Straits into the Black Sea is not to be greater than that of the most powerful fleet of the littoral Powers of the Black Sea existing in that sea at the time of passage; but with the proviso that the Powers reserve to themselves the right to send into the Black Sea, at all times and under all circumstances, a force of not more than three ships, of which no individual ship shall exceed 10,000 tons."
By this Convention, Lord Curzon retains access to the southern and Trans-Caucasian ports of Soviet Russia. Ismet Pasha signed it in the course of the general signature at Lausanne on July 24. Soviet Russia signed it at Rome on August 14. Early in September, Mr. Amery, First Lord of the British Admiralty, paid a visit of inspection to Malta where he announced that for the next year or two the principal British squadron would remain in the Mediterranean, and from Malta he continued to Constantinople.
Lord Curzon also succeeded at Lausanne in securing agreement that "the frontier between Turkey and Iraq shall be laid down in friendly arrangement to be concluded between Turkey and Great Britain within nine months. In the event of no agreement being reached between the two Governments in the time mentioned, the dispute shall be referred to the Council of the League of Nations." The Turco-Arab split in Sunni Islam which the Foreign Office engineered in 1915 through the Residency in Cairo, still lives in the Mosul controversy. Arab autonomy under the religious suzerainty of the Ottoman Caliph which Rauf Bey had stipulated to Admiral Calthorpe at Mudros in 1918, still awaits, inter alia, the fate of Mosul.
