THE NEAR EAST: The Grand Finale

A Treaty Signed. In the Palais de Lumiere (main hall of the Lausanne University), Turkey, Great Britain, France, Italy, Greece, Rumania, Japan signed the Lausanne Peace Treaty, which puts an end to the state of war in the Near East.

Yugo-Slavia refused to sign, owing to the fact that she is expected to pay a portion of the Ottoman Debt by virtue of having annexed Turkish territory in the Balkan War of 1913.

The actual ceremony of signing was excessively simple. Ismet Pasha, chief Turkish delegate, was the first to sign for his country. After the remaining six plenipotentiaries had signed, Herr Karl Scheurer, President of the Swiss Confederation, made the following address :

” The sacrifices to which you have consented in the general interest certainly have been heavy, but the result is worth the price paid. May this peaceful development extend throughout the whole world, liberating us from this oppression of conflict, turmoil and fear, and making us really free.” (See page 2, Mor-ganthau’s speech.)

Events preceding. The events leading up to the signing of the Lausanne Treaty began with the entry of Turkey on the side of Germany in the Great War. In the Treaties of London (1915) and St. Jean de Maurienne (1917) plans were laid for the disruption of the Ottoman Empire in substantial promises to Italy and Russia. The victory of the Allies over Turkey in the War gave substance to these plans. The Armistice of Mudros (1918) suspended hostilities with Turkey ; but it was not until 22 months later that the Treaty of Sevres completed the theoretical destruction of Anatolia and the Ottoman Empire.

The terms of the Sevres Treaty, which Turkey signed but would not ratify, dispossessed Turkey of all her non-Ottoman territories, divided the provinces of Anatolia and Kurdistan into spheres of influence for the benefit of the Allies, and placed Turkey-in-Europe, ending at the Tehatalja line, under an internation al regime. Turkey was merely a geographical expression.

While the Allies were perfecting their paper plans a new leader made himself evident in Turkey in Mustapha Kemal Pasha, leader of the Turk Nationalists. In the War between Greece and the Nationalist Army Mustapha Kemal showed himself to be an astute and capable soldier. The tide of this War was at first against the Turks, and the Allies were pleased. Early in 1922, however, it became clear that the Turks were winning, and when on Sept. 9, 1922, the Greek Army had been chased ignominiously from Anatolia, the Allied house of cards collapsed.

The first session of the Lausanne Conference met at Lausanne, Switzerland, on November 20, 1922. The Allies were obliged to alter their tone to the Turks, because Turkey appeared before them as a conqueror. The Allies, led by the domineering Lord Curzon, British plenipotentiary to the Conference, merely dropped the form of their claims but “held rigidly to the substance. Turkey was told to go home and sign the treaty. She was warned not to break the peace, and with this final admonition the Allied delegates entered their wagon-lits and steamed off.

The Turks went back to Angora and the Great National Assembly declined to sign a Treaty which they interpreted as being contrary to their National Pact. On April 23, 1923, the second session of the Conference began.

The Allies made vigorous fight to keep the capitulations, the financial and economic clauses in the Treaty, but were finally forced to discard even these claims. The result of the second session shows plainly that Turkey, the loser in the Great War, won a great diplomatic victory over all her enemies who were combined against her. It is difficult to estimate the value of the Near Eastern Peace, which is after all only a technical settlement. One thing certain is that Turkey is once more a geographical entity and a Power to be dealt with in Near Eastern problems. The Treaty’s Terms. The Lausanne Peace Treaty contains 143 articles, and is divided into five parts —political, financial, economic, communications and general clauses. The most important points settled in these sections are : a general state of peace between Turkey and the Allied and Associated Powers; regulation of the withdrawal of foreign troops from Turkish territories; fixing of Turkish frontiers ; exchange of Greek and Turkish populations to their national countries.

The most important problems yet to be settled by separate negotiation, included in the first Treaty, are: settlement of the Ottoman Debt; regulation of concessions; settlement of the Mosul question and the Iraq-Kurdistan frontier; conclusion ol separate judicial treaties granting rights of complaint to foreign legal advisers in place of capitulations. Although the treaty is signed, it must still be ratified by the Powers concerned before it becomes valid.

Ismet Pasha and Joseph G. Grew, U. S. Observer, settled the Turko-American Agreement. The U. S. A. receives all the privileges of the Straits Convention (regulation of shipping on the Bosphorus) without signing it. Mutually satisfactory set-were made of the questions of taxation on U. S. companies, protection of Christian minorities, damages to Americans during the War.