Certain details were left to direct negotiations between Italy and Greece; and these led to the signing of three agreements by Premiers Nitti and Venizelos, the first of which antedated by several months the San Remo Conference. Italy promised to (1) concede Greek claims in Thrace in return for withdrawal of Greek claims to the plain of the Mæander River in Asia Minor; (2) hand over Northern Epirus to Greece; and (3) surrender all the islands of the Dodecanese to Greece, except Rhodes, for which a plebiscite was to be held after a stipulated number of years.
The Turks gained only two points: the retention of sovereignty over Constantinople, because of the intervention of Indian Mohammedans; and the return of Cilicia, the claim to which was waived by France because she was not strong enough militarily to hold it.
In the disposition of the Arabic-speaking portions of the Ottoman Empire the Treaty of Sèvres clearly and specifically violated Article XXII of the League of Nations Covenant. Palestine was made a “Jewish national home” under the protection of Great Britain, and the rest of the loot was divided in utmost secrecy. The premiers had consulted neither their own parliaments nor the representatives of the races whose land they were cutting up.
The Treaty of Sèvres was not signed until August 10, 1920, and was already discredited long before the ceremony of the signature. Both Premiers Millerand and Nitti had spoken openly against the treaty. The latter said that Italy would contribute no troops to enforce it, and doubted the possibility of getting it signed by men who represented the Turkish nation.
The Treaty of Sèvres was declared null and void by Syrians and Palestinians, who appealed to the League of Nations. The Arabic press sustained the thesis that the three premiers were without competency to decide the destinies of the Arabic-speaking world. They were cosignatories of the Treaty of Versailles with the delegates of the free and independent Hedjaz, and were bound by the Covenant to let the League appoint the mandatory powers after the liberated races had been consulted. Unless the creation of the Hedjaz was an expedient later to be disavowed and the League of Nations a cloak for imperialism, the San Remo Conference was as high-handed and illegal as it was impolitic. The Hedjaz was the logical state to consult about the future of Palestine, Syria, and Mesopotamia because of geographical proximity, ethnological and religious affinity, and economic interest. Why was not the Hedjaz as vitally interested in these Arabic-speaking neighboring regions as was Great Britain in Ireland?
The Entente premiers at San Remo concluded a secret agreement concerning spheres of influence and oil interests in the territories affected by the Treaty of Sèvres, which, when news of it leaked out, raised an outcry, especially in the United States. The State Department made a strong protest against the assumption on the part of the three Entente Powers of the right to regard the Ottoman mandates as exclusive monopolies. This was according to neither the text nor the spirit of the Peace Conference agreements, embodied in the Covenant.
Premier Nitti had been right in his prophecy at San Remo that representative Turks could not be found to sign the treaty. The Turkish delegation at Sèvres represented only a Constantinople Government in captivity to the Entente Powers. There was a day of mourning at Constantinople in protest against the treaty. But the Turkish Nationalists issued a defiance from Angora, declaring that the Turks would not be bound by the signature. Behind them stood not only Soviet Russia, which had refused to recognize the four preceding treaties, but also France and Italy, who had begun to fear that the Greeks were agents of the British, and that the scheme of demilitarizing the Straits would mean their control by the dominant sea-power.
The Treaty of Sèvres was not ratified. Its sole hope of success depended upon the Greek army. In the end it was going to be seen that force would save Turkey from partition, as it saved Albania, and that, in the chaos and anarchy and slaughter ahead, the League of Nations was going to make no effort to settle the Near Eastern question.