Slanders On Muslims In History

British Intrigues

İsmet Pasha, the head of the Turkish delegation in Lausanne, sent a telegram to Turkey on December 28, 1922. He was convinced that the British had absolutely no intention of leaving Mosul. Only a small border correction in North Mosul would be made and the issue would be discussed amicably.

Shortly thereafter, British General Townshend made a surprising statement to İsmet Pasha. He said that Britain would give up on Mosul, that they would not be the cause of another war. He added that within a year British forces would withdraw from Mosul and following that, the Arabs would riot against King Faisal and the Turks would be able to enter Mosul without a problem.³⁷⁷

Clearly, the British deep state had a secret agenda. The members of the deep state would employ every tactic to gain the upper hand in the tense negotiations and resorted to all methods to bewilder and put the Turkish delegates on the wrong track. Indeed, in another telegram, İsmet Pasha said the British sought to remove the Mosul issue from the scope of Lausanne; it was to be discussed later and turned into an issue between the two states.³⁷⁸

Nevertheless, İsmet Pasha saw through their plans, didn't find their suggestions convincing and resorted to the assistance of the French government as a first step. However, France said that the Mosul issue should be resolved between the Turks and the British.

At the same time, dissidents were getting louder in British parliament. Although Curzon claimed that it was because of İsmet Pasha's obstinacy that the Mosul issue was still a problem, it was viewed as a failure of Curzon at the British Parliament and a campaign against him started. On December 8, 1922, former Prime Minister Bonar Law wrote a letter to Curzon and made his stance on the issue very clear:

… There is a great campaign started here against you. Most recently, the letter Gounaris wrote to you on February 15 was publicized. The claim that you were the reason behind the Greek failure and not Lloyd George is being used as a weapon against you. A parliamentary question was submitted to investigate whether the Cabinet was aware of those letters. And I said, yes. The issue was investigated but no conclusion could be reached. It is very important evidence for us that your name is not mentioned not only in the Foreign Office list, but also in the lists that Horne and Austen left to their successors. So, rest assured. They can never blame you at all for this issue.³⁷⁹

It appears that Curzon was under immense pressure by the British deep state and was forced not to compromise on the Mosul issue. Because of this pressure, Curzon did his best to not give away Mosul at Lausanne, as it was an important leverage for the British deep state.

Seeing that there was no agreeing with Lord Curzon over Mosul, İsmet Pasha sent Turkish economist Rüstem Bey and Şeref Bey, the former Minister for Trade and Railways, to Bonar Law, the British PM who didn't wish for the negotiations to be suspended. This move angered Lord Curzon to no end. He wrote a stern letter to the British diplomat Sir Eyre Crowe on January 11, 1923 and said that unless the talks with the Turkish representatives were ended, he would withdraw from the negotiations about Mosul.³⁸⁰

Later Curzon sent another letter with the same harsh tone on January 17, 1923 to Walter Hulme Long, the Secretary of State for the Colonies.³⁸¹ He said:

As a former colleague and friend of yours, can I ask you, how can you stick your nose in matters that I'm dealing with here? The other day, Rickett, with whom you are also acquainted, was here. Going behind my back and deceiving İsmet Pasha, he convinced him to send three representatives to London, with whom I'm sure you are familiar with.³⁸² These representatives went to London to offer oil concessions in exchange for the return of Mosul to Turks. I, on the other hand, had made it clear that I was adamantly against the idea and that I would do anything to defend Mosul and with the policy I pursued, I aimed to make sure that Turks would have no dreams about those lands not today, not in the future. Rickett must have convinced Turks that he had a big influence on you and Bonar Law, and Turks thought that if they went to London, they could somehow take back Mosul. Of course, I cannot know how much you know about what's going on. The only thing I know is that you wouldn't deliberately try to make my job more difficult and harm the interests of your country. Please stay away from this oil adventure. Many disgraceful acts are involved in this matter that you are unaware of and which can stain an innocent person sooner or later. Rickett is most certainly an unreliable person. I know what he has been saying to Turks and what he has been saying to Sir G. Armstrong.³⁸³

The many disgraceful acts that Lord Curzon referred to were the dirty tricks that the British deep state staged behind closed doors.

Another important detail was that British intelligence had illegally intercepted the Turkish telegrams. With a special radio-telegram decoding system that the British installed in Istanbul, they could intercept and decode the telegrams sent by the Turkish government to Lausanne and sent them to London before the Turkish delegation could get them in Lausanne. After they got their instructions, they would sit down at the table, fully aware of the leverages the Turks had. Rumbold, head of the British delegation at Lausanne, was happily announcing this to his friend Lancelot Oliphant in the Foreign Office on July 18:

The information we obtained at the psychological moments from secret sources was invaluable to us, and put us in the position of a man who is playing Bridge and knows the cards in his adversary's hand.³⁸⁴

This allowed Lord Curzon and his assistant Rumbold to know when Turks could afford to be more flexible. Closely monitoring their future strategies, based on this knowledge they would either insist on a condition, or give up knowing that there would be no point pressing İsmet Pasha. This information also enabled the British deep state to identify points which the Turkish side would be more willing to discuss. Evidently, the British deep state didn't hesitate to apply its sinister intelligence policies even at the peace negotiations and tried to win Mosul through plots and tricks. This was more than a desire to obtain control over oil revenues and trade routes. Mosul was the first step in a 100-year-old plan against Turkey.