An analysis of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne from multiple historical, economic, and social perspectives.
The last of the post-World War One peace settlements, the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne departed from methods used in the Treaty of Versailles and took on a new peace-making initiative: a forced population exchange that affected one and a half million people. Like its German and Austro-Hungarian allies, the defeated Ottoman Empire had initially been presented with a dictated peace in 1920. In just two years, however, the Kemalist insurgency enabled Turkey to become the first sovereign state in the Middle East, while the Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Egyptians, Kurds, and other communities previously under the Ottoman Empire sought their own forms of sovereignty.
Featuring historical analysis from multiple perspectives, They All Made Peace, What is Peace? considers the Lausanne Treaty and its legacy. Chapters investigate British, Turkish, and Soviet designs in the post-Ottoman world, situate the population exchanges relative to other peacemaking efforts, and discuss the economic factors behind the reallocation of Ottoman debt and the management of refugee flows. Further chapters examine Kurdish, Arab, Iranian, Armenian, and other communities that were refused formal accreditation at Lausanne, but which were still forced to live with the consequences, consequences that are still emerging, one hundred years on.
Industry Reviews
'They All Made Peace-What is Peace? is a welcome addition to the literature on the 1923 Lausanne Treaty and the impact of the decisions made there that continue to resonate in present-day international politics. Long overdue, the volume represents a primer on a neglected and under-represented moment of post-imperial Ottoman history.' Virginia H. Aksan Professor of History Emeritus, McMaster University; 'Of all the international treaties signed after World War I, only Lausanne remains intact: the founding document of the Turkish Republic. Yet the Lausanne peace process has not attracted the interest it deserves. In the absence of well-grounded research, journalists and Islamist demagogues alike have come up with their own myths, myths that continue to circulate today. Here at last, a century on, we have the definitive work: of interest not only to diplomats, political scientists and historians, but the educated public in general.' Ayhan Aktar former Professor of Sociology, Istanbul Bilgi University: 'An important book offering new perspectives on the Lausanne Treaty of 1923. Gone is the positive interpretation of Lausanne as the most 'successful' of the treaties ending hostilities in the Great War; in its place is a multilayered account of exploitation, exclusion, and betrayal of the promise of recovery and development in a region ravaged by war, famine, and genocide.These essays offer a new and important interpretation not only of Middle Eastern history but of international history in the 1920s.'Jay Winter Professor of History Emeritus, Yale University