OTTOMAN EMPIRE (see 27.426). - The Turkish Revolution of 1908 was thought, at the time, to promise an era of genuine reformation and revival for the Ottoman Empire; a few years showed that it had opened, instead, the final brief period of that empire's existence. Long declining, long owing its continuance to the jealousies and conflicting policies of the great European Powers, the Ottoman Empire may be said to have ended, as the result of defeat in war, when its delegates signed the Treaty of Sevres on Aug. 10 1920. From that treaty emerged a Turkish State with every attribute of empire gone.
The first constitutional Government which came into power in Turkey after the revolution speedily found itself opposed by the "Young Turk" Committee of Union and Progress - the same occult body which had organized and carried through the revolution. The hope had been general that the Committee would cease their activities when once parliamentary government was established; but the hope remained unfulfilled. The Committee transferred their attention from the Sultan Abdul Hamid to the Ottoman Parliament - which assembled on Dec. 17 1908 - as the new means to power, and continued as active as ever. Within a few weeks they had procured the downfall of Kiamil Pasha, the first Grand Vizier of the constitutional period.
The Committee had, in fact, a definite policy before them for execution; a policy by no means in harmony with the professions of liberty and equality for all Ottoman subjects upon which the revolution had been accomplished. Briefly stated this policy was the complete "Turkification" of the empire. Non-Turkish ethnical elements - Albanians, Macedonians, Armenians, Greeks, Arabs, Kurds, Druses - were to be moulded as far as possible into uniformity with the dominant Turkish element. Racial and national ideals, characteristics, laws and languages of these subject peoples were to be suppressed, by force if necessary, and an Ottoman population created which, outwardly at least, should be homogeneous within the empire's wide confines. Nor did the Turkish Moslem population escape the reforming purpose of the Committee. Taking a detached view of Turkish civilization, even of the faith of Islam itself, for the two are inseparable - the Committee saw much wanting, much existing that was cumbersome and useless, much that provided a fatal handicap to the progress of the Ottoman State.
For the good of the Turkish race and the ultimate Ottoman State the Committee intended reformation in these directions as well. But various of the changes proposed touched exceedingly delicate matters, going to the deepest foundations of Turkish belief and prejudice: so much so that some of the desired reforms could not be openly advocated as yet. The reforms proposed included the adoption of European time, the European calendar, and the Latin alphabet; the abolition of veiling of women - as a practice of far-reaching, injurious influence upon the race; the abolition of the annual, month-long fast of Ramazan, and of the Feasts of Bairam. In other directions, too, the teachings of Maholnet were to be judiciously revised, on the principle that the Prophet himself would never have allowed observance of any of his precepts to put his followers at a permanent disadvantage in competition with infidels. That many years, perhaps two generations, must elapse before the more serious of these changes would be accepted by Turkish Moslems was well understood. But the "Turkification" of non-Turkish populations was on another footing. The sooner it was begun and the more thorough were the measures adopted, the sooner would its advantages be reaped. Reorganization of the army and navy was regarded as imperative, not only against external possibilities, but for execution of the policy of "Turkification." Financial reform and reorganization of the customs service were found equally necessary, if only to provide means for the increased cost of the army and navy. These matters therefore were taken in hand. Djavid Bey, Minister of Finance, called a French adviser to his assistance; a British adviser, Mr. R. F. Crawford, was engaged to reorganize the customs; a number of German officers, selected by General von der Goltz, were brought in to reform the army; and the work of restoring the navy to efficiency was entrusted to a British adviser, Rear-Admiral Gamble, and a small British staff.
Though the Committee of Union and Progress took no open part in governing the country, and remained an unseen mysterious power, they had their nominees in the Ministry, and at the beginning of 1909 could already influence the policy of the Government. Opposition to the Committee became, therefore, opposition to the Government as well. The revolution had given birth to a strong nationalistic spirit in Turkish Moslems and a desire to restore the empire to something of its former power, but had not diminished their religious zeal. Devout Moslems became alarmed at the tendencies of the Committee; at the free-thinking professions of members and their general rejection of the Prophet; still more at the innovations advocated in Turkish customs and in the Mahommedan faith. The Mahommedan Union was formed to oppose the Committee and its dangerous projects, and declaring that Islam was in danger, the Union became active early in April 1909.
The Sultan Abdul Hamid has been charged with being the chief instigator of the counter-revolution of that month; it is more probable that he did nothing except oppose it. The counterrevolution was chiefly the outcome of religious zeal played upon by the Mahommedan Union. The troops in the capital were won over (the same troops who had effected the revolution of the previous year), and on April 1 2 they demanded that the constitution should be subject to Mahommedan sacred law, and great demonstrations, attended by fighting, taking place against the Government. The Grand Vizier resigned, leading members of the Committee fled from Constantinople and the Sultan pardoned the troops who had taken part in the movement. But the counterrevolution had no organized strength behind it. The Committee retained the support of the two army corps stationed at Salonika and Adrianople; and from these garrisons a force of 20,000 men was dispatched against Constantinople. It occupied the city on April 24, and crushed the rising after much street fighting.
The Committee had ever regarded the Sultan Abdul Hamid with deep suspicion, which the counter-revolution was held to have justified. The counter-revolution provided, therefore, a favourable excuse for removing him from power. He was deposed on April 2 7, and sent to Salonika for internment and safe-keeping; and his successor, as Sultan Murad V., was proclaimed the same day. After the prompt suppression of this rebellion, the Committee became sovereign in the direction of Ottoman affairs. It had, however, learnt the danger of outraging the national and religious susceptibilities of Turkish Moslems. For the future they showed more deference to these sentiments, and, recognizing the forces behind them, gave more and more prominence to Pan-Islamism as a feature of the Committee's policy. Soon after the events of April, Talaat Bey, destined to fame as a sinister figure largely responsible for the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, became Minister of the Interior as one of the Committee's nominees in the Government. After the Committee had suppressed the counter-revolution, and was firmly seated in the saddle, events moved by regular and rapid steps to the end of the empire.
During the first two weeks of April, while Constantinople was in the throes of revolution, serious events were taking place in Adana, the prosperous capital of the Cilician plain. Racial hatred between Turks and Armenians there came to a head on April 9 in the so-called "Adana Massacres." These soon ex tended over the whole of Cilicia and, before they had ceased, involved the death of some 20,000 Armenians and a lesser number of Moslems. Both the Government and the Sultan Abdul Hamid have been charged with responsibility for the outbreak; but instigation to the deed, though not perhaps directly from the Government, appears to have come from the Committee. It well may be that these massacres were, in fact, an abrupt and premature step in the policy of "Turkification," which the Government had in view.
In its various forms, this policy gave rise to the chief internal preoccupations of the Government during the years 1909-12. In 1909, as part of the same policy, a law was passed imposing compulsory military service on all Christian subjects of the empire for the first time. In the same years, stern military suppression accompanied by much bloodshed was applied in Albania and Macedonia; taxation and conscription were enforced, the national schools closed, and Turkish decreed as the official language. In Syria too, Turkish was made the official language, and Arabic forbidden in the schools.
A local quarrel in the Hawran was seized as a pretext in 1910 for dispatching thither some 30,000 men, with artillery, to crush the Druses. The operations, however, did not result entirely to the advantage of the Turks, who suffered at least one serious reverse, and a compromise followed under which the Druses accepted conscription for the Ottoman army.
South-western Arabia, where the Imam Iahya of the Iernen and the Idrisi of Asir rebelled at the end of 1910, was another region marked down for "Turkification." Military operations to this end were undertaken on a large scale during 1911; but again without definite success. Some so,000 Turkish troops were employed, but, though able to relieve beleaguered Turkish garrisons, they could not penetrate the mountainous region forming the Arab stronghold and were unable to establish Turkish domination.
The Ottoman Government took these experiences to heart. They recognized that the "Turkification" of distant provinces containing no Turkish population was a task beyond their power, and the policy was therefore relaxed in certain districts. In the Iemen, in fact, a measure of local independence was granted to the Imam Iahya, though not to the Idrisi of Asir. "Turkification" was now reserved for Turkey in Europe and for the great compact territory of Asia Minor, the fastness of the Turkish race, by systematic and thorough processes, it being intended to make this wide area Turkish in population and spirit beyond question or doubt. For the time being, however, it seemed that the empire might hope for a period of comparative freedom from internal disturbance.
But external difficulties now arose. Italy had long shown designs on Tripoli, the remaining African province of the Ottoman Empire. During 1911 various matters had created friction between the two countries and caused the exchange of bitter articles in the press, but war had appeared unlikely. On Sept. 29 1911, however, the Italian Government presented an ultimatum stating that, Turkish obstruction and hostility to Italian interests having become so great, the occupation of Tripoli had been decided upon. The ultimatum required Turkish acquiescence to this course within twenty-four hours. The Turkish reply did not accept the occupation, and Italy declared war on Sept. 30. The Turkish garrison was small; it could not be reinforced owing to Italian command of the sea; the Turkish defence in Tripoli therefore had to rely chiefly upon Arab forces locally raised. Italian troops landed on Oct. 12 and the bombardment and capture of towns along the coast began. No serious operations were attempted far inland; and though severe fighting took place effective Italian occupation never extended far from the sea. Italian warships blockaded and bombarded Turkish ports on the Red Sea coast of Arabia and supplied arms and munitions to the Idrisi of Asir, to the great advantage of that ruler. Various Turkish islands in the Aegean Sea, including Rhodes, were occupied by Italian troops in the spring of 1912. A naval demonstration against the Dardanelles was also made. This affair prompted the Ottoman Government to close the Darda nelles and Bosporus against all shipping, a course which caused immense loss and inconvenience to neutral Powers and produced such vigorous protest, particularly from Russia, that the straits were reopened in May. The war, hopeless from the first, continued for another six months, marked only by unavailing efforts in Tripoli by Enver Bey - the well-known member of the Committee of Union and Progress - at the head of Arab irregulars. But difficulties of finance, the impossibility of undertaking effective operations against Italy, and signs of impending trouble in the Balkans at length compelled the Ottoman Government to peace. Under the Treaty of Ouchy, signed on Oct. 18 1912, Tripoli, the last Ottoman territory in Africa, passed into Italian possession. Rhodes and other Turkish islands were retained by Italy for the time being.
Balkan unrest had shown itself in unusually ominous form as early as the beginning of May 1912. Following the general elections in April for the Ottoman Chamber, in which the Committee of Union and Progress had exhausted every method of corruption and violence to secure the return of their candidates, 30,000 Albanian clansmen, exasperated by "Turkification" and repression, mustered in organized rebellion. Their purpose was the overthrow of Committee Government, to which end they demanded new elections. The Government temporized and took inadequate military measures; meanwhile a rebellion grew, and Turkish and Christian hatred became more and more inflamed. At the close of July, the massacre of Christians at Kotchana deeply excited Balkan opinion. It was followed by a similar massacre of Christians at Berana, and events now moved rapidly toward war. The Turkish Government saw nothing for it but compliance with Albanian demands, at least in form; and on Aug. 6, to the rage of the Committee, their hardly won majority vanished in the dissolution of the Chamber by imperial decree. As a further concession to the insurgents, reforms on the widest scale were promised; but their application required time, even if the good faith of the Government could be trusted.
Matters had gone too far, however, for any Turkish concessions to avail. The Balkan States - Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro - regarded themselves as the dispossessed owners of Ottoman territory in Europe. They deemed that now, with organized rebellion afoot in the Turkish Balkans, was the opportunity to recover Macedonia and Thrace for division among themselves. They judged, further, that should their attempt by any chance miscarry, the Great Powers, more particularly Russia, protector of the Slav peoples, would not allow them to be crushed, or their present territories to be diminished. For the execution of their purpose, Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece and Montenegro had already formed an alliance. Bulgaria began her mobilization at the end of September, followed immediately by her allies; Turkey ordered mobilization on Oct.1; by Oct. 18 1912 the four Balkan States were at war with the Ottoman Empire.
When war broke out the Ottoman forces in Europe numbered less than 250,000 men, dispersed over Macedonia and Thrace; they were thus at great numerical disadvantage. The Anatolian troops, ever the bulk of Ottoman armed strength, had to be conveyed great distances by inadequate means of transportation. The full strength of the empire could not be exerted in Europe until months had elapsed; and the outcome of the war was decided in the first two weeks.
The war was fought in two chief theatres of operations - the less important in Macedonia, against the Serbian, Greek and Montenegrin armies, assisted by two Bulgarian divisions; the more important in Eastern Thrace against the Bulgarians, later assisted by a considerable Serbian force.
In the Macedonian area the Turks were defeated by the Serbian army at Kumanova on Oct. 24-25, and lost Uskub in consequence. Another Serbian force, uniting with Montenegrins, had occupied northern Albania the end of October. The main Turkish army retreated on Monastir, where, on Nov. 14-18, it was again defeated by the Serbians, who outnumbered them in the proportion of 5 to 2.
The Greeks meanwhile, who crossed the frontier with six divisions on Oct. 18, had made Salonika their objective.
They easily defeated the comparatively weak Turkish forces opposing them, and arrived before the city on Nov. 8, anxious to forestall a Bulgarian column aiming at the same objective. The Bulgarians, who took Serres on Nov. 5, reached Salonika at about the same time as their rival; but the Turkish commander chose to capitulate to the Greeks, who occupied the city the next day. Within four weeks the Ottoman Empire had lost Macedonia and Albania except the fortress and district of Yanina whose garrison as yet lay outside the area of operations.
These were rapid and remarkable triumphs, but they did not affect decisively the outcome of the war; they took from Turkey two outlying provinces; they did not strike at the heart of Turkish resistance. The weight of Turkish resistance lay in Eastern Thrace, concentrated there for the defence of the capital and the straits. Turkish reinforcements could not reach Macedonia by sea as fast as rail and steamer could bring them. They were poured into Eastern Thrace from Anatolia. The heavy and decisive operations of the war were carried out by the Bulgarian army.
The main Bulgarian advance was made south-eastward through Eastern Thrace. During Oct. 21-25 the Turkish armies commanded by Abdulla Pasha were driven back in confusion and retired to positions passing through Bunar Hissar and Lule Burgas to the railway. The fortress of Adrianople, containing a large Turkish garrison, was thus isolated and left to Bulgarian investment. Between Oct. 29 and Nov. 3 the issue of the war was decided at the great battle of Lule Burgas, in which the Turkish army was heavily defeated, and retreated in disorder to the Chatalja lines, in front of Constantinople. Abdulla Pasha was superseded, and the defence of the capital entrusted to Nazim Pasha, at the time Minister of War in the Turkish Cabinet.
A great attack by the Bulgarian army on this last defence of the capital took place on Nov. 17-18. It was pushed with determination, but achieved no success, and no further attempt was made. Bulgarian losses were great, and the army ravaged by cholera; on Dec. 2 an armistice was concluded which remained in force until Jan. i 1913. During this period the Turkish Government, with Kiamil Pasha as Grand Vizier, was overthrown by a coup d'etat; and Nazim Pasha, the commander-inchief, who like Kiamil had been in favour of peace, was assassinated in Constantinople. In consequence of these events, originating with the Committee of Union and Progress, hostilities were recommenced at the beginning of February. Subsequent Bulgarian operations were confined to resisting Turkish attempts to advance from Chatalja; to the occupation of Thrace down to the Sea of Marmora; to resisting an attack on the Bulgar lines across the isthmus of the Gallipoli Peninsula; and to the capture of Adrianople. This great fortress was taken by assault, in which Serbian troops bore a part, during the last days of March, and a second armistice was arranged soon afterwards.
To these armistices Greece did not subscribe. She continued naval operations and occupied all Turkish islands not under the Italian flag; and on Jan. 17 1913 a Greek squadron roughly handled the Turkish fleet in serious naval encounter.
Peace negotiations had been in progress in London since Dec. 1912, but made little headway owing to Turkish obstinacy. The hope of advancing from Chatalja and relieving Adrianople - of in fact changing the whole course of the war - was sufficient to prevent all but small concessions on the part of the Turkish Government. The fall of Adrianople on March 26 ended these unrealities; and on May 30 1913 the Ottoman delegates signed the Treaty of London. The Treaty provided for the cession by Turkey to the allied Balkan sovereigns of all European Turkey west of the line Enos - Midia, but excluding Albania; for the delimitation of Albania's frontiers by the Great Powers; for the cession of Crete to Greece; and for the destination of other;Turkish islands being left to the same Powers.
Within a month of the signature of the treaty, the second Balkan War broke out between Bulgaria and her allies over the division of territory wrested from Turkey. The Bulgarian armies were on the Greek and Serbian frontiers; the force left in Thrace was weak, and the Turkish Government saw their opportunity.
Two months after the same Government had signed away their European provinces, Enver Bey at the head of a Turkish army overran Eastern Thrace and reentered Adrianople almost unopposed. Bulgaria herself was helpless; the Powers would not assist her; her late allies - now her enemies - were not opposed to the Turkish aggression; and in the end Bulgaria executed a treaty restoring the province to the Ottoman Empire. For the Committee of Union and Progress it was a triumph beyond expectation. They were again the power behind the Government and now had not only justified but confirmed their position.
It is necessary now to glance at the growth of German influence in the Ottoman Empire as being closely connected with the Turkish downfall. A definite German policy of penetration had been at work for many years. German commercial undertakings had been encouraged and assisted by the German Government to acquire immense and valuable interests within Ottoman domains; among them the construction and working of the great line of railway designed to connect Constantinople with Syria, Arabia and Bagdad. In fact the economic development of Asia Minor, a backward but richly endowed land, great in area as Germany herself, had been secured for German enterprise when the first Balkan War intervened. Much more than commercial advantage lay behind Germany's aims; political advantages of incalculable importance were also in view. In the great vision of world domination which had gradually unfolded itself before German Imperialists, the high-road to be followed ran through Constantinople and Asia Minor - thence the East and the chief waterway to it, the Suez Canal, would come within reach. In prosecution of these political designs, Turkish officers were ever welcomed in the German army. They were attached to it in numbers; they returned imbued with professional admiration for German military organization and science; with a conviction of German power; they became the conscious or unconscious agents of German policy. The bond thus established caused German advice and assistance to be sought in reorganizing the Ottoman army. It led also to relations between Germany and the Committee of Union and Progress. And because each found that much might be got from the other, Germany and the Committee worked more and more in alliance. German influence eventually became so great that when the time came, the Committee leaders were willing and able to bring their country into the World War on the side of Germany.
To complete German political preparations in the Near East, and to make her Turkish Alliance effective, it was necessary to secure the support of Bulgaria. This country lay across and completely barred the German route to Constantinople. The prospect of revenge upon her enemies of the Second Balkan War - Serbia, Greece and Rumania - and of attaining her large territorial ambitions at their expense, proved sufficient, after prudent hesitation, to attract Bulgaria to the side of Germany.
After hostilities broke out in Europe in Aug. 1914, Turkish public opinion, such as it was, desired nothing so much as the avoidance of war by the empire. That was the supreme desire, but no effective means of enforcing it existed. The Committee was all-powerful in the Government, and a small group of leaders - Enver, Talaat, Djemal Pasha and others, supported by the presence at Constantinople of two German warships, the "Goeben" and "Breslau," were able to commit the country to hostilities, by the bombardment of Russian Black Sea ports by these vessels under the Turkish flag. At the beginning of Nov. 1914, Great Britain, Russia and France had all declared war on the Ottoman Empire.
In justification of their action, and to enlist the support of the Turkish people, the Government made much of the facts that the war was against Russia, the traditional and inexorable enemy of the empire, and that Great Britain and France were in alliance with Russia. The war policy of the Government was declared to be primarily the protection of Islam, particularly Turkish Islam, against the hostile and dangerously subversive policy of Great Britain. The recovery of lost Ottoman territory, the furthering of Pan-Islamism, and the freeing of the empire from all exasperating fetters of European control, were given as additional and important purposes in view. In support of the policy, and to emphasize the religious character of Ottoman war aims, a Jihad or Holy War was proclaimed by the Sultan as Caliph of Islam.
Turkish entry into the war on the side of Germany profoundly affected the course of the war. Coupled with similar action on the part of Bulgaria it isolated Russia and Rumania from the Western Powers, and was a potent influence in producing the collapse of the Russian Empire. It compelled the Allies to gigantic military efforts far from their own territory and bases, as the only means of countering the advantages Germany gained from Turkish and Bulgarian support. It prevented food supplies from southern Russia reaching the peoples of western Europe who needed them. It came within a narrow margin of setting the Mahommedan world ablaze against Great Britain and France - on which Germany had counted - a catastrophe averted by the accident that the Sherif of Mecca opposed the Jihad and divided Islam. Participation in the war involved the Ottoman Empire in hostilities on every front of her territory; it was the penalty of her action and her geographical situation.
During the spring and summer of 1915 a British and French Expeditionary Force attacked the Dardanelles. It was recognized that in Constantinople lay the heart of the whole Eastern theatre, and that if the Straits were forced and the Ottoman capital occupied, the war in Europe itself would be greatly shortened. The campaign failed directly to achieve its purpose, but nevertheless, the Turkish regular army, irreplaceable in so far as it had been brought to a high state of efficiency by German reorganization and training, was destroyed during the operations. Foiled at the Dardanelles the Allies next attempted to attain their ends by a much greater expedition to Salonika. Its aim was to sever German communications with Constantinople by knocking Bulgaria out of the war. The Salonika area became at last the third chief zone of Allied military effort, but no great success attended the expedition until near the close of 1918. In these operations no Turkish troops took part, but in 1916 Turkish divisions had to fight in the great invasion of Rumania.
With the empire at war and the Committee in power, the Turkish Government resolved to execute their cherished scheme for the complete "Turkification" of Asia Minor. Under Talaat Bey, the Minister of the Interior, the process was begun in ruthless fashion during the spring of 1915. Greek elements of the population were deported in tens of thousands from coastal regions where they had become unduly numerous, and taken into the interior; and many were killed. But "Turkification" was aimed chiefly against the Armenians, who were to be exterminated. During 1915-6 organized massacres and deportations were carried out systematically, to the extent of almost uprooting the Armenian race from Asia Minor. Hundreds of thousands were slaughtered; hundreds of thousands set marching for Syria and Mesopotamia perished on the way by hardship, disease, starvation; those who escaped became fugitives; from first to last at least three-quarters of a million Armenians perished in Asia Minor in a population of less than two millions. Only in the Turkish provinces bordering on Trans-Caucasia did massacre and deportation fail. In these districts the Armenian inhabitants were able to escape into Russian territory or were saved by the advance of Russian armies.
In this Turko-Russian frontier the Turkish Higher Command had expected to do the greater part of their campaigning. It was one of the empire's historical fronts; beyond it lay the traditional Russian enemy; on the hither side was the Ottoman fortress of Erzerum, the greatest place of arms in Asia Minor. In this mountainous region, between the Black Sea and the Persian frontier, the war was carried on with fluctuating fortune. Erzerum was captured by the Russians on Feb. 16 1916; and the Russian armies advanced westward till they held 30,000 sq. m. of Ottoman territory. On the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917 the Turks were able to recover ground; and under the Treaty of Brest Litovsk between Germany and Russia, signed on March 3 1918, Turkey's claims to the provinces she had lost to Russia in 1878 were recognized. Turkish troops occupied these provinces of Ardahan and Kars during 1918, and penetrated still farther into Trans-Caucasia.
In Mesopotamia from 1915 onward the Ottoman Empire had been faced by serious British military operations, here, too, with various changes of fortune. But eventually the British captured Bagdad and overran Mesopotamia from the Persian Gulf to the borders of Syria. At the end of 1914 a Turkish army from Syria made an attempt to reach the Suez Canal and cut British sea communications with the East. A battle was fought on the Canal banks, and some Turkish detachments succeeded in launching pontoons on the Canal itself. But the attack failed; subsequent attempts were defeated far from the waterway, and at the end of 1917 the British had reached southern Palestine, and the Turkish army was on the defensive, with other matters than the Canal to engage its attention.
Much had been hoped for from Arabia by Turko-German leaders, both as giving opportunities for offensive operations against the British line of communications passing along the Red Sea, and as the seat of a great spiritual influence in Islam to be exerted against the Allied Powers. In Arabia were the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, governed by the Sherif of Mecca, a dignitary and ruler of great influence in the Mahommedan world. He had already declined to support the jihad. In June 1916 he rose in rebellion against the "Young Turk" or "Committee Government" of Turkey, and obtained British support. From this time onward, Arabia, instead of being a possible source of strength to the Ottoman Empire, became the theatre of hostile, operations which presently extended northward to southern Palestine and endangered the left flank of the Turkish army threatening Egypt. By the end of 1917 the British under Lord Allenby had reached and occupied Jerusalem. And in the brilliant campaign during the autumn of 1918 they destroyed or captured nearly the whole Turko-German army in Syria, and only stayed their advance N. of Aleppo. This campaign ended all Ottoman resistance. The Armistice of Mudros, signed on Oct. 30 1918, terminated hostilities between the Allied Powers and Turkey, gave the Allies control of Constantinople and the Straits, and ensured the evacuation of Trans-Caucasia by Turkish troops. It marked, too, the end of "Young Turk" Government in Constantinople, for the leading members of the Committee of Union and Progress fled the country. The Armistice between the Allies and Germany, signed on Nov. 11 following, confirmed the final triumph of the Allied Powers in all the various theatres of war.
The remaining history of the Ottoman Empire up to Dec. 1921 has chiefly to do with the deliberations of the Allied Conference in determining the conditions of peace. The treaty embodying the terms of the Allied Powers was eventually signed at Sevres by the Ottoman delegates on Aug. 10 1920. The territorial provisions of the Treaty reduced the empire to a nation little larger than Spain. Eastern Thrace and a considerable territory around Smyrna were assigned to Greece. Mesopotamia, Syria, Palestine, and Turkish Arabia were likewise forfeited; and the southern frontier of Turkey became a line running roughly E. and W. from the Persian frontier to the head of the Gulf of Alexandretta. The Dardanelles, Bosporus, the Sea of Marmora, and the adjoining coastal areas, both in Europe and Asia, were demilitarized, and, to the extent necessary to ensure the freedom of the Straits, were placed under the control of an International Commission. Constantinople, however, remained the Turkish capital. The frontiers of an Armenian state, so far as the state should include Turkish territory, were referred to the delimitation of President Wilson, whose decision the Treaty bound the Turks to accept. The line he subsequently laid down gave some 30,000 sq. m. of eastern Asia Minor to Armenia, including the Black Sea port of Trebizond.
Turkish history after the Treaty of Sevres was signed belongs to Nationalist Turkey, the State established by Turkish Nationalists, with its capital at Angora, to resist the execution of the Treat y. (See TURKEY, NATIONALIST.) (W. J. C.*)