LAUSANNE, TREATY OF (1923)

renegotiation of treaties ending world war i resulting in more favorable treatment of turkey.

Defeat in World War I resulted in a harsh peace treaty for the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Sèvres (1920) stripped Turkey of all its European territory except for a small area around Constantinople (now Istanbul); demilitarized the straits between the Black and Mediterranean seas, opened them to ships of all nations, and placed them under an international commission; established an independent Armenia and an autonomous Kurdistan in eastern Anatolia; turned over the region around İzmirto the Greeks; restored the capitulations; and placed Turkish finances under foreign control. By separate agreement, some parts of Turkey left to the Turks were assigned to France and Italy as spheres of influence.

Unlike the other nations on the losing side in World War I, Turkey was able to renegotiate its treaty terms. This was the result of the decline of the sultan's power, the rise of the nationalists under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and the defeat of the Greeks' attempt to expand their power in Turkey. The latter development placed Turkish forces near British troops in the area of the straits and led to an armistice at Mudanya in October 1922 at which the Allied powers restored Constantinople and the straits to Turkish authority and called for a peace convention to renegotiate the terms laid down at Sèvres. The Allies invited both of the contesting powers in Turkey—the sultan's government and the nationalists under Kemal—to a conference at Lausanne, Switzerland. This precipitated Kemal's decision to separate the positions of sultan and caliph, abolishing the former, exiling Mehmet VI and giving the residual powers of caliph to his cousin, Abdülmecit II. Thus, when the conference at Lausanne began in November 1922, Kemal's Ankara government was the sole representative of Turkey.

İsmet Paşa, later İsmet İnönü in honor of his two victories over the Greeks at İnönü, led the Turkish delegation as the newly appointed foreign minister. He was determined to reestablish Turkish sovereignty and negotiate as an equal with the British, French, and Italians at the conference. However, İsmet found himself treated as a supplicant rather than the representative of a government with recent victories. Unable to compete with the sophisticated debate of the Allied diplomats, İsmet responded with his own unique tactics. He feigned deafness, contested every point however minor, read long prepared statements, delayed debate by consultations with his colleagues, and periodically insisted on deferring discussion pending instructions from Ankara. These tactics led to a break of negotiations for two months beginning in February 1923.

The Lausanne conference resulted in seventeen diplomatic instruments. Turkey recognized the loss of its Arab provinces, but plans for an independent Armenia and an autonomous Kurdistan were abandoned. The European powers no longer demanded capitulation, and although Turkey agreed to minor financial burdens and tariff restrictions, there were to be no war reparations. The Greeks lost their zone around İzmir, and no other powers retained zones of influence. Turkish territory in Europe expanded, but control over Mosul in Iraq and Alexandretta in Syria remained with the British and French respectively. Finally, the conference recognized Turkish sovereignty over the straits, although there were some concessions in the form of a demilitarized zone and an international commission to supervise transit through the straits. In short, İsmet achieved virtually all that nationalist Turkey under Kemal's leadership desired.

see also sÈvres, treaty of (1920).

Bibliography

Ahmad, Feroz. The Making of Modern Turkey. New York: Routledge, 1993.

Howard, Harry N. The Partition of Turkey: A Diplomatic History, 1913–1923. New York: Ferig, 1966.

daniel e. spector
updated by eric hooglund

Treaty of Lausanne 1922–23. The peace treaty (see Sèvres, Treaty of ) imposed by the Allies on the Ottoman Empire after World War I had virtually destroyed Turkey as a national state. The treaty was not recognized by the nationalist government under Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later known as Atatürk ). After the nationalist victory over the Greeks and the overthrow of the sultan, Kemal's government was in a position to request a new peace treaty. Accordingly, the signatories of the Treaty of Sèvres and delegates of the USSR (excluded from the previous treaty) met at Lausanne, Switzerland. After lengthy negotiations a peace treaty was signed in 1923. Turkey recovered E Thrace, several Aegean islands, a strip along the Syrian border, the Smyrna district, and the internationalized Zone of the Straits, which, however, was to remain demilitarized and remain subject to an international convention (see Dardanelles ). Turkey recovered full sovereign rights over all its territory, and foreign zones of influence and capitulations (see Ottoman Empire ) were abolished. Outside the Zone of the Straits, no limitation was imposed on the Turkish military establishment. No reparations were exacted. In return, Turkey renounced all claims on former Turkish territories outside its new boundaries and undertook to guarantee the rights of its minorities. A separate agreement between Greece and Turkey provided for the compulsory exchange of minorities.

Lausanne, Treaty of (24 July 1923) A settlement which replaced the earlier Treaty of Sèvres, after the success of Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) in the Graeco-Turkish War (1921–2). Greece had to surrender Smyrna (Izmir) and eastern Thrace, including Adrianople (Edirne). Kurdistan lost its autonomy, while Turkey's reconquest of Armenia was confirmed. In return for these gains, Turkey accepted that Palestine and Syria were to be mandated to Britain and France. Italy was confirmed in the Dodecanese and Britain in Cyprus. The Aegean islands except Imbros and Tenedos remained under Greek sovereignty. The Dardanelles remained demilitarized and open to shipping, as supervised by a League of Nations Commission. This final settlement of the Turkish-Greek border resulted in a large refugee crisis, as over one million Greeks were forced to leave Turkey (mainly from Smyrna), while some 350,000 Turks were forced to leave Greece. It has remained the basis of Graeco-Turkish tensions ever since.

Lausanne, Treaty of See VERSAILLES PEACE SETTLEMENT.