March 6, 1917. The ninth section of this secret treaty of 1915 begins as follows: "France, Great Britain and Russia recognize as an axiom the fact that Italy is interested in maintaining the political balance of power in the Mediterranean, and her right to take over, when Turkey is broken up, a portion equal to theirs in the Mediterranean-namely, in that part which borders on the Province of Adalia, where Italy has already acquired special rights and interests laid down in the Italo-British Convention." Italy coveted this portion of Asia Minor because of its proximity to the islands which she had seized during the Italian-Turkish War of 1913. No special map accompanied this pact.

URFA MARDIN

PERSIA

RED BAGDAD

termini appear to be selected not with a view to further extensions and connections, but the lines penetrate into districts from which mining or agricultural products might be foreseen as emanating. The Italo-British Convention of 1914 has, therefore, commercial as well as historic value.

THE PACT OF LONDON

There is a reference to the foregoing agreement in the secret "Pact of London" arranged between Italy and her new allies on April 26, 1915. The terms of this latter "pact" became public only when the revolutionaries in Russia published them on

This

THE SAZONOFF AGREEMENT

Preceding the Pact of London in 1915, and before the matter of Italy's participation in the war had become so · prominent, there was arranged in London what may be called the Agreement of Sazonoff. Sazonoff was the Russian Ambassador at London, and this agreement, involving only the interests of Russia, Great Britain and France, established the main outlines which were adhered to in subsequent agreements. This agreement has never been published, and it is said that Great Britain paid large sums at the time of the Russian revolution to buy up all the documents that had reference to it. The probable terms of the agreement of Sazonoff are given in Map No. 2. The boundaries in Eastern Turkey, as given in this map, can be considered as quite accurate. The boundaries with respect to Constantinople must be regarded as conjectural. There is good reason for believing that not much outside of the cities of Constantinople and Scutari was included in the territory to be administered by Russia, although possibly

there may have been an intention to consider the Black Sea littoral under Russian influence.

THE SYKES-PICOT AGREEMENT

The Sykes-Picot Agreement, often referred to, was signed in May, 1916. It is something of a mystery why the Blue Zone, granted to France by this agreement, as shown in Map No. 3, did not fill in all the territory attributed to France by the Agreement of Sazonoff. Possibly Mr. Sykes and Mr. Picot did not have before them a copy of the older agreement and outlined only the main provisions of the respective claims of Great Britain. and France. In helping to draft this agreement Mr. Sykes must have comprehended only in part the pledges which the British had made through

Colonel Lawrence to the Arabs; because the provisions adopted, while not in conflict with the pledges to the Arabs, were difficult to accord with these pledges. The main points in the Agreement are the following:

1. France and Great Britain will recognize and protect an independent Arab State or a confederation of Arab States in the Zones A and B, indicated on the map, under the suzerainty of an Arab chief. In Zone A France and in Zone B Great Britain shall have the right of priority in undertakings and in local loans. In Zone A France and in Zone B Great Britain will furnish counselors upon the demand of the Arab State or States.

2. In the Blue Zone France and in the Red Zone Great Britain shall be authorized to establish such an administration as it desires or as it may deem expedient after consultation with the head of the Arab State or confederation of States.

3. In the Brown Zone an international administration will be established whose form shall be determined after consultation with Russia and then in accord with the other allies and with the representative of the Shereef of Mecca.

4. To Great Britain will be granted the ports of Haifa and of Acre. Great Britain promises not to undertake any negotiations looking to the cession of the island of Cyprus without the previous consent of France.

5. Alexandretta shall be a free port for the commerce of Great Britain. Haifa shall be a free port for the commerce of France.

6. The Bagdad railway shall not be extended further east than Mosul nor further

north than Samara until a railway connecting Bagdad with Aleppo via the Euphrates Valley shall have been completed.

7. Great Britain shall have the right to construct a railway connecting Haifa with Zone B, and in case engineering difficulties arise, France will permit the line to pass through a portion of Zone A.

8. Customs regulations.

9. The French Government shall not cede its rights in the Blue Zone to any third party except the Arab State without the previous consent of Great Britain, and Great Britain makes the same agreement with respect to the Red Zone.

10, 11 and 12. Details with respect to the Arab State.

AGREEMENT WITH KING HUSSEIN

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Map No. 4 presents the main features of the agreements between Great Britain and Hussein, Shereef though these agreements were made of Mecca and King of Hedjaz. Alin July and October of 1915, they were not communicated to the French till February of 1919, that is to say, until the Peace Conference was well under way. A secret French Foreign Office report written in March, 1919, calls this "a case of flagrant bad faith." These agreements planned a great Arab Confederacy of four kingdoms, where the four sons of Hussein were each to have a throne. The oldest, Ahmed, was to be heir to his father's kingdom. The second son, Prince Feisal, was to be King of Syria with his capital at Damascus. The third son, Prince Abdullah, was to be King of Mesopotamia with his capital at Bagdad. The fourth son, Prince Zeid, a half-brother to the other Princes, was to have a kingdom in Kurdistan, with perhaps Mosul as his capital. Inspection of the provisions of this map will show how ill it accorded with the provisions of the Sykes-Picot Agreement.

The insistence of France not only that Syria be accorded to her in accordance with the Sykes-Picot Agreement, but also that her domains include Damascus and Aleppo, prevented the carrying out of the agreement with King Hussein. Prince Feisal attempted to hold his place in Darnas

cus in spite of the French, but after a brief recourse to arms was persuaded to withdraw. The British have done the best they could to satisfy King Hussein by setting apart an autonomous State of Transjordania, over which Prince Abdullah rules; and Prince Feisal has been established as King of Mesopotamia. Both of these arrangements are felt by the French to threaten their position in Syria.

AGREEMENT OF ST. JEAN DE

MAURIENNE

The Agreement of St. Jean de Maurienne was negotiated on board a railway train by Lloyd George for Great Britain, by M. Ribot for France and by Baron Sonnino for Italy, and was made " subject to the consent of the Russian Government." Inasmuch as the Russian Government has never given its consent to this agreement, the British have construed it to have no binding force. The Italians have held that it would have been accepted by Russia save for the accident of the Russian revolution, and that therefore it has a moral force, at least so far as Great Britain and France are concerned. This agreement of St. Jean de Maurienne made Italy a

party to the Sykes-Picot Agreement of the year before. Map No. 5 shows how Italy was to have had allotted to her a Green Zone similar to the Blue and Red Zones previously given to France and Great Britain, respectively. tively. There was also allotted a zone of influence, Zone C, to Italy on somewhat the same terms as Zones A and B had been previously set apart for France and Great Britain. Article 2 established Smyrna as a free port on the same terms as Haifa, Acre and Alexandretta, and in addition made Mersine a free port for Italian com

merce.

The secret French Foreign Office report of March, 1919, mentioned above, refers in regretful terms to "conversations" which have modified the Sykes-Picot Agreement to the extent of abandoning Mosul and of granting to Great Britain alone the mandate for Palestine. Curiously enough, this report mentions the possibility of renouncing a part of the territories in the north and says that this would be none of Great Britain's affair, but would be a matter between France and the power which should have the mandate for Armenia. Presumably the reference here is to the United States as the probable mandatary.

THE TREATY OF SEVRES

The Turcophile influences already evident in the terms of the Armistice signed in October of 1918 found their more developed expression in the Treaty of Sevres of Aug. 10, 1920, the geographical features of which were illustrated by three maps. The third map had to do with a detail of the provisions for the internationalization of the Dardanelles and is not important for our purpose. The first and second maps, which are here reproduced as Map No. 6, show an entirely new alignment of interest. Greece appears; Italy is eliminated; and France abandons the largest part of its Blue Zone, compensation being had in the new arrangement as to Zone A. The Arabs lose out and the Turks gain. Although "His Majesty the King of the Hedjaz" is printed as one of the signatories of this treaty, there is nothing to show that any one actually signed in behalf of the Arab King. Certain it is that the Arabs have not accepted the treaty and that it went directly against the terms of the previous agreements with the Arabs.

Although in this Treaty of Sevres Italy and France appear to have aban

doned some of their gains in Asia Minor, there was arranged-on the same date as that of the signing of the treaty a Tripartite Agreement by which Italy and France obtained all the privileges contained in the agreements of 1916 and 1917, and were freed of most of the responsibilities. The evident intention of this

Tripartite Agreement was to exclude exploitation of concessions in the other powers from sharing in the

zones indicated. These zones are outlined in Map No. 7.

Since this Tripartite Agreement there have been two separate agreements between the Nationalist Turks at Angora and France and Italy. Neither of these treaties has been ratified by the Government at Angora. The former provided for important modifications in the Sevres Treaty, proposed without consultation with the other signatories of the treaty. It took from the Arab State and from the Blue Zone an important slice of territory and gave it to the Turkish Nationalists. This was certainly a breach of faith with the Arabs, and directly against Article 9 of the Sykes-Picot agreement, where, as has been said, the promise was made not

to abandon territory in the Blue Zone without the consent of Great Britain. Fortunate was it for the inhabitants of Cilicia, which constitutes the most .important part of the Blue Zone, that the refusal of the Turkish Nationalists to ratify the separate treaty has held it up; for it is possible that this hostile attitude of Angora will drive the French back to their older policy, and they may decide to keep their troops in the districts of Cilicia.

If the right sort of adjustment is made in Turkey, under proper protection, if the different racial elements are granted geographical districts where they can work out their national life, there is every reason to expect that States comparable to the Balkan States in power and in prospects may be built up in the TauroCaucasian region. When Greece was

set free from Turkey in 1830 the Greek population was in the neighborhood of half a million. When Bulgaria was set free from Turkey the Bulgarian population was in the neighborhood of a million. Both Greece and Bulgaria have made great strides since escaping from Turkish misrule. The Balkan States somietimes have been referred to as types of perpetual ferment, but the ferment was largely supplied from outside, and, left to themselves, the Ealkan States were in a fair way to establish a Balkan confederacy. There is good reason to believe that, with protection against the Turks assured, the TauroCaucasian races may group inlo, say, the following States: Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kurdistan and Pont, which all might constitute a United States of Tauro-Caucasia.

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HERE is but one hand that rules

in the Near East, and that is the hand of England. It may often be gloved, it may even be pocketed, but it is always there. The justice or injustice of this state of affairs is not here under question; suffice it that we know the fact.

Great Britain's control over Egypt and the Suez region is now, except for sporadic native uprisings, beyond the pale of conjecture. Even these periodic outbreaks are indications of her strength rather than her weakness, because those who clamor for Egyptian independence-the scum of her seaport populations, a coterie of political intriguers, and those among

the peasant fellaheen whom propaganda has reached-know full well that it is with a strong England they have to deal. The sympathy of France, Italy and even America is invoked, not because these countries have much influence in that region, but because the leaders of the Egyptian movement believe they are interested in preventing England from making her foothold too permanent.

*Mr. Flower, a Harvard graduate and a resident of Kansas City, was a naval aviator during the war, after which he made a tour of the world. While in Egypt he was asked by the representative of the United States to make a trip into Asia Minor and report upon conditions. His report, the release of which was sanctioned by the naval authorities, is summarized in the article herewith.