The Secret Entente Agreement
While conducting "academic" talks with Dr. Zavriev, the Russian Foreign Ministry and other Entente governments were busily planning to partition the Ottoman Empire. In March, 1915, Foreign Minister Sazonov impressed upon British Ambassador George Buchanan and French Ambassador Maurice Paléologue that a lasting post-war settlement required Russian possession of "the city of Constantinople, the western shore of the Bosporus, Sea of Marmora, and Dardanelles, as well as southern Thrace up to the Enos-Midia line," and a point to be determined on the shore of the Bay if Ismid." He requested the benevolence of Britain and France in this matter, promising in return that "the Allied governments may be assured that they will meet, on the part of the Imperial Government, the same sympathy of the realisation of plans which they may have in regard to other regions of the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere." 98 Through diplomatic exchanges of the next few days, the London and Paris governments received guarantees regarding commercial privileges at Constantinople and passage through the Straits. In addition, Britain requested, among other things, that Arabia and the Holy Lands be made a separate Moslem state, 99 and France expressed the desire "to annex Syria, including the province of the Gulf of Alexandretta, and Cilicia to the Taurus Range." 100 With the provisions approved, the Constantinople-Straits Agreement was sealed on April 10, 1915. 101 Two weeks later, on April 26, other negotiations in London climaxed in Italy's promise to enter the war against Austria-Hungary in return for numerous territorial gains, primarily along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, and against the Ottoman Empire in return for the Dodecanese Islands and, in the event the Empire were partitioned, the Adalia vilayet on the mainland. 102
Several months later, at the end of 1915, the British and French governments found it advisable to reach an understanding regarding their plans for Western Asia. The resulting Sykes-Picot accord was the most comprehensive secret agreement of the Entente. By February 10, 1916, Sir Mark Sykes, British Foreign Office Near East Expert, and Georges Picot, former French Consul-General of Beirut, had arrived at a provisional arrangement that gave France "direct or indirect" rule over Lebanon, the Syrian coastline, Cilicia, and territory protruding onto the Anatolian highlands and along the Taurus Mountains as far as the Persian border. Mesopotamia, from the environs of Baghdad to the frontier of Persia and to the Persian Gulf, and the Mediterranean ports of Acre and Haifa were included in the British zone of domination. Most of the remaining areas, the desert regions, were divided into spheres of British and French influences. 103
Now in accord, the Anglo-French partners turned to the touchy task of winning Russia's approval. Sykes and Picot travelled to Petrograd, 104 where they revealed the provisions of the agreement and assured Sazonov that no objections would be raised were Tsar Nicholas to decide to annex the vilayets of Erzurum, Van, and Bitlis and portions of the vilayets of Trabizond, Sivas, and Kharpout – that is, the Armenian Plateau. 105 When Sazonov opposed the deep French penetration into Diyarbakir and the Taurus lands, the British proposed a compromise whereby the eastward thrust of France would be broken at the Tigris River, in return for which Paris would be awarded the Sivas vilayet, formerly reserved for Russia. 106 A memorandum prepared by Sir Mark in support of this compromise was a contorted appraisal of the Armenians and their aspirations. He began by asserting that, because of the recent Turkish atrocities, the Armenians could never again be left under Ottoman bondage. Indeed, scores of Allied declarations to that effect had been published the world over. According to Sykes, the future of the Armenian people could be resolved in one of four ways:
- The formation of an Armenian government under Turkish suzerainty. This would, however, lead either to the creation of a second Bulgaria spinning plots in the Caucasus or to an unworkable arrangement, for the Armenians could not compete (militarily) with the Kurds.
- The creation of an Armenian government with international protection. This would expose the area to continual intrigue, from which Germany would benefit sooner or later.
- The inclusion of all Armenia in Russia. This would burden the Tsar with a country overflowing with revolutionary syndicalists who maintained close bonds with subversives in Persia and the Caucasus. As a matter of fact, an Armenian revolutionary had once informed Sykes that the annexation of all Armenian to Russia would be ideal, for it would allow conspiratorial societies of the Caucasus, Azerbaijan (North Persia), and Turkey to unite and to create the unrest vital to their dominance.
- The partition of Armenia so that France would acquire former Roman or Lesser Armenia, while Russia would annex the remaining portions of the Armenian Plateau. This was the best solution! 107
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