:''For the 1912 ''Treaty of Lausanne'' between Italy and the Ottoman Empire (signed on 18 October, 1912 in
Ouchy), see the
Italo-Turkish War.''
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).
Overview & negotiations
Main articles: Conference of Lausanne
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 performed during
Conference of Lausanne which
İsmet İnönü was the lead negotiator for Turkey and
Eleftherios Venizelos was his Greek counterpart. Negotiations took many months. On
October 20 1922 the peace conference was reopened, and after strenuous debates, it was once again interrupted by Turkish protest on
February 4 1923. After reopening on
April 23, and 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.
The stipulations of treaty
The treaty is composed of 141 articles with major sections;
[Andrew Mango Ataturk: The Biography of the Founder of Modern Turkey ISBN 158567334X page. 388]
★ Convention on the Turkish straits
★ Trade (
abolition of capitulations)
★
Exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey
★ Agreements
★ Binding letters.
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
[1]), and so were the Muslim population of
Western Thrace (about 86,000
[2] 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special administrative organisation", a right that was revoked by the Turkish government on 17 February 1926.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.
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.
Agreements
Among many agreements, there was a separate agreement with the United States,
Chester concession. US Senate refused to ratify the treaty and consequently Turkey annulled the concession.
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 shortly rewoked. Political amnesty is applied. 150 persona non grata of Turkey slowly acquired the citizenship which 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. Greece has seen its ethnic minority population in Turkey diminish from several hundred thousand in 1923 to just a couple of thousands today, and claims that this was caused by the systematic enforcement of anti-minority measures.[1] Turkey closed the Halki seminary, which is in direct contradiction to the treaty which stipulates religious freedom.
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 from his failure during that battle,[2] and his inability to be able to enforce the Treaty of Sèvres even though managed to dismantle 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.”[3]
See also
★ Aftermath of World War I
★ Treaty of Sèvres
★ Treaty of Kars
★ Turks of Western Thrace
★ Muslim minority of Greece
★ Greeks of Turkey
★ Greek refugees
References
1. Measures claimed to have caused the diminish of the Greek minority in Turkey
2. http://www.guardian.co.uk/turkey/story/0,,1921272,00.html
3. Winston Churchill, The World Crisis, vol. V, London, 1929, p. 408
External links
★ Text of the treaty
★ Information about the Treaty (1)
★ Information about the Treaty (2)
★ Text and Information about the Treaty
العربية
中国
Français
Deutsch
Ελληνική
हिन्दी
Italiano
日本語
Português
Русский
Español
