The
Conference of Lausanne was a conference held in
Lausanne, Switzerland during
1922 and 1923. Its purpose was the negotiation of a treaty 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 the
Great Britain,
France,
Italy and Turkey.
The Grand National Assembly of Turkey selected
İsmet Pasha,
Rıza Nur and
Chief Rabbi Nahum as their representatives.
Lord Curzon, the
British Foreign Secretary, was the coordinator of the conference and dominated it. France and Italy had assumed that, following the
Chanak Crisis,
British prestige with Turkey would be irrevocably damaged; they were shocked to discover that
Turkish respect for
Britain was undiminished, since
British troops had held their positions at
Chanak while the
French had been ordered to withdraw.
The conference lasted for eleven weeks. It heard speeches from
Benito Mussolini of Italy and
Raymond Poincaré of France. The proceedings of the conference were notable for the stubborn diplomacy of İsmet Pasha.
Already partially deaf, he would simply turn off his hearing aid when Curzon launched into lengthy speeches denouncing the Turkish position.
Once Curzon was finished,
Pasha would restate his original demands, oblivious to Curzon's denunciations. At the conclusion, Turkey assented to the political clauses and the "freedom of the straits", which was Britain's main concern. The matter of the status of
Mosul was deferred, since Curzon refused to be budged on the British position that the area was part of
Iraq.
The French delegation, however, did not achieve any of their goals and on
30 January 1923 issued a statement that they did not consider the draft treaty to be any more than a basis of discussion. The
Turks therefore refused to
sign the treaty. On
4 February 1923, Curzon made a final appeal to İsmet Pasha to sign, and when he refused the
Foreign Secretary broke off negotiations and left that night on the
Orient Express.
The Treaty of
Lausanne was finally signed on 24 July 1923.
The harsh
Treaty of Sevres imposed upon the government of the
Ottoman Empire after
World War I by the
Allied Powers included provisions that demanded the partition of
Anatolia. The treaty demanded the occupation of French and
Italian zones of occupation in the southeast and southwest, the cession of much of western Anatolia to
Greece, and the establishment of two independent states,
Armenia and
Kurdistan, in the east and southwest. The
Ottoman state was to have a small army and navy without heavy artillery, plane, or battleships and the Ottoman budget was to be placed under the supervisions of an
Allied financial commission. Unsurprisingly Turkish nationalists were vehemently apposed to these clauses and decided to fight to inhibit their effectiveness
.
In the Turkish War of Independence that followed, the
Turkish nationalist army defeated the
Greeks and created resolutions with the French and
Italians in order to secure a sovereign, independent, Turkish state in Anatolia.
Preliminary meetings
The location of Lausanne, Switzerland was chosen as a neutral area by Britain, France, and Italy to discuss the new policies in the
Near East. Representatives of the
Soviet Union would be invited solely for the purpose of renegotiating the
Straits Convention. Before the
Conference even began, Lord Curzon of Britain expressed doubts upon the reliability of France and Italy for support for he stated, "
I am not going into the conference in order to find myself let down very likely on the first day by the French or Italians." He thereto for demanded a preliminary meeting of the three nations in order to reach a preliminary strategy before traveling to Lausanne. Curzon prepared a list of British demands separated into two categories: ‘
Essential’ - which included
Greek retention of
Western Thrace, the freedom of the Straits to shipping, demilitarized zones on the coasts and retention of
Allied troops in
Istanbul until a new treaty was ratified. The second category was entitled ‘Most
Desirable’ and included measures for the protection of the minorities in Turkey, preliminary safeguards of the
Armenian population, satisfaction of Allied requirements of the Ottoman debt, capitulations, and the future financial and economic regime in Turkey. Preliminary meetings took place in
Paris between Lord Curzon and the
French statesman Raymond Poincaré on
18 November 1922, lasting five hours.
Poincaré addressed each of Lord Curzon’s aims
point by point and reluctantly agreed to the majority of them. The two then met with Benito Mussolini who quickly agreed to the agenda due to his overall indifference to the negotiations.
- published: 19 Jun 2015
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