, 1918–23
Sean Kelly*
Downloaded by [Universitaets und Landesbibliothek] at 20:05 23 December 2013
In the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution, the British, German and Ottoman
armies sought to exploit the chaos within the southern borderlands of the old
Tsarist Empire. The Ottomans primarily sought to recover lands lost in the nine-
teenth century while for Germany, expansion into the Black Sea littoral not only
broke the Allied Naval Blockade, but also offered the possibility of menacing
British India via the Central Asiatic or Transcaspian Railway. Britain’s involve-
ment in Transcaucasia during the final months of the Great War has received rela-
tively little scholarly attention, being seen as little more than a bargaining chip to
be used at the Paris Peace Conference. This article suggests that the true aim of
Lord Curzon’s Transcaucasian policy was the incorporation of Persia into
Britain’s informal empire, a task that he doggedly pursued all the way down to
the 1923 Lausanne Conference.
Keywords: George Nathaniel Curzon; Eastern Committee; Transcaucasia; Lau-
sanne Conference
During his voyage home, the former commander of Britain’s Northern Persian
Force contemplated (in his diary) the increasingly difficult situation in Transcaucasia
ahead of interviews with the Secretaries of State for War and Foreign Affairs, Winston
Churchill and Lord Curzon, respectively.1 The fact that Major General W.M. Thomson
needed to brief two ministers reflected the byzantine nature of British policy in
the region. Britons were sympathetic to the aspirations of the newly independent
republics of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Daghestan and, in particular, Georgia.2 But the
British government simultaneously backed the anti-Bolshevik campaign of General
Denikin, whom the republics regarded as ‘far worse [an] enemy than Bolshevism’.
Unlike the republics, who were ‘entirely befogged’, Thomson recognised that those
who wished to see Russia restored to her ‘pre-war frontiers are alarmed at our occu-
pation of the richest portion of the Empire where there is outwardly no Bolshevik
menace, and our support of the “self determinated” Republics is stigmatised as
being purely selfish with a view to penetrating Transcaspia and cutting Persia off
. . .’3 Thompson’s identification of Curzon’s true aim - incorporating Persia into
Britain’s informal empire - has generally been overlooked.4 Britain’s involvement in
Transcaucasia during the final months of the Great War has received relatively little
attention in comparison to other theatres, discounting largely forgotten memoirs.5
Scholarly interest in Churchill’s Crusade endures, but even sympathetic biographers
dismiss Curzon’s Transcaucasian policy as something befitting ‘Greenmantle and
*Email: spkelly@alumni.sfu.ca
Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

The International History Review 275
those obscure heroes of the Great Game . . .’6 Curzon’s Transcaucasian (mis)adventure
had three phases: its beginning laid in the attempt to thwart German efforts that
persisted until the final weeks of the Great War to gain control of the Caucasus and
Caspian Sea; the second phase came to a close with the resurgence of Soviet power in
the region and the withdrawal of the last British troops from Batoum in 1920; and the
final phase played out at the Lausanne Conference of 1922–3. Previous scholarship
has overlooked this third phase, which witnessed Curzon’s unsuccessful attempt to
resurrect his plan to defend India in the waters off the coast of Asia Minor.7 Curzon’s
Transcaucasian policy can only be understood as part of his broader vision for the
Eastern Settlement, which itself was a reaction to wartime developments.
During the first three years of the war, the British government had relied on the
imperfect Anglo-Russian cordon sanitaire, which stretched from Egypt through

southern Palestine, Mesopotamia, Persia and Afghanistan, to defend British India.
The capture of Baghdad in March 1917 may have thwarted German ambitions in
southern Persia but, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, London was con-
fronted with (what David French has termed) a ‘new strategic geography’. A line of
advance seemingly laid open to the Germans along the Central Asiatic or Transcas-
pian Railway, which linked Batoum - via Baku, the Caspian Sea, Krasnovodsk and
Askabad - to Merv, Bokhara and/or Tashkent.8 The success of the Bolshevik Revo-
lution did mean that ‘it is now easier for the Germans than it was to get a footing in
Caucasia’. But the Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Sir Henry Wilson, thought
the Germans would not be able to advance along this route with ‘any considerable
bodies of troops’, given the logistical challenges involved, ‘for some time to come’.
Believing that Germany’s overriding objective was to make ‘herself the dominant
world Power’, however, led Wilson to view the potential long-term implications of
Germany’s Drang nach Osten in a far more ominous manner. ‘We run a grave risk of
permitting the Germans to establish themselves in a position which will eventually
lead to the downfall of our Eastern Empire’, he warned the War Cabinet in his con-
cluding sentence.9 Throughout the spring and summer of 1918, Germany seemed
poised to conquer the centre of Halford Mackinder’s world-island. Lord Milner, the
Secretary State for War, feared that if the Eurasian heartland fell under German
domination ‘the whole aspect of the war changes’. The British Isles, once the ‘brain
centre’ of a global empire, would be reduced to ‘an exposed outpost of the Allied
position’. Milner foresaw a global war in which the maritime periphery could only be
defended through ‘the closest conceivable alliance’ of Britain, the Dominions and
the United States. If that weren’t bad enough, warned, General Jan Smuts, a member
of the Eastern Committee, the enemy thrust towards the Caucasus and the Caspian
‘constituted a grave menace to India’ for (as one early twentieth-century war corre-
spondent put it) ‘the path of Empire is along the railway track’.10
Even if Germany did not gain control over the Transcaspian Railway, which in
April 1918 seemed only a matter of time, she did gain immediate access to consider-
able amounts of valuable materiel - the acquisition of industrial raw materials was a
widely publicised German war aim - in an area beyond the reach of British sea power.
At the end of June 1918, the Imperial War Cabinet was informed that the Germans
were already shipping manganese - essential for converting iron into steel - from
Batoum to the Romanian port city of Braila. Shipments of copper would undoubted-
ly have followed, thereby nullifying the Allied blockade that had been in place since
October 1914. The Managing Director of the Baku Russian Petroleum Company
had previously informed the Ministry of Munitions that Germany’s petroleum
276 S. Kelly
supplies had quadrupled, but the true prize still remained out of reach. Germany had
been able to import cotton, along with other vital war material, through neutral
countries that bordered the Baltic Sea until May 1915, when Britain and France
added cotton to their list of contraband. As a stop-gap measure, German chemists
were able to produce nitrocellulose that had almost the same percentage of nitrogen
as guncotton using the pulp of Swedish pine trees. Nevertheless, by the beginning of
1917, Germany’s cotton stocks were almost exhausted and consequently textile pro-
duction had declined 90 per cent, thereby creating serious clothing shortages.11
The answer to Germany’s problem seemed to lie in Turkestan, where at the out-
break of the war nearly 40 per cent of the land under cultivation was devoted to cot-
ton. Worried that the Bolsheviks would deliver ‘vast stocks of cotton’ to Germany,
the British government telegraphed their Consul-General in Chinese Turkistan to en-

quire about ‘the possibility of securing and transporting the entire stock to Kashgar’.
Forgetting to preface his communique with ‘a note that it should be opened in a cool
place and with restoratives at hand!’, Percy Etherton advised London that the
‘colossal undertaking’ would necessitate the use of 750,000 baggage animals and cost
an estimated 22 million rupees (£1,466,666). The plan was soon abandoned.12 It has
been suggested that German attempts to take delivery of a two-year supply of cotton
from Trans-Caspia were thwarted by a single British officer, who bought off local
anti-Bolsheviks with ‘at the most a beggarly twenty Pounds’. One suspects, however,
that the chaotic situation within the region, rather than the efforts of Captain
Reginald Teague-Jones, who was despatched ‘with the primary object of interrupting
the [Trans-Caspian] railway’, ensured that a single bale of cotton never left
Krasnovodsk by sea. Believing that military commanders in theatre did not fully
seize the importance of the situation, Curzon instructed the War Office to telegraph
the General Officer Commanding, Mesopotamia, that ‘in short a greater and more
sustained effort must be made in North West Persia. His Majesty’s Government
attach more importance to success in that sphere and to securing temporary control
of Baku and permanent control of the Caspian than you appear to appreciate.’13 Up
until the end of September 1918, London could not ‘definite[ly]’ dismiss the
possibility of Germany undertaking military operations in Turkestan/Trans-Caspia.
British grand strategy in the East had until this point rested on the assumption that
the war would end with a negotiated settlement that left a fully intact Greater
German Empire on India’s (albeit very distant) north-west frontier, which was both
‘eminently defensible’ and could be ‘developed so as to produce all the foodstuffs, all
the petrol, and almost all the minerals and other raw materials which the populations
of the Central Powers can require’.14
In the summer of 1918, as the chairman of the War Cabinet’s Eastern Committee,
Curzon explained at length to the Imperial War Cabinet how Britain’s enemies,
through their military and political activities, were converting the entire region be-
tween the Black Sea and the borders of Chinese Turkestan into ‘one of the chief thea-
tres of the war’ in order to ‘destroy the British Empire’. ‘That is the first and foremost
of her objects,’ Curzon said of German strategy, ‘and one of the methods of destroy-
ing the British Empire is not merely the destruction of her forces at Calais or
Boulogne, but it is by rendering her position in the East insecure.’ Britain’s status as
a Great Power rested principally on the Dominions and India, that ‘inalienable
badge of sovereignty in the eastern hemisphere’.15 Reports that the poor state of the
Batoum-Baku Railway would slow the enemy advance notwithstanding, news that
two German battalions had sailed across the Black Sea and were slowly advancing
on Tiflis from Batoum, with additional weapons to arm prisoners, only deepened
British anxiety.16 For it seemed to confirm earlier reports of a meeting in Berlin in
January 1918, where the Central Powers decided that liberating the estimated 40,000
Austrian and German prisoners of war in Turkestan was to be the first step ahead of
a ‘general advance on India’.17 The Commander-in-Chief, India, believed that a ma-
jor invasion was probably impossible given that much of the region was in a state of
anarchy, but thought it likely that German and/or Turkish agents would seek to set
the north-west frontier ablaze.18 Nevertheless, by late August 1918, there were 5,000-
odd German troops in the Caucasus. A month later, their numbers had almost qua-
drupled (and now constituted a force that would not have been out of place in the
campaigns that determined the fate of much of sub-Saharan Africa). Even more re-
markable, though perhaps not given the success of the Hundred Days campaign on
the Western Front, which began with the Battle of Amiens on 8 August, was that the
German Navy was still considering plans to establish naval supremacy on the
Caspian Sea as late as early October 1918. Having been successful in her ‘war by
revolution’ against Tsarist Russia, the Chief of Staff of the German Army, General
Ludendorff, argued Germany needed to ‘lay at the Caspian Sea the foundation for a
future cooperation with Afghanistan to hit England militarily in Persia and in India’.
The Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL) saw an independent Georgia, under German
tutelage, of course, as the key to Germany’s eastern policy as it would serve both as a
post-war bridgehead into Central Asia and as a regional counterpoise to the
Bolsheviks.19 German strategy for 1919 was subject to various interpretations,
including preparation for post-war commercial rivalry, but the British War Office
never entirely dismissed the suggestion that Germany might suspend her campaign
on the Western Front and continue fighting in the East.20 Moreover, the initiative in
the Near East also appeared ‘to be passing to the Turks, and, apart from the danger
to India, if they achieved any considerable successes,’ warned the South African
member of the Imperial War Cabinet, General Jan Smuts, ‘our position in regard to
this theatre would be distinctly unfavourable when we came to discuss terms of
peace’. Any apprehension over further Ottoman advances evaporated in a matter of
days. One third of Ottoman forces in the Caucasus and Persia were withdrawn after
General Allenby broke through enemy lines at Megiddo, in the ensuing sauve qui
peut retreat imperial cavalry units routed the Ottomans. Allenby despite being
‘almost aghast at the extent of the victory’ still managed to expel the Ottomans from
the Levant, culminating in the capture of Damascus in early October.21 Luckily, the
Germans also began withdrawing their forces in the final weeks of the war because
trying to devise a means to thwart the German advance into Transcaspia had left
Britain’s official mind ‘grasping at straws’.22
With no genuine threat to their country’s far-flung Empire prior to the collapse of
Tsarist Russia, British policy-makers never had to decide which took precedence,
defending the Empire or the European balance of power. Britain’s existence as a
Great Power was dependent (in part) upon her ability to avoid having to make just
such a decision.23 With the sudden and unexpected end of the Great War in the fall
of 1918, to a large degree, London, as Wilson put it, tumbled ‘into peace in just the
same way as we tumbled into war. No concerted action, no far-seeing plans . . .’24
War aims divided the Imperial War Cabinet. There were those, like the Colonial
Secretary, Walter Long, who believed that ‘this war, with all its glorious sacrifices,
will have been fought in vain . . . if we allow the pen to lose what the sword has
won’. Britain’s victory was as extensive, and fortuitous, as that of 1763. Britain
278 S. Kelly
dominated the Eastern Mediterranean world and beyond; her arms had achieved a
victory that eluded all of Europe during the Crusades. Speaking at the 1921 Imperial
Conference, the Australian Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, wondered: ‘What remains
to us? We are like so many Alexanders? What other worlds have we to conquer?’25
Others, however, preferred a more modest approach. The Canadian Prime Minister,
Sir Robert Borden, sided with the British Foreign Secretary, Arthur Balfour, in
wanting to limit the territorial aggrandisement of the Empire. ‘The people of Canada
are not prepared to fight,’ he proclaimed in 1918, ‘for any territorial extension of the
British Empire, which we regard as already unwieldy.’ The exception - for there is
always an exception - was territory deemed ‘absolutely necessary in order to ensure
the Empire’s security’. The oilfields of Mesopotamia met this requirement for
Balfour, especially since the region he noted was no longer ‘open to attack from any
military empire, Russian or Turkish, or whatever it might be, from the north . . .’
In the case of the threat posed by Germany, the Foreign Secretary concluded in
August 1918 that ‘the most important thing to do, so far as the East is concerned, is
to smash up the whole arrangement which Germany has arrived at by the Brest-
Litovsk Treaty . . .’26
Balfour was indifferent to the fate of the newly independent states from the
south-western borderlands of the old Tsarist Empire provided their ‘squabbles’ and
‘frontier fights’ were not allowed to carry ‘beyond a certain point’. It was not up to
Britain to protect them, adding that ‘if Russia is in a position to crush them, why
not?’ As for the broader question of the defence of India, every five years or so, he
noted there is a new gateway to India that needs to be defended. ‘Those gateways are
getting further and further from India, and I do not know how far west they are go-
ing to be brought by the General Staff,’ he mused. Sharing the widespread belief that
it could be a generation, perhaps two, before a reconstituted Russia was again a sig-
nificant factor in world affairs, Balfour believed that Caucasia ‘is not going to be oc-
cupied by Russia’ and thought it best therefore not to ‘commit this country to
military action under necessities which . . . I most earnestly trust never will arise.’ Nor-
mally not one to ‘prophesy about the future’, having ‘read [more than] a page of
Indian history’, Curzon retorted: ‘I can well conceive that just as the defence of India
has driven us forward in this war to the line from Hamadan to the Caspian, so in the
future it may do the same with the Caucasus’.27 This line of argument is not simply a
delirious desire for territorial aggrandisement, or even expansion based on the infa-
mous ‘for diplomatic, economic, strategic and telegraphic reasons’.28 It is the logical
conclusion to wartime developments. The Foreign Secretary’s ability to forget so eas-
ily the panic that had gripped Whitehall throughout much of 1918 over Germany’s
Drang nach Osten made him something of a dissenting voice in the discussions over
the agenda for the forthcoming peace conference. Balfour’s own deputy at the
Foreign Office even disagreed. ‘So far as Pan-Turanianism is concerned,’ advised
Lord Robert Cecil, ‘we want to get a barrier across from the Black Sea to the Medi-
terranean, if it can be done reasonably’. Curzon would have previously endorsed
Cecil’s conclusion but he had ‘some ideas to put forward with regard to the Caucasus
region’ that differed from his pre-war thinking.29
In 1888–9, Curzon had travelled along the newly completed Trans-Caspian railway
that linked European Russia to the then still largely terra incognita upon which the
Great Game was played. The series of letters he sent to various provincial newspapers
later became the nucleus of Russia in Central Asia. But Curzon began his journey with
the hope that his visit would ‘shed some light’ on the question of Russia’s ‘alleged
designs upon India’, a subject that aroused the greatest ‘conflict of opinion in
England’. He also wanted to compare ‘the relative strength for offensive and defensive
purposes of the Russian and British frontiers, now brought so close together, and the
initial advantages enjoyed by either in the event of the outbreak of war’.30 Often
depicted as a virulent Russophobe, Curzon’s attitude towards Russia evolved over the
course of his life but his devotion to Britain’s Eastern Empire remained a constant fea-
ture of his world-view. And, as early as 1889, he foresaw that the Trans-Caspian rail-
way ‘revolutionised the situation in Central Asia’. Russia had completed her conquest
of the Turcoman tribes and the Russification of the entire region between the Caspian
Sea and Afghanistan was simply a matter of time. This ‘shifting of the centre of gravity
in Central Asia . . . brought about the dethronement of Turkestan in favour of Trans-
Caspia,’ which Curzon anticipated would accelerate ‘the ultimate dismemberment of

Persia’. The ensuing decades would see his prediction come to pass.31 However, in the
enviable ‘great game’ for the ‘Empire of the East’ that Curzon foresaw, Britain would
find that her opponent would be not Russia as would have been expected but the far
more challenging Germany, bidding to become a ‘World Power’.32
Not long after the outbreak of the war, Curzon pledged to the boys of Harrow
School that the sacrifice of their compatriots would not be in vain. ‘No effort of
mine’, he declared, ‘will be wanting to make my countrymen, as they have had to pay
the price of neglect, pay the price also to obtain the security which it will be necessary
for us ever afterwards to maintain.’33 Having fought the Great War for the
‘hegemony of the Empire’, and not one to mince words, Curzon thought any British
government that permitted the resuscitation of the ‘Turco-Germanic plot’ would be
a ‘traitor to the Empire’.34 Britain’s days of effortless superiority were over, but not
‘the voyages which our predecessors commenced . . . We have to answer our helm,
and it is an Imperial helm, down all the tides of Time.’ The Empire would not last
forever, though Curzon figured the Raj might persist for another few centuries.35 In
the last six months of the war, the Central Powers almost ‘turn[ed] the flank of the
British position in Asia’. Such a development was intolerable to a man who had long
maintained India had to be defended ‘not merely from attack, but from peril of
attack . . .’36 Curzon’s Viceroyalty (1899–1905) had ended in a flurry of anger and re-
crimination(s), largely related to the refusal of London to adopt a ‘forward’ defence
policy. The third Marquis of Salisbury believed that Curzon’s problem was ‘he al-
ways wants me to negotiate with Russia as if I had 500,000 men at my back, & I have
not’.37 Curzon’s lifelong pre-occupation was to get his countrymen to recognise two
inescapable truths if Britain were to survive as a Great Power. Not only did India
need a secure and permanent frontier, but the outlying parts of the (informal) Empire
would also have to be drawn into the existing Imperial structure.38
With its ‘extraordinarily strong’ natural defences, Transcaucasia could be just
such a frontier provided its newfound independence continued. The problem during
the war was that the region was largely inaccessible to British forces operating out of
Syria and/or Mesopotamia. As one official scribbled across a map of the region:
‘Constantinople-Batum (under enemy control till Straits are opened to the Allies).’
An armistice with the Ottomans, however, would have freed four cavalry and sixteen
infantry divisions of Imperial forces for redeployment somewhere on the Black Sea
littoral. The prospect of the ‘entente . . . disembark[ing] a large force on the Black
Sea’ terrified Lenin, while it led Ludendorff to the realisation that Germany had lost
the war.39 In issuing instructions for the negotiation of an armistice to the British
Admiral Commanding-in-Chief at Mudros, Admiral Calthorp, the War Cabinet only
280 S. Kelly
included the release of Allied prisoners of war with the other clauses of ‘paramount
importance’, all of which related to the opening of the Black Sea to Allied naval
forces, as the former was ‘politically essential’.40 If trouble arouse on the frontier, the
Allies could under article seven occupy strategically important points. But the specific
exclusion of Transcaucasian considerations from the Mudros Armistice has been tak-
en as evidence that the region remained ‘subsidiary to Constantinople and the Straits
and, in effect, to other regions in the Middle East’.41 Yet, by the end of May 1919,
Britain had three of her thirteen seaplane carriers, the HMS Engadine, HMS Em-
press, and HMS Ark Royal, operating in the Black Sea, though only the first had the
necessary crew for seaplane work. It was suggested that HMS Ark Royal be used as
an immobile supply base, stationed off the coast of Batoum, with a supply depot for
stores from Britain to be established at Mudros, on the Aegean island of Lemnos.42

‘Provided the Constantinople straits remained open,’ advised the War Office, ‘our
sea power could enable us to utilize Batum as a base for operations against the flank
of any southward advance from Russia along the western shore of the Caspian.’43
The strategic situation was highly fluid but those in Constantinople remained confi-
dent that the town of Batoum could be defended, thereby ‘holding [open] line of
communication to Persia’. Supplementing her naval forces was the British Army of
the Black Sea, which although Britain’s smallest army, still numbered 17,000 men.44
It was a far cry from 500,000 men but with the situation in Russia, in the final
months of 1918, deteriorating into what Balfour termed ‘a state of septic dissolution’,
Curzon no longer needed such strength, provided the peace-makers in Paris acted de-
cisively to implement the agenda laid out by the Eastern Committee.45
As Chairman of what became the only forum for discussing the future of former
Ottoman territories, Curzon had little trouble convincing his colleagues that wartime
developments and, more importantly, the scale of Britain’s victory, warranted the
creation of a decidedly British Middle East.46 However, regardless of whatever the
Paris Peace Conference ultimately decided, the ‘Balkanization of Transcaucasia’
threatened to destabilise the entire region and necessitated the Allies exercising ‘some
measure of political control’ in the interim. Consequently, Britain despatched one di-
vision, with another held in readiness, to secure Batoum, Baku and the Batoum-
Baku railway. In the final days of 1918, Batoum and its hinterland became a British
military governorship, though conflicting motivations within Whitehall thwarted the
creation of a coherent policy.47 It was hoped a major power would accept a mandate
under the auspices of the League of Nations, thereby allowing the British to with-
draw, but there were serious objections to the only two realistic possibilities, France
and the United States. It was unlikely the latter would accept such a task. Neverthe-
less, Curzon and others were suspicious over proposed US plans to ship aid and advi-
sors to Armenia as the region was rich in copper and the relief efforts fell under the
purview of the food scheme administered by Herbert Hoover, a successful mining
engineer.48 In the case of France, Curzon would have preferred Russia reconquer the
region since the French were the ‘most imperialistic people in [the] world’. Recognis-
ing that Britain lacked the manpower, Curzon refused to contemplate the permanent
military occupation of the Caucasus, but he believed Britain needed to maintain
temporary control over the Caspian Sea. The objection of the Secretary of State for
India, Edwin Montgu, notwithstanding, the Eastern Committee accepted his advice,
though they amended Curzon’s draft resolution to drop the phrase ‘in the interests
of order in Persia and Trans-Caspia’. Holding the Caspian in turn necessitated main-
taining control of the Batoum-Baku railway.49 No longer bound by wartime
promises to Russia, the British government’s ‘hands are now entirely free in regard
both to the control of the Straits and to the disposal of Constantinople’. The Foreign
Office’s Assistant Under-Secretary, Sir Eyre Crowe, believed that the total capitula-
tion of the Ottoman Empire ‘provided us with a carte blanche on which to remodel
our future Eastern policy . . .’50 Consequently, to ensure London would never again
have to decide between defending the Empire or the European balance of power, the
third and final pillar of Curzon’s Transcaucasian policy as formulated in the winter
of 1918 was the expulsion of the Turks from Constantinople.51 The scale of his ambi-
tion was monumental to say the least but, as Curzon saw it, ‘the world is looking for
great solutions’.52 And, at the beginning of 1919, the sense of optimism amongst
some senior British policy-makers was palpable. ‘It is glorious to feel in such a strong
position everywhere,’ the Acting Minister in Tehran, Sir Percy Cox, told Curzon,
‘with a strong Government and the nation solid behind it. How one must rejoice to
have lived in this generation.’53 Others, however, were far less sanguine. Montagu
thought ‘it would be very satisfactory if we could find some convincing argument for
not annexing all the territories in the world’.54
In any event, if the British Empire, not the United States, was to wield the pre-
dominating influence in the final settlement, both Smuts and Curzon thought, a rapid
settlement was essential. After all, what impediments were there? ‘The Ottoman Em-
pire lay at our feet dismembered and impotent,’ recalled Curzon’s Private Secretary
at the Lausanne Conference, Harold Nicolson, ‘its capital and Caliph at the mercy
of our guns.’55 Rather than focusing on the ‘conclusion and celebration of a speedy
and glorious peace’, by the end of March 1919, Curzon felt his colleagues had be-
come unduly preoccupied with the German settlement. In a memorandum, circulated
to the King and War Cabinet, Curzon voiced his concern that ‘no one appears to
turn a thought to what may happen in Turkey.’ ‘Ever since the conclusion of the
Armistice,’ he warned, ‘it appears to have been taken for granted that Turkey, with
our Fleet at Constantinople, could be compelled to accept whatever terms we may
dictate to her.’ Rather than conducting British diplomacy from a position of military
ascendancy at the heart of Ottoman power, the Mudros Armistice ensured British
prestige ‘rested more upon the calculating self-interest of the Turks on the one hand,
and bluff on our part on the other’. Curzon went on to paint a deeply foreboding
(and prophetic) picture:
Everywhere are manifest symptoms of Allied weakness or disunion . . . It is known that

we are going to clear out of the Caucasus as soon as we can . . . We are already retiring
from Transcaspia. Our flag will presently cease to fly on the Caspian.
If they look to another part of the horizon, the Turks cannot fail to see with a chuckle of
deep satisfaction that there is a serious and widespread revolt against the British [across
the Near East] . . . The above is the picture upon which the Old Turk, who still hopes to
re-establish the former regime, and the Young Turk, who means to cheat us if he can of
the spoils of victory, look out from the crumbling watch-towers of Stambul . . . But
when they realise that they are to be deprived altogether of Armenia, that they are to be
turned out of Constantinople and of Europe, and that even their reduced patrimony in
Asia Minor and Anatolia is either to be parcelled out between enemies (Greece and
Italy) whom they abhor, or is to be patronised by some foreign mandatory Power who
will equally be anathema to them, I sometimes ask myself - what will they do? Will they
once more bow to Kismet? Or will they think it worthwhile to strike another blow (even
if it be a local and abortive blow) for Islam and the few remaining vestiges of their
freedom?56
282 S. Kelly
Eventually, with a final settlement still nowhere in sight, the Cabinet unanimously
asked Curzon, in the summer of 1919, to deal with the ‘Eastern question’, giving him
the authority to devise whatever settlement he wished.57
In addition to trying to find a settlement that was acceptable to the other powers,
which simultaneously did not transform Italy into a significant Middle Eastern pow-
er or expand France’s sphere of influence beyond that envisioned by the Sykes-Picot
Agreement, Curzon still sought to capitalise on a unique moment in history to rear-
range the chess pieces of the Near East. However, more than a year after the signing
of the Armistice of Mudros, the situation on the ground had drastically deteriorated.
‘At the time of the Armistice’, recalled the British High Commissioner in Constanti-
nople, Admiral Sir John de Robeck, ‘Turkey was so cowed that she would have ac-
cepted almost any terms; but between then and now the Turks have had time to pull
themselves together . . .’ Control over central Anatolia had passed into the hands of
the nationalist leader, Mustafa Kemal, who rejected the authority of the Sultan’s
government at Constantinople.58 Meanwhile in London, Curzon met with the Chief
Secretary for Political and Commercial affairs at the Quai d’Orsay, Philippe
Berthelot, to establish a common policy that included the expulsion of the Turks
from Constantinople.59
It appeared that a Turkish settlement was finally within reach, but once again
‘that evil destiny which appears throughout to have brooded over the Eastern Ques-
tion intervened in an unexpected form’.60 Opposition within the Cabinet had grown
apace. A sizeable faction, led by Montagu, feared that unless Britain appeased the
Turks and ensured they did not suffer the full consequences of losing the war it
would be ‘resented throughout our Indian Empire’.61 The Foreign Office rejected
such non-sense. The Permanent Under-Secretary, and a former Viceroy himself,
Lord Hardinge, believed at worst, ‘the Mussalmans would be sulky’. Having de-
clared publically three times that the Allies intended to strip the Turks of Constanti-
nople, Curzon warned that if they were left in position of their capital ‘it will be
regarded throughout the Eastern world as convincing proof not that the Allies would
not, but that they could not, evict him’.62 Ottoman propaganda throughout the last
half of the war might conceivably have reinforced such views.63 Ejecting the sultan
from Constantinople, Crowe argued ‘would, once for all, put an end to the legend of
Turkish military prowess, which has for so long been the mainspring of Pan-Islamic
propaganda . . .’64 Nevertheless, against the advice of the Prime Minister and two
successive foreign secretaries, the Cabinet by a considerable margin decided to retain
the sultan and his government in Constantinople.65 Having overturned one of the pil-
lars of Curzon’s vision for the post-war Middle East, it was not long before Churchill
and the War Office sought to extinguish it entirely.
Although it would later be termed ‘in some quarters’ as ‘an act of dementia’,
Curzon’s Persian policy was the lynch pin in the creation of a ‘stable’ Middle East,
which was ‘friendly’ to the British Empire.66 It was a tall order, particularly as
Greece, France and Italy were ‘gallop[ing] about’ Asia Minor uncontrolled.67 The
anticipated acquisition of a mandate for Mesopotamia meant that henceforth Persia
bordered British territory on two fronts, with the Persian Gulf to the south. Reminis-
cent of his nineteenth-century concerns over the problem(s) of India’s turbulent
north-west frontier, Curzon argued that Britain ‘cannot permit the existence, be-
tween the frontiers of our Indian Empire in Baluchistan and those of our new Protec-
torate, of a hotbed of misrule, enemy intrigue, financial chaos, and political
disorder’.68 With the demise of German East Africa, and the successful prosecution
of the Third Afghan War, northern Persia was arguably the weakest link in Britain’s
eastern arc of Empire. Wilson believed it ‘sheer madness for our people (civilians
and women and children) to remain on in Tehran’. Although the Bolshevik uprising
in nearby Manjil was put down, post-war Persia was ‘extremely unsettled’, to put
it diplomatically. After an abortive attempt to flee the country, the last Qajar
Shah, Ahmad Shah, tried to construct a strong central government but (in the words
of an interested contemporary) ‘Coup d’etat follows coup d’etat, revolution follows
revolution. Ministers seize office today only to disappear tomorrow. Cabinets rise
and fall. Parties spring into being, rapidly dissolve into their component parts, and
form fresh combinations.’69 Curzon’s 1919 Anglo-Persian Treaty alone was not
enough to prevent the country from relapsing into a ‘solitary figure moving about in
a chronic state of disorder on the glacis of the Indian fortress . . .’70 If the ‘uniform
force’ the Persian government proposed to ‘create for the establishment and preser-
vation of order in the country and on its frontiers’ was to be successful, Britain would
have to secure Persia’s northern border against both (Soviet) Russia and the
Azerbaijani Turks in the interim.71 It is not surprising therefore that when greeted
with demands for the withdrawal of British troops from Transcaucasia, Curzon
responded in the negative. ‘Batoum- Bolt! Most certainly not!’, he retorted on one
occasion.72 Supposedly the Lloyd George ministry was the most imperial-minded
one in British history, yet Curzon’s Cabinet colleagues sought almost immediately to
kill his effort to transform Persia into a ‘bulwark for peace’ that would help fill the
vacuum created by the breakup of the Ottoman and Tsarist Empires because the
annual cost of keeping troops in Persia and Mesopotamia was ‘well over 30,000,000’
pounds.73 Milner, who was ‘quite unable to understand how we can afford to
disinterest ourselves in what may happen in Persia’, drew a distinction between
present and future costs, arguing that the burden on British taxpayers would be
radically lower once ‘normal conditions’ returned. This conclusion was reinforced by
the costs associated with policing both the Sudan and Britain’s East African Empire.
Beyond the ‘panic’ over expenditure that had captured public opinion, the War
Office also objected to the notion of defending India at the Black Sea, which was
alleged to be ‘radically unsound, and has never been contemplated by the General
Staff’. Spending a fraction of the costs associated with the Mesopotamian garrisons
on improving communications on the north-west frontier, along with improving
conditions within the Indian Army, argued the War Office, ‘would be infinitely more
effective in defending India’. As he had told the boys of Harrow school in October
1914, Curzon believed that when the war ended one should not ‘throw away its
lessons’.74 Ultimately, despite a lengthy rear-guard campaign, Curzon and the
Foreign Office saw the three remaining infantry battalions withdrawn from Batoum
in early July 1920.75 Thus ended another skirmish in the longstanding dispute over
where to defend British India, but still Curzon pushed on. If Batoum was to become
the ‘great commercial port of Persia’, perhaps under the protection of the League of
Nations, the peace treaty with Turkey had to ensure that the Dardanelles and the
Black Sea remained open.76
Even after the resurgence of Bolshevik power in the spring of 1920 ended the
second phase of Curzon’s Transcaucasian (mis)adventure, he still sought to salvage
something of his original vision at the 1922-3 Lausanne Conference. Germany’s bid to
expand ‘Mittel-Europa into Mittel-Asien’ had been thwarted, but what of the future?
Curzon had pledged himself the task of securing a greater measure of imperial
security not long after the outbreak of war. The most effective line of defence ran
284 S. Kelly
through Sofia, but in second place was the more practical one, the Straits.77 The
Soviet Commissar of Foreign Affairs, Georgy Chicherin understood that the
continuance of the ‘maritime regime’ would be very advantageous to Britain. It had
already ‘enabled the Powers of the Entente to create in our southern districts the
armies of Denikin and Wrangel and to support their fight against the Governments
of Russia and her allies’. Allied naval forces continued operations off the Georgian
coast until 1921.78 Opening up the Black Sea to the Royal Navy would have
transformed the Straits from a territorial bridge between Europe and Asia into a
‘blue water line’ separating the two continents, thereby achieving the longstanding
dream of defending British India by sea power.79 Although ‘stillborn’, the Treaty of
Sevres was designed to ensure that Turkey could never again ‘close the Straits against
Europe, i.e. against the British command of the sea’. Curzon’s task at Lausanne
therefore was to strip the Turks of their ‘physical occupation of the Straits’.
Otherwise, as the Dardanelles campaign had demonstrated, Turkey would remain
‘thoroughly immune’ to British sea power. The Foreign Office expected any attempt
to ensure British commercial and military vessels should enjoy unfettered access to
the Black Sea would be seriously challenged, particularly by France who regarded the
possibility of a British Black Sea Fleet as a threat to her (growing) influence in Eastern
Europe.80 With virtually no allies, Curzon was under no illusion as to the
difficulty of the task. ‘Hitherto we have dictated our peace treaties,’ he told a
colleague. ‘Now we are negotiating one with the enemy who has an army in being
while we have none, an unheard of position.’ Even more galling, throughout the
course of the Lausanne Conference, Britain had to constantly humour, conciliate and
consult Allies who had neither ‘fought nor won the war against Turkey’.81
Contemporaries judged Curzon’s performance at Lausanne a smashing success.
‘Britannia has ruled here. Entirely against the Turks, against treacherous allies,
against a weak-kneed cabinet, against a rotten public opinion - and Curzon has won.
Thank God’, proclaimed Nicolson. Although the imperialist Conservative politician,
Leo Amery, was equally alarmed at the geopolitical consequences of a German
‘Middle-Europe’, his vision of a post-war world divided into spheres of influence
‘would have dumbfounded . . . Metternich’.82 Motivated by the desire to see that
Britain remained a Great Power Amery emerged as one of Curzon’s harshest critics,
but latter wrote that the Foreign Secretary ‘secured a far better peace than could
have been expected’.83 Scholarly opinion is equally praiseworthy. One work, which
was part of the broader reassessment of Curzon’s tenure as Foreign Secretary
that occurred roughly a decade ago, concluded: ‘His considerable achievement at
Lausanne has stood the test of time and still ranks as an example of British diplomacy
at its pragmatic best. . . [Curzon] was able to fashion a compromise peace settlement
that brought an effective end to the Eastern Question.’ There is no question about the
former, but the latter point is debatable. Lloyd George’s Hellenic leanings lost much of
what British swords had won, the real criteria by which the settlement Curzon master-
minded should be judged is whether or not the Straits settlement that emerged furthered
British imperial security.84
Persuading the Turks to accept a Straits Convention that largely upheld the free-
dom of the Straits, thereby ensuring the Black Sea could never be transformed into a
Soviet mare clausum, is treated as Curzon’s greatest accomplishment (at the Confer-
ence).85 Unlike the Treaty of Sevres, which upheld the absolute freedom of the
Straits, for all commercial and military vessels, regardless of flag, and contained ef-
fective guarantees to ensure said transit could not be interfered with, the Straits
Convention in the Lausanne Settlement was less than ideal for Britain. In times of
peace, there was to be ‘complete freedom of navigation’. During times of war, how-
ever, the status of Turkey governed the Straits. If she were a belligerent, the Straits
would only be open to neutral vessels provided their transit did not assist the enemy,
‘particularly by carrying contraband, troops or [even] enemy nationals’. Further-
more, the Turkish government retained ‘full power’ to take whatever measures
deemed necessary to prevent enemy vessels from using the Straits, so long as the tran-
sit of neutral vessels with the ‘necessary instructions or [Turkish] pilots’ was not im-
pinged upon.86 In other words, in adopting what the Foreign Office termed the
‘commercial freedom of the Straits’, Curzon negotiated - albeit from a position of
weakness - Britain’s ‘minimum interpretation’, which offered only a ‘slight improve-
ment of the pre-war situation’ and was therefore not ‘a solution at all’.87
Whereas it was once hoped that Allied military control of the Straits would en-
sure that ‘an active, hostile, ambitious’ Turkish state ‘with a strong Nationalist
instinct’ would not be able to renew her links with Germany or plot machinations
with Soviet Russia, the War Office advised ahead of the Lausanne Conference that
Britain should abandon any pretence of occupying the Dardanelles littoral and rec-
ommended that the demilitarisation of the Straits be secured through diplomatic
means.88 Although the Treaty stipulated that both shores of the Straits were to be
demilitarised, which the Admiralty deemed necessary for the safe transit through the
narrow Dardanelles and Bosphorus Straits, the provisions to ensure (on-going) com-
pliance were almost non-existent. The Commission charged with overseeing the
Straits Convention was to be headed by a representative of the Angora regime. Fur-
thermore, in addition to being able to transport her armed forces through and an-
chor her fleet in the demilitarised zones, Turkey was allowed to construct a naval
base and maintain a garrison of no more than 12,000 men at Constantinople. As
Turkish control over the city was a foregone conclusion, the Admiralty thought that
‘obviously’ the Turks needed to be able to defend Constantinople. Moreover, as the
treaty stipulated, the demilitarisation of the Straits could not ‘constitute an unjustifi-
able danger to the military security of Turkey’. The Allies consequently agreed to
meet any threat to the free navigation of the Straits or security of the demilitarised
zones by whatever means sanctioned by the League of Nations’ Council.89 With the
future freedom of the Straits depending ‘entirely on the good faith of the Turks’,
Curzon was warned that it was ‘essential’ that Britain retain the ability to bring
‘adequate pressure’ to bear on Turkey. Peacetime transit of warships through the
Straits, however, was subject to restriction. It was adopted that ‘the maximum force
which any one Power may send through the Straits into the Black Sea is not to be
greater than that of the most powerful fleet of the littoral Powers of the Black Sea
existing in that sea at the time of passage . . .’90 No British fleet therefore would ever
be able to enter the Black Sea (in advance of hostilities), thereby undermining impor-
tant British interests in the Black Sea and potentially the Lausanne settlement itself.
The Admiralty was worried that ‘in all probability’ Soviet naval forces would always
be superior to those of Turkey, which could leave Angora vulnerable to being pres-
sured to open/close the Straits. Whereas the warships of Russia and Turkey remained
free to exercise their right of passage through the Suez, Panama and Kiel canals, to
say nothing of the Kattegat Sound and Belts as guaranteed in the Treaty of
Versailles, the Lausanne Treaty effectively denied similar rights through the Straits
to other nations. On the upside, in the event of hostilities, while the Turkish Army
brought forth their guns and began mining the Straits, Britain would have seven
286 S. Kelly
days to undertake another Gallipoli campaign ‘in order that the Fleet may hammer
at the gates of Constantinople and force the Turks to open the door into the Black
Sea’.91 Although the Lausanne Settlement failed to answer the central question of
whether the Straits constituted the ‘territorial bridge between Europe and Asia’ or ‘a
blue water line’ between the continents, it did inaugurate a period of British pre-
eminence in the region that persisted until the 1956 Suez Crisis.92
Put another way, when no power was prepared to challenge her, Britain was pre-
eminent. Sufferance, alas, is not the same as security. For someone who spoke of the
‘duty’ (Conservative) Britons had ‘at this critical moment . . . to maintain the Empire
of England’, Curzon bequeathed a dubious legacy to his successors.93 British policy-
makers could never be sure Germany would not one day renew her Drang nach
Otsen.94 The future of Anglo-Persian relations was also uncertain.95 During his tenure
as Foreign Secretary, the so-called ‘Garden Suburb’ certainly never eclipsed Curzon,
but it is unlikely he would have considered his tenure as successful as recent scholar-
ship would suggest.96 Proponents of the ‘London school’ have argued that Britain
remained the world’s foremost power in the years after 1918.97 While there is much to
be said for their arguments, they fail to pay sufficient attention to the factious psycho-
logical attitudes of British policy-makers. The changing attitudes of British elites are
noted, but, having forsaken quantifiable factors, rising anti-colonialist movements are
invoked to explain why the ‘days of British power were numbered’.98 Such conclusions
would have come as a shock to many colonial nationalists, including Jawaharlal Nehru
or, the future President of an independent Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta, who lamented on
the eve of the Second World War that the end of imperial rule was still impossible to
foresee. Although written in the late nineteenth century, Curzon’s admonition that
‘moral failure alone can shatter the prospect that awaits this country in the impending
task of regeneration’ still rang true.99 Yet the recriminations that followed the surprise
Soviet raid on Enzeli in May 1920, which saw both the loss of General Denikin’s old
Caspian fleet and the surrender of the small British garrison, exposed the divergent
attitudes within Whitehall. Believing that British influence ‘throughout the Caucasus,
Trans-Caspia, and Persia’ was lost, Churchill advised that, ‘if we are not able to resist
the Bolsheviks in these areas, it is much better by timely withdrawals to keep out of
harm’s way and avoid disaster and the shameful incidents such as that which has just
occurred.’ Rather than continue Curzon’s ‘policy of mere bluff’, Churchill and the
War Office wanted British forces ‘everywhere’ withdrawn to ‘defensive positions in
close proximity with their railheads’.100 If the limits of power are found in the inability
of states to project effective peacetime image(s) of power, Curzon’s Transcaucasian ad-
venture was certainly riskier than a renewed policy of ‘masterly inactivity’ but there
were other issues at play.101 Curzon had long recognised that it was going to be
extremely difficult ‘to keep the natives loyal and contented at the same time that one
absolutely refuses to hand over the keys to the citadel’. Talk of liberty, democracy,
nationality and self-government having become by the summer of 1917 the ‘common
shibboleths of the Allies’ did not help matters. Had things turned out differently, the
reforming Persian state envisioned by Curzon might have proved a powerful antidote
to the crisis of empire.102 Instead, at another time of national peril, Britain was again
confronted by the intractable problem of how to disrupt German trade on the Black
Sea: specifically Russo-German oil traffic that originated at Batoum.103 Retrenchment
and localised, ephemeral revolts in Egypt, India and Iraq, which together amounted to
a crisis of empire, may have dominated headlines. But they did not alter the fundamen-
tal reality that Britons could not ‘disown our own handiwork . . . We have to answer
our helm, and it is an Imperial helm, down all the tides of Time.’104 Curzonian expecta-
tions did not permit context, or even the potential impossibility, of the task at hand. It
is worth remembering that Curzon deemed achieving a Second in ‘Greats’, while he si-
multaneously cemented his reputation as someone headed for future fame, as being
publically ‘stamped with the brand of respectable mediocrity’. Curzon’s world-view
was in some ways extremely simple: one was either successful or one was not. Conse-
quently in failing to overcome the objections of his cabinet colleagues to his Transcau-
casian policy, which he believed vital to the future security of his beloved Eastern
Empire, Curzon was - by his own words - a ‘traitor to the empire’. A truly superior per-
son would have succeeded; then again, as Churchill reminds us, Curzon’s fortune be-
gan its long, at times imperceptible, decline the moment matters could not be settled
through academic competition.105
Notes
1. ‘Notes on Transcaucasia’, May 1919, [Kew, United Kingdom, National Archives],
CAB[inet Secretaries Notebooks] 45/107. Transcaucasia was part of Curzon’s sphere of
influence as it was ‘diplomatically connected to but sufficiently remote from the Europe-
an settlement being masterminded by [the Prime Minister David] Lloyd George’. G.
Johnson, ‘Preparing for Office: Lord Curzon as Acting Foreign Secretary, January-
October 1919’, Contemporary British History, xviii (2004), 55.
2. Expressions of support included J. Y. Simpson, ‘Transcaucasia Before and After the
Revolution’, H.W. Nevinson, ‘For the Georgian Republic’, J. Ramsay MacDonald,
‘The Georgian Socialist Republic’, Contemporary Review, cxiv (1918), 41–7, cxvii
(1920), 177–83, and cxix (1921), 177–84, respectively. For Curzon’s attitude see his
1 October 1919 minute on a Foreign Office memorandum respecting Batoum quoted in
J. Fisher, ‘“On The Glacis of India”: Lord Curzon and British Policy in the Caucasus,
1919’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, viii (1997), 75–6.
3. ‘Notes on Transcaucasia’, my italics.
4. The exception being J. Darwin, Britain, Egypt and the Middle East: Imperial Policy in
the Aftermath of War, 1918–1922 (London, 1981), 167 and M. Yapp’s review of
J. Fisher’s Curzon and British Imperialism in the Middle East, 1916–19, Middle Eastern
Studies, xxxvi (2000), 187. The link is only hinted at in G. Bennett, British Foreign Policy
during the Curzon Period, 1919–24 (New York, 1995), 122.
5. See, for example, F. French, From Whitehall to the Caspian (London, 1920),
L. Dunsterforce, The Adventures of Dunsterforce, A covering note by General W.M.
Thomson for his commander’s unpublished account, B. Pearce (ed), ‘Transcaucasia
1918-19’, Revolutionary Russia, x (1997), 72–96. Although published much later,
C. Ellis, The British ‘Intervention’ in Transcaspia, 1918–1919 (Berkeley, 1963) falls into
this category as well. F. Kazemzadeh’s The Struggle for Transcaucasia, 1917–1921
(New York, 1951) is primarily a history of the Revolution on one Russian borderland.
6. The classic study of the Allied Intervention is R. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations,
1917–1921, 3 vols. (Princeton, 1961–), but also see R. Debo, Survival and Consolidation:
The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1918–1921 (Montreal, 1992) and C. Kinvig,
Churchill’s Crusade: The British Invasion of Russia, 1918–1920 (London, 2006);
D. Gilmour, Curzon (London, 1994), 519.
7. E. Goldstein, ‘The British Official Mind and the Lausanne Conference, 1922–23’,
Diplomacy and Statecraft, xiv (2003), 185; J. Rose, ‘British Foreign Policy in Relation
to Transcaucasia 1918–1921’ (Ph.D. dissertation, Toronto, 1985), published as ‘Batum
as Domino, 1919–1920: The Defence of India in Transcaucasia’, International History
Review, ii (1980), 266–87 and Fisher, ‘On The Glacis of India’ are the most pertinent
examples.
8. D. French, The Strategy of the Lloyd George Coalition, 1916–1918 (Oxford, 1995), 175;
Sir P. Sykes, ‘The British Flag on the Caspian: A Side-Show of the Great War’, Foreign
Affairs, ii (1923), 282; A. J. Toynbee, ‘Supplement to Report on Pan-Turanian
288 S. Kelly
Movement’, 17 Nov. 1917, CAB 24/144. On Germany’s global strategy, see H. Strachan,
The First World War, Volume One: To Arms (Oxford, 2001), 694–814.
9. ‘General Staff reply to Foreign Office Note no. T21169, dated 7th March 1918’, 11
March 1918, National Archives, W[ar] O[ffice Records] 106/314.
10. Lord Milner to David Lloyd George, 9 June 1918, quoted in J. Darwin, The Empire
Project: The Rise and Fall of the British World-System, 1830–1970 (Cambridge, 2009),
314; General Jan Smuts, E[astern] C[ommittee] Minutes, 18 Sept. 1918, CAB 27/24;
George Lynch quoted in K. Neilson and T. Otte, ‘“Railpolitik” an introduction’ in
T. Otte and K. Neilson (eds.), Railways and International Politics: Paths of Empire,
1848–1945 (London, 2006), 7.
11. Viscount Chelmsford to India Office, 26 April 1918, CAB 27/26/EC 202; H. Louis,
‘Mineral Production in Relation to the Peace Treaty’, Nature, ciii (1919), 205; I[mperial]
W[ar] C[abinet] Minutes, 27 June 1918, CAB 23/41; R. Tweed, ‘Memorandum on
Caucasian Position’, 11 May 1918, National Archives, [Ministry of] MUN[itions] 4/

6603; ‘Note on the Blockade of the North Sea’ (Prepared by the GHQ, French Army
Staff, and communicated by the C.I.G.S. after the recent Allied Staff Conference),
21 March 1916, CAB 24/2; L. Guichard, The Naval Blockade, 1914–1918, trans. and
ed. C. R. Turner (New York, 1930), 262–74.
12. P. Etherton, In the Heart of Asia (London, 1925), 151–2. The cost in pounds was taken
from ‘The Cotton Problem 1914–1918’, and related papers, dated 1924, [London,
United Kingdom, British Library, papers of Ronald Sinclair, alias Reginald Teague-
Jones], MSS Eur[opean] C313/4.
13. Extract from Teague-Jones’ privately published Adventures with Turkmen, Tatars and
Bolsheviks (mid-1920s) in the Sinclair papers, MSS Eur C313/4; EC Minutes, 1 July
1918, CAB 27/24; WO to G[eneral] O[fficer] C[ommanding], Mesopotamia, repeated to
C[ommander]-in-C[hief], India, 28 June 1918, CAB 27/28/EC 653.
14. WO to C-in-C, India, 6 Oct. 1918, CAB 27/34/EC 1808; B. Millman, ‘A Counsel of
Despair: British Strategy and War Aims, 1917–18’, Journal of Contemporary History,
xxxvi (2001), 259–60, in particular; Leo Amery, ‘Notes on Possible Terms of Peace’,
4 Nov. 1917, CAB 24/10/GT 448. If the Allied offensive in the summer of 1918 was the
‘hammer’, shortages of food and steel needed for the construction of tanks ‘provided
the anvil’. A. Offer, The First World War: An Agrarian Interpretation (Oxford, 1989), 72.
15. IWC Shorthand Notes, 25 June 1918, CAB 23/43; G. Curzon, Persia and the Persian
Question (New York, 1966; originally published London, 1892), i. 4. The IWC accepted
that considerations of Imperial security would be amongst the central factors influenc-
ing the British delegation at the inevitable peace conference, subject to the military situ-
ation and the claims of Britain’s allies. IWC Minutes, 1 May 1917, CAB 23/40.
16. EC Minutes, 18 June 1918, CAB 27/24; IWC Minutes, 14 June 1918, CAB 23/41, W[ar]
C[abinet] Minutes, 4 June 1918, CAB 23/6.
17. General Staff, ‘Memorandum on the Situation in Central Asia’, 19 April 1918, CAB 27/
25/EC 163; IWC Shorthand Notes, 25 June 1918, CAB 23/43.
18. Note by the Secretary, Military Department, India Office, 18 April 1918, CAB 27/26/
EC 210. Also see telegram No. 29076 from C-in-C, India to War Office, 13 April 1918,
which is Appendix G in Sir Henry Wilson, ‘Security of India’, 30 April 1918, CAB 24/
50/GT 4401.
19. H. Seidt, ‘From Palestine to the Caucasus: Oskar Niedermayer and Germany’s Middle
Eastern Strategy in 1918’, German Studies Review, xxiv (2001), 9–11; M. Kitchen, The
Silent Dictatorship: The politics of the German High Command under Hindenburg and
Ludendorff, 1916–1918 (New York, 1976), 237–40. The quotations come from Seidt, 9
and 10, respectively. On the war in Africa, see Strachan, First World War.
20. C-in-C, India to War Office, 21 Aug. 1918, Appendix A to EC Minutes, 18 Sept. 1918,
CAB 27/24; Sir Henry Wilson, ‘The War in the East, Note by the CIGS on
Mr. Montagu’s Memorandum’, 15 July 1918, CAB 27/29. Also see E. Montagu, ‘The
War in the East’, 5 July 1918, CAB 27/28.
21. EC Minutes, 18 Sept. 1918, CAB 27/24; Sir P. Cox to Foreign Office, 1 Oct. 1918,
Appendix A, EC Minutes, 17 Oct. 1918, CAB 27/24; Letter to his wife, 24 Sept. 1918,
quoted in M. Hughes, Allenby and British Strategy in the Middle East, 1917–1919
(London, 1999), 97.
22. WC Minutes, 27 Sept. 1918, CAB 23/7; IWC Minutes, 5 Nov. 1918, CAB 23/42;
B. Schwarz, ‘Divided Attention: Britain’s Perception of a German Threat to Her
Eastern Position in 1918’, Journal of Contemporary History, xxviii (1993), 104.
23. E. Ingram, ‘The Defence of India, 1874–1914: A Strategic Dilemma’, Militargeschicht-
liche Mitteilungen, xiv (1974), 224.
24. WC Minutes, 16 Oct. 1918, CAB 23/8; D. French, ‘“Had We Known How Bad Things
Were in Germany, We Might Have Got Stiffer Terms”: Great Britain and the German
Armistice’ in M. Boemeke, G. Feldman, and E. Gl€ aser (eds.), The Treaty of Versailles:
A Reassessment After 75 Years (Cambridge, 1998), 72–3; Diary entry, 30 Sept. 1918,
quoted in C. Callwell, Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson, Bart., G.C.B., D.S.O. His Life
and Diaries (London, 1927), ii. 128. Also, see EC Shorthand Notes, 27 Nov. 1918, CAB
27/24.
25. IWC Shorthand Notes, 13 Aug. 1918, CAB 23/43; J. Darwin, ‘An Undeclared Empire:
The British in the Middle East, 1918–39’ in R. King and R. Kilson (eds.), The Statecraft
of British Imperialism: Essays in Honour of Wm. Roger Louis (London, 1999), 163; B.
G€ okay, ‘Turkish Settlement and the Caucasus, 1918–20’, Middle Eastern Studies, xxxii
(1996), 45–6; E. Goldstein, ‘The Eastern Question: The Last Phase’ in M. Dockrill and
J. Fisher (eds.), The Paris Peace Conference, 1919: Peace without Victory? (Houndmills,
2001), 141; Conference of Prime Ministers and Representatives of the United Kingdom,
the Dominions and India, held in June, July and August, 1921, Cmd. 1474 (London,
1921), 23.
26. IWC Shorthand Notes, 13 Aug. 1918, CAB 23/43. Also see K. Neilson, ‘For Diplomat-
ic, Economic, Strategic and Telegraphic Reasons: British Imperial Defence, the Middle
East and India, 1914–18’ in G. Kennedy and K. Neilson (eds.), Far-Flung Lines: Essays
on Imperial Defence in Honour of Donald Mackenzie Schurman (London, 1996), 103–23
and J. Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism in the Middle East, 1916–19 (London, 1999).
27. EC Shorthand Notes, 9 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24, my italics; ‘Presentation of Freedom of
City of London (1904)’ in Lord Curzon in India: Being a Selection from his Speeches as
Viceroy & Governor-General of India 1898–1905 (London, 1906), 43. Also see E. Foord,
‘The Dissolution of the Russian Empire’, Contemporary Review, cxv (1919), 425–30.
28. J. Galbraith, ‘British War Aims in World War I: A Commentary on “Statesmanship”’,
The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, xiii (1984), 25–45. The quotation,
which was written by the Secretary of State for India, Edwin Montagu, on 20 Dec.
1918, is from page 25.
29. EC Shorthand Notes, 2 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24, my italics. On the varied origins of pan-
Turanianism, its relation, or lack therefore of, to pan-Islamism and the degree to which
it served as a cloak for Ottoman (Turkish) irredentism, see A. Toynbee, ‘Report on the
Pan-Turanian Movement’, Oct. 1917, CAB 24/144.
30. Hon. George Curzon, MP, ‘Russia in Central Asia’, The Sheffield & Rotherham Indepen-
dent, 7 Nov. 1888, 5 (Nineteenth-Century British Library Newspapers, Part II). The
‘remoteness’ of the region is described in Curzon’s letter to ibid., 1 Jan. 1889, 3. Also see
G. Curzon, Russia in Central Asia in 1889 and the Anglo-Russian Question (New York,
1967; originally published London, 1889).
31. B. Smith, ‘“The Mammon of Unrighteousness”: Lord Curzon’s Perception of Russia’
(M.A. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1998); Curzon, ‘Russia in Central Asia’, 25 Jan. 1889,
5. On Persia, see D. Dilks, Curzon in India (New York, 1969), i. 138–61 and D. McLean, Brit-
ain and Her Buffer State: The Collapse of the Persian Empire, 1890–1914 (London, 1979).
32. Curzon, ‘Russia in Central Asia’, 25 Jan. 1889, 5; Eyre Crowe, ‘Memorandum on the
Present State of British Relations with France and Germany’, 1 Jan. 1907, in G. Gooch
and H. Temperley (eds.), British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914, vol.
3, The Testing of the Entente, 1904–6 (London, 1928), 404–5. Also see F. Fisher,
Germany’s Aims in the First World War (New York, 1967). The map on page 547 depicts
‘the “New Order” in the East’ that Germany envisioned in the spring of 1918.
33. D. Chapman-Huston (ed), Subjects of the Day; Being a Selection of Speeches and Writings
by Earl Curzon of Kedleston, with an Introduction by the Earl of Cromer (London, 1915),
403.
34. Curzon made his comments on the war’s purpose in a meeting with General Haig and
King Albert, 7 Feb. 1916, quoted in General van Overstraeten (ed), The War Diaries of
290 S. Kelly
Albert I King of the Belgians trans. M. Savill (London, 1954), 85; Lord Curzon, ‘German
and Turkish Territories Captured in the War: Their Future’, 5 Dec. 1917, CAB 24/4.
35. From Curzon’s toast to ‘The British Dominions Beyond the Seas’ made on 24 May 1906
(Empire Day) at the Hotel Cecil in Chapman-Huston, Subjects of the Day, 5; Gilmour,
Curzon, 485.
36. EC Shorthand Notes, 2 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24; G. Curzon, ‘India Between Two Fires’,
Nineteenth Century, xxxiv (1893), 177.
37. D. Dilks, Curzon in India (New York, 1969), ii; Quoted in R. Adams, Balfour: The Last
Grandee (London, 2007), 195.
38. G. Curzon, ‘The True Imperialism’, The Nineteenth Century, lxiii (1908), 151–65. Also
see Lord Curzon, Frontiers: The Romanes Lecture (Oxford, 1907), 17–19 and 57–8, in
particular.
39. Political Intelligence Department, Foreign Office, ‘Memorandum on the Republics of
“North Caucasus” and “Azerbaijan”, and Enver Pasha’s Policy There [with map]’, un-
dated, CAB 27/35/EC 2132; Lenin to Adolf A. Ioffe, 18 Oct. 1918, quoted in R. Debo,
Revolution and Survival: The Foreign Policy of Soviet Russia, 1917–18 (Toronto, 1979),
378. Also see page 385; G. Dyer, ‘The Turkish Armistice of 1918: 2 - A Lost Opportunity:
The Armistice Negotiations of Moudros’, Middle Eastern Studies, viii (1972), 313–48.
40. WC draft minutes, 22 Oct. 1918, CAB 23/14/489B. Also see CIGS and First Sea Lord,
‘Conditions of an Armistice with Turkey arranged in order of importance’, 21 Oct. 1918.
41. Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism, 151–2; Rose, ‘British Foreign Policy in Relation
to Transcaucasia’, 25.
42. Col. R. Gordon, RAF Headquarters, Aegean Group, ‘Proposed policy for Aegean,
Black Sea and Caspian Group, RAF’, National Archives, AIR [Historical Branch
Records] 1/474/15/312/17.
43. General Staff, War Office, ‘Future Settlement of Trans-Caucasia (The military aspects
of the case), 5 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/39/E.C 2632. The strength of the Royal Navy on 11
Nov. 1918 can be found in J. Corbett, Naval Operations (London, 1995; originally pub-
lished London, 1920-), v. 430.
44. GHQ Constantinople to War Office, 26 May 1920, Political and Secret Annual Files, I
[ndia] O[ffice] R[ecords, British Library]/L/PS/11/172 1920: P 3402/1920 [Constantino-
ple: defence of Batoum]; Admiralty, ‘Weekly Appreciation of matters of Naval Interest
for the week ended 10th January 1920’, 13 Jan. 1920, CAB 24/96/CP 447; Winston
Churchill, ‘Strength of the British Army’, 11 Dec. 1919, CAB 24/94/CP 282.
45. Quoted in J. Tomes, Balfour and Foreign Policy: The International Thought of a Conserva-
tive Statesman (Cambridge, 1997), 227. Also see Debo, Revolution and Survival, 358–79.
46. This article is only concerned with the Transcaucasian dimension but, broadly speaking,
after the war, the Eastern Question dealt with three geographical regions; the Arabian
Peninsula & Mesopotamia, Syria & Palestine and Transcaucasia, which included Arme-
nia. EC Minutes, 27 Nov. 1918, CAB 27/24. British plans for the entire peace settlement
are discussed in E. Goldstein, Winning the Peace: British Diplomatic Strategy, Peace
Planning and the Paris Peace Conference, 1916–1920 (Oxford, 1991).
47. P. Miliukov, ‘The Balkanization of Transcaucasia, I, II & III’, The New Russia, ii
(1920), 237–41, 269–74, and 299–30, respectively; EC Shorthand Notes, 2 Dec. 1918,
CAB 27/24; Rose, ‘British Foreign Policy in Relation to Transcaucasia’, 21–47.
48. EC Minutes and Shorthand Notes, 2 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24. Vacillation, coupled with a
change in government, precluded Italy. Rose, ‘British Foreign Policy in Relation to
Transcaucasia’, 119–32. The mineral wealth of the region is discussed in D. Ghambashidze,
Mineral Resources of Georgia and Caucasia (London, 1919).
49. Annex, ‘Middle Eastern Questions with Reference to the Peace Conference’, EC
Minutes, 9 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24; EC Minutes, 16 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24. Shorthand
notes were included in the annex. British apprehension over France, and the 1916
Sykes-Picot Agreement, in particular, is well known.
50. Political Intelligence Department, Foreign Office, ‘Memorandum Respecting the
Settlement of Turkey and the Arabian Peninsula’, 21 Nov. 1918, CAB 27/37/EC 2525.
The attributed authorship of this unsigned document varies, being ‘Sir Eyre Crowe and
other authorities’ on one occasion and ‘Crowe and Mr. [Arnold] Toynbee’ on another.
EC Shorthand Notes, 2 Dec. and 27 Nov. 1918, respectively, CAB 27/24.
51. The debate over the future of the city is in EC Shorthand Notes, 23 Dec. 1918,
CAB 27/24.
52. Lord Curzon, ‘The Future of Constantinople’, 2 Jan. 1918, printed Jan. 1919, CAB 27/
38/EC 3027.
53. Cox to Curzon, 13 Jan. 1919, quoted in Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism, 195.
54. IWC Minutes, 20 Dec. 1918. CAB 23/42.
55. Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism, 202; General Smuts, ‘A Note on the Early
Conclusion of Peace’, 24 Oct. 1918, CAB 24/67/GT 6091; H. Nicolson, Curzon: The
Last Phase, 1919–1925: A Study in Post-War Diplomacy (London, 1934), 3. Also see
French, ‘Had We Known How Bad Things Were’.
56. Lord Curzon, ‘A Note of Warning about the Middle East’, 25 March 1919, CAB 24/77/
GT 7037.
57. Letters to Lady Curzon, 19, 20 Aug. 1919, quoted in Earl of Ronaldshay, The Life of
Lord Curzon: Being the Authorized Biography of George Nathaniel, Marquess Curzon of
Kedleston, K.G. (London, 1928), iii. 203–4.
58. A. E. Montgomery, ‘The Making of the Treaty of Sevres of 10 August 1920’, Historical
Journal, xv (1972), 775–6 and Admiral Sir J. de Robeck to Earl Curzon, 18 Nov. 1919,
D[ocuments on] B[ritish] F[oreign] P[olicy] (London, 1948-), 1st series, vol. IV,
no. 597.
59. A complete record of the Curzon-Berthelot talks can be found in British Documents on
Foreign Affairs: Reports and Papers from the Foreign Office Confidential Print
(Frederick, 1983-), part II, series I, vol. 11, nos. 46–51. Only four of the meetings were
circulated to the Cabinet by Curzon on 31 Dec. 1919 in order to provide a framework
for the forthcoming Cabinet discussion(s). CAB 24/95/CP 375.
60. Ronaldshay, Curzon, iii. 269–70; Nicolson, Curzon, 112.
61. E. Montagu, ‘The Turkish Peace’, 18 Dec. 1919, CAB 24/95/CP 326.
62. Minute on an Oct. 1919 memorandum from the Aga Khan quoted in Bennett, British
Foreign Policy, 79; Lord Curzon, ‘The Future of Constantinople’, 4 Jan. 1920, CAB 24/
95/CP 392.
63. See, for example, Political Resident, Aden to the Foreign Secretary to the Government
of India, Delhi, 3 March 1917, in R. Jarman, ed., Political Diaries of the Arab World:
Aden, vol. 2: 1909–1919 (Slough, 2002), 646–7. Summaries of enemy propaganda, along
with doubts as to their effectives, were also despatched on 16 May 1917, 26 Nov. 1917
and 31 Oct. 1918, in ibid., 656, 693, and 781–2, respectively.
64. Eyre Crowe, ‘Turkey in Europe’, 21 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/38/EC 2822.
65. C[abinet] C[onclusions], 6 Jan. 1920. CAB 23/20. The breakdown of the vote can be
found in M. Gilbert, Winston S. Churchill Companion (London, 1966), vol. IV, part II,
992. Balfour’s statement in favour of expulsion can be found in ‘The Future of
Constantinople (Note by Sir Maurice Hankey)’, 6 Jan. 1920, CAB 24/95/CP 390.
66. Parliamentary Debates, 16 Nov. 1920, H.L. 5s., vol. XLII, col. 277; Part two of Crowe
and Toynbee’s ‘Memorandum respecting the Settlement of Turkey and the Arabian
Peninsula’. A full discussion of the policy Curzon wanted to implement and, more
importantly, why his vision never came to be is the subject of a future article, whose
working title is ‘George Nathaniel Curzon and Persia, a lifelong obsession?’
67. Curzon to Balfour, 25 March 1919, quoted in Fisher, Curzon and British Imperialism,
243. Also see A. Sharp, The Versailles Settlement: Peacemaking after the First World
War-1923 2nd edition (Basingstoke, 2008), 179–86.
68. ‘Memorandum by Earl Curzon on the Persian Agreement’, 9 Aug. 1919 in DBFP, 1st
series, vol. ix, no. 710. Also see EC Shorthand Notes, 19 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24.
69. Circulated as part of Winston Churchill, ‘The Situation in Persia’, 31 July 1920, CAB
24/110/CP 1717; Naval Intelligence Division, ‘Secret Admiralty Weekly Intelligence
Summary’, 22 Jan. 1921, CAB 24/118/CP 2486; ‘Traveller’, ‘Persia in Perspective’,
Contemporary Review, cxxii (1922), 460.
70. EC Shorthand Notes, 19 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24.
71. Clause 3, Agreement between His Britannic Majesty’s Government and the Persian
Government, signed at Tehran, 9 August 1919, Cmd. 300 (London, 1919) and IWC,
Minutes, 23 Dec. 1918. CAB 23/42. Also see Wardrop to Curzon, 4 Sept. 1919, DBFP,
1st series, vol. III, no. 412.
292 S. Kelly
72. Curzon to Wilson, 18 May 1920, quoted in K. Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of
Empire, 1918–22 (Manchester, 1984), 138. Italics in original.
73. J. Gallagher, ‘The Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire’ in A. Seal (ed), The
Decline, Revival and Fall of the British Empire: The Ford Lectures and other essays
(Cambridge, 1982), 86–7; ‘Lord Curzon’s Speech on Persia at the Banquet given in
honour of His Highness Prince Nosret-ed-Dowleh at the Carlton Hotel on September
18, 1919’, [British Library, Curzon papers], MSS Eur[opean] F112/253; Memorandum
by the director of military operations, General Radcliffe, circulated as part of Winston
Churchill, ‘The Situation in Mesopotamia’, 10 Dec. 1920, CAB 24/116/CP 2275.
74. ‘Memorandum by the Secretary of State for the Colonies’, 24 May 1920, CAB 24/
106/CP 1337; Memorandum by General Radcliffe; Chapman-Huston, Subjects of
the Day, 409.
75. Rose, ‘Batum as Domino’, 266–7.
76. EC Shorthand Notes, 2 Dec. 1918, CAB 27/24; Lord Curzon, ‘The Evacuation of
Batoum’, 9 Feb. 1920, CAB 24/97/CP 594.
77. Debo, Survival and Consolidation, 175–87; W[illiam] O[rmsby]-G[ore], ‘Appreciation of
the Attached Eastern Report, no xx’, 14 June 1917, CAB 24/143; Chapman-Huston,
Subjects of the Day, 403.
78. Lausanne Conference on Near Eastern Affairs, 1922–1923: Records of Proceedings and
Draft Terms of Peace, Cmd. 1814 (London, 1923), 130. Italics in original.
79. ‘Memorandum by Mr. H.G. Nicolson respecting the Freedom of the Straits’, 15 Nov.
1922, DBFP, 1st series, vol. VXIII, appendix I; E. Ingram, ‘Great Britain’s Great Game:
An Introduction’, International History Review, ii (1980), 160–71.
80. Montgomery, ‘The Making of the Treaty of Sevres’, 775; Treaty of Peace with Turkey.
Signed at S evres, August 10, 1920, Cmd. 964 (London, 1920); Harold Nicolson,
‘Memorandum on the Freedom of the Straits’, 25 Sept. 1922, in Curzon papers, MSS
Eur F112/296. Also see H. Nicolson to Sir W. Tyrrell, 20 Nov. 1922, The National
Archives, F[oreign] O[ffice Records], 839/20.
81. ‘Summary of Statement made to the Cabinet by Lord Curzon’, 1 Nov. 1922, Annex IV
to CC, CAB 23/32; Curzon to Lord D’Abernon, 20 Dec. 1922 & Curzon to his wife, 19
Nov. 1922, quoted in Gilmour, Curzon, 556.
82. Harold Nicolson to his wife, 1 Feb. 1923 in N. Nicolson (ed), Vita and Harold: The
Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (London, 1992), 120. Italics in
original; Leo Amery, ‘The Russian Situation and its Consequences’, 20 May 1917, CAB
24/14/GT 831; Galbraith, ‘British War Aims in World War I’, 38–40.
83. D. French, British Strategy & War Aims (London, 1986), 248; L. Amery, My Political
Life: War and Peace: 1914–1929 (London, 1953), ii. 248.
84. Bennett, British Foreign Policy, 94; A.J. Toynbee, ‘The D enouement in the Near East’,
Contemporary Review, cxxii (1922), 409–18.
85. Bennett, British Foreign Policy, 92–3. Also see B. G€ okay, A Clash of Empires: Turkey
between Russian Bolshevism and British Imperialism, 1918–1923 (London, 1997), 152–3.
86. Annex to article 2 of the ‘Convention relating to the Regime of the Straits’ in Treaty of
Peace with Turkey, and other Instruments, Signed at Lausanne on July 24, 1923, Cmd.
1929 (London, 1923).
87. Foreign Office, ‘Suggestions for a British Policy in regard to the Freedom of the Straits’,
15 Nov. 1922, CAB 24/140/CP 4308.
88. ‘British Secretary’s Notes of an Allied Conference held at 10 Downing Street’, 14 Feb.
1920, DBFP, 1st series, vol. VII, no. 6; War Office, ‘Memorandum by the General Staff
on the Proposed New Treaty between the Allies and Turkey’, 19 Oct. 1922. Sent to
Foreign Office, 20 October’, Curzon Papers, MSS Eur F112/296.
89. ‘Convention relating to the Regime of the Straits’, Cmd. 1929. Quotes are from Article
18; ‘Confidential Notes on Subject of Freedom of the Straits’ enclosure to Alex Flint to
Director of Naval Intelligence, 14 Oct. 1922, The National Archives, ADM[iralty
Records] 116/2133.
90. Appendix A in Admiralty to FO, 20 Oct. 1922, ADM 116/2133; ‘Convention relating to
the Regime of the Straits’, Cmd. 1929.
91. Admiralty, Naval Staff, ‘Freedom of the Straits’, 16 Nov. 1922; G. Glasgow, ‘Foreign
Affairs- Diplomacy by Conference’, Contemporary Review, cxxiii (1923), 107; ‘British
Delegation, Hotel Beau Rivage, Lausanne’, undated, Curzon papers, MSS Eur F 112/
296; Appendix A, ADM 116/2133.
92. ‘Memorandum by Mr. H.G. Nicolson respecting the Freedom of the Straits’; Darwin,
‘An Undeclared Empire’, 166.
93. From the January 1919 edition of the Primrose League Gazette, quoted in I. Rose,
Conservatism and Foreign Policy during the Lloyd George Coalition, 1918–1922
(London, 1999), 155.
94. T. Scheffler, ‘The Burden of Geography: Germany and the Middle East, 1871–1945’,
Journal of Arab Affairs, xii (1993), 125–34; H. Shamir, ‘The Middle East in the Nazi
Conception’ and L. Hirszowicz, ‘The Course of German Foreign Policy in the Middle
East Between the World Wars’, Jahrbuch des Instituts fur Deutsche Geschichte
Beiheft, i (1975), 167–74 and 175–90, respectively. Also see M. Hauner, India in Axis
Strategy: Germany, Japan, and Indian Nationalists in the Second World War (Stuttgart,
1981).
95. H. Katouzian, ‘The Campaign against the Anglo-Iranian Agreement of 1919’, British
Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, xxv (1998), 5–46.
96. A. J. Sharpe, ‘The Foreign Office in Eclipse, 1919–1922’, History, lxi (1976), 198–218;
See, for example, G.H. Bennett, ‘Lloyd George, Curzon and the Control of British
Foreign Policy 1919–22’, Australian Journal of Politics and History, xlv (1999), 467–82
or G. Johnson, ‘Curzon, Lloyd George and the Control of British Foreign Policy,
1919–22: A Reassessment’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, xi (2000), 49–71.
97. Their arguments are made most forcefully in a special issue of the International History
Review on ‘The Decline of Great Britain’, xiii (1991).
98. J. Ferris, ‘“The Greatest Power on Earth”: Great Britain in the 1920s’, in ibid., 737.
99. J. Darwin, Britain and Decolonisation: The Retreat from Empire in the Post-War World
(Basingstoke, 1988), 8; G. Curzon, Problems of the Far East; Japan, Korea, China,
3rd edition (London, 1894), 436.
100. Ullman, Anglo-Soviet Relations, iii. 349–50; Churchill to Curzon, 20 May 1920, quoted
in ibid., 363, my italics.
101. E. Ingram, ‘India and the North-West Frontier: The First Afghan War’ in A. Hamish
Ion and E.J. Errington (eds.), Great Powers and Little Wars: The Limits of Power
(Westport, 1993), 31 and 49.
102. Curzon to Balfour, 31 March 1902, quoted in M. Gilbert, ‘Insurmountable Distinctions:
Racism and the British Response to the Emergence of Indian Nationalism’ in R. Long
(ed), The Man on the Spot: Essays on British Empire History (Westport, 1995), 174;
Lord Curzon, ‘Indian Reforms’, 27 June 1917, CAB 24/17/GT 1199; J. Gallagher,
‘Nationalism and the Crisis of Empire, 1919–1922’, Modern Asian Studies, xv (1981),
355–68.
103. B. Millman, ‘Toward War with Russia: British Naval and Air Planning for Conflict in
the Near East, 1939–40’, Journal of Contemporary History, xxix (1994), 261–83. Also
see Hauner, India in Axis Strategy.
104. K. Jeffery, The British Army and the Crisis of Empire. From Curzon’s toast to ‘The
British Dominions beyond the Seas’ made on 24 May 1906 (Empire Day), Chapman-
Huston (ed), Subjects of the Day, 5.
105. Quoted in Gilmour, Curzon, 33; W. Churchill, Great Contemporaries (London, 1938),
272–88.

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The International History Review

How far West?: Lord Curzon's

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How far West?: Lord Curzon’s Transcaucasian (Mis)Adventure and

Ó 2013 Taylor & Francis

imperfect Anglo-Russian cordon sanitaire, which stretched from Egypt through

the British government telegraphed their Consul-General in Chinese Turkistan to en-

Caspia,’ which Curzon anticipated would accelerate ‘the ultimate dismemberment of

stores from Britain to be established at Mudros, on the Aegean island of Lemnos.42

Everywhere are manifest symptoms of Allied weakness or disunion . . . It is known that

through academic competition.105

Caucasian Position’, 11 May 1918, National Archives, [Ministry of] MUN[itions] 4/

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