Abstract
On 25 October 1919 Churchill submitted a memorandum to the Cabinet calling into question the vindictive nature of Britain’s policy towards Turkey since the armistice.1 He noted that the signature of a Turkish peace treaty was still a distant prospect. Furthermore, the maintenance of sufficient forces in Egypt, Iraq and Palestine to guard against an attack by the nationalist forces of Mustapha Kemal, the Turkish general who had taken up arms against the Allies and the Sultan’s government at Constantinople in defence of the Anatolian Turkish heartland, was creating a heavy burden on the War Office estimates. Churchill’s bold suggestions would have amounted to a wholesale revision of Allied policy, including the renunciation of their individual territorial claims in favour of the League of Nations. Thus Britain would have given up responsibility for Palestine and Iraq. Rather than implying an earnest desire for moderate treatment of the defeated Turks, Churchill’s ideas reflected his growing suspicion that British policy towards Asia Minor might not ultimately be in her own best interests, and that Kemalist resistance to a harsh peace might lead to renewed warfare.
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© 1995 G. H. Bennett
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Bennett, G.H. (1995). Turks versus Greeks in Asia Minor. In: British Foreign Policy during the Curzon Period, 1919–24. Studies in Military and Strategic History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377356_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377356_5
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-39547-7
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