The Treaty of Sevres tries to partition what remains of the empire
A never-ratified treaty would carve up Anatolia among Greece, Italy, France, Britain, and an independent Armenia and Kurdistan.
Quick facts
- Signed
- 10 August 1920, Sevres, France
- Status
- Never ratified by the Ottoman parliament
- Provisions
- Independent Armenia and Kurdistan, Greek and Italian territorial gains
- Superseded by
- Treaty of Lausanne, 1923
What happened
On 10 August 1920, representatives of the Allied powers and the Ottoman government signed the Treaty of Sevres, drafted at the Paris Peace Conference to formally dismantle what remained of the Ottoman Empire after the war. Under its terms, Arabia, Mesopotamia, and Syria would gain independence or pass to European mandates, Italy would receive the Dodecanese islands and Rhodes, Greece would receive Thrace and the Turkish Aegean islands along with a zone around Smyrna, and provisions called for an independent Armenia and an autonomous Kurdistan. The treaty was never ratified by the Ottoman parliament, and Turkish nationalist forces under Mustafa Kemal, organizing from Ankara rather than occupied Constantinople, rejected its terms outright and continued fighting.
Why it matters
Sevres represented the most extreme partition ever formally proposed for Ottoman territory, reducing Turkey itself to a small rump state in central Anatolia, and its rejection by Turkish nationalists became the direct cause of the Turkish War of Independence. The treaty's terms were entirely superseded three years later by the Treaty of Lausanne, negotiated after Turkish nationalist forces had militarily reversed the partition on the ground.
How we know
World History Encyclopedia's article on the Paris Peace Conference lists Sevres's specific territorial provisions for Arabia, Armenia, Mesopotamia, Syria, and the Dodecanese; a curriculum resource published by the National WWI Museum and Memorial documents the treaty's signing date and its failure to achieve ratification.
Sources
- World History Encyclopedia. Paris Peace Conference: How WWI's Victors Reshaped the World · Reputable sourceworldhistory.org · The domain "worldhistory.org" is on our Reputable source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- The National WWI Museum and Memorial. The End of the Ottoman Empire: Treaties of Sevres and Lausanne (curriculum resource) · General sourcetheworldwar.org · Cited as a "reference" source (no stronger domain match).
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