Treaty of Sèvres (1920); World War, 1914-1918 -- Territorial questions -- Turkey; World War, 1914-1918 -- Turkey
“the Council, while giving a hearing to a number of delegations
representing at best microscopic populations inhabiting meagre
areas and permitting the Premier of Greece, which was not at war
with Turkey, to take part in the discussions relating to the
Turkish settlement, should have ignored the claims of a nation
numbering more than 315 millions of people inhabiting the vast
sub-continent of India even to a hearing, and should have denied
the right of several hundred millions more in the rest of the
world professing the Muslim Faith to express their views on the
question involving the disintegration of the Khilafat. In the name
of our compatriots and co-religionists, we deem it to be our duty
once more to point out to the Government of Great Britain and to
her Allies, that it would be perfectly futile to expect peace and
tranquillity if, to the humiliating disregard of the overwhelming
national sentiment of India, which would in any case lessen the
value of citizenship of the British Empire to the Indian people,
is added, as a result of the secret diplomacy of a few persons,
however exalted and eminent, who are now settling the fate of Islam
behind closed doors, a contemptuous disregard of the most binding
and solemn religious obligations imposed on the Muslims by their
Faith.”
The delegation did not conceal their disappointment at the way they had
been received by the Allied representatives and the little attention
paid to the objections they had set forth. Yet they had viewed the
Ottoman question from a lofty standpoint, and had brought forward
powerful arguments in favour of Turkey. While the Indian delegation
were setting forth the Turkish claims before the Peace Conference, the
Press, public opinion, and political circles which had been influenced
in some degree by the coming of the delegates evinced more sympathy for
Turkey, and the deliberations of the Conference seemed likely to assume
a more favourable attitude towards Turkey. Yet the Conference, in this
case as in many others, and in spite of the warnings it had received,
kept to its first resolutions, though everything seemed to invite it to
modify them.
On May 6 the Ottoman delegation arrived in Paris. It comprised the
former Grand Vizier Tewfik Pasha; Reshid Bey, Minister of the Interior;
Fakhr ed Din Bey, Minister of Public Education; and Dr. Jemil Pasha,
Minister of Public Works, accompanied by seventeen advisers and five
secretaries.
On the previous Thursday, before they left Constantinople, the Sultan
had received the delegates, and had a long conversation with each of
them.
The draft of the treaty was handed to the delegates on the expected
date, May 11.
We refer the reader to this document, which contains thirteen chapters;
some of the most important provisions are so laboriously worded that
they may give rise to various interpretations, and it is impossible to
sum them up accurately.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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