OTTOMAN ARMENIAN INTRICATE RELATIONS WITH WESTERN POWERS BEFORE AND DURING THE PEACE SETTLEMENTS OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR Prof. Dr. Seçil KARAL AKGÜN METU Department of History
[email protected] Abstract: When the First World War brought the two imperialistic blocks of Europe face to face, the clashing interests of each included the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire. The extremist Armenians of the Empire were already an armed force committed to the Allies when the Ottoman Empire, siding with the German block, had entered the war. Particularly at the Russian front they wholeheartedly contributed to the Allies, with the anticipation of an independent Armenia including Eastern Turkish provinces. Their anticipations for territorial claims increased with the Wilsonian principles and the ambiguous Article 7 in the Armistice of Mudros following the Ottoman defeat. However, the attitude of the Bolshevik Government in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution and the Turkish nationalists’ resistance to the occupations in the wake of the Armistice caused the Allies to approach Armenian demands with more caution during the Paris Peace Conference. With the Turkish resistance having turned into an organized independence war under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Pasha and with the defeat of the Armenians in the East, the Great Powers reached a consensus in Paris that the Armenian demands were beyond anything to be realized. Upon the defeat of the Armenians the Treaty of Gyumri was concluded whereby the Eastern border of Turkey was secured. The stance of the Allied Powers toward the Armenian delegations continued throughout the Paris Peace Conference. It was not until the Lausanne Treaty signed on the 23rd of July 1923 that an Armenian expectation of an independent state encompassing Turkish provinces was put to an end.