The Treaty of Sèvres of August 10, 1920, made peace between the Allied and Associated Powers¹ and the Ottoman Empire after World War I. The treaty was signed by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed VI, who was trying to save his throne but was rejected by the independence movement in the rest of Turkey. That movement, under the leadership of Kemal Atatürk, used this conflict as an opportunity to declare themselves the rightful government, replacing the monarchy in Istanbul, with a republic in Ankara.

The Ottoman Empire lost a great deal of territory by the treaty. Hejaz (now part of Saudi Arabia), Armenia, and Kurdistan were to become independent. In accordance with the wartime Sykes-Picot Agreement, Mesopotamia and Palestine were given as Mandates to the United Kingdom, Syria and Lebanon to France. The Dodecanese and Rhodes were to go to Italy, Thrace and Smyrna to Greece. The Straits and Sea of Marmara were to be demilitarized and internationalized.

The government of Ankara refused the terms of the treaty and resisted the Greek army invading Turkey. Following the Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922), the terms of Sèvres were revised in Turkey's favor by the Treaty of Lausanne.

Footnotes

1. The Allied and Associated Powers were the United Kingdom, France, Italy, Japan (Principal Allied Powers), Armenia, Belgium, Greece, the Hedjaz, Poland, Portugal, Roumania, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia.

See also

• Aftermath of World War I

External link

• Text of the Treaty of Sèvres