Treaty of Sevres | World War I

The Treaty of Sevres (Traite de Sevres) was signed in 1920 between the World War I Allies and the Ottoman Empire. Vast swaths of Ottoman territory were lost to France, the United Kingdom, Greece, and Italy, and large occupation zones were established within the Ottoman Empire. Afterward their defeat in World War I, the Central Powers negotiated treaties with the Allied Powers. With the Armistice of Mudros, hostilities had come to a stop.

On 10 August 1920, the contract was signed in an exhibition room of the Manufacture national de Sevres porcelain factory in Sevres, France. The Treaty of Sevres marked the start of the Ottoman Empire's split. The treaty stipulated the abandonment of most non-Turkish territory and its submission to the Allied authority. The British Directive for Palestine and the French Directive for Syria and Lebanon were among the new policies created due to the ceding of Eastern Mediterranean countries.

The phrases sparked hostility and Turkish nationalism. The Grand National Assembly, commanded by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, stripped the treaty's signatories of their citizenship, sparking the Turkish War of Independence. In the war that followed, Atatürk led the Turkish nationalists to victory over the combined armies of the Treaty of Sevres signatories. The Treaty of Lausanne, which substituted the Treaty of Sevres, concluded the war and established the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

Table: Brief Details of Treaty of Sevres

George Dixon Grahame, Alexandre Millerand, and Count Lelio Longare signed for the United Kingdom, France, and Italy, respectively. Greece, one of the Allies, refused to accept the lines as defined, owing to political changes following the Greek legislative election of 1920. As a result, the treaty was never approved. For the Ottoman Empire, there were three signatories:

• Ex-Diplomat Hadi Pasha
• Ex-Minister of Education Rıza Tevfik Bölükbaşı
• The second secretary of the Ottoman embassy in Bern, Reşad Halis

Since it had negotiated the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with the Ottoman Empire in 1918, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic was not a part to the accord. Before the Treaty of Sevres, the Treaty of Versailles was signed with the German Empire, and it revoked German concessions in the Ottoman area, including commercial rights and enterprises. On the same day, France, the United Kingdom, and Italy signed a Tripartite Agreement. It confirmed Britain's oil and economic concessions and handed over the Ottoman Empire's erstwhile German industries to a three-part organization.

The United States obvious not to participate in the division of the Ottoman Empire when the Senate refused to accept a League of Nations mandate over Armenia. Instead, the United States desired a permanent peace as soon as possible and monetary reimbursement for its military expenditures. After the Council disallowed the Armenian Mandate, the only hope for the United States was to be included in the treaty by the influential Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos.

Non-territorial

The Allies were supposed to be in charge of the Ottoman Empire's finances, including approving and regulating the national budget, enforcing financial rules and regulations, and having complete control over the Ottoman Bank. Only British, French, and Italian bondholders were allowed to participate in the Ottoman Public Debt Administration, established in 1881. The Ottoman debt problem began during the Crimean War (1854–1856) when the Ottoman Empire borrowed money from other countries, primarily France. The Ottoman Empire's capitulations, which Talaat Pasha had repealed in 1914, were also reinstated.

People, products, vessels, and other items moving through the empire were required to have freedom of transit, and things in transit were to be exempt from all customs duties. To be implemented, future modifications to the tax system, customs system, internal and external loans, import and export tariffs, and concessions would need the approval of the Allied Powers' financial commission. The pact required the empire to liquidate people of those countries living inside its borders to prevent the economic penetration of Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Bulgaria. The Reparations Commission was to organize the public liquidation. The Baghdad Railway's property rights were to be transferred from German ownership. The Ottoman Army could only have 50,700 troops, while the Ottoman Navy could only have seven sloops and six torpedo boats. It was forbidden for the Ottoman Empire to having an air force. The pact incorporated an interallied supervision and organization committee to oversee the military articles' implementation.

The pact called for the perpetrators of the Armenian genocide to be identified. Furthermore, the Ottoman Empire was required by Article 230 of the Treaty of Sevres to hand over to the Allied Powers any persons whose surrender the latter may demand as being responsible for massacres committed during the continuation of the state of war on territory that was part of the Ottoman Empire on 1 August 1914. The inter-allied tribunal's attempt to try war criminals as required by the Treaty of Sevres was eventually stopped, and the men who coordinated the atrocities were able to travel freely throughout Europe and Central Asia.

Foreign Zones of Influence

France acquired Syria and neighboring sections of southern Anatolia, notably Antep, Urfa, and Mardin, as part of the land kept by Turkey under the pact. Cilicia was named a zone of French influence, which included Adana, Diyarbakr, and extensive swaths of east central Anatolia all the way north to Sivas and Tokat.

From 21 May 1919, the Greek government was in charge of the occupation of Smyrna. On 30 July 1922, a protectorate was founded. The pact delegated her authority to a local legislature, but the territory remained part of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty stipulated that A municipal parliament controlled Smyrna, with a five-year referendum conducted by the League of Nations to determine whether Smyrna's citizens wanted to join Greece or remain in the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Smyrna recognized the Greek administration of the enclave, although the region remained under Turkish control. The Greek Army expanded its jurisdiction to adjacent cities, creating the so-called "Smyrna Zone" to safeguard the Christian population from attacks by Turkish irregulars.

Despite the Treaty of Ouchy, which stated that Italy should have returned the islands to the Ottoman Empire, Italy was legally handed ownership of the Dodecanese Islands, which had been under Italian occupation since the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912. The coastal city of Antalya and the old Seljuk capital of Konya, and much of southern and west-central Anatolia were declared Italian zones of influence. In the Treaty of London, the Triple Entente promised Antalya Province to Italy, and the Italian colonial authorities desired the zone to become an Italian colony known as Lycia.

The Dardanelles, the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmara were suggested as a Straits Zone. In times of peace and conflict, the Dardanelles would be open to all vessels of commerce and war, regardless of flag. This effectively resulted in the internationalization of the waters, which were not to be subject to blockade and where no act of war could be committed except to execute League of Nations resolutions. In addition, several ports were to be designated as being of international significance. To ensure that financial requirements in economically significant sites were carried out, the League of Nations insisted on complete freedom and perfect equality in treatment at such ports, notably in terms of taxes and facilities. The areas were to be known as "free zones."

Greece received Eastern Thrace, Imbros and Tenedos, and the islands in the Sea of Marmara. The waters surrounding the islands were proclaimed international territory, and the "Zone of the Straits" was established to administer them. A referendum was planned for the Kurdistan region, which included Mosul Province, to decide its fate. However, because of the discrepancy between Kurdish settlement regions and the region's political and administrative limits, there was no broad agreement among Kurds on Kurdistan's borders. Şerif Pasha, who epitomized the Civilization for the Elevation of Kurdistan at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, suggested the outline of Kurdistan as a separate entity.

Section VI "Armenia," Articles 88-93, recognized Armenia as a free and independent state. Accordingly, by Article 89, Turkey and Armenia, as well as the other High Contracting Parties, agree to submit the question of the border to be established between Turkey and Armenia in the vilayets of Erzerum, Trebizond, Van, and Bitlis to the President of the United States of America for arbitration, and to accept his decision, as well as any stipulations he may impose on Armenia's access to the region.

The pact stated that the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Georgia would be defined through direct negotiations between the two countries, with the Principle Allied Powers deciding if they could not agree. At the San Remo Conference on 25 April 1920, the treaty's provisions regulating the British Mandate of Iraq were finalized. The British controlled Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), which had previously held concessionary rights in Mosul Province, was awarded the oil concession in the region. The new oil concession was the subject of heated negotiations between British and Iraqi officials. Finally, the League of Nations decided on the fate of Mosul, and Iraqis believed that if Britain did not back them, they would lose the city. As a result, the TPC was renamed the "Iraq Petroleum Company" (IPC) in March 1925 and given a 75-year complete concession.

The French Mandate was established at the San Remo Conference. It covered the Euphrates River and the Syrian Desert on the east and the Mediterranean Sea on the west, extending from the Nur Mountains in the north to Egypt in the south, covering an area of about 60,000 square miles with a population of approximately 3,000,000 people. It included Lebanon and an expanded Syria, both of which were later reassigned. Under French rule, the territory was divided into four governments: Aleppo governs from the Euphrates to the Mediterranean; Great Lebanon governs from Tripoli to Palestine; Damascus governs Damascus, Hama, Hems, and the Hauran; and Mount Arisarieh governs. In July of the same year, the French deposed Faisal ibn Husayn, crowned ruler of Syria by a Syrian State Congress in Damascus in March 1920. Instead, he was crowned King of Iraq the following year.

On the Arabian Peninsula, the Kingdom of Hejaz was awarded international recognition and had an estimated territory of 100,000 square miles and around 750,000 people. The Sanctified Places of Makka, with a population of 80,000, and Medina, with a population of 40,000, were the two principal cities. It was the vilayet of Hejaz under the Ottomans, but it became an independent kingdom under British influence during the war.

The Treaty of Sevres endorsed the three principles of the British Balfour Declaration of 1917 on Palestine. Article 95- The High Contracting Parties agree to commit the administration of Palestine, within such bounds as the Principal Allied Powers may establish, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers, following the requirements of Article 22. Accordingly, the Mandatory will be in charge of carrying out the British Government's declaration, first made on 2 November 1917, and later accepted by the other Associated Influences, in favour of the formation in Palestine of a state home for the Jewish people, with the understanding that nothing will be done that will jeopardize the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities.

The Ottoman Empire was subjected to significantly harsher terms in the Treaty of Sevres than the German Kingdom in the Treaty of Versailles. As early as 1915, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom began secretly preparing for the partition of the Ottoman Empire. The open negotiations lasted more than 15 months, starting with the 1919 Paris Peace Conference, continuing at the London Conference in February 1920, and taking shape only after the April 1920 San Remo Conference. The delay was caused by the powers' inability to reach an agreement, which depended on the Turkish National Movement outcome. The Treaty of Sevres was never approved, and most of the Treaty of Sevres' participants signed and approved the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and 1924 after the Turkish War of Independence.

In April 1920, while the Treaty of Sevres was still being debated, the Turkish national movement led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha broke away from the monarchy in Constantinople. It established the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara. He urged that the Turks attack the Greeks, attempting to reclaim the land that previously belonged to the Ottoman Empire but had been handed to Greece by the treaty. The Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922) ensued, with Turkey emerging victorious.

On 18 October, Damat Ferid Pasha's government was replaced by a provisional one led by Grand Vizier Ahmed Tevfik Pasha, who proclaimed to call the Senate to ratify the Treaty of Sevres if national unity could be attained. That necessitated enlisting the help of Mustafa Kemal, who had denounced the treaty and launched a military assault. As a result, the Turkish government informed the Entente that ratification of the Treaty of Lausanne would be difficult at the moment. Mustafa Kemal's War of Independence eventually triumphed, forcing most former wartime Allies to return to the bargaining table. Apart from Mustafa Kemal's armed opposition to the pact in Anatolia, Arabs in Syria refused to accept French control, Turks in the Mosul region assaulted the British, and Arabs in Baghdad revolted against the British administration. Egypt was similarly in a state of disarray.

The Turkish Military effectively fought Greek, Armenian, and French armies throughout the Turkish War of Independence, securing the independence of an area comparable to modern-day Turkey, as the Misak- Milli had hoped. With the Agreement of Moscow with Soviet Russia on 16 March 1921, the Accord of Ankara with France ending the Franco-Turkish War, the Treaty of Alexandropol with the Armenians, and the Treaty of Kars establish the eastern frontiers, the Turkish national movement created its foreign ties.

In the Chanak Crisis of September 1922, hostilities with Britain over the Straits' neutral zone were narrowly avoided when the Armistice of Mudanya was signed on 11 October, prompting the erstwhile Associates of World War I to arrival to the bargaining table with the Turks in November 1922. The Treaty of Lausanne replaced the Treaty of Sevres and restored a substantial portion of Anatolia and Thrace to the Turks, signed in 1923. France and Italy had merely zones of economic cooperation under the Treaty of Lausanne, not zones of influence. Constantinople was not designated as an international city, and a demilitarized zone was established between Turkey and Bulgaria.