228 • 14 MODERNIZING RULERS IN THE INDEPENDENT STATESprotégés. Underestimating the will of Kemal's nationalist following, the Al¬
lies in August 1920 forced the Ottoman government to sign the Treaty of
Sèvres. This pact would later become its death warrant.
Among its terms, the Sèvres Treaty provided that ( 1 ) the Straits would be
managed by a permanent Allied commission; (2) Istanbul could be re¬
moved from Turkish administration if it infringed on minority rights; (3)
eastern Anatolia would belong to an independent Armenia and possibly an
autonomous Kurdistan; (4) Greece would have Smyrna and also Thrace;
(5) Italy and France would each get parts of southwestern Anatolia; (6) the
Arab lands would be divided into British and French mandates (as de¬
scribed in Chapter 13); and (7) the Capitulations, abolished by the Turks in
September 1914, would be restored and extended. Turkish nationalists re¬
sented the whole treaty, but even this humiliation did not satisfy Venizelos.
Encouraged by Lloyd George, the Greek forces pushed eastward, taking
Turkish lands never awarded to the Greeks at Sèvres.
What saved Turkey was the aid it got from Soviet Russia. Both countries
were embroiled in civil war and in fending off foreign attackers. Together,
they wiped out the infant Republic of Armenia in late 1920. With no more
challenge from the east, Kemal's forces managed to slow the Greek advance
early in 1921. It gradually became clear that some Western countries would
not back the Greeks either, once they claimed lands beyond what the Sèvres
Treaty had given them. France settled with the Kemalists after they had
fought the Greeks to a standstill in a bitter battle close to Ankara in August
and September 1921. Both France and Italy renounced their territorial
claims in Anatolia. Only Britain continued to occupy the Straits, control
the sultan, and cheer on the Greeks. In the summer of 1922, the Turks
launched a fierce offensive that drove the Greek armies completely out of
Anatolia. Then, at last, the British government decided to cut its losses by
calling for another Allied conference to negotiate a new peace treaty with
Turkey. The Ottoman sultan, deprived of foreign support, fled from Istan¬
bul, whereupon the Grand National Assembly in Ankara abolished the sul¬
tanate altogether. On 29 October 1923 Turkey became the first republic in
the modern Middle East.
The Turkish nationalists may have shown the world that they could wear
down their opponents militarily, but the British still had to learn that they
could also withstand political pressure. The British expected that the new
peace conference, to be held in Lausanne, would be quick, letting them
keep by diplomacy part of what their protégés had lost by war. General
Ismet, chosen by Kemal to represent Turkey, stood firm and wore down his
British counterpart, Lord Curzon, by feigning deafness and delaying the