TheTreaty of Sèvres (French:Traité de Sèvres) was a 1920 treaty signed between some of theAllies of World War I and theOttoman Empire, but not ratified. The treaty would have required the cession of large parts of Ottoman territory toFrance, theUnited Kingdom,Greece andItaly, as well as creating large occupation zones within the Ottoman Empire. It was one of a series of treaties[3] that theCentral Powers signed with theAllied Powers after their defeat inWorld War I. Hostilities had already ended with theArmistice of Mudros.
The Treaty of Sèvres marked the beginning of thepartitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The treaty's stipulations included the renunciation of most territory not inhabited byTurkish people and their cession to the Allied administration.[6]
The terms stirred hostility andTurkish nationalism. The treaty's signatories were stripped of their citizenship by theGrand National Assembly, led byMustafa Kemal Pasha,[7] which ignited theTurkish War of Independence. Hostilities with Britain over the neutral zone of the Straits were narrowly avoided in theChanak Crisis of September 1922, when theArmistice of Mudanya was concluded on 11 October, leading the former Allies of World War I to return to the negotiating table with the Turks in November 1922. The 1923Treaty of Lausanne, which superseded the Treaty of Sèvres, ended the conflict and saw the establishment of theRepublic of Turkey.
The representatives of the Allied Powers submitted the draft peace treaty they had prepared at theSan Remo Conference (18-26 April 1920) and requested a response from the Ottoman government within a month. FormerGrand VizierTevfik Pasha sent the draft agreement, which he found “incompatible with the concepts of independence and even statehood”, to the government. The Ottoman government formed a commission to edit the proposal, and sent back their recommendations to the Allies Powers on 25 June 1920. The Allied Powers sternly rebuked Istanbul that they could expect to make any changes to the draft they previously prepared, other than a few minor, unimportant changes, and requested a response within ten days. Press in the capital was partial to theSublime Porte with many concluding that there was no other choice but to accept the treaty.[8]
Before making the final decision on the treaty, SultanMehmed VI convened anotherSultanate Council on 22 July 1922 (the first one was called in May 1919 after theGreek landing at Smyrna), so that responsibility for treaty could be shifted to them. Government members, members of theSenate, former grand viziers, high-ranking officers, and leading figures of the ulema and bureaucracy were invited to the council. The number of delegates was 57 (down from 131 of the previous council), and didn't include politicians affiliated with theTurkish National Movement. Care was taken not to invite representatives of theDefense of Rights movement and those with aUnionist political identity and background.[9]
The council began deliberations by discussing a July 17 telegram from theMinister of the InteriorReşit Bey, who was in Paris, stating that the Allied Powers did not accept Ottoman reservations on the draft treaty. On July 20 the council announced that there was no other option but to approve the treaty. Grand VizierDamat Ferid Pasha gave a speech, stating that the country had come to this point due to ten years of terrible mistakes instigated by theCommittee of Union and Progress, but that Istanbul was still entrusted to the Turks because of the trust the Allies had in the Sultan, and that there was no other solution than accepting the treaty. Other statesmen likeMustafa Sabri Efendi andHâdî Pasha gave speeches in support of the treaty. A vote was held in which all delegates supported the signature of the treaty, except for Topçu Feriki Rıza Pasha, who abstained.[9]
George Dixon Grahame signed for the United Kingdom,Alexandre Millerand for France, and Count Lelio Longare for Italy. One Allied power, Greece, did not accept the borders as drawn, mainly because of the political change after the1920 Greek legislative election, and so never ratified the treaty.[11]
There were three signatories for the Ottoman Empire:
TheTreaty of Versailles was signed with theGerman Empire before the Treaty of Sèvres and annulled German concessions in the Ottoman sphere, including economic rights and enterprises.
Also, France, Britain, and Italy signed a Tripartite Agreement on the same date.[12][13] It confirmed Britain's oil and commercial concessions and turned the former German enterprises in the Ottoman Empire over to a tripartite corporation.
The United States, having refused in theSenate to assume aLeague of Nations mandate overArmenia, decided not to participate in the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire.[14] The US wanted a permanent peace as quickly as possible, with financial compensation for its military expenditure. However, after the Senate rejected the Armenian mandate, the only US hope was its inclusion in the treaty by the influential Greek Prime MinisterEleftherios Venizelos.[15]
Partition of the Ottoman Empire according to the Treaty of Sèvres and the Greco-Italian Treaty
The treaty imposed a number of territorial losses on Turkey and had a number of provisions that applied to the territory recognised as belonging to Turkey.
The Allies were to control the Ottoman Empire's finances, such as approving and supervising the national budget, implementing financial laws and regulations and totally controlling theOttoman Bank. TheOttoman Public Debt Administration, instituted in 1881, was redesigned to include only British, French, and Italian bondholders. The Ottoman debt problem had dated back to the time of theCrimean War (1854–1856) during which the Ottoman Empire had borrowed money from abroad, mainly from France. Also thecapitulations of the Ottoman Empire, which had been abolished in 1914 byTalaat Pasha, were restored.
The empire was required to grantfreedom of transit to people, goods, vessels etc. passing through its territory, and goods in transit were to be free of all customs duties. Future changes to the tax system, the customs system, internal and external loans, import and export duties and concessions would need the consent of the financial commission of the Allied Powers to be implemented. To forestall the economic repenetration of Germany,Austria,Hungary orBulgaria, the treaty demanded the empire to liquidate the property of citizens of those countries living within its territories. The public liquidation was to be organized by the Reparations Commission. Property rights of theBaghdad Railway were to pass from German control.
TheOttoman Army was to be restricted to 50,700 men, and theOttoman Navy could maintain only sevensloops and sixtorpedo boats. The Ottoman Empire was prohibited from creating an air force. The treaty included an interallied commission of control and organisation to supervise the execution of the military clauses.
The treaty required determination of those responsible for theArmenian genocide. Article 230 of the Treaty of Sèvres required the Ottoman Empire to "hand over to the Allied Powers the persons whose surrender may be required by the latter as being responsible for the massacres committed during the continuance of the state of war on territory which formed part of the Ottoman Empire on August 1, 1914". However, theinter-allied tribunal attempt to prosecute war criminals as demanded by the Treaty of Sèvres was eventually suspended, and the men who orchestrated the genocide escaped prosecution and traveled relatively freely throughoutEurope andCentral Asia.[16]
The Ottoman Empire was to ensure equal rights between Muslims and non-Muslims, return deportees to their homes, and restore property which was previously confiscated. All conversions to Islam since 1 November 1914 were to be annulled.[17]
Within the territory retained by Turkey under the treaty, France received Syria and neighbouring parts of southeasternAnatolia, includingAntep,Urfa andMardin.Cilicia, includingAdana,Diyarbakır and large portions of east-central Anatolia all the way north toSivas andTokat, were declared a zone of French influence onSykes–Picot Agreement.
The expansion of Greece from 1832 to 1947 showing in yellow territories awarded to Greece by the Treaty of Sèvres but lost in 1923
The Greek government administered theoccupation of Smyrna from 21 May 1919. Aprotectorate was established on 30 July 1922. The treaty transferred "the exercise of her rights of sovereignty to a local parliament" but left the region within the Ottoman Empire. The treaty had Smyrna to be administered by a local parliament, with aplebiscite overseen by theLeague of Nations after five years to decide if Smyrna's citizens wished to join Greece or to remain in the Ottoman Empire. The treaty accepted Greek administration of the Smyrna enclave, but the area remained under Turkish sovereignty. To protect the Christian population from attacks by the Turkish irregulars, theGreek army expanded its jurisdiction also to nearby cities creating the so-called "Smyrna Zone".
Map of the Agreement of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, signed in August 1917. The dotted green line in the Aegean Sea notes theItalian Islands of the Aegean, already under Italian control.
Italy was formally given possession of theDodecanese Islands, which had been under Italian occupation since theItalo-Turkish War of 1911–1912 despite the Treaty ofOuchy according to which Italy should have returned the islands to the Ottoman Empire. Large portions of southern and west-centralAnatolia, including the port city ofAntalya and the historic Seljuk capital ofKonya, were declared to be an Italian zone of influence onAgreement of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. Antalya Province had been promised by the Triple Entente to Italy in theTreaty of London,[18] and the Italian colonial authorities wished the zone to become anItalian colony under the name ofLycia.[19]
1920 map of Western Turkey, showing the Zone of the Straits in the Treaty of Sèvres
A Zone of the Straits was proposed to include theBosphorus, theDardanelles and theSea of Marmara. Navigation would be open in the Dardanelles in times of peace and war alike to all vessels of commerce and war, regardless of flag. That would effectively lead to the internationalisation of the waters, which were not to be subject to blockade, and no act of war could be committed there except to enforce decisions of the League of Nations.
Certain ports were to be declared to be of international importance. The League of Nations insisted on the complete freedom and the absolute equality in treatment at such ports, particularly regarding charges and facilities, to ensure that economic provisions in commercially-strategic places were carried out. The regions were to be called "free zones". The ports wereConstantinople fromSan Stefano toDolmabahçe,Haidar-Pasha,Smyrna,Alexandretta,Haifa,Basra,Trabzon andBatum.
Eastern Thrace (up to theChatalja line), the islands ofImbros andTenedos and the islands of theSea of Marmara were ceded to Greece. The waters surrounding the islands were declared international territory and left to the administration of the "Zone of the Straits".
Provisions of the Treaty of Sèvres for an independentKurdistan (in 1920)
TheKurdistan region, includingMosul Province, was scheduled to have a referendum to decide its fate.
There was no general agreement among Kurds on what the borders of Kurdistan should be because of the disparity between the areas of Kurdish settlement and the political and administrative boundaries of the region.[20] The outlines of Kurdistan as an entity had been proposed in 1919 byŞerif Pasha, who represented theSociety for the Elevation of Kurdistan (Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti) at theParis Peace Conference. He defined the region's boundaries as follows:
That caused controversy among other Kurdish nationalists, as it excluded theVan Region (possibly as a sop toArmenian claims to that region).Emin Ali Bedir Khan proposed an alternative map that included Van and an outlet to the sea via what is now Turkey'sHatay Province.[22] Amid a joint declaration by Kurdish and Armenian delegations, Kurdish claims concerningErzurum vilayet andSassoun (Sason) were dropped, but arguments for sovereignty over Ağrı and Muş remained.[23]
Neither proposal was endorsed by the treaty of Sèvres, which outlined a truncated Kurdistan on what is now Turkish territory (leaving out the Kurds of Iran, British-controlledIraq and French-controlledSyria).[24] The current Iraqi–Turkish border was agreed upon in July 1926.
Article 63 explicitly granted the full safeguard and protection to theAssyro-Chaldean minority, but that provision was dropped in the Treaty of Lausanne.
Armenia was recognised as a "free and independent" state in Section VI "Armenia", Articles 88-93. By Article 89, "Turkey and Armenia, as well as the other High Contracting Parties agree to submit to the arbitration of the President of the United States of America the question of the frontier to be fixed between Turkey and Armenia in the vilayets of Erzerum,Trebizond, Van andBitlis, and to accept his decision thereupon, as well as any stipulations he may prescribe as to access for Armenia to the sea, and as to the demilitarisation of any portion of Turkish territory adjacent to the said frontier".
The treaty specified that the frontiers between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Georgia were to be determined by direct negotiation between those states, with the Principle Allied Powers making the decision if those states fail to agree.[25]
The details in the treaty regarding theBritish Mandate for Iraq were completed on 25 April 1920 at theSan Remo Conference. The oil concession in the region was given to the British-controlledTurkish Petroleum Company (TPC), which had held concessionary rights toMosul Province. British and Iraqi negotiators held acrimonious discussions over the new oil concession. The League of Nations voted on the disposition of Mosul, and the Iraqis feared that without British support, Iraq would lose the area. In March 1925, the TPC was renamed the "Iraq Petroleum Company" (IPC) and granted a full and complete concession for 75 years.
Article 95: The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on 2 November 1917 by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
Syrian Northern Sanjaks ceded to Turkey by France in theTreaty of Ankara 1921 (area shaded in yellow). The orange line shows the Treaty of Sèvres border
The French Mandate was settled at the San Remo Conference: it comprised the region between the basin of theEuphrates River and theSyrian Desert on the east and theMediterranean Sea on the west, and extended from theNur Mountains in the north to Egypt in the south. This represented an area of about 60,000 sq mi (160,000 km2) with a population of about 3,000,000, includingLebanon and an enlargedSyria, both of which were later reassigned under aLeague of Nations Mandate. The region was divided under the French into five governments as follows:Aleppo, from the Euphrates region to the Mediterranean, which included the autonomousSanjak of Alexandretta (modern-dayHatay);Damascus, including Damascus, Hama, Homs and theHauran;Greater Lebanon, extending from Tripoli to Palestine; theAlawite State, comprising the coast between the Sanjak of Alexandretta and Greater Lebanon, and theJabal Druze State, around the city of As-Suwayda.Faisal ibn Husayn, who had been proclaimedking of Syria by aSyrian National Congress in Damascus in March 1920, wasejected by the French in July the same year. The next year, he becameking of Iraq.
TheKingdom of Hejaz, on theArabian Peninsula, was granted international recognition and had an estimated area of 100,000 sq mi (260,000 km2) and a population of about 750,000. The main cities were the Holy Places of Mecca, with a population of 80,000, and Medina, with a population of 40,000. Under the Ottomans, it had been thevilayet of Hejaz, but during the war, it became an independent kingdom under British influence.
The Treaty of Sèvres imposed terms on the Ottoman Empire that were far more severe than those imposed on the German Empire by the Treaty of Versailles.[26][27] France, Italy and Britain had secretly begun planning thepartitioning of the Ottoman Empire as early as 1915. The open negotiations covered a period of more than 15 months, started at theParis Peace Conference of 1919, continued at theConference of London of February 1920 and took definite shape only after theSan Remo Conference in April 1920. The delay occurred because the powers could not come to an agreement, which, in turn, hinged on the outcome of theTurkish National Movement. The Treaty of Sèvres was never ratified, and after theTurkish War of Independence, most of the Treaty of Sèvres's signatories signed and ratified theTreaty of Lausanne in 1923 and 1924.
While the Treaty of Sèvres was still under discussion, the Turkish national movement underMustafa Kemal Pasha split with the monarchy, based inIstanbul,[28] and set up aTurkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara in April 1920. The so-calledAnkara government closely monitored the preparation of the draft treaty and its acceptance by the Istanbul government. On June 7, 1920, the Grand National Assembly passed a law declaring all treaties signed by the Istanbul Government since 16 March 1920 (the formaloccupation of Istanbul) invalid.[9]
On 18 October, the government ofDamat Ferid Pasha was replaced by a provisional one underAhmed Tevfik Pasha asGrand Vizier, who announced an intention to convene the Senate to ratify the Treaty of Sèvres if national unity was achieved. That required seeking the co-operation of Mustafa Kemal, who expressed disdain for the treaty and started a military assault. As a result, the Turkish government issued a note to theEntente that the ratification of the treaty was impossible at the time.[29]
Eventually, Mustafa Kemal succeeded in theTurkish War of Independence and forced most of the former wartime Allies to return to the negotiating table atLausanne.
During the Turkish War of Independence, theTurkish Army successfully foughtGreek,Armenian and French forces and secured the independence of a territory similar to that of present-day Turkey, as was aimed at by theNational Pact.
Hostilities withBritain over the neutral zone of the Straits were narrowly avoided in theChanak Crisis of September 1922, when theArmistice of Mudanya was concluded on 11 October, leading the formerAllies of World War I to return to the negotiating table with the Turks in November 1922. That culminated in 1923 in the Treaty of Lausanne, which replaced the Treaty of Sèvres and restored a large territory in Anatolia and Thrace to the Turks. Under the Treaty of Lausanne, France and Italy lost their zones of influence to areas of facilitated economic interaction, theNorthern Syrian regions were separated fromOttoman Syria, Constantinople was not made an international city, and a demilitarised zone between Turkey and Bulgaria was established.[30]
^Isaiah Friedman:British Miscalculations: The Rise of Muslim Nationalism, 1918–1925, Transaction Publishers, 2012,ISBN1412847494, p. 217.
^Michael Mandelbaum:The Fate of Nations: The Search for National Security in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Cambridge University Press, 1988,ISBN9780521357906, p. 61 (footnote 55).
^Finkel, Caroline,Osman's Dream, (Basic Books, 2005), 57; "Istanbul was only adopted as the city's official name in 1930."[ISBN missing]
^Current History, Volume 13, New York Times Co., 1921, "Dividing the Former Turkish Empire"pp. 441–444 (retrieved October 26, 2010)
^Bendeck, Whitney. "Pyrrhic Victory Achieved." Lecture, Europe in the Total Age of War, Florida State University, Tallahassee, October 11, 2016.
Darwin, John, and Beverley Nielsen.Britain, Egypt and the Middle East: Imperial policy in the aftermath of war 1918–1922 (Springer, 1981).ISBN978-1349165315.
Helmreich, Paul C.From Paris to Sèvres: the partition of the Ottoman Empire at the Peace Conference of 1919–1920 (Ohio State UP, 1974).[ISBN missing]
Howard, Harry N. (1931),The Partition of Turkey, U of Oklahoma Press,online
Karčić, Hamza. "Sèvres at 100: The Peace Treaty that Partitioned the Ottoman Empire."Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (Sept 2020) 40#3 pp 470–479.doi:10.1080/13602004.2020.1813988
Macfie, A. L. “The British Decision Regarding the Future of Constantinople, November 1918–January 1920.”Historical Journal 18#2 (1975), pp. 391–400.JSTOR2638494
Montgomery, A. E. "The Making of the Treaty of Sevres of 10 August 1920."Historical Journal 15#4 (1972): 775–787.JSTOR2638042
Sion, Abraham.To Whom Was the Promised Land Promised? (Mazo, 2020)[ISBN missing]
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