Akademik MATBUAT

Abstract

Like other states defeated in the First World War, the Ottoman Empire accepted the conditions imposed by the victorious Entente Powers, and had to accept first the Armistice of Mudros and then the Treaty of Sèvres. The Turkish nation, on the other hand, understood the true intention of the Entente Powers during the Armistice period, opposed the implementation of the Armistice and the occupations, and declared their demands on the Ottoman legacy with the Misakımilli text. During the National Struggle, he continued the struggle, ignoring the Treaty of Sèvres, which was imposed on the Ottoman Empire as a peace treaty.
During the National Struggle, which it continued for 4 years to protect its existence and independence, it had to deal not only with the invaders, but also with the sultanate-caliphate opposition circles, especially the Istanbul governments. These circles, who did not see it as possible for the struggle against the victorious states to be successful, took sides with the invaders against the struggle in Anatolia. The fact that the National Struggle also covered the transition period from the sultanate to the republic, to a national and secular Turkey, was an important factor in this opposition. The military phase of the struggle for existence and non-existence under difficult conditions ended with the signing of the Mudanya Armistice. Immediately after, the TBMM Government, which abolished the sultanate on November 1, 1922, became the sole authority on the representation of the Turkish nation.
At this stage, in the conference to be convened for peace negotiations, the TBMM Government sat at the table on equal terms with its interlocutors, not as the party that accepted the Armistice of Mudros and the Treaty of Sèvres, but as the winner of the years-long struggle for its law. The treaty was signed on 24 July 1923. The Treaty of Lausanne, as a victory won against those who imposed the Treaty of Sèvres, as well as the circles that accepted these conditions, not only made Turkey accept its rights to its interlocutors, but also defeated and liquidated the mentality that believed that there was no other way but to accept the terms of Sèvres. The victory of the National Struggle, which was the process of collision between Misakımilli and the Treaty of Sèvres, enabled the Treaty of Lausanne to be substituted for the Treaty of Sèvres. In our study, we will look at the Treaty of Lausanne a hundred years after its signing, and evaluate the claims and debates that have been brought to the agenda in the Republican period and in the present, to extent that amounts to speculation.