The treaty imposed a number of territorial losses on Turkey and had a number of provisions that applied to the territory recognised as belonging to Turkey.
Non-territorial Financial restrictions The Allies were to control the Ottoman Empire's finances, such as approving and supervising the national budget, implementing financial laws and regulations and totally controlling the
Ottoman Bank. The
Ottoman Public Debt Administration, instituted in 1881, was redesigned to include only British, French, and Italian bondholders. The Ottoman debt problem had dated back to the time of the
Crimean War (1854–1856) during which the Ottoman Empire had borrowed money from abroad, mainly from France. Also the
capitulations of the Ottoman Empire, which had been abolished in 1914 by
Talaat Pasha, were restored. The empire was required to grant
freedom of transit to people, goods, vessels etc. passing through its territory, and goods in transit were to be free of all customs duties. Future changes to the tax system, the customs system, internal and external loans, import and export duties and concessions would need the consent of the financial commission of the Allied Powers to be implemented. To forestall the economic repenetration of Germany,
Austria,
Hungary or
Bulgaria, the treaty demanded the empire to liquidate the property of citizens of those countries living within its territories. The public liquidation was to be organized by the Reparations Commission. Property rights of the
Baghdad Railway were to pass from German control.
Military restrictions The
Ottoman Army was to be restricted to 50,700 men, and the
Ottoman Navy could maintain only seven
sloops and six
torpedo boats. The Ottoman Empire was prohibited from creating an air force. The treaty included an interallied commission of control and organisation to supervise the execution of the military clauses.
International trials The treaty required determination of those responsible for the
Armenian genocide. Article 230 of the Treaty of Sèvres required the Ottoman Empire to "hand over to the Allied Powers the persons whose surrender may be required by the latter as being responsible for the massacres committed during the continuance of the state of war on territory which formed part of the Ottoman Empire on August 1, 1914". However, the
inter-allied tribunal attempt to prosecute war criminals as demanded by the Treaty of Sèvres was eventually suspended, and the men who orchestrated the genocide escaped prosecution and traveled relatively freely throughout
Europe and
Central Asia.
Communal relations The Ottoman Empire was to ensure equal rights between Muslims and non-Muslims, return deportees to their homes, and restore property which was previously confiscated. All conversions to Islam since 1 November 1914 were to be annulled.
Foreign zones of influence France , border redesigned with
Treaty of Ankara Within the territory retained by Turkey under the treaty, France received Syria and neighbouring parts of southeastern
Anatolia, including
Antep,
Urfa and
Mardin.
Cilicia, including
Adana,
Diyarbakır and large portions of east-central Anatolia all the way north to
Sivas and
Tokat, were declared a zone of French influence on
Sykes–Picot Agreement.
Greece The Greek government administered the
occupation of Smyrna from 21 May 1919. A
protectorate was established on 30 July 1922. The treaty transferred "the exercise of her rights of sovereignty to a local parliament" but left the region within the Ottoman Empire. The treaty had Smyrna to be administered by a local parliament, with a
plebiscite overseen by the
League of Nations after five years to decide if Smyrna's citizens wished to join Greece or to remain in the Ottoman Empire. The treaty accepted Greek administration of the Smyrna enclave, but the area remained under Turkish sovereignty. To protect the Christian population from attacks by the Turkish irregulars, the
Greek army expanded its jurisdiction also to nearby cities creating the so-called "Smyrna Zone".
Italy , already under Italian control.
Italy was formally given possession of the
Dodecanese Islands, which had been under Italian occupation since the
Italo-Turkish War of 1911–1912 despite the Treaty of
Ouchy according to which Italy should have returned the islands to the Ottoman Empire. Large portions of southern and west-central
Anatolia, including the port city of
Antalya and the historic Seljuk capital of
Konya, were declared to be an Italian zone of influence on
Agreement of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne. Antalya Province had been promised by the Triple Entente to Italy in the
Treaty of London, and the Italian colonial authorities wished the zone to become an
Italian colony under the name of
Lycia.
Territorial provisions Zone of the Straits A Zone of the Straits was proposed to include the
Bosphorus, the
Dardanelles and the
Sea of Marmara. Navigation would be open in the Dardanelles in times of peace and war alike to all vessels of commerce and war, regardless of flag. That would effectively lead to the internationalisation of the waters, which were not to be subject to blockade, and no act of war could be committed there except to enforce decisions of the League of Nations.
Free zones Certain ports were to be declared to be of international importance. The League of Nations insisted on the complete freedom and the absolute equality in treatment at such ports, particularly regarding charges and facilities, to ensure that economic provisions in commercially-strategic places were carried out. The regions were to be called "free zones". The ports were
Constantinople from
San Stefano to
Dolmabahçe,
Haidar-Pasha,
Smyrna,
Alexandretta,
Haifa,
Basra,
Trabzon and
Batum.
Thrace Eastern Thrace (up to the
Chatalja line), the islands of
Imbros and
Tenedos and the islands of the
Sea of Marmara were ceded to Greece. The waters surrounding the islands were declared international territory and left to the administration of the "Zone of the Straits".
Kurdistan (in 1920) The
Kurdistan region, including
Mosul Province, was scheduled to have a referendum to decide its fate. There was no general agreement among Kurds on what the borders of Kurdistan should be because of the disparity between the areas of Kurdish settlement and the political and administrative boundaries of the region. The outlines of Kurdistan as an entity had been proposed in 1919 by
Şerif Pasha, who represented the
Society for the Elevation of Kurdistan (
Kürdistan Teali Cemiyeti) at the
Paris Peace Conference. He defined the region's boundaries as follows: The frontiers of Turkish Kurdistan, from an ethnographical point of view, begin in the north at
Ziven, on the Caucasian frontier, and continue westwards to
Erzurum,
Erzincan,
Kemah,
Arapgir,
Besni and Divick (
Divrik?); in the south they follow the line from
Harran,
Sinjar Mountains, Tel Asfar,
Erbil,
Süleymaniye, Akk-el-man,
Sinne; in the east, Ravandiz,
Başkale,
Vezirkale, that is to say the frontier of
Persia as far as
Mount Ararat. That caused controversy among other Kurdish nationalists, as it excluded the
Van Region (possibly as a sop to
Armenian claims to that region).
Emin Ali Bedir Khan proposed an alternative map that included Van and an outlet to the sea via what is now Turkey's
Hatay Province. Amid a joint declaration by Kurdish and Armenian delegations, Kurdish claims concerning
Erzurum vilayet and
Sassoun (
Sason) were dropped, but arguments for sovereignty over Ağrı and Muş remained. Neither proposal was endorsed by the treaty of Sèvres, which outlined a truncated Kurdistan on what is now Turkish territory (leaving out the Kurds of Iran, British-controlled
Iraq and French-controlled
Syria). The current Iraqi–Turkish border was agreed upon in July 1926. Article 63 explicitly granted the full safeguard and protection to the
Assyro-Chaldean minority, but that provision was dropped in the Treaty of Lausanne.
Armenia , with the western borders defined by US President
Woodrow Wilson Armenia was recognised as a "free and independent" state in Section VI "Armenia", Articles 88-93. By Article 89, "Turkey and Armenia, as well as the other High Contracting Parties agree to submit to the arbitration of the President of the United States of America the question of the frontier to be fixed between Turkey and Armenia in the vilayets of Erzerum,
Trebizond, Van and
Bitlis, and to accept his decision thereupon, as well as any stipulations he may prescribe as to access for Armenia to the sea, and as to the demilitarisation of any portion of Turkish territory adjacent to the said frontier". The treaty specified that the frontiers between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Georgia were to be determined by direct negotiation between those states, with the Principle Allied Powers making the decision if those states fail to agree.
British Mandate for Iraq The details in the treaty regarding the
British Mandate for Iraq were completed on 25 April 1920 at the
San Remo Conference. The oil concession in the region was given to the British-controlled
Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC), which had held concessionary rights to
Mosul Province. British and Iraqi negotiators held acrimonious discussions over the new oil concession. The League of Nations voted on the disposition of Mosul, and the Iraqis feared that without British support, Iraq would lose the area. In March 1925, the TPC was renamed the "
Iraq Petroleum Company" (IPC) and granted a full and complete concession for 75 years.
British Mandate for Palestine The three principles of the British
Balfour Declaration regarding
Palestine were adopted in the Treaty of Sèvres: :Article 95: The High Contracting Parties agree to entrust, by application of the provisions of Article 22, the administration of Palestine, within such boundaries as may be determined by the Principal Allied Powers, to a Mandatory to be selected by the said Powers. The Mandatory will be responsible for putting into effect the declaration originally made on 2 November 1917 by the British Government, and adopted by the other Allied Powers, in favour of the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.
French Mandate for Syria and Lebanon (area shaded in yellow). The orange line shows the Treaty of Sèvres border The French Mandate was settled at the San Remo Conference: it comprised the region between the basin of the
Euphrates River and the
Syrian Desert on the east and the
Mediterranean Sea on the west, and extended from the
Nur Mountains in the north to Egypt in the south. This represented an area of about with a population of about 3,000,000, including
Lebanon and an enlarged
Syria, both of which were later reassigned under a
League of Nations Mandate. The region was divided under the French into five governments as follows:
Aleppo, from the Euphrates region to the Mediterranean, which included the autonomous
Sanjak of Alexandretta (modern-day
Hatay);
Damascus, including Damascus, Hama, Homs and the
Hauran;
Greater Lebanon, extending from Tripoli to Palestine; the
Alawite State, comprising the coast between the Sanjak of Alexandretta and Greater Lebanon, and the
Jabal Druze State, around the city of As-Suwayda.
Faisal ibn Husayn, who had been proclaimed
king of Syria by a
Syrian National Congress in Damascus in March 1920, was
ejected by the French in July the same year. The next year, he became
king of Iraq.
Kingdom of Hejaz The
Kingdom of Hejaz, on the
Arabian Peninsula, was granted international recognition and had an estimated area of and a population of about 750,000. The main cities were the Holy Places of Mecca, with a population of 80,000, and Medina, with a population of 40,000. Under the Ottomans, it had been the
vilayet of Hejaz, but during the war, it became an independent kingdom under British influence. ==Abandonment== The Treaty of Sèvres imposed terms on the Ottoman Empire that were far more severe than those imposed on the German Empire by the Treaty of Versailles. France, Italy and Britain had secretly begun planning the
partitioning of the Ottoman Empire as early as 1915. The open negotiations covered a period of more than 15 months, started at the
Paris Peace Conference of 1919, continued at the
Conference of London of February 1920 and took definite shape only after the
San Remo Conference in April 1920. The delay occurred because the powers could not come to an agreement, which, in turn, hinged on the outcome of the
Turkish National Movement. The Treaty of Sèvres was never ratified, and after the
Turkish War of Independence, most of the Treaty of Sèvres's signatories signed and ratified the
Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 and 1924. While the Treaty of Sèvres was still under discussion, the Turkish national movement under
Mustafa Kemal Pasha split with the monarchy, based in
Istanbul, and set up a
Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara in April 1920. The so-called
Ankara government closely monitored the preparation of the draft treaty and its acceptance by the Istanbul government. On June 7, 1920, the Grand National Assembly passed a law declaring all treaties signed by the Istanbul Government since 16 March 1920 (the formal
occupation of Istanbul) invalid. Eventually, Mustafa Kemal succeeded in the
Turkish War of Independence and forced most of the former wartime Allies to return to the negotiating table at
Lausanne. Aside from Mustafa Kemal's armed opposition to the treaty in Anatolia, Arabs in Syria were unwilling to accept French rule, the Turks around Mosul attacked the British, and
Arabs were up in arms against British rule in Baghdad. There was also
disorder in Egypt. ==Subsequent treaties==