Today in History – 20 November

The Lausanne Conference begins

Named after the city in which it was held in Switzerland, the Lausanne Conference commenced on November 20, 1922. According to Prof. Zafer Toprak, the Conference, in which ismet Pasha represented Turkey, was “the first time in the history of the world that Imperialism, the roots of which extended to the depths of modern history, or an order based on mutual dependency and empowered in the 19th century with colonialism, was questioned.” Lausanne was Anatolia’s response to a plan of annihilation that began with the Treaty of Sèvres. With Sèvres, the Ottoman State had nearly been eradicated from the global map; its lands had been divided, the capitulations had been reinstated, the financial resources of the country had been overtaken, and its military power had been destroyed.

The National Struggle Mustafa Kemal initiated was a revolt against the death warrant signed at Sèvres. Without siding with any great nation, it was the defiance of Great Powers in the name of national existence; the subsequent Lausanne treaty was the official registration of the victory attained on the battlefield.

Beginning on November 20, 1922 and signed on July 24, 1923 with a brief interruption between February 4 and April 23, 1923, The Lausanne Peace Treaty also constituted the proclamation of an independent Turkey. Turkey’s demand of absolute independence from the first day onwards resulted in heated negotiations. Mustafa Kemal summarized the significance of Lausanne as the culmination of a great struggle that lasted eight months as follows:

A document that epitomizes the failure of a great assassination planned for centuries against the Turkish nation and allegedly executed with the Treaty of Sèvres, and a political victory unprecedented in the history of the Ottoman Empire.