Greece, Turkey, the Eastern Question and the Treaty of Lausanne 1923
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BRGÖ 2019 Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte Österreichs Athanassios PITSOULIS, Hildesheim Greece, Turkey, the Eastern Question and the Treaty of Lausanne 1923 Population transfers have throughout history served governments as an instrument to achieve national or regime security objectives. Population exchanges are a special case of such transfers. Here, states enter an intergovernmen- tal agreement in which the contracting parties decide on a reciprocal voluntary or involuntary transfer of popula- tions. The perhaps most crucial precedent for such a measure is the Greco-Turkish population exchange agreed at Lausanne in 1923. The present paper recalls the events that led to the agreement, which essentially legitimised ex post one of the greatest humanitarian catastrophes of its time in order to solve the thorny Greco-Turkish minority problem once and for all. Relying mainly on the conference protocols I argue that the compulsory nature of the ex- change was imposed under duress, but against the wishes of the affected minorities, and in clear violation of the nascent international system of human rights. Keywords: Eastern Question – Greco-Turkish War – Greece – Lausanne Conference – Ottoman Empire – Population Exchanges – Turkey 1. Introduction areas, etc. Population exchanges are a special case of such transfers. Here, states carry out a “When the formula of political nationality is transaction that essentially consists of an inter- applied to mixed populations where nationality governmental agreement in which the contract- is hard to disentangle from profession or class, ing parties decide on a reciprocal voluntary or an irreducible residuum of minorities is bound involuntary transfer of populations. Agreements to be left on the wrong side of the definitive of this kind “correct” the allocation of citizens to frontier lines, and this residuum is a fruitful nation states according to the wishes of the con- cause of estrangement. Each nation fears that its tracting parties and fall into a special category of own hostages in the other’s territory may be ill- state-imposed forced migration. treated, and that the other’s hostages in the own The perhaps most crucial precedent for such a territory may undermine its sovereignty, and measure is the Greco-Turkish population ex- such expectations have a fatal tendency to real- change agreed at Lausanne in 1923. It put an end ise themselves.”1 to more than two thousand years of Greek histo- Population transfers have throughout history ry in Anatolia and thus represents an important served governments as an instrument to achieve turning point in European history. The Greco- national or regime security objectives like power Turkish population exchange agreement also consolidation, the creation of ethnic or religious represents a legal and political watershed which homogeneity, control over security-relevant has had a profoundly negative effect on the in- ternational community’s tolerance of forced 1 TOYNBEE, The Western Question 322f. migration. One can very well make the case that the legal precedent afforded by the Greco- http://dx.doi.org/10.1553/BRGOE2019-2s456 Greece, Turkey, the Eastern Question and the Treaty of Lausanne 1923 457 Turkish population exchange exposed minori- authors have called for a revision of the conven- ties in nation states to the threat of governments tional view and pointed out not only the coer- conspiring with each other to effectuate their cive nature of the population exchange, the hu- eviction – and the international community to man suffering associated with it, but also the sanction these evictions ex post. negative consequences for the security of minor- Although almost a hundred years have passed ities worldwide.4 since the Greco-Turkish population exchange, The Lausanne agreement essentially trans- research has only rather recently started to criti- formed one of the greatest humanitarian catas- cally assess what the “exchange” really meant trophes of its time, viz., the expulsion of the for those evicted, for their communities, their Greeks – or, more precisely, Greek Orthodox native countries, and their destination countries. Christians regardless of their ethnicity – from Early works on the subject, in line with the “offi- Anatolia and Asia Minor, into a population ex- cial” national histories of Greece and Turkey, change sanctioned by international law and thus often swept the negative aspects and wider con- into an apparently rational solution of the text of the population exchange under the car- thorny Greco-Turkish minority problem. I argue pet.2 In the Greek reading of national history the in the present paper that this “solution” was story of the population exchange is about the imposed ex post against the wishes of the affect- heroic efforts of the Greek state in transforming ed minorities and in clear violation of the nas- a refugee catastrophe of unprecedented dimen- cent international system of human rights. That sions into an economic success. In the official this was certainly clear to the contracting parties Turkish reading the same population exchange explains why all involved actors emphatically is treated as a mere footnote in the epic story of but farcically rejected the responsibility for pro- the emergence of the modern Turkish state from posing the population exchange during the very the ruins of the Ottoman Empire; the non- negotiations at Lausanne. As I will show in this Turkish past of large parts of Anatolia is delib- paper, a close reading of the protocols strongly erately left out of the picture.3 Clearly, both sides suggests that the exchange was proposed by the preferred to leave important aspects of the pop- Turkish side. The other parties grudgingly ulation exchange out of their national-subjective agreed to the Turkish proposal in order to historical narratives. “solve” the tiresome minority and refugee prob- This selective perception led to a “positive re- lem quickly and decisively. Older precedents interpretation” of the exchange. In the works of were used as a blueprint and unwilling actors, early authors, the speeches of politicians, and in particularly the Greek representatives, were put the national historiographies the Lausanne under intense pressure to accept a proposal no- agreement, which in essence legitimised ex post body wanted to be associated with. large-scale expulsions of Christians from Turkey The present paper is structured as follows: In the by approving the expulsion of Muslims from next section I will outline the immediate histori- Greece, became a “successful” population ex- cal context, particularly the Greco-Turkish War change and thus a model for “statesmanlike of 1919–1923, and the legal precedents to the farsightedness”. In recent years, however, some Lausanne agreement. In Section 3 I throw some light on the negotiations at the Lausanne confer- 2 Cf. eg. MACARTNEY, National States; LADAS, Ex- change of Minorities. 3 Cf. eg. YILDIRIM, Diplomacy and Displacement 25; MILLAS, Exchange of Populations 221–233. 4 Cf. eg. HIRSCHON, Crossing the Aegean. 458 Athanassios PITSOULIS ence, relying mainly on the conference proto- improve the lot of its Christian subjects in return cols. In Section 4 I sum up and conclude. for protection by the Great Powers. Yet events in the Balkans led to further rivalry and destabili- sation. Frustrated by the duplicity of the Great 2. Historical context Powers, the Ottomans ended up on Germany’s side even before the Great War. After the end of “The collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the on- the war, the violent dismantling of the weak- set of the twentieth century provided the back- ened Ottoman Empire reached its climax. This drop for a hundred years of genocide and ethnic was accompanied by large expulsions and vol- cleansing in southeastern Europe and Anatolia. untary emigration of Muslims from the lost Ot- […] As a result of the Balkan Wars, massive toman territories.6 After the Ottomans were population transfers and ethnic separatism first crucially weakened by their defeats in the Liby- became part of modern European conflict and an War against Italy (1911) and the loss of the made their way into the vocabulary of peace- Dodecanese (1912), the loose Christian Balkan making.”5 alliance (Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Ser- bia) defeated the Ottoman Empire in the First 2.1 From the Balkans to Asia Minor Balkan War (1912/13). Conflicting claims regard- 1912–1919: The precedents of ing the spoils of that war then triggered the Sec- Constantinople and Neuilly ond Balkan War of 1913, in which Bulgaria The geopolitical questions that emerged be- turned against its former allies Greece and Ser- tween the 18th and the early 20th centuries by the bia. In the course of this war, Bulgaria lost the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire formed Dobruja region to Romania, East Thrace to the the core of the so-called “Eastern Question”. Ottomans and Macedonia to Greece and Serbia. Initially only the Great Powers of Europe and As part of the negotiations over the transfer of later the nascent Arab and Balkan states com- East Thrace to the Ottomans, Bulgaria, and the peted for control of the territories the Ottoman Sublime Porte concluded the Constantinople Empire was expected to lose. The Treaty of Kar- Agreement on 29 September 1913. In this treaty lowitz in 1699 set the stage for the future disso- “for the first time in [modern] history two states lution of the Ottoman Empire. Especially the agreed on a population exchange based on the Russian Empire was able to quickly increase the ethnicity of the individuals affected. The aim territory under its control at the expense of the was to purify the border zone of nationals of the Ottomans. The geopolitical consequences for the other state.”7 The exchange entailed the mutual Central and Western European powers in com- resettlement of those Bulgarians and Muslims, bination with the emergence of nationalist and the regulated exchange of their property, movements after the French revolution then who lived within a 15 km wide zone along the transformed the Eastern Question into a serious border between the two states.