Üsküdar University History Department Faculty Member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Odabaşı said, "Sèvres is truly a death warrant. It is a project to wipe Turks and Ottomans off the face of the earth. The aim was to squeeze the Ottoman Empire into a small area and turn it into a colony."
101 years have passed since the Treaty of Sèvres, signed on August 10, 1920, between the Allied Powers and the Ottoman government after World War I.
Although the Allied Powers, who won the war, concluded peace treaties with Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Bulgaria, who were defeated in the war, they postponed negotiations concerning the Turks because they could not reach a complete consensus regarding the partition of the Ottoman Empire.
The Allied Powers, having reached an agreement among themselves, made the Ottoman delegation, consisting of Rıza Tevfik (Bölükbaşı) and Bern Ambassador Reşad Halis Bey, under the chairmanship of Hadi Pasha, a member of the Ottoman Senate, sign the Treaty of Sèvres on August 10, 1920, at the ceramics museum located in Sèvres, a suburb of Paris.
The 433-article treaty, which contained very harsh provisions regarding the partition of Turkish lands, despite being signed, was stillborn, never entering into force, thanks to the National Struggle launched by the Turkish nation under the leadership of its founder, the Great Leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk.
Sèvres was finally officially abolished with the Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24, 1923, after the War of Independence.
"Sèvres is a dead treaty, both concretely, on paper, and de facto"
Üsküdar University History Department Faculty Member Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hadiye Yılmaz Odabaşı, speaking to an AA correspondent about the Treaty of Sèvres, said:
"Our founding leader, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, when speaking of Sèvres in his 'Nutuk' (The Great Speech), says, 'It is the last link in the great assassination attempt made to destroy the Turkish nation for centuries.' To understand Sèvres, one must look back; only then can we better understand those who signed the treaty on that day. In historical events, only the names of the actors change, but the staged project is always the same. Even today, the main concern of great powers is to dominate the world. Therefore, looking at the great powers in the 18th century, we see that this was the fundamental issue. The Ottoman Empire ruled lands of geostrategic importance at that time. When the Ottoman Empire began to decline, emerged defeated from World War I, and signed the Armistice of Mudros, Western states could not decide among themselves how to partition it. Even the British Admiral Sir Roberck described Sèvres as a 'death warrant' and felt no discomfort in disclosing this. As can be understood from this, Sèvres is truly a death warrant. It is a project to wipe Turks and Ottomans off the face of the earth. The aim was to squeeze the Ottoman Empire into a small area and turn it into a colony. According to this massive 433-article treaty, only a small territory in Central Anatolia was mentioned as Ottoman State land. The army, finance, and transportation routes would be under the control of the Allied Powers. Capitulations were reintroduced. Within Sèvres, there was also a project to establish an Armenian and a Kurdistan state in the East and Southeast. In fact, all these articles were concrete steps towards the desire to erase Turks from the map."
Odabaşı emphasized that even Sultan Vahdettin and the officials around him at the time reacted against this treaty, stating that the terms of Sèvres were very severe: "The Istanbul government refused to sign Sèvres for a long time. However, the opposing side was very determined; to intimidate the Turkish side, they mobilized the Greeks from Western Thrace. As the enemy began to advance towards the capital, the treaty was accepted by the Sultanate Council. The decision also needed to be approved by the Chamber of Deputies and Sultan Vahdettin. However, the Chamber of Deputies was on recess at that time. That is why the signed treaty actually had no legal basis. This is also why it is called a 'stillborn treaty'. Furthermore, even if it had been signed, we were fighting the War of Independence because we, as a nation, did not accept it. Therefore, Sèvres was a dead treaty, both concretely, on paper, and de facto," he stated.
Odabaşı pointed out that the transition to a regular army and the victories in the Battles of İnönü and Sakarya also rendered Sèvres stillborn: "The Victory of Sakarya is a victory where plans to destroy the Turkish nation were shattered. It should be read this way. With that victory, France realized it could not remain in Anatolia and signed a treaty with the Turks without even informing its ally, Britain. We had already shattered two important powers of the enemy front there," he said.
Odabaşı stated that the result of the war gains, which continued with the Great Offensive, was the Treaty of Lausanne: "In this sense, Lausanne is a founding document and, for us, the treaty that ended World War I. We both defined our borders, and the Great Powers accepted all our rights. Thus, Sèvres was no more," he concluded.
Source : Anadolu Agency