London agrees to a Russian Constantinople

On 12 March 1915, or 27 February by the Julian calendar, the British ambassador in Petrograd, George Buchanan, handed the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Sazonov his government’s reply to the Russian demand of 4 March. Britain agreed that after a victorious war Russia would receive Constantinople, both shores of the Straits and the territories Sazonov had listed. The consent was not, however, unconditional.

A reversal of tradition

The Foreign Secretary, Edward Grey, was aware of how great a step this was. In a memorandum attached to the reply he had the Russians reminded that their demand went far beyond what Sazonov had expected only a few weeks earlier. Russia was asking for a binding promise regarding “the richest prize of the entire war” before the British had had time to consider their own wishes. Consent meant a complete reversal of traditional British policy and ran counter to views that almost everyone in England had held for decades and which had by no means died out. Grey believed that London could give no greater proof of friendship, and expressed the hope that it would bring lasting Anglo-Russian friendship.

The conditions

The British set several conditions. Constantinople, which was always to remain an important centre of trade for south-eastern Europe and Asia Minor, was to have a free port for goods in transit to and from countries other than Russia. Merchant ships were to pass freely through the Straits, which Sazonov had in any case already promised. Grey also stipulated that the future of Asiatic Turkey would have to be discussed with France and Russia, and that the Muslim holy places and Arabia must in no case come under foreign rule.

The most important demand concerned Persia. The Anglo-Russian Convention of 1907 had divided it into a Russian sphere of influence in the north, a British one in the south-east and a neutral zone in between. The neutral zone contained, among other things, the oilfields of the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, in which since 1914 the majority shareholding had belonged to the British government, which needed oil for the fleet. London demanded that this zone become British. According to the French ambassador Maurice Paléologue, when Buchanan put this request to him, Sazonov replied at once: “Of course!”. Paléologue remarked in his diary that the Persian question, for two centuries a bone of contention between England and Russia, had been settled in a minute. The details, however, were haggled over for several more weeks.

The Dardanelles and the Balkans

The memorandum linked the question of Constantinople with the operation then under way at the Dardanelles. The British stressed that even a successful attack would bring them no advantage in the final peace terms, because its fruits would be reaped by Russia alone. Russia should therefore not obstruct the participation of any state willing to help the Allies on reasonable terms. This meant Greece, whose participation in an expedition against Constantinople Russia did not want. The British commander at the Dardanelles had asked for additional destroyers, which the Admiralty did not have, and a Greek flotilla would have been, as it was put, invaluable. Meanwhile Venizelos’s offer had fallen through and the Prime Minister had resigned. London also asked Russia to allay Bulgaria’s and Romania’s fears of Russian control of the Straits and to encourage them to join the Allies.

Finally, Grey stipulated that the agreement must remain secret until the Allies were able to make satisfactory promises to the Balkan states and until they had agreed on their own wishes regarding the peace.

The French position

France behaved more cautiously. On 8 March Paléologue, on the instructions of Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé, assured Sazonov of Paris’s goodwill towards a settlement of the Straits question in accordance with Russia’s wishes. In Paris, however, a Russian presence in the Mediterranean was viewed with reluctance, and French financial interests in Turkey were enormous. France wanted first to secure consent to its own gains in the Asiatic part of the Ottoman Empire. It gave its formal reply only in April 1915.