Partitioning of Anatolia and Thrace according to the Treaty of Sèvres
The Treaty of Sèvres was the peace treaty that the Allies of World War I, not including the United States, and the Ottoman Empire signed on 10 August 1920
after World War I. Representatives from the governments of the parties involved signed the
treaty in Sèvres, France.[1], which ceded territory to Greece, a wider Armenia and also provided for a possibly independent Kurdistan. İstanbul and other parts of Turkey were occupied by several
Allied powers.
The treaty had four signatories on behalf of the Ottoman government. The treaty was not sent to Ottoman Parliament for ratification, as that body was adjourned on
February 12 1920 and abolished on March 18 1920. It was endorsed by Sultan Mehmed
VI but vigourously rejected by the Turkish national movement under
Mustafa Kemal Pasha, who successfully fought the Turkish War of Independence and forced the former wartime Allies to return to the
negotiating table. The parties signed and ratified the superseding Treaty of Lausanne
in 1923.
Conditions
The four signatories of the Treaty of Sevres on behalf of the Ottoman government
(from left to right, Rıza Tevfik, the grand vizier Damat Ferid Pasha, ambassador Hadi Pasha and the Ottoman minister of education Reşid Halis).
-
The treaty solidified the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire, in
accord with secret agreements among the Allied Powers. The partitioning followed the outlines of earlier agreements which had
been negotiated between the Allies at the San Remo conference in April 1920.
Middle East
The Democratic Republic of Armenia (Wilsonian Armenia) and the Kingdom of Hejaz were to be
granted independence. A Kurdistan region was scheduled to have a referendum to decide its
fate, which, according to Section III Articles 62–64, was to include the Mosul
Province.
The United Kingdom was to acquire Iraq and Palestine, which were
later assigned again under League of Nations Mandates.
France acquired Lebanon and an enlarged
Syria, which were later assigned again under League of Nations Mandate.
Anatolia
The expansion of Greece from 1832 to 1947, showing territories awarded to Greece by the Treaty of Sèvres but lost in 1923.
The proposed Armenian state created by the Treaty of Sèvres.
Greece: The armistice of Mudros, followed by the occupation of Izmir, established Greek rule in those areas on May 21
1919. This was followed by the declaration of a protectorate on July 30 1922. The treaty
assigned the key port of İzmir (Smyrna) to Greece, along with most of Eastern Thrace and a part of Western Anatolia.
Italy was confirmed in the possession of the Dodecanese Islands (already under
Italian occupation since the Italo-Turkish War of 1911-1912, despite the Treaty of Ouchy according to
which Italy was obliged to return the islands back to the Ottoman Empire). Large portions of Southern and West-Central
Anatolia (the Mediterranean coast of Turkey and the inlands) including the port city of
Antalya and the historic Seljuk capital of Konya were declared an
Italian zone of influence.
Armenia was given a large part of the region; including provinces which didn't have significant Armenian populations
remaining after the massacres and deportations, such as the Black Sea port city of Trabzon.
France received Syria and neighbouring parts of Southeastern Anatolia, including
Antep, Urfa and Mardin.
Cilicia including Adana, Kurdistan around Diyarbakır and large portions of East-Central Anatolia all the way up north to Sivas and Tokat were declared a zone of French influence.
Great Britain received a zone of influence in Kurdistan, bordering on Iraq. Also the internationalized Turkish Straits and the Ottoman capital city, Istanbul, were
effectively under British control.
Kurdistan
The breakup of the Empire following World War I and the emergence of the modern Turkish
state led to attempts on the part of the Kurds to secure their own nation state. There was
no general agreement among Kurds on what its borders should be, due to the disparity between the areas of Kurdish settlement and
the political and administrative boundaries of the region. [2]
The outlines of a "Kurdistan" as an entity were proposed in 1919 by Şerif Pasha, who
represented the Society for the Ascension of Kurdistan (Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti) at the
Paris Peace Conference. He defined the region's boundaries as follows:
- "The frontiers of Turkish Kurdistan, from an ethnographical point of view, begin in the north at Ziven, on the Caucasian
frontier, and continue westwards to Erzurum, Erzincan,
Kemah, Arapgir, Besni and Divick
(Divrik?) ; in the south they follow the line from Harran,
the Sinjihar Hills, Tel Asfar, Erbil, Süleymaniye,
Akk-el-man, Sinne; in the east, Ravandiz, Başkale,
Vezirkale, that is to say the frontier of Persia as far as
Mount Ararat."[3]
This caused controversy among other Kurdish nationalists, as it excluded the Van region
(possibly as a sop to Armenian claims to that region). Emin Ali
Bedirhan proposed an alternative map which included Van and an outlet to the sea via Turkey's present Hatay Province. [4] Amid a joint
declaration by Kurdish and Armenian delegations, Kurdish claims on Erzurum vilayet and
Sassoun (Sason) were dropped but arguments for sovereignty over
Ağrı and Muş remained.[5]
Kurdistan and Ottoman Empire in
1801 in an early 20th century British map.
Neither of these proposals was endorsed by the treaty of Sèvres, which outlined a truncated Kurdistan located on what is now
Turkish territory (leaving out the Kurds of Iran, British-controlled Iraq and French-controlled Syria. However, even that plan was never implemented as
the Treaty of Sèvres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne. The current Iraq-Turkey
border was agreed in July 1926.
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Army was to be restricted to 50,000 men; the Ottoman navy
could only preserve seven sloops and six torpedo boats, and the Ottoman state was prohibited from obtaining an air force.
The Bosporus, Dardanelles and Sea of Marmara were to be demilitarized and internationalized.
Nullification
-
- See also: Treaty of Alexandropol,
Treaty of Ankara (1921), and Treaty of
Kars
The Treaty of Sèvres was vigorously rejected by the Turkish national
movement. Led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha, they split with the monarchy based in Constantinople, it set up a rival government based in Ankara. In course of the Turkish War of Independence, they successfully resisted Greek, Armenian and French forces and secured a territory similar to that of
present-day Turkey.
The Turkish national movement developed its own international relations by the Treaty of Moscow with the Soviet Union on 16 March 1921, the Accord of
Ankara with France putting an end to the Franco-Turkish War, and the Treaty of Alexandropol
and the Treaty of Kars fixing the eastern borders.
These events forced the former Allies of World War I to return back to the
negotiating table with the Turks and in 1923 negotiate the Treaty of Lausanne, which
replaced the Treaty of Sèvres and recovered large territory in Anatolia and Thrace for the Turks.
See also
References
- ^ The Treaty of Sèvres, 1920 Harold B. Library, Brigham Young University
- ^ Hakan Özoğlu, Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving
Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries p. 38. SUNY Press, 2004
- ^ Şerif Pasha, Memorandum on the Claims of the Kurd People, 1919
- ^ Hakan Özoğlu,ibid p. 40
- ^ M. Kalman, Batı Ermenistan ve Jenosid p. 185, Istanbul, 1994
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