March 18, 1919

The President has ordered a report on Armenia—another! And I am it! He asks that Lord Bryce be consulted (that indeed will be easy, as this interesting old Scot practically “parks” in our office). But, says the President, the data which he (His Lordship) submits must be carefully “tested.” My main difficulty with His Lordship is to keep him from dragging in Bulgaria—as he admits, the peasant state is a hobby of his—and then of bringing him up to date. He loves to linger on the days when the Mongols lorded it over ancient Armenia and he is fascinated by the problem which he says divides historians. Was Armenia a tributary to Parthia, or merely a client state?

When we get past this we are confronted with the difficulty of describing the geographic situation of Armenia today; and even as it was in the yesterday of the last century is not easy. How can we lay down these metes and bounds which Lord Bryce believes are about to be restored when there are discrepancies of hundreds of thousands of square miles between what might be called the actual frontiers and the traditional boundaries of this ancient people? However, Lord Bryce tells me, and incidentally he tells House, that the President and Lloyd George are in complete agreement that the state they are pledged to re-establish shall, in some way they do not more narrowly describe, extend from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean. How in these circumstances Anatolia is to be “secured and safeguarded” to the Turks, I have no idea and what is more important neither have they.

The Armenians have been “let down” so frequently by the Christian powers that it is amazing to me that they should have any confidence in our promises. Nevertheless they do. The explanation would seem to be found in the words of one ribald observer, “They would rather be crucified than circumcised.”

Lord Bryce is strongly in favor of drawing the veil of charity over this story of continued bad faith, but I stand by my guns and insist that an intelligent solution is only possible if we face the facts honestly and squarely. By the treaty of San Stefano [March, 1878], which after their costly campaign the victorious Russians imposed upon the defeated Turks, an end of their long servitude was promised the Armenians. They were assured religious freedom, political autonomy, protection against the murderous Kurds, and all manner of reforms. And this was the only clause of the San Stefano treaty which survived the Congress of Berlin [June-July, 1878] that wiped out practically all the other achievements of the Russian victory and threw the Balkans and the Middle East back into anarchy. It may be recalled, although with blushes, that it was from this Congress that Disraeli returned to London with the announcement, “I have brought you peace with honor.”¹ At any event, he brought Cyprus to the British Empire, doubtless as his brokerage fee.

By 1880 it was apparent that the clause in the treaty that safeguards the Armenians was a dead letter and that the six powers who signed the agreement and had accepted responsibility for its observance should do something; and indeed they did protest to Stamboul, but feebly. The Sublime Porte merely laughed its Jovelike laughter.

“Alexander II, the [Russian] emancipator of his serfs and the liberator of the Balkan peoples, was dead—murdered,” explained Bryce. “He seems to have been the only steadfast friend of our unfortunate people. And his successor? He had troubles of his own at home and did nothing about it. Nobody did anything about it. Our job is to find another Alexander II,” said Bryce.

“Do you see one on the horizon?”

“We have Lloyd George,” and he smiled sadly. “And you have Wilson.”

“But now that the war is over and a sort of peace is being arranged, our President is no longer an autocrat. The checks and balances of our system are coming to life again,” I commented. “Wilson is no longer omnipotent.”

Our memorandum went to the President through House. What became of it? I have no idea.