Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [288]
His warnings went largely unheeded, and Curzon turned his pent-up energies to reorganizing the Foreign Office. He changed the official ink-stand, taught the secretaries how to pull the blinds and, with much damage to official fingers, introduced a new filing system with large, sharp pins. In October 1919 he at last became foreign secretary. He argued for lenient peace terms for Turkey but he had to contend with Lloyd George and his private staff, who had taken on much of the responsibility for foreign affairs. The prime minister was still determined that Greece would have Smyrna and perhaps much more, and Curzon, for all his doubts, was not prepared to stand up to him. Although he threatened resignation from time to time, he had waited too long to be foreign secretary. Lloyd George joked that Curzon always sent his letter of resignation by a slow messenger and his withdrawal of the offer by a much faster one.32
While the British disagreed among themselves, Allied policy on the Turkish settlement, never particularly coherent, was in disarray. With its failure to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, the United States was clearly withdrawing from overseas involvement; American mandates for Anatolia, the straits or even Armenia would be out of the question. The British were curiously reluctant to face this, perhaps because Lloyd George hoped to buy time for Greece to strengthen its position in Asia Minor. When Wilson left Paris, Lloyd George claimed, the Allies were convinced that he would be able to persuade the American people to take on mandates, and so they waited. Then Wilson fell sick in September 1919. “We could not rush to assume the President’s practical demise,” Lloyd George later recalled, “in the face of official medical assurances of his probable restoration to health after a period of complete rest.” Still the Allies waited. “We were in despair as to what action we could take without risking a breach with America.” 33
Italian interest in Turkey, never strong, was also waning. The Italian troops on the coast of Asia Minor seemed to be doing little beyond clashing with the Greek forces. Although Italy had promised in May 1919, under considerable pressure from Britain, to send a force to replace British troops in the Caucasus, it had delayed doing so. On June 19, 1919, the Orlando government fell, taking along with it Sonnino. Nitti, the new prime minister, preferred to concentrate on Italy’s formidable internal problems. He immediately canceled the expensive, and hazardous, expedition to the Caucasus. As far as Asia Minor was concerned, both he and his foreign minister, Tittoni, were more interested in concessions, for coal mines for example, than in territory. They were prepared to leave Italian forces there only as long as there was no trouble. The British began to suspect that the Italians were now collaborating with Turkish nationalists. 34
France continued to take an interest in Turkey, but it was in no mood to work with Britain. The Syrian issue festered on, and many French feared that the British were trying to maneuver them out of the Turkish territories as well. Clemenceau had always been lukewarm in his support for Greece and he was under considerable pressure from his own financiers to come to terms with the Turks. French interests held 60 percent of the Ottoman debt; if Turkey was partitioned, it might well be impossible to salvage the debt.35
Curzon recognized that, in the absence of the United States, it was essential to deal with the French over Turkey. In November 1919 he contacted his opposite number in Paris, Pichon, and suggested confidential discussions. He was convinced that time was running out. In October he had dispatched Lieutenant Colonel Alfred Rawlinson, who knew Atatürk slightly, to find out what peace terms Atatürk might accept. The Turkish nationalists now controlled more than a quarter of the interior; by the end of the year, Atatürk had established a rival capital to Constantinople, in Ankara. When the British, followed reluctantly by the French and Italians,