The conference agreed upon at the time of the signing of the Mudania armistice opened at Lausanne on November 20, 1922. The Turks had been defeated in the World War. Their capital was still occupied by Entente soldiers and sailors. Within a decade the Ottoman Empire had suffered the most crushing humiliations on the field of battle in all its long history, followed by the loss of more than half its territory. Italy had taken Tripoli; the Balkan States had divided up the European provinces; Italy and Greece were in possession of the Ægean islands, including Rhodes and Crete; France held Syria; and Great Britain was organizing a new political status for Palestine, Mesopotamia, Arabia, Egypt, and Cyprus. The Sublime Porte had gone out of business, and the House of Osman had ceased to rule over what was left of Turkey. And yet the Turks came to Lausanne, inspired by their easy victory over the Greeks, to negotiate a treaty to take the place of the Treaty of Sèvres, which had been dictated to them as a conquered nation two years earlier by the victors of the World War.
Why the Treaty of Sèvres was going to be revised and how the Turks were able to demand a new treaty on the footing of equality we have already shown. We have pointed out, too, certain reasons, in connection with the problems of the Near East, that explain the failure of the Entente to enforce the peace settlement with Turkey in the same way that it was trying to enforce the other treaties of the Paris settlement.
The attitude of the Turkish Nationalist during the Mudania armistice negotiations and the six weeks that intervened until the peace conference opened was significant. It should have been a warning to Entente statesmen that they would never be able to make peace in the Near East, much less arrive at some practicable solution of the problems, unless they succeeded in getting together, and unless they were determined to lay down a common program of peace, rather than abandon which they would coerce Turkey. The Turks came to Lausanne assuming that the expulsion of the Greeks from Asia Minor and the reoccupation of Eastern Thrace put them in the position of victors, whose appeal to force to escape the consequences of their coöperation with Germany had been successful. They brought with them a mandate from the Angora Assembly to make a new treaty in conformity with the six articles of the National Pact of 1920. In the discussions with the Entente delegates and the American “unofficial observers” they referred constantly to this Pact and declared that they had no authority to accept any clauses in a new treaty contrary to the stipulations of the Pact.
No arguments or pleas could move them. Every modification of the original proposals of the Entente Powers was accepted as a matter of course. The Turkish delegates were pleased to observe, whenever the Entente delegates yielded a point, that the principles of the National Pact were being at last recognized.
The first test of the conference came on December 1, when Ismet Pasha, questioned about the reports from Asia Minor of an exodus of Christian minorities, admitted that these unfortunates had been given one month to quit the country. If they were dying on the roads from hunger or cold, it was because they were “unnecessarily panicky”; and if horrible conditions existed in Black Sea ports, it was because the Greek Government had not sent ships enough to transport the refugees. Venizelos, who was representing Greece, replied that it was a physical impossibility for Greece either to transport hundreds of thousands or take care of them on Greek soil. Greece had already some six hundred thousand refugees on her hands. Then Ismet Pasha proposed an exchange of Christians and Mohammedans between Turkey and the Balkan States. Had not Venizelos himself offered this solution to the Bulgarians at Bucharest when the Macedonian boundary-line was being fixed?
Lord Curzon spoke strongly in behalf of the Christians. He pointed out that the Turks had already done away with more than one million, that the Greeks of the interior of Asia Minor and the Black Sea coast could not suddenly find means of livelihood in a new country, that crossing the mountains in winter meant freezing to death, and that public opinion in Great Britain would react unfavorably to the deportation. The French and Italian delegates made no comment. Ismet Pasha calmly replied that the security of Turkey demanded the expulsion of revolutionary elements, that the country might have a homogeneous population. The new policy was a sane one, and the Turks would not yield their right to make their country secure. Had not Greece invoked the presence of a Christian population as her excuse for invading Turkey and attempting to detach the richest territories of the Turkish fatherland? A durable peace could not come until that temptation was removed! Ismet Pasha was naturally sorry for the sufferings of the Christians, but they had brought this measure upon their own heads by conspiring against Turkey. He was, however, willing to telegraph Angora recommending that a fortnight longer be given the remaining Christians to get out.
The protection of Christian minorities, which the European Powers had made a diplomatic issue with Turkey for a hundred years, was the first point yielded. Immediately the Turks announced that the Greek Patriarchate would have to be removed from Constantinople, and that probably measures would be adopted to expel the 400,000 Greeks and Armenians of the capital. Would not this be the best way to settle the minorities question?
When the various commissions of the conference got down to business and began to draft the clauses of the treaty, Entente experts discovered that the Turks refused point-blank to accept anything which, in their opinion, would imply a limitation upon Turkish sovereignty. Ismet Pasha and the other delegates proceeded on three assumptions: (1) Turkey has a right to equality; (2) Turkey is capable of ruling without limitations of any sort and of handling her own affairs; (3) Turkey has the force to resist any treaty stipulation, territorial or economic, that violates the terms of the National Pact. The National Assembly had instructed its delegates to proceed with the negotiations on the ground of non-recognition of past treaties and agreements and on the assumption that the status of regions of the Ottoman Empire occupied during the World War and held by British and French armies was still open to discussion. The gist of the Turkish contention was that the Angora Government inherited all the privileges and none of the obligations of the Ottoman Empire.
The striking of this snag, which affected vitally the political balance of power in the Near East and the economic interests of the Entente Powers, caused the conference to waste weeks in futile discussion. A recess was taken for Christmas, in the hope that the Turks might be willing to compromise. The Entente experts went ahead with the work of drafting the treaty. But on January 3, 1923, Reouf Bey, Chief of Commissars of the Angora Government, told the National Assembly that the full powers of the Turkish delegation at Lausanne had been given to conclude peace, but with the following reservations:
(1) Karagach is inseparable from Adrianople.
(2) A plebiscite is demanded for Western Thrace.
(3) Turkey cannot recognize any Armenian State outside the Armenian Republic in the Caucasus, whose capital is Erivan.
(4) Before conceding freedom of the Straits, Turkey must obtain full guarantees in regard to the security of the Sea of Marmora and Constantinople.
(5) Turkey refuses to accept any foreign control on Turkish territory.
(6) Mosul is within the limits of Turkey as outlined in the National Pact, because the overwhelming majority of its inhabitants are the sons of Turkey.
(7) If Turkey cannot obtain a war indemnity or reparations at Lausanne, she must be allowed to settle this matter with the Greeks alone.
(8) In the question of the capitulations, Turkey will remain true to the National Pact, by which they are abrogated.
(9) Yemen is a part of our country, and the Hedjaz Railway is the property of the Evkaf (Religious Foundations).