Page:The Rebirth Of Turkey 1923.pdf/144

 Soviet Government at Moscow finally concluded military and commercial treaties with the Young Uzbegs on March 4, 1921, which purport to recognize the independence of the Bokhara People's Soviet Republic. This is Bokhara's present title, but the British Foreign Office still withholds full recognition from any of the Soviet States. Even as late as May 8, 1923, a note from Lord Curzon to the Soviet Government demanded inter alia the recall of the Soviet Ministers from Teheran and Kabul, and a long statement by Said Mir Alim on the subject of Soviet "treachery" was circulated to the London press on the evening of June 4

The East Persia Cordon's hurried scuttle back to Quetta early in 1919 still left the British in control of Persia and in occupation of Trans-Caucasia and Constantinople. General Milne still commanded the Black Sea, the line of the Caucasus Range, the Caspian and the trans-Caspian town of Krasnovodsk. Denikin still stood between Soviet Russia and the British.

Having isolated the starving Armenians of Erivan from any possibility of Russian relief, whether from Denikin or Soviet Russia, the British permitted Americans to embroil themselves in Armenian affairs as intimately as they would. If the United States Government had permitted itself to be rushed into the acceptance of a mandate over the Armenians in Trans-Caucasia, it is not impossible that the British would have gratefully accepted the barrier between Soviet Russia and British Persia which such a mandate would incidentally have furnished. The Armenians had once constituted