XVITHE TREATY OF SEVRESRAUF BEY TAKES THE NATIONALIST DEPUTIES FROM ANGORA TO CONSTANTINOPLE—INDIA COMPELS MR. LLOYD GEORGE TO LEAVE CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE TURK AND GENERAL MILNE BREAKS UP THE PARLIAMENT, DEPORTING RAUF AND MANY OF HIS COLLEAGUES TO MALTA—THE SEVRES TREATY AND HOW DAMAD FERID PASHA SECURED AUTHORITY TO SIGN IT.Theelections which the Ali Riza Government held, resulted in a clean sweep for the Nationalists and a situation of considerable delicacy was now precipitated. It was hardly possible for the new Parliament, charged with the execution of the Erzerum program, to function freely under the enemy occupation in the capital. On the other hand, it was the country’s legally elected Parliament and it was highly desirable that it should be recognized as such. Pending decision as to its course, its deputies assembled at Angora where the Party’s standing council was in session in the gray granite building which had once been the provincial headquarters of the Committee of Union and Progress. Here an intimation reached the deputies that the Allies were prepared to recognize the new Parliament if its session was held in the capital and was opened in a legal fashion by the Sultan’s speech, but that it would not be recognized if it met in Angora. Accordingly a large proportion of the deputies, headed by Rauf Bey, the Parliamentary leader of the Party, left Angora for Constantinople and on Jan. 11, 1920, the new Ottoman Parliament opened its session. Despite the conditions of military occupation under which it met, Rauf Bey discharged his duties with inflexible courage and on January 28, the Erzerum program, now known as the Turkish National Pact, was legally adopted by the legal Parliament sitting in its legal capital.Trouble was now plainly in the air. Only the day before the adoption of the Pact, the re-mobilizing Nationalist forces in Asia Minor had raided a dump of surrendered munitions on the Gallipoli peninsula. Behind its Asiatic suburbs, their forces had crept into the very outskirts of Constantinople. The Allied occupation was becoming a touch-and-go matter.Other developments contributed to the gravity of the situation. Mr. Lloyd George who had been striding up and down the Rubicon, had made a dismaying discovery. It seemed that there was a place called India. The British Foreign Office was also having its troubles. Pilgrimage to Mecca had ceased and Islam was not displaying that gratitude at the payment of British subsidies to King Hussein of the Hejaz, which Lord Curzon expected of it. Mr. Lloyd George accordingly ceased striding up and down the Rubicon and seated himself in a waiting posture on its bank. On February 26, he told the House of Commons in London that his statement of Jan. 5, 1918, respecting Constantinople as the Turkish capital, “was specific. It was unqualified and it was very deliberate. It was made with the consent of all parties in the community. It was not opposed by the Labor Party.” Preparations were accordingly made to leave Constantinople to the Turk in the peace settlement, and London editors (who as a rule are not Moslems) began turning over projects for the “Vaticanization” of the Caliphate of Islam.On the night of March 15-16, during the temporary absence of his French co-commander, General Milne seized the telegraph offices in Constantinople, isolated the capital from Asia Minor, executed a series of lightning raids at midnight, arrested every Nationalist deputy in the Ottoman Parliament whom he could lay his hands on, and embarked them on transports for internment on Malta. By dawn of the 16th, British forces held the city securely in their grip, Rauf Bey and many of his colleagues wereen routeto barbed wire compounds on Malta, the rest of the Nationalist deputies were clambering up the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus to begin their long trek back to Angora, General Milne was soon to be recognized as the Allied Commander-in-Chief, and Constantinople was ready to be left to the Turk.On April 6, the Ali Riza Government gave way to a second Damad Ferid Government. On April 11, Ferid issued a Sultanic edict denouncing Nationalism, and a similar edict was issued by theSheikh-ul-Islamwho had entered his high office upon the arrest and deportation to Malta of his predecessor (the German occupation of Belgium during the war had left Cardinal Mercier unmolested, but no such nice scruples have troubled the British occupants of Constantinople). Meanwhile, military events were moving rapidly. The Circassian leader, Anzavur, who had been launched against the Nationalists, had flickered out after a few local successes along the Asiatic shore of the Straits, and it became evident that serious operations would have to be undertaken if Constantinople was to be held. Every British man of war in the Mediterranean was ordered to Constantinople and, with the second Ferid Government launching its religious thunderbolts at the Nationalists, Allied conferences at Hythe and Boulogne called on the Greeks behind Smyrna to screen the Straits from the “Kemalists.” In conjunction with British naval units, the towns along the Asiatic shore of Marmora were quickly occupied. Thrace was given to the Greeks in Europe to protect the capital from the Nationalists in its rear, and a British Constantinople was now firmly embedded in a Greek setting. The High Contracting Parties were now prepared to “agree that the rights and title of the Turkish Government over Constantinople shall not be affected, and that the said Government and His Majesty the Sultan shall be entitled to reside there and to maintain there the capital of the Turkish State.”On May 11, the terms of peace were handed to two of Ferid’s appointees at Paris. These terms proposed to close the Greek pincers about Constantinople, to cut it off from Asia Minor permanently with a garrison restricted to 700 men, to isolate the Straits from Asia Minor by the institution of an International Commission on which Russia and Turkey would be represented if and when they became members of the League of Nations, and to place what remained of Turkey in Asia Minor under the permanent military, economic and financial control of Great Britain, France and Italy. As for Smyrna, “the city of Smyrna and the territory in Article 66 will be assimilated, in the application of the present Treaty, to territory detached from Turkey. The city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66 remain under Turkish sovereignty. Turkey however transfers to the Greek Government the exercise of her rights of sovereignty over the city of Smyrna and the said territory. In witness of such sovereignty the Turkish flag shall remain permanently hoisted over an outer fort in the town of Smyrna. The fort will be designated by the Principal Allied Powers…. The Greek Government may establish a Customs boundary along the frontier line defined in Article 66, and may incorporate the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in the said Article in the Greek customs system…. When a period of five years shall have elapsed after the coming into force of the present Treaty the local parliament referred to in Article 72 may, by a majority of votes, ask the Council of the League of Nations for the definitive incorporation in the Kingdom of Greece of the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66. The Council may require, as a preliminary, a plebiscite under conditions which it will lay down. In the event of such incorporation as a result of the application of the foregoing paragraph, the Turkish sovereignty referred to in Article 69 shall cease. Turkey hereby renounces in that event in favor of Greece all rights and title over the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66.” As for Constantinople, it remained the Turkish capital, but “in the event of Turkey failing to observe faithfully the provisions of the present Treaty, or of any treaties or conventions supplementary thereto, particularly as regards the protection of the rights of racial, religious or linguistic minorities, the Allied Powers expressly reserve the right to modify the above provisions, and Turkey hereby agrees to accept any dispositions which may be taken in this connection.”There being no Ottoman Parliament in session, Damad Ferid Pasha summoned eighty prominent Turks to Yildiz Kiosk to authorize signature of the peace terms. Permitting no discussion of it, Ferid ordered those who favored signature to stand and, scenting trouble ahead, he whispered to the Sultan to stand. Considerations of etiquette bade every one present stand, but the late “Topdjeh” Riza Pasha broke into vigorous protest. In a voice trembling with emotion, he told Ferid that the meeting had risen out of respect to thePadishahand not in resignation to the peace terms, that the meeting had no power to authorize their signature and that, even if it had, it could not authorize their signature as long as Anatolia was in open and armed revolt against them. Without further ado, Ferid declared the signature of the peace terms authorized and added audibly that Anatolia could go to the devil.So the peace terms were signed by three of Ferid’s appointees (one of them a teacher in an American college near Constantinople) on August 11 at Sevres in the suburbs of Paris. Sevres is in Christendom and the year was 1920.
RAUF BEY TAKES THE NATIONALIST DEPUTIES FROM ANGORA TO CONSTANTINOPLE—INDIA COMPELS MR. LLOYD GEORGE TO LEAVE CONSTANTINOPLE TO THE TURK AND GENERAL MILNE BREAKS UP THE PARLIAMENT, DEPORTING RAUF AND MANY OF HIS COLLEAGUES TO MALTA—THE SEVRES TREATY AND HOW DAMAD FERID PASHA SECURED AUTHORITY TO SIGN IT.
Theelections which the Ali Riza Government held, resulted in a clean sweep for the Nationalists and a situation of considerable delicacy was now precipitated. It was hardly possible for the new Parliament, charged with the execution of the Erzerum program, to function freely under the enemy occupation in the capital. On the other hand, it was the country’s legally elected Parliament and it was highly desirable that it should be recognized as such. Pending decision as to its course, its deputies assembled at Angora where the Party’s standing council was in session in the gray granite building which had once been the provincial headquarters of the Committee of Union and Progress. Here an intimation reached the deputies that the Allies were prepared to recognize the new Parliament if its session was held in the capital and was opened in a legal fashion by the Sultan’s speech, but that it would not be recognized if it met in Angora. Accordingly a large proportion of the deputies, headed by Rauf Bey, the Parliamentary leader of the Party, left Angora for Constantinople and on Jan. 11, 1920, the new Ottoman Parliament opened its session. Despite the conditions of military occupation under which it met, Rauf Bey discharged his duties with inflexible courage and on January 28, the Erzerum program, now known as the Turkish National Pact, was legally adopted by the legal Parliament sitting in its legal capital.
Trouble was now plainly in the air. Only the day before the adoption of the Pact, the re-mobilizing Nationalist forces in Asia Minor had raided a dump of surrendered munitions on the Gallipoli peninsula. Behind its Asiatic suburbs, their forces had crept into the very outskirts of Constantinople. The Allied occupation was becoming a touch-and-go matter.
Other developments contributed to the gravity of the situation. Mr. Lloyd George who had been striding up and down the Rubicon, had made a dismaying discovery. It seemed that there was a place called India. The British Foreign Office was also having its troubles. Pilgrimage to Mecca had ceased and Islam was not displaying that gratitude at the payment of British subsidies to King Hussein of the Hejaz, which Lord Curzon expected of it. Mr. Lloyd George accordingly ceased striding up and down the Rubicon and seated himself in a waiting posture on its bank. On February 26, he told the House of Commons in London that his statement of Jan. 5, 1918, respecting Constantinople as the Turkish capital, “was specific. It was unqualified and it was very deliberate. It was made with the consent of all parties in the community. It was not opposed by the Labor Party.” Preparations were accordingly made to leave Constantinople to the Turk in the peace settlement, and London editors (who as a rule are not Moslems) began turning over projects for the “Vaticanization” of the Caliphate of Islam.
On the night of March 15-16, during the temporary absence of his French co-commander, General Milne seized the telegraph offices in Constantinople, isolated the capital from Asia Minor, executed a series of lightning raids at midnight, arrested every Nationalist deputy in the Ottoman Parliament whom he could lay his hands on, and embarked them on transports for internment on Malta. By dawn of the 16th, British forces held the city securely in their grip, Rauf Bey and many of his colleagues wereen routeto barbed wire compounds on Malta, the rest of the Nationalist deputies were clambering up the Asiatic shore of the Bosphorus to begin their long trek back to Angora, General Milne was soon to be recognized as the Allied Commander-in-Chief, and Constantinople was ready to be left to the Turk.
On April 6, the Ali Riza Government gave way to a second Damad Ferid Government. On April 11, Ferid issued a Sultanic edict denouncing Nationalism, and a similar edict was issued by theSheikh-ul-Islamwho had entered his high office upon the arrest and deportation to Malta of his predecessor (the German occupation of Belgium during the war had left Cardinal Mercier unmolested, but no such nice scruples have troubled the British occupants of Constantinople). Meanwhile, military events were moving rapidly. The Circassian leader, Anzavur, who had been launched against the Nationalists, had flickered out after a few local successes along the Asiatic shore of the Straits, and it became evident that serious operations would have to be undertaken if Constantinople was to be held. Every British man of war in the Mediterranean was ordered to Constantinople and, with the second Ferid Government launching its religious thunderbolts at the Nationalists, Allied conferences at Hythe and Boulogne called on the Greeks behind Smyrna to screen the Straits from the “Kemalists.” In conjunction with British naval units, the towns along the Asiatic shore of Marmora were quickly occupied. Thrace was given to the Greeks in Europe to protect the capital from the Nationalists in its rear, and a British Constantinople was now firmly embedded in a Greek setting. The High Contracting Parties were now prepared to “agree that the rights and title of the Turkish Government over Constantinople shall not be affected, and that the said Government and His Majesty the Sultan shall be entitled to reside there and to maintain there the capital of the Turkish State.”
On May 11, the terms of peace were handed to two of Ferid’s appointees at Paris. These terms proposed to close the Greek pincers about Constantinople, to cut it off from Asia Minor permanently with a garrison restricted to 700 men, to isolate the Straits from Asia Minor by the institution of an International Commission on which Russia and Turkey would be represented if and when they became members of the League of Nations, and to place what remained of Turkey in Asia Minor under the permanent military, economic and financial control of Great Britain, France and Italy. As for Smyrna, “the city of Smyrna and the territory in Article 66 will be assimilated, in the application of the present Treaty, to territory detached from Turkey. The city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66 remain under Turkish sovereignty. Turkey however transfers to the Greek Government the exercise of her rights of sovereignty over the city of Smyrna and the said territory. In witness of such sovereignty the Turkish flag shall remain permanently hoisted over an outer fort in the town of Smyrna. The fort will be designated by the Principal Allied Powers…. The Greek Government may establish a Customs boundary along the frontier line defined in Article 66, and may incorporate the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in the said Article in the Greek customs system…. When a period of five years shall have elapsed after the coming into force of the present Treaty the local parliament referred to in Article 72 may, by a majority of votes, ask the Council of the League of Nations for the definitive incorporation in the Kingdom of Greece of the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66. The Council may require, as a preliminary, a plebiscite under conditions which it will lay down. In the event of such incorporation as a result of the application of the foregoing paragraph, the Turkish sovereignty referred to in Article 69 shall cease. Turkey hereby renounces in that event in favor of Greece all rights and title over the city of Smyrna and the territory defined in Article 66.” As for Constantinople, it remained the Turkish capital, but “in the event of Turkey failing to observe faithfully the provisions of the present Treaty, or of any treaties or conventions supplementary thereto, particularly as regards the protection of the rights of racial, religious or linguistic minorities, the Allied Powers expressly reserve the right to modify the above provisions, and Turkey hereby agrees to accept any dispositions which may be taken in this connection.”
There being no Ottoman Parliament in session, Damad Ferid Pasha summoned eighty prominent Turks to Yildiz Kiosk to authorize signature of the peace terms. Permitting no discussion of it, Ferid ordered those who favored signature to stand and, scenting trouble ahead, he whispered to the Sultan to stand. Considerations of etiquette bade every one present stand, but the late “Topdjeh” Riza Pasha broke into vigorous protest. In a voice trembling with emotion, he told Ferid that the meeting had risen out of respect to thePadishahand not in resignation to the peace terms, that the meeting had no power to authorize their signature and that, even if it had, it could not authorize their signature as long as Anatolia was in open and armed revolt against them. Without further ado, Ferid declared the signature of the peace terms authorized and added audibly that Anatolia could go to the devil.
So the peace terms were signed by three of Ferid’s appointees (one of them a teacher in an American college near Constantinople) on August 11 at Sevres in the suburbs of Paris. Sevres is in Christendom and the year was 1920.