The Convention Concerning the Exchange of Greek
and Turkish Populations, also known as the Lausanne
Convention, was an agreement between
the Greek and Turkish governments signed by their
representatives in Lausanne on 30 January 1923, in the
aftermath of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. The
agreement provided for the simultaneous expulsion of
Orthodox Christians from Turkey to Greece and of Muslims
from Greece (particularly from the north of the country) to
Turkey. The population transfers involved approximately
two million people, around 1.5 million Anatolian Greeks and
500,000 Muslims in Greece.
With respect to the Muslims of Greece the treaty reflected
Ottoman conceptions of 'nationality' in that their actual
ethnic origins was superseded by religious affiliation. That
meant that many Greek Muslims from Greek
Macedonia and Epirus were classified as Turks and so
were forced to leave their homes, despite the fact that
many spoke little or no Turkish and actually descended
from Ottoman-era Greek converts to Islam. Similarly, many
Turkish Christians from north-eastern Anatolia
and Cappadoccia were also classified as Greeks and were
deported to Greece although they spoke little or no Greek.
Such groups include Karamanlides, who spoke Karamanli
Turkish. Because the Convention classified Greeks and
Turks according to religious affiliation, they were also
expelled to Greece alongside Greek-speaking Anatolian
Christians.
For the same reason, many historic cases of Pontic
Greeks from northeastern Anatolia and the Trans-
Caucasus region who had converted to Islam and adopted
the Turkish-language and national identity were simply
classified for the purposes of the Convention as 'Turks'.
However, large numbers from that Pontic Greek community
had remained Crypto-Christians into the late Ottoman
period, before reverting to their ancestral Christian
Orthodox faith following the 1828 Russian occupation
of Erzurum and Gumushane, when they joined the invading
forces and then followed the Russian Imperial Army back
into Georgia and southern Russia upon its withdrawal.
The convention was ratified by the Turkish government on
23 August 1923 and by the Greek government on 25
August 1923, after the conclusion of the Treaty of
Lausanne. It was registered in the League of Nations
Treaty Series on 27 January 1925.[1]
Source: Wikipedia
The Great Population Exchange between Turkey and
Greece
The lasting legacy of the population exchange between
Greece and Turkey after the fall of the Ottoman Empire.
As part of the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, Greece and
Turkey agreed to uproot two million people in a massive
population exchange, the lasting effects of which are still
felt by some in both countries today.
The exchangees had to travel on foot, by train and by sea
and many of the ships involved in this mammoth operation
were full to overflowing. The elderly and the young
especially suffered from the terrible travel conditions.
"My mother had to throw my younger sister, who was three
or four, into the sea. I don't remember it but that's what my
mother told me", says Huseyin Selvi, who had to leave
Greece when he was five years old.
At the age of 97, he was able to travel back to the village
where he was born. Only since the 1990s has it been
possible for the "exchangees" and their families to visit
what they see as their ancestral villages in Greece and
Turkey.
Numan Toker, a second generation exchangee, also
travelled to the village in Greece his late mother was forced
out of. "It was my mother's last wish. Now I'll bring water
from there, to her grave. I'll bring soil ... She was longing to
see it [village] again but never had the chance," Numan
says.
His ancestors had lived in Greece for 400-500 years, until
the population exchange. Recalling his mother's stories,
Numan says, "She cried, laughed and talked about what
they used to do. The day they were called back to Turkey
and were leaving, they left 500 sheep and their farmland
behind. She even left dinner cooking on the stove. They left
everything behind."
Population shifts occurred in the early 20th century as old
empires disintegrated and new nation-states emerged. But
these changes often raised complex questions of identity
for the ordinary people caught up in them.
Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslims had lived together
under Ottoman rule for centuries, though not always
entirely peacefully.
The Greek war of independence from the Ottomans was
fought between 1821 and 1832 and the new state of
Greece founded. This created tension which increased
after the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913. Muslims
remaining in Greece and the Balkans suffered
discrimination and persecution, while Greek Orthodox
Christians were expelled by the Ottomans from the Aegean
region.
After the Ottoman defeat in World War I, the victorious
allies manoeuvred to divide up their former empire. This
was resisted by the Turkish nationalists led by Mustafa
Kamal Attaturk who fought the Turkish War of
Independence between 1919 and 1923.
At Lausanne in Switzerland, all the parties sat around the
conference table in 1922-23. Part of the resulting Treaty of
Lausanne involved an agreement between Greece and
Turkey to forcibly exchange around 1.5 million Greek
Orthodox Christians and a lower number of Muslims in the
largest population displacement of modern times.
When the exchangees arrived at their destinations, they
often faced serious problems integrating into their new
communities - and some of their social, housing and
education problems have persisted.
"I couldn't speak any Turkish when I got married", says
Nuriye Can who left Greece in 1923 for Turkey. "My
mother-in-law used to ask me why I spoke the language of
a 'non-believer'. She asked, 'Why don't you speak your
father's language?' I did eventually learn Turkish."
Source:
https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/201
8/02/great-population-exchange-turkey-greece-
180220111122516.html
The Treaty of Lausanne (French: Traité de Lausanne) was
a peace treaty signed in the Palais de Rumine,[1][2]
Lausanne, Switzerland, on 24 July 1923. It officially settled
the conflict that had originally existed between the Ottoman
Empire and the Allied French Republic, British Empire,
Kingdom of Italy, Empire of Japan, Kingdom of Greece, and
the Kingdom of Romania since the onset of World War I.[3]
The original text of the treaty is in French.[3] It was the
result of a second attempt at peace after the failed Treaty
of Sèvres, which was signed by all previous parties, except
the Kingdom of Greece, but later rejected by the Turkish
national movement who fought against the previous terms
and significant loss of territory. The Treaty of Lausanne
ended the conflict and defined the borders of the modern
Turkish Republic. In the treaty, Turkey gave up all claims to
the remainder of the Ottoman Empire and in return the
Allies recognized Turkish sovereignty within its new
borders.[3]
The treaty was ratified by Turkey on 23 August 1923,[4][5]
Greece on 25 August 1923,[4] Italy on 12 March 1924,[5]
Japan on 15 May 1924,[5] Great Britain on 16 July 1924.[6]
The treaty came into force on 6 August 1924, when the
instruments of ratification were officially deposited in Paris.
[3]
After the withdrawal of the Greek forces in Asia Minor and
the expulsion of the Ottoman sultan by the Turkish army
under the command of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the Ankara-
based Kemalist government of the Turkish national
movement rejected the territorial losses imposed by the
1920 Treaty of Sèvres previously signed by the Ottoman
Empire. Britain had sought to undermine Turkish influence
in Mesopotamia and Kirkuk by seeking the division of
Kurdish populated regions in Eastern Anatolia, but secular
Kemalist rhetoric relieved some of the international
concerns about the future of the Armenian community that
had survived the 1915 Armenian genocide and support for
Kurdish self determination similarly declined. Under the
Treaty of Lausanne, signed in 1923, Eastern Anatolia
became part of modern day Turkey, in exchange for
Turkey's relinquishing Ottoman-era claims to the oil-rich
Arab lands.[7]
Negotiations were undertaken during the Conference of
Lausanne, where İsmet İnönü was the chief negotiator for
Turkey. Lord Curzon, the British Foreign Secretary of that
time, was the chief negotiator for the Allies, while
Eleftherios Venizelos negotiated on behalf of Greece. The
negotiations took many months. On 20 November 1922,
the peace conference was opened and after strenuous
debate was interrupted by Turkish protest on 4 February
1923. After reopening on 23 April, and following more
protests by the Turks and tense debates, the treaty was
signed on 24 July as a result of eight months of arduous
negotiation. The Allied delegation included U.S. Admiral
Mark L. Bristol, who served as the United States High
Commissioner and championed Turkish efforts.[8]
Stipulations
The treaty was composed of 143 articles with major
sections including:[9]
Treaty
Parts
Convention on the Turkish Straits
Trade (abolition of capitulations) – Article 28 provided:
"Each of the High Contracting Parties hereby accepts, in so
far as it is concerned, the complete abolition of the
Capitulations in Turkey in every respect."[10]
Agreements
Binding letters
The treaty provided for the independence of the Republic
of Turkey but also for the protection of the Greek Orthodox
Christian minority in Turkey and the Muslim minority in
Greece. However, most of the Christian population of
Turkey and the Turkish population of Greece had already
been deported under the earlier Convention Concerning
the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations signed by
Greece and Turkey. Only the Greeks of Constantinople,
Imbros and Tenedos were excluded (about 270,000 at that
time),[11] and the Muslim population of Western Thrace
(about 129,120 in 1923.)[12] Article 14 of the treaty granted
the islands of Gökçeada (Imbros) and Bozcaada (Tenedos)
"special administrative organisation", a right that was
revoked by the Turkish government on 17 February 1926.
Turkey also formally accepted the loss of Cyprus (which
was leased to the British Empire following the Congress of
Berlin in 1878, but de jure remained an Ottoman territory
until World War I) as well as Egypt and Anglo-Egyptian
Sudan (which were occupied by British forces with the
pretext of "putting down the Urabi Revolt and restoring
order" in 1882, but de jure remained Ottoman territories
until World War I) to the British Empire, which had
unilaterally annexed them on 5 November 1914.[3] The fate
of the province of Mosul was left to be determined through
the League of Nations. Turkey also explicitly renounced all
claims on the Dodecanese Islands, which Italy was obliged
to return to Turkey according to Article 2 of the Treaty of
Ouchy in 1912 following the Italo-Turkish War (1911–1912).
[13][14]
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Lausanne