under the control of an international commission, similar, for instance, to the Danube Commission.

In reply to a question from Lord Curzon, he handed to the commission statistics concerning the region ceded by Turkey to Bulgaria in 1915 (see annex).

(The commission rose at 6 P.M.)

ANNEX TO No. 5.

Statistics submitted by the Greek Delegation.

POPULATIONS of the Districts lying between the Maritza and the Turco-Bulgarian Frontier of 1913.

(NOTE. As the frontier of 1913 crosses and divides the kazas of Mustafa Pasha, Ortakeui and Adrianople, the figures given in the Greek schedule are more exact, because this schedule gives the population by village and by nationality. On the other hand, as the Turkish figures only give the population of complete kazas, it has been necessary, in order not to diverge too far from the truth, to utilise the Turkish figures reduced in the same proportions as the corresponding Greek figures.)

(Greek figures for 1920.)

Department of Evros.

(Kazas of Dedea gatch, Sufli, Demotika, Enos, Ipsala.)

(NOTE. If from these official figures the populations of the kazas of Dedeagatch, Enos, Ipsala and Sufli (where the Turks

[9454]

c 4

were in the majority) are deducted, the same result is reached as is given by the above-mentioned figures, that is to say, a large Greek majority in the district of Demotika.)

No. 6.

COMMISSION ON TERRITORIAL AND MILITARY QUESTIONS.

Minutes of the Third Meeting, November 23, 1922, at 11 A.M., under the presidency of Lord Curzon.

M. Massigli, Secretary-General of the Conference.

General Discussion on the Frontier of Thrace.

LORD CURZON asked the Turkish delegation to speak.

ISMET PASHA, before stating the view of the Turkish delegation on the proposals submitted to the commission at the meetings of the previous day, wished to refute the arguments of the first Greek delegate.

M. Veniselos had opened his speech by reviewing the circumstances which had caused Turkey and Greece to take part in the world war. The Turkish delegation thought it quite out of place to discuss before the commission the factors which had driven the Ottoman Empire to take part in that war. In order to obtain a clear idea of this it would be necessary to describe and analyse minutely the political events of the thirty years preceding the conflict. The Turkish delegation thought that such an investigation would have no

practical utility; it would, indeed, more probably impede negotiations for the re-establishment of peace by starting useless polemics. Moreover, Turkey had not had to fight Greece during the world war. The war between those two countries dated, rather, from the Greek disembarkation at Smyrna in May 1919. That date, as everyone knew, marked the opening of a new phase. Turkey could not in any way be taxed with having been the aggressor in that phase of the operations; on the contrary, she had undergone superhuman sacrifices in order to defend her national patrimony against a wholly unjustifiable enterprise of conquest. Such was the truth as regards the respective moral positions of the two belligerents in the war which had brought bloodshed to Asia Minor.

In the course of the last four years of conflict between Turkey and Greece, it was always the latter who had refused to listen to the various proposals of peace and mediation repeatedly put forward by the Allied Powers.

At the Conference of London in the spring of 1921 Turkey had accepted a plebiscite for Thrace and for Smyrna and its neighbourhood; Greece had opposed it; if Greece had shown the same goodwill as Turkey with a view to the pacific settlement of the conflict. the war could have come to an end at that time.

At the end of the Conference of London the Allied Powers, on the 12th March, 1921, put forward proposals which each delegation was to submit to its Government. On the 23rd March, when the Turkish. delegation was still on its way to Angora, the Greeks started an offensive which ended with the second battle of In Eunu. Thus it was Greece who replied to the peace proposals of the conference with gunfire.

A little later, in June 1921, the Allied Powers made offers of mediation to the two belligerents; Greece, having decided to attempt a new offensive for the conquest of Angora, disdainfully rejected these proposals and undertook an advance which ended with the defeat of Sakaria. In view of this uncompromising attitude on the part of Greece, the Allied Powers had to announce that Greece thenceforward was fighting at her own risk, and that she no longer had any mandate from them. The responsibility of Greece was therefore indisputable.

Turkey for her part had never ceased to declare her readiness to lay down arms as soon as her legitimate national claims had been satisfied. She accordingly intensified her efforts to achieve peace, as was well known to the Allied Powers and to the whole world.

In the course of his argument M. Veniselos had maintained that Turkey was reopening a territorial question already decided by the Treaty of Neuilly, and he had sought in this way to avoid all discussion regarding Western Thrace; but by article 48 of that treaty the fate of inter-Allied Thrace was left for decision later on. The question, therefore, was still open. The Turkish delegation desired to state once more that they did not claim the retrocession of inter-Allied Western Thrace to Turkey; but they did wish to save the overwhelmingly Turkish population of that district from a régime

against which it had constantly protested, and they therefore persisted in claiming that the people of that country, living in a district whose fate was still not settled, should have the right of self-determination which figured in the Great Powers' programme

of peace.

Ismet Pasha then laid on the table of the commission statistics by kazas and villages for the area in dispute (Annex (A)).

He wished to give at once the total figures for the four kazas making up the area, viz. :

The idea of a plebiscite should not cause any anxiety to the Greek delegation, as the latter said they could assert that a large majority of the population in Western Thrace was Greek; if this were so, the plebiscite would confirm Greece's right to the possession of that country.

M. Veniselos had also mentioned the numerous mistakes made by the Greek Government during the course of several years of occupation. Ismet Pasha had no desire or intention to make the slightest reproach to M. Veniselos, but he begged leave to say that the faults to which he had alluded had cost the unfortunate Turkish population very dear. Was it admissible that these sufferings should continue in Western Thrace in consequence of the Greek occupation?

M. Veniselos had objected to the 1913 frontiers of Thrace, which left to Turkey the suburb of Kara-Agatch and the districts of Mustafa Pasha, Seimenli and Demotika. These objections appeared to the Turkish delegation quite groundless.

M. Veniselos had said that in that district the majority of the population was Greek; that was untrue; once again M. Veniselos had put forward statistics of his own, just as he previously supplied the Supreme Council with statistics of purely Greek origin in order to justify his demands for the annexation of essentially Turkish territory.

The Turkish figures contradicted those of M. Veniselos. The former, dating from 1914, were as follows: