Αγγλο-γαλλικά καβγαδάκια
Δημοσιεύτηκε: 02 Φεβ 2021, 09:45
Κατά τα άλλα, εγκάρδια συνεννόηση.“The idea which prompted our support of Greece was no emotional impulse but the natural expression of our historical policy —the protection of India and the Suez Canal. For a century we had supported Turkey as the first line of defence in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey had proven a broken reed and we fell back on the second line, the line from Salamis to Smyrna. Geographically the position of Greece was unique for our purpose: politically she was strong enough to save us expense in peace, and weak enough to be completely subservient in war”.
“They (the French) have always been jealous of the prestige which we have acquired in Greece; they are jealous of our naval supremacy, our naval mission, of our important commercial interests. They are above all afraid of the preponderance which a British ‘protectorate’ over an enlarged Greece would give us in the Eastern Mediterranean. Sentimentally they hanker after the prestige which France enjoyed in the East under Louis XIV; commercially their financiers hope to secure the position at Constantinople vacated by the Bhagdad railway and the Deutsche Bank; politically and practically they wish to curtail their responsibilities in Cilicia and Syria. In the first place therefore, they desire to destroy the Greater Greece created by the Treaty of Sevres and incidentally, to undermine our great influence in that country. In the second place, with anxious eyes upon Kemal and Bolsheviks, they wish to come to some bargain with Angora, such as will give them peace in Syria and a predominant position in Turkey."
Documents on British Foreign Policy, 1st series, vol. XII, no. 488, Memorandum by Mr. Nicolson on future policy towards King Constantine, 20 December 1920.
