Treaty of Lausanne

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For the 1912 Treaty of Lausanne between Italy and the Ottoman Empire (signed on 18 October 1912 in Ouchy), see Italo-Turkish War.
Borders as shaped by the treaty
Borders as shaped by the treaty

The Treaty of Lausanne (July 24, 1923) was a peace treaty signed in Lausanne that settled the Anatolian part of the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by annulment of the Treaty of Sèvres signed by the Ottoman Empire as the consequences of the Turkish Independence War between Allies of World War I and Grand National Assembly of Turkey (Turkish national movement).

Contents

[edit] Overview & negotiations

Main article: Conference of Lausanne
See also: Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire and Turkish Independence War

After the expulsion of the Greek forces by the Turkish army under the command of Mustafa Kemal (later Kemal Atatürk), the newly-founded Turkish government rejected the recently signed Treaty of Sèvres.

Negotiations were undertaken during the Conference of Lausanne at which İsmet İnönü was the lead negotiator for Turkey and Eleftherios Venizelos was his Greek counterpart. The negotiations took many months. On October 20, 1922 the peace conference was reopened, and after strenuous debate, was once again interrupted by Turkish protest on February 4, 1923. After reopening again on April 23, and after more protest by Kemal's government, the treaty was signed on July 24 after eight months of arduous negotiation by allies such as US Admiral Mark L. Bristol, who served as United States High Commissioner and championed Turkish efforts.

[edit] The stipulations of treaty

The treaty is composed of 141 articles with major sections;[1]

The treaty provided for the independence of the Republic of Turkey but also for the protection of the ethnic Greek minority in Turkey and the mainly ethnically Turkish Muslim minority in Greece. Much of the Greek population of Turkey was exchanged with the Turkish population of Greece. The Greeks of Istanbul, Imbros and Tenedos were excluded (about 270,000 in Istanbul alone at that time),[2] and so were the Muslim population of Western Thrace (about 86,000[3] in 1922). Article 14 of the treaty granted the islands of Imbros and Tenedos "special administrative organisation", a right that was revoked by the Turkish government on 17 February 1926. The republic of Turkey also accepted the loss of Cyprus to the British Empire. The fate of the province of Mosul was left to be determined through the League of Nations.

[edit] Borders

The treaty delimited the boundaries of Greece, Bulgaria, and Turkey, formally ceded all Turkish claims on Cyprus, Iraq and Syria, and (along with the Treaty of Ankara) settled the boundaries of the latter two nations. The treaty also led to international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire.

[edit] Agreements

Among many agreements, there was a separate agreement with the United States: the Chester concession. The US Senate refused to ratify the treaty and consequently Turkey annulled the concession.[1]

[edit] Aftermath

The Convention on the Turkish straits lasted only thirteen years and was replaced with Montreux Convention Regarding the Regime of the Turkish Straits. The custom limitations in the treaty were shortly reworked. Political amnesty was applied. 150 persona non grata of Turkey slowly acquired citizenship (the last one was in 1974) to the descendants of the former dynasty.

Since signing the treaty, both Turkey and Greece have claimed that the other has violated its provisions. The ethnic Greek minority population in Turkey diminish from several hundred thousand in 1923 to just a couple of thousand today, and claims that this was caused by the systematic enforcement of anti-minority measures (see Pontic Greek genocide, or Istanbul pogrom).[citation needed] Ultimately, Winston Churchill who had a damaged career because of his failure at the Battle of Gallipoli, during which he had urged the Armenian population to rebel with vague promises to divert manpower to that arena,[4] and his inability to enforce the Treaty of Sèvres, and managed to dismantle the Ottoman Empire with the occupation of Istanbul remarked: “In the Lausanne Treaty, which established a new peace between the allies and Turkey, history will search in vain for the name Armenia.”[5]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b Andrew Shonalie Raha who thinks B.A.P BAP: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey ISBN 158567334X page. 388
  2. ^ The Greek minority of Turkey
  3. ^ ΜΟΥΣΟΥΛΜΑΝΙΚΗ ΜΕΙΟΝΟΤΗΤΑ ΘΡΑΚΗΣ
  4. ^ Fiachra Gibbons: This ignorant act will only fan the flames of division | Comment is free | The Guardian
  5. ^ Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. V, London, 1929, p. 408

[edit] External links

World War I Portal
v • d • e
Turkish War of Independence
Concepts Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire - Establishment of movement - Turkish revolutionaries - Turkish National Movement
Issues Chanak Crisis - Population Exchange - Persona non grata - Malta exiles - Outpost Societies - King-Crane Commission - Khilafat Movement
Campaigns British (Allies): İstanbul
Revolts: Kuva-i Inzibatiye - Revolt of Ahmet Aznavur - Koçkiri Rebellion
French : Maras - Antep - Urfa
Greek : Smyrna (İzmir) - Aydın - 1st İnönü - 2nd İnönü - Sakarya - Dumlupinar
Armenian : Oltu – Sarıkamış – Kars – Alexandropol
Agreements

Allies: Conference of London - Ottoman Empire: Paris Peace Conference, 1919 - Sanremo conference - (Ottoman Parliament:) Misak-ı Milli - Treaty of Sèvres
Turkish revolutionaries: Treaty of Alexandropol - Treaty of Moscow (1921) - Conference of London - Cilicia Peace Treaty - Treaty of Ankara (1921) - Treaty of Kars - Conference of London - Armistice of Mudanya - Conference of Lausanne - Treaty of Lausanne
Timeline


v • d • e
World War I treaties
Brest-Litovsk • Batum • Versailles • Saint-Germain-en-Laye • Neuilly-sur-Seine • Trianon • Sèvres • Rapallo • Alexandropol • Moscow • Cilicia • Ankara • Kars • Lausanne
See also: Fourteen Points • Partitioning of the Ottoman Empire