Treaty of Sèvres

The Treaty of Sèvres, signed in August 1920 outside Paris, was the peace settlement imposed on the defeated Ottoman Empire after the First World War. It stripped the empire of most of its territory and placed heavy restrictions on what remained. It was never put into effect. Turkish nationalists rejected it and fought to overturn it, and the result was the creation of the modern Turkish Republic. Sèvres is remembered as one of the most short-lived peace treaties of the twentieth century.

The Ottoman Empire had entered the war on the side of the Central Powers in late 1914 and agreed to an armistice at Mudros in October 1918. During the war, the Allies had made a series of overlapping and sometimes contradictory arrangements about the empire's future, including the secret Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France. Allied forces occupied Istanbul and other areas, and Greece, encouraged by Britain and others, landed troops at Izmir in May 1919. Meanwhile the Ottoman government in Istanbul, under the sultan, had little real power and was dependent on the occupying forces.

The treaty's terms were severe. Arab provinces were to be detached and placed under British and French mandates. Greece was to receive eastern Thrace and administrative control over the Izmir region, with a possible plebiscite to follow several years later. An autonomous Kurdish area was foreseen, and an independent Armenia was to be established, with its borders to be set by US President Woodrow Wilson. The Straits were to be demilitarized and placed under international supervision, and Allied powers would retain financial and military oversight over what was left of the Ottoman state. Many Turks regarded this as the effective end of their sovereignty.

Resistance had already been organized in Anatolia. Mustafa Kemal, an Ottoman officer who later took the surname Atatürk, led a nationalist movement based in Ankara, which set up a rival government and refused to recognize the authority of Istanbul or the treaty. The Ottoman delegation signed Sèvres, but the nationalists denounced it. Through the Turkish War of Independence, fought mainly against Greek forces in the west and against Armenian and French forces in other regions, they reversed much of what the treaty had sought to impose. The Greek advance collapsed in 1922.

Sèvres was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, which recognized the sovereignty of the new Turkey and set borders close to those of the present day. The sultanate was abolished in 1922 and the republic proclaimed in 1923. The treaty left a lasting mark on Turkish political memory, and the phrase "Sèvres syndrome" is sometimes used to describe a persistent fear that foreign powers aim to divide the country. The Kurdish and Armenian provisions also remain part of ongoing historical and political debate.