THE COUNCIL OF FOUR


loyalty of Great Britain which had given substantial guarantees for
France's security. Great Britain had volunteered to make these guar-
antees without any pressure being put upon her. She had volunteered
to put her whole strength in sapport of France.
As regards the charge of a break of faith, this was without any
foundation. On the occasion of the London visit, Mr. Lloyd George
had promised Syria to France provided that he gave up Mosul.
M. CLEMENCEAU said that France had had a definite agreement
before as to Syria.
MR. LwYD GEORGE said that in London it had been agreed that
Syria should go to France and Mesopotamia to Great Britain, but that
Mosul, which was in the same watershed as Mesopotamia, should form
part of that country and go to Great Britain. In his statement
M. Clemenceau had entirely ignored the article of his scheme which
gave the Mandate for Syria to France. This was clearly stated in
the document. Was this a case of bad faith ? He recalled the proposal
that he had made for a redistribution of the forces in Turkey in order
to relieve the British Army which had a very large force there, occa-
sioning demobilisation difficulties. He himself, had gone away to
London and for some reason he had never quite understood, the
scheme had fallen through. On his return, President Wilson had
proposed the Commission to Syria. The United States and Great
Britain and Italy had their Delegates all ready. It was France who
had never appointed their Delegates.
This was a formal document and had been signed by all of them.
M. Clemenceau had not carried out his part of the bargain. He did
not say that Ml. Clemenceau had not kept faith, but he certainly had
not carried out the bargain.
As regards General Wilson's conversations with M. Tardieu, his
account was that he had gone to M. Tardieu with a map, as it was ab-
solutely essential to delimitate the sphere of occupation. In this map
the whole of Syria had been attributed to the occupation of France.
M. Tardieu replied he knew about the subject. Surely it was plain
common sense to delimitate the spheres of occupation on a map. It
was quite unwarrantable to charge him with a breach of faith because
of this incident. As a matter of fact, no counter-proposal had been
made by M. Tardieu. As regards the railway to Syria, this was part
of a proposal under which half the oil of Mesopotamia was to be
given to the French. The railway was essential to the transport of
the oil and was in the interests of the French. It had not been a
bargain but was merely a proposal that was under discussion, and
there was no breach of faith here. As regards Asia Minor, he had
never heard of a French claim until the previous day. There had
never been the smallest indication that France wanted a mandate for
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