People & Histories
1920–1923

From Sèvres to Lausanne: Kurdistan promised and lost

A peace treaty with the Ottomans holds out the possibility of an independent Kurdistan, but the Treaty of Lausanne replaces it and the Kurds end up divided among Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Syria.

  • Treaty of Sèvres — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development — Wadie Jwaideh, Syracuse University Press (2006)

Well established bordersstatehoodbetrayal

The First World War destroyed the Ottoman Empire, and with it the world the Kurds had lived in for four centuries. It was also a catastrophe for the region’s Christians. In the Armenian genocide of 1915, Kurdish tribal irregulars took part in many of the massacres alongside Ottoman forces, though some Kurds also sheltered Armenians. Eastern Anatolia was then devastated by war and famine, and huge numbers of Kurds died or were displaced too.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • Agha, Shaikh and State: The Social and Political Structures of Kurdistan — Martin van Bruinessen, Zed Books (1992)

The Sèvres promise

When the war ended, US President Woodrow Wilson’s talk of self-determination raised hopes among small nations. A Kurdish delegate, Sharif Pasha, argued the Kurdish case at the Paris peace talks, though Kurdish leaders were divided over whether to seek independence, autonomy within the Ottoman state, or British protection.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries — Hakan Özoğlu, State University of New York Press (2004)

On 10 August 1920 the Allies imposed the Treaty of Sèvres on the defeated Ottoman government. Article 62 called for a commission to draft a scheme of local autonomy for the predominantly Kurdish areas east of the Euphrates. Article 64 went further: if, within a year, a majority of Kurds in those areas asked the League of Nations for independence, and the League judged them capable of it, Turkey would renounce the territory, and the Kurds of Mosul province would be free to join.

  • Treaty of Sèvres — Encyclopaedia Britannica
  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
It was the first time an international treaty had raised the possibility of a Kurdish state.

The Lausanne reality

Sèvres never took effect. In Anatolia, Mustafa Kemal’s nationalists rejected it and fought a war that drove out Greek, Armenian and French forces. They appealed to the Kurds as fellow Muslims and partners in a shared state, and many Kurdish tribes and sheikhs fought on their side.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880–1925 — Robert Olson, University of Texas Press (1989)
Faced with a victorious Turkey, the Allies negotiated again. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on 24 July 1923, recognised the new Turkish republic within roughly its present borders. It made no provision for the Kurds; the only minorities it protected were non-Muslims such as Greeks, Armenians and Jews.
  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • The Cambridge History of the Kurds — Hamit Bozarslan, Cengiz Gunes and Veli Yadirgi (eds), Cambridge University Press (2021)

The fate of the oil-rich province of Mosul, which Britain occupied, was left open. In 1925 a League of Nations commission recommended it go to British-mandated Iraq, noting that the Kurds there should be given a measure of local administration and the use of their language. Britain’s interest in the oil and in a viable Iraq outweighed the brief experiments it had made with Kurdish leaders such as Sheikh Mahmud Barzinji of Sulaymaniyah, who twice declared himself ruler of Kurdistan and was twice put down by British forces, including from the air.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development — Wadie Jwaideh, Syracuse University Press (2006)

Four states

By the mid-1920s the Kurds were divided among Turkey, Iran, British-ruled Iraq and French-ruled Syria. Each state would treat them differently, but none would grant the self-rule that Sèvres had held out.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • The Cambridge History of the Kurds — Hamit Bozarslan, Cengiz Gunes and Veli Yadirgi (eds), Cambridge University Press (2021)

For Kurds the story is usually told as a betrayal: a promise made and broken by great powers acting for oil and strategy. Historians add important caveats. Sèvres was never ratified, the Kurds were not united behind a single demand, and many Kurds chose to fight alongside Kemal.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries — Hakan Özoğlu, State University of New York Press (2004)
In Turkey, meanwhile, what is often called the “Sèvres syndrome”, a fear that foreign powers still want to carve up the country, remains strong, and it colours how many Turks hear any talk of Kurdish autonomy.
  • The Cambridge History of the Kurds — Hamit Bozarslan, Cengiz Gunes and Veli Yadirgi (eds), Cambridge University Press (2021)
  • The Kurdish National Movement in Turkey: From Protest to Resistance — Cengiz Gunes, Routledge (2012)
Both memories are real, and together they help explain why the Kurdish question has been so hard to settle.

How it's seen
Common Kurdish view

A betrayal. The victors of the First World War recognised a Kurdish right to self-rule at Sèvres, then abandoned it at Lausanne for oil, strategy and a deal with the new Turkey. The borders that followed were imposed, not chosen.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • The Kurdish National Movement: Its Origins and Development — Wadie Jwaideh, Syracuse University Press (2006)
  • No Friends but the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds — John Bulloch and Harvey Morris, Viking (1992)

Turkish state view

Sèvres was a dictated treaty meant to dismember Turkey, defeated in the War of Independence, in which Turks and Kurds fought side by side as Muslims. Lausanne is the founding charter of a unitary republic; it recognised only non-Muslim minorities, and all Muslim citizens were to be Turks.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • The Cambridge History of the Kurds — Hamit Bozarslan, Cengiz Gunes and Veli Yadirgi (eds), Cambridge University Press (2021)

Historians' caveats

Sèvres was never ratified and could not have been enforced without fighting Turkey. The Kurds were also divided: many tribes and sheikhs fought for Mustafa Kemal, Kurdish leaders disagreed on what they wanted, and Britain's main interest was oil-rich Mosul.

  • A Modern History of the Kurds — David McDowall, I.B. Tauris (2004)
  • Kurdish Notables and the Ottoman State: Evolving Identities, Competing Loyalties, and Shifting Boundaries — Hakan Özoğlu, State University of New York Press (2004)
  • The Emergence of Kurdish Nationalism and the Sheikh Said Rebellion, 1880–1925 — Robert Olson, University of Texas Press (1989)

Why it matters today

Kurds

Lausanne is the moment the Kurds became the world's best-known stateless people. Many Kurds feel the great powers held out a country and then traded it away, and the borders drawn then still frame every Kurdish question. In Turkey, by contrast, "Sèvres" names a fear of the country being carved up, which shapes how the state reacts to Kurdish demands.