The Sèvres settlement, furthermore, destroyed the Ottoman Empire and sought to give the Allies a stranglehold upon the economic life of Turkey. Great Britain and France received essentially the same territorial privileges as they had laid out for themselves in the Sykes-Picot Treaty, with the vague restrictions that they should exercise in Mesopotamia and Palestine and in Syria and Cilicia respectively only the rights of mandatory powers. Great Britain was confirmed in her oil and navigation concessions in Mesopotamia, France in her railway rights in Syria; in addition, the Hedjaz Railway was turned over outright to their joint ownership and administration. Italy received only a “sphere of influence” in southern Anatolia, including the port of Adalia, but, as a consequence of one of the most sordid of the transactions of the Paris Conference, she was deprived of the bulk of the privileges guaranteed her under the Treaty of London and the St. Jean de Maurienne Agreement.[38] Greece was installed in Smyrna—the most important harbor in Asia Minor, a harbor the control of which was vital to the peasantry of Anatolia for the free export of their produce and for the unimpeded importation of farm machinery and other wares of western industry. Constantinople was put under the jurisdiction of an international commission for control of the Straits, and the balance of the former Russian sphere of interest was assigned to the ill-fated Armenian Republic. The Hedjaz was declared to be an independent Arab state. The Ottoman Empire was no more. Even the Turkey that remained—a portion of Anatolia—enjoyed sovereignty in name only. The Capitulations, which the Sultan had terminated in the autumn of 1914, were reëstablished and extended. Concessions to Allied nationals were confirmed in all the rights which they enjoyed before Ottoman entry into the Great War. Because of the reparations, and because of the high cost of the Allied armies of occupation, the country was being loaded down with a still further burden of debt from which there appeared to be no escape—and debts not only mortgaged Turkish revenues but impaired Turkish administrative integrity. To assure prompt payment of both old and new financial obligations of the Turkish Government, an Interallied Financial Commission was superimposed upon the Ottoman Public Debt Administration. The Financial Commission had full supervision over taxation, customs, loans, and currency; exercised final control over the Turkish budget; and had the right to veto any proposed concession. In control of its domestic affairs the new Turkey was tied hand and foot. Here, indeed, was a Carthaginian peace! And all of this was done in order “to help Turkey, to develop her resources, and to avoid the international rivalries which have obstructed these objects in the past!”[39] “THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE IS DEAD. LONG LIVE TURKEY!”