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In his diaries C.P. Scott, one time editor of the Manchester Guardian, recorded a conversation with David Lloyd George on 27 November 1914.

Lloyd George said he was not strongly anti-German and that he would have much greater pleasure in smashing Turkey than Germany.

He said that Turkish dominion in Asia must come to an end. He assumed that Russia would take Constantinople and Armenia, and Great Britain Mesopotamia. When Scott asked Lloyd George what was to become of the rest of Asia Minor and the 10 million Turks in it, he thought it could be given to Germany as consolation. When Scott said that it might not suit Russia to have Germany on the other side of the Bosphorus, he said that Russia should have control of the straits with enough territory to secure that.

At that time Lloyd George was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Asquith's government.
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