Wilsonian Armenia - Negotiations

Negotiations

See also: Conference of London and Paris Peace Conference, 1919

During the Conference of London, David Lloyd George encouraged Wilson to accept a mandate for Anatolia, and particularly, with the support of the Armenian diaspora, for the provinces claimed by the Administration for Western Armenia. Wilson sent the King-Crane Commission and General James Harbord to the region to study the claims made by the Armenian national movement, and to determine if these claims were compatible with Wilson's Fourteen Points. The 12th point was:

"The Turkish portion of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees."

The King-Crane Commission tackled the issue of whether there should be an Armenian state, and whether or not this state should be created under a US mandate and concluded that there should be one. It has been noted that the arguments the Commission proposed to justify the creation of an Armenian state were similar to later arguments for the existence of Israel after World War II. Harbord recommended against dividing the territories inhabited by Armenians, in order to prevent potential problems such as intercommunal wars. Harbord's report stated that "the temptation to reprisals for past wrongs" would make it extremely difficult to maintain peace in the region.

The King-Crane Commission noted that the Armenians had suffered a traumatic experience, that they couldn't trust the Ottoman Empire to respect their rights any more, and that the Armenians were "a people." The Commission therefore recommended that the hard-won Armenian independence established during the Caucasus Campaign should be respected by the international community and insured by the Allies.