Cmdr. Kenneth Edwards - The Grey Diplomatists.

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Text originally published in 1938 under the same title.

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Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE GREY DIPLOMATISTS

BY

KENNETH EDWARDS

(LT.-COMMANDER R. N., RETIRED)

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TO

ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET

SIR ROGER KEYES, B T .

G.C.B., K.C.V.O., C.M.G., D.S.O., D.C.L., LL.D., M.P.

Grey Diplomatistsbattleships and battle cruisers in line ahead {1}

Looking up the Bosphorus from Seraglio Point {2}

Smyrna on fire

Smyrna before the fireH.M.S. Iron Duke in the bay

MudaniaGeneral Sir Charles Harington comes on board H.M.S. Iron Duke from Mudania Conference

Escort for a new kingdestroyers meeting the S.S. Viceroy of India with King Farouk, the new king of Egypt, on board, and turning up into station as escorts {3}

The Royal Navy assembled for review in Spithead, with Fleet Air Arm machines flying overhead {4}

MaltaH.M.S. Queen Elizabeth and other ships in the Grand Harbour dghaisas in the foreground {5}

Seaplane flying over Alexandria harbour during the 1935 crisiscounty class cruisers in the foreground {6}

Regattaexercise and amusement with trainingH.M.S. Queen Elizabeth in the background {7}

Alexandria during the 1935 crisisdestroyers lying alongside large cruisers {8}

The Key to the Mediterraneanthe Rock, with destroyers, a battleship, and a seaplane of the Fleet Air Arm {9}

Spanish Civil Wara young refugee

Spanish Civil Warthe sailor is a handyman

Spanish Civil Warrefugees on board a British destroyer

Spanish Civil Warnaval boats embarking refugees

Thunder on the lefta battle cruiser firing her 15 in. guns {10}

Taking it greena destroyer in dirty weather {11}

Up she goesH.M.S. Courageous lifts to big seataking a lot of it with her {12}

Map I.

Map II.

Map III.

Map IV.

A fleet of British ships of war are the best negotiators in Europe. NELSON, 1801

IF YOU STAND FOR AN HOUR on the Galata Bridge, which spans the Golden Horn at Constantinople, you will hear every language under the sun.

That may be a slight exaggeration; but if you had idled there during the four years immediately following the Armistice you would have had to admit that Babel was well served. More, you would have seen costumes and uniforms credible and incredible and of a truly wonderful diversity.

Constantinople, which had changed rulers so often in history, was experiencing the most complicated administration of allinter-Allied control. The city was also a clearing-house for all the flotsam and jetsam of a Great War which had, in the Near East, resolved itself into a network of little wars and rival allegiances; which in turn had thrown up new states and undreamt-of nationalisms, each one of them vociferous in proclaiming their newly discovered self-determination.

The last stand of the White Russians in the Crimea, under General Denikin and General Wrangel, had collapsed. The new Black Sea country of Georgia had ended its brief but hectic life by being engulfed by Soviet Russia. Mustapha Kemal, who had been sent to Asia Minor by the shadowy authority of the Sultan to ensure the compliance of the Northern Zone Turkish Army with the terms of the Armistice, had become the leader of a new movement based upon the prevalent doctrine of extreme nationalism.

In forming a Turkish Nationalist Party, Kemal had been unwittingly assisted by the action of the badly informed politicians at Versailles in allocating Smyrna and a portion of Asia Minor to Greece. This action, of course, gave a tremendous fillip to the patriotic self-determination which was epidemic all over the Near East, and which was being exploited by Kemal.

The new war which arose from the efforts of the Turkish Nationalists to drive the Greeks out of Asia Minor presented a crop of pretty problems. Official peace with Turkey had not then been signed. Most of the Allies were therefore still technically at war with that somewhat nebulous portion of Turkish authority represented by the Sultan. Yet there could be no question of supporting Kemal. The politicians of the Allies, led by Mr. Lloyd George, had put the Greeks into Asia Minor, and were therefore morally concerned with supporting them against the Turkish Nationalists. The Greeks, moreover, were playing their part in the inter-Allied administration of Constantinople. Their warships lay in the Bosphorus, flaunting their blue and white ensigns, and with their officers in a perpetual panic lest some Turkish Nationalist should contrive to blow them up at their moorings.

These problems, however, did not unduly worry an Inter-Allied Commission and a collection of naval and military officers who had in the past three years become inured to incredible situations in this international mad-house.

At the beginning of 1922 many of the troubles seemed to be solving themselves. The Treaty of Svres, concluding peace with Turkey, as represented by the Sultan, had been signed. The High Commissioners of Great Britain, France, and Italy had succeeded in creating neutral zones in Anatolia and the Gallipoli Peninsula to keep the Dardanelles outside the ring in which struggled the Greeks and Turkish Nationalists. This struggle, moreover, seemed to be nearing stalemate. Kemal had suffered a series of defeats and had retreated far into the mountains of the interior. In Constantinople the flood of Russian refugees was gradually ebbing away, and relations between conquerors and conquered were cordial. The achievement of this state of affairs had been helped in no small degree by the Americans, who had never been at war with Turkey and were now busily consolidating their peaceful position with an eye to concessions and trading advantages.

It looked as if the task of the Royal Navy, upon which had fallen a heavy burden of police duty, the evacuation of refugees, the support of lost causes, and endless diplomatic missions, was ended. Admiral Sir John de Robeck, Commander-in-Chief of the Mediterranean Fleet, who had for some time doubled this duty with that of British High Commissioner at Constantinople, was to be relieved.