Treaty of Sèvres

The Allied Powers were to control the Ottoman Empire's finances. The financial control included approving and supervising the national budget, implementing financial laws and regulations, and totally controlling the Ottoman Bank. The Ottoman Public Debt Administration (instituted in 1881) was redesigned to include only British, French and Italian bond holders. The Ottoman debt problem dated back to the time of the Crimean War (1854–56), during which the Ottoman Empire had borrowed money from abroad, mainly from France. Also the capitulations of the Ottoman Empire, which had been abolished in 1914 by Talaat Pasha, were restored.

The Empire was required to grant freedom of transit to persons, goods, vessels, etc., passing through her territory; and goods in transit were to be free of all customs duties. Future changes within the tax system, the customs system, internal and external loans, import and export duties, and concessions could not be implemented without the consent of the financial commission of the Allied Powers. To forestall the economic re-penetration of Germany, Austria, Hungary, or Bulgaria the treaty demanded that the Empire liquidate the property of citizens of those countries living within its territories. This public liquidation was to be organized by the Reparations Commission. Property rights of the Baghdad Railway passed out of German control.

The Ottoman Army was to be restricted to 50,700 men; the Ottoman Navy could only maintain seven sloops and six torpedo boats; and the Ottoman State was prohibited from creating an air force. The treaty included an inter-allied commission of control and organisation to supervise the execution of the military clauses.

The treaty required determination of those responsible for the Armenian Genocide. Article 230 of the Treaty of Sèvres required that the Ottoman Empire "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, the inter-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 throughout Europe and Central Asia.[14]

Within the territory retained by Turkey under the treaty, France received Syria and neighbouring parts of Southeastern Anatolia, including Antep, Urfa and Mardin. Cilicia including Adana, Diyarbakır and large portions of East-Central Anatolia all the way up north to Sivas and Tokat were declared a zone of French influence.

The expansion of Greece from 1832–1947, showing in yellow territories awarded to Greece by the Treaty of Sèvres but lost in 1923

The Greek government administered the occupation of Smyrna from 21 May 1919. A protectorate 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. According to the provisions of the treaty, Smyrna was to be administered by a local parliament, with a plebiscite after five years to vote on whether Smyrna's citizens wished to join Greece or remain in the Ottoman Empire. This plebiscite would be overseen by the League of Nations. 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, the Greek army expanded its juridiction also to nearby cities creating the so called "Smyrna zone".

Turkish nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal demanded that the Turks fight against the Greeks trying to take the land that had been held by the Ottoman Empire and given to Greece in this treaty. This started the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), which resulted in a Turkish victory.

Italy was formally given possession of the Dodecanese Islands (already under Italian occupation since the Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912). This was done despite the Treaty of Ouchy according to which Italy should have returned the islands to the Ottoman Empire. Large portions of Southern and West-Central Anatolia, including the port city of Antalya and the historic Seljuk capital of Konya, were declared an Italian zone of influence. Antalya Province had been promised by the Triple Entente to Italy in the Treaty of London,[15] and the Italian colonial authorities wished the zone to become an Italian colony under the name of Lycia.[16]

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 the Bosphorus, the Dardanelles and the Sea of Marmara. Navigation was to be open in the Dardanelles in times of peace and war alike to all vessels of commerce and war, no matter under what flag. This in effect would lead to internationalization of the waters. The waters were not to be subject to blockade, nor could any act of war be committed there, except in enforcing the decisions of the League of Nations.

Certain ports were to be declared to be of international importance. The League of Nations insisted on complete freedom and absolute equality in treatment at these ports, particularly regarding charges and facilities, to ensure that economic provisions in commercially strategic places were carried out. These regions were to be called "free zones". The ports were Istanbul from San Stefano to Dolmabahçe, Haidar-Pasha, Smyrna, Alexandretta, Haifa, Basra, Trabzon, and Batum.

Eastern Thrace (up to the Chatalja line), the islands of Imbros and Tenedos, and the islands of the Sea of Marmara were ceded to Greece. The waters surrounding these islands were declared international territory and left to the administration of the "Zone of the Straits".

The Kurdistan region, including Mosul 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.[17] The outlines of 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, Sinjar Mountains, 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.[18]

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 Bedir Khan proposed an alternative map which included Van and an outlet to the sea via Turkey's present Hatay Province.[19] Amid a joint declaration by Kurdish and Armenian delegations, Kurdish claims to Erzurum vilayet and Sassoun (Sason) were dropped, but arguments for sovereignty over Ağrı and Muş remained.[20]

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).[21] However, no plan for an independent Kurdistan, truncated or otherwise, was ever implemented, since the Treaty of Sèvres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne. The current Iraq–Turkey border was agreed upon in July 1926.

Article 63 granted explicitly full safeguard and protection to the Assyro-Chaldean minority. This proviso was dropped in the Treaty of Lausanne.

The First Republic of Armenia, with the western borders defined by Woodrow Wilson

Armenia was recognized as an established state. (Section VI "Armenia", articles 88-93).

See also: Wilsonian Armenia and First Republic of Armenia

The details in the treaty regarding the British Mandate of Iraq were completed on 25 April 1920 at the San Remo conference. The oil concession in this region was given to the British-controlled Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC) which had held concessionary rights to the Mosul 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 a period of 75 years.

The three principles of the British Balfour Declaration regarding Palestine were adopted in the Treaty of Sèvres:

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.

The French Mandate was settled at the San Remo Conference. Comprising the region between the Euphrates River and the Syrian Desert on the east, and the Mediterranean Sea on the west, and extending from the Nur Mountains in the north to Egypt in the south; comprising an area of territory about 60,000 sq mi (160,000 km²) in size with a population of about 3,000,000, including the Lebanon and an enlarged Syria, which were later reassigned under a League of Nations Mandate. The region was divided under the French into four governments as follows: Government of Aleppo from the Euphrates region to the Mediterranean; Great Lebanon extending from Tripoli to Palestine; Damascus, including Damascus, Hama, Hems, and the Hauran; and the country of Mount Arisarieh. Faisal ibn Husayn, who had been proclaimed king of Syria by a Syrian National Congress in Damascus in March 1920, was ejected by the French in July of the same year. The following year he became king of Iraq.

The Kingdom of Hejaz on the Arabian Peninsula was granted international recognition. It had an estimated area of 100,000 sq mi (260,000 km²), and a population of about 750,000. The biggest cities were the Holy Places of Makka, with a population of 80,000, and Medina, with a population of 40,000. Under the Ottomans it had been the vilayet of Hejaz, but during the war became an independent kingdom under British influence.