This document began with the following protest against the conditions enforced on Turkey:
“It was only fair—and it was also a right recognised by all nations nowadays—that Turkey should be set on an equal footing with her former allies. The flagrant inequality proffered by the draft of the treaty will be bitterly resented not only by 12 million Turks, but throughout the Moslem world.
“Nothing, indeed, can equal the rigour of the draft of the Turkish treaty. As a matter of fact, it is a dismemberment.
“Not only do the Allies, in the name of the principle of nationalities, detach important provinces from the Ottoman Empire which they erect to the rank of free, independent States (Armenia and the Hejaz), or independent States under the protection of a mandatory Power (Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Syria); not only do they wrench from it Egypt, Suez, and Cyprus, which are to be ceded to Great Britain; not only do they require Turkey to give up all her rights and titles to Libya and the States of the Ægean Sea: they even mean to strip her, notwithstanding the said principle of nationalities, of Eastern Thrace and the zone of Smyrna, which countries, in a most iniquitous way, would be handed over to Greece, who wants to be set on an equal footing with the victors, though she has not even been at war with Turkey.
“Further, they are preparing to take Kurdistan and in an indirect way to slice the rest of the country into zones of influence.
“In this way more than two-thirds of the extent of the Ottoman Empire would already be taken from it. With regard to the number of inhabitants, it would be at least two-thirds. If we consider the economic wealth and natural resources of the country, the proportion would be greater still.
“But that is not all. To this spoliation, the draft of the treaty adds a notorious infringement on the sovereignty of the Ottoman State. Even at Constantinople Turkey would not be her own mistress. Side by side with His Imperial Majesty the Sultan and the Turkish Government—or even above them in some cases—a ‘Commission of the Straits’ would rule over the Bosphorus, the Sea of Marmora, and the Dardanelles. Turkey would not even be represented in this Commission, whereas Bulgaria would send a representative to it.
“In addition to these two powers, there would be a third one—the military power exercised by the troops of occupation of three States, whose headquarters would have the upper hand even of the Ottoman gendarmerie.
“Any possibility of mere defence against an attack would thus be taken away from Turkey, whose capital would henceforth be within the range of her enemies’ guns.