Treaty of Sèvres in the context of "Turkish Revolutionaries"

The Treaty of Lausanne (French: Traité de Lausanne, Turkish: Lozan Antlaşması) is a peace treaty negotiated during the Lausanne Conference of 1922–1923 and signed in the Palais de Rumine in Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. The treaty officially resolved the conflict that had initially arisen between the Ottoman Empire and the Allied French Republic, British Empire, Kingdom of Italy, Empire of Japan, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of Serbia, and the Kingdom of Romania since the outset of World War I. The original text of the treaty is in English and French. It emerged as a second attempt at peace after the failed and unratified Treaty of Sèvres, which had sought to partition Ottoman territories. The earlier treaty, signed in 1920, was later rejected by the Turkish National Movement which actively opposed its terms. As a result of Greek defeat in the Greco-Turkish War, Turkish forces recaptured İzmir, and the Armistice of Mudanya was signed in October 1922. This armistice provided for the exchange of Greek-Turkish populations and allowed unrestricted civilian, non-military passage through the Turkish Straits.

Turkey ratified the treaty on 23 August 1923, and all other signatories did so by 16 July 1924. The Treaty of Lausanne became effective on 6 August 1924.

The Turkish War of Independence (15 May 1919 – 24 July 1923) was a series of military campaigns and a revolution waged by the Turkish National Movement, after the Ottoman Empire was occupied and partitioned following its defeat in World War I. The conflict was between the Turkish Nationalists against Allied and separatist forces over the application of Wilsonian principles, especially self-determination, in post-World War I Anatolia and eastern Thrace. The revolution concluded the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the Eastern question, ending the Ottoman sultanate and the Ottoman caliphate, and establishing the Republic of Turkey. This resulted in the transfer of sovereignty from the sultan-caliph to the nation, setting the stage for nationalist revolutionary reform in Republican Turkey.

While World War I ended for the Ottomans with the Armistice of Mudros, the Allies continued occupying land per the Sykes–Picot Agreement, and to facilitate the prosecution of former members of the Committee of Union and Progress and those involved in the Armenian genocide. Ottoman commanders therefore refused orders from the Allies and Ottoman government to disband their forces. In an atmosphere of turmoil, Sultan Mehmed VI dispatched general Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Atatürk), to restore order; however, he became an enabler and leader of Turkish Nationalist resistance. In an attempt to establish control over the power vacuum in Anatolia, the Allies agreed to launch a Greek peacekeeping force and occupy Smyrna (İzmir), inflaming sectarian tensions and beginning the Turkish War of Independence. A nationalist counter government led by Mustafa Kemal was established in Ankara when it became clear the Ottoman government was appeasing the Allies. The Allies pressured the Ottoman "Istanbul government" to suspend the Constitution, Parliament, and sign the Treaty of Sèvres, a treaty unfavorable to Turkish interests that the "Ankara government" declared illegal.

The Turkish National Movement (Turkish: Türk Ulusal Hareketi), also known as the Anatolian Movement (Turkish: Anadolu Hareketi), the Nationalist Movement (Turkish: Milliyetçi Hareket), and the Kemalists (Turkish: Kemalîler, Kemalciler or Kemalistler), included political and military activities of the Turkish revolutionaries that resulted in the creation and shaping of the modern Republic of Turkey, as a consequence of the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in World War I and the subsequent occupation of Constantinople and partitioning of the Ottoman Empire by the Allies under the terms of the Armistice of Mudros. The Turkish revolutionaries rebelled against this partitioning and against the Treaty of Sèvres, signed in 1920 by the Ottoman government. Most revolutionaries were former members of the Committee of Union and Progress.

This establishment of an alliance of Turkish revolutionaries during the partitioning resulted in the Turkish War of Independence, the genocides of the Anatolian native nations, the abolition of the Ottoman sultanate on 1 November 1922 and the declaration of the Republic of Turkey on 29 October 1923. The movement organized itself into the Association for the Defence of National Rights of Anatolia and Rumeli, which eventually declared that the only source of governance for the Turkish people would be the Grand National Assembly of Turkey.

The Italian occupation of Antalya, a city in Turkey, occurred in the turbulent times after the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire that led to the Treaty of Sèvres (from 1919 to 1922).

Western Armenia (Western Armenian: Արեւմտեան Հայաստան, Arevmdian Hayasdan) is a term to refer to the western parts of the Armenian highlands located within Turkey (formerly the Ottoman Empire) that comprise the historical homeland of the Armenians. Western Armenia, also referred to as Byzantine Armenia, emerged following the division of Greater Armenia between the Byzantine Empire (Western Armenia) and Sassanid Persia (Eastern Armenia) in AD 387.

The area was contested during the Ottoman–Persian Wars and was conquered by the Ottoman Empire during the wars of 1532–1555 and 1623–1639. The area then became known also as "Turkish Armenia" or "Ottoman Armenia", and included six vilayets. During the 19th century, the Russian Empire conquered sections of Western Armenia, including Kars.

The Italo-Turkish War (Turkish: Trablusgarp Savaşı, "Tripolitanian War", Italian: Guerra di Libia, "War of Libya"), also known as the Turco-Italian War, was fought between the Kingdom of Italy and the Ottoman Empire from 29 September 1911 to 18 October 1912. As a result of this conflict, Italy captured coastal areas of the Ottoman Tripolitania Vilayet, of which the main sub-provinces were Fezzan (Turkish: Fizan), Cyrenaica (Turkish: Sirenayka), and Tripoli (Turkish: Trablusgarp) itself. These territories became the colonies of Italian Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which would later merge into Italian Libya.

During the conflict, Italian forces also occupied the Dodecanese islands in the Aegean Sea. In the 1912 Treaty of Ouchy, which ended the war and gave Italy the possession of Libya, the Italians agreed to return the Dodecanese to the Ottoman Empire. However, the vagueness of the text, combined with subsequent adverse events unfavourable to the Ottoman Empire (the outbreak of the Balkan Wars and World War I), allowed a provisional Italian administration of the islands, and Turkey eventually renounced all claims on these islands in Article 122 of the Treaty of Sèvres (1920), confirmed by Article 15 of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne.

The Conference of Lausanne was a peace conference held in Lausanne, Switzerland between Allies and Türkiye during 1922 and 1923 following the Turkish victory and the defeat of Allies in the Turkish War of Liberation and the following Armistice of Mudanya. Its purpose was the negotiation of a peace treaty after Turkish War of Liberation and Armistice of Mudanya and to replace the Treaty of Sèvres, which, under the new government of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, was no longer recognized by Turkey.

The conference opened in November 1922, with representatives from Great Britain, France, Italy and Türkiye. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey selected İsmet İnönü, Rıza Nur and Chief Rabbi Chaim Nahum as their representatives. Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary, was the co-ordinator of the conference, which he dominated. France and Italy had assumed that the Chanak Crisis had caused British prestige with Türkiye to be irrevocably damaged, but they were shocked to discover that Turkish respect for Britain was undiminished. British troops had held their positions at invaded Çanakkale, but the French had been ordered to withdraw.

After World War I, the effort to prosecute Ottoman war criminals was taken up by the Paris Peace Conference (1919) and ultimately included in the Treaty of Sèvres (1920) with the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman government organized a series of courts martial in 1919–1920 to prosecute war criminals, but these failed on account of political pressure. The main effort by the Allied administration that occupied Constantinople fell short of establishing an international tribunal in Malta to try the so-called Malta exiles, Ottoman war criminals held as POWs by the British forces in Malta. In the end, no tribunals were held in Malta.

Taner Akçam states that protecting war criminals from prosecution became a key priority of the Turkish nationalist movement. According to European Court of Human Rights judge Giovanni Bonello the suspension of prosecutions, the repatriation and release of Turkish detainees was amongst others a result of the lack of an appropriate legal framework with supranational jurisdiction, because following World War I no international norms for regulating war crimes existed. The release of the Turkish detainees was accomplished in exchange for 22 British prisoners held by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.

The Government of the Grand National Assembly (Turkish: Büyük Millet Meclisi Hükûmeti), self-identified as the State of Turkey (Türkiye Devleti) or Turkey (Türkiye), commonly known as the Ankara Government (Ankara Hükûmeti), or archaically the Angora Government, was the provisional and revolutionary Turkish government based in Ankara (then known as Angora) during the Turkish War of Independence (1919–1923) and during the final years of the Ottoman Empire. It was led by the Turkish National Movement, as opposed to the crumbling Istanbul government, which was led by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI Vahdeddin.

The provisional government was established on 23 April 1920, after the formal occupation of Istanbul in March 1920, a decision supported by Mehmed VI. A brief civil war between Ankara and Istanbul erupted. The Istanbul government went on to sign the Treaty of Sèvres with the Allied powers, which would have left the Ottoman Empire a colonial satellite of the European powers. During the War of Independence, the Government of the Grand National Assembly amalgamated militia of the Kuva-yi Milliye ("National Forces") into a regular army to fight Greece, Armenia, France, Britain, and Istanbul. After the war, the Ankara Government abolished the Sultanate in November 1922 and the next year proclaimed the Republic of Turkey in October 1923. The Grand National Assembly is today the parliamentary body of Turkey.