ARMENIAN - Erevangala500

horrifying reality when he started a large-scale relocation
of the Armenians to - o f all places - the Altai region, the
original homeland o f the Turks.
There is one thing that is usually overlooked in connection
with the Armenian tragedy - Article 31 o f the Treaty
of Lausanne. It contains the stipulation that every> former
citizen o f the Ottoman Empire who had acquired a new
nationality through the establishment o f the new independent
states could come to Turkey as a Turkish citizen
anytime within two years. Article 31 naturally applied to
all the Ottoman-Armenian citizens who had been relocated
during the war, or who - for whatever reason - did not
happen to be on Turkish soil after the war. Article 31 was
tailor-made for the Armenians who had been relocated
and now wanted to move back to Turkey. In accordance
with this clause, every Armenian who had once been an
Ottoman citizen had until July 24, 1925 to come to
Turkey as a Turkish citizen with the same rights as every
other Turkish citizen.
All talk o f "expulsion" is thus unfounded, especially in
light o f the fact that the Armenians had never even been
moved out o f the Ottoman Empire after the uprisings in
eastern Anatolia; they had simply been moved to less
threatened provinces within the Empire.
“ Finally, Peace with Turkey”
Reads the caption under the “leading personalities” at the
peace conference o f Lausanne. The treaty between the
powers o f the Entente, Greece and Turkey was ratified in
Lausanne on July 24, 1923. The delegates (beginning with
the third one on the right): Alexander Stamboliyski
(Bulgaria), General Pelle (France), Ismet Pasha (Inonii,
Turkey), the hostile Swiss Federal President Scheurer, Sir
Horace Rumbold (Great Britain), M. Diamandy
(Romania), the M archese di Garriona (Italy) and
Ambassador Ochiai (Japan). On the far left, the delegates
o f the “Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes”, who
did not sign. The Turkish delegation had brought about an
unprecedented favourable conclusion to the treaty thanks
to the prudent, skillful and self-confident leadership of
Ismet Pasha. This result might first o f all be attributed to
the fact that his manner rendered him es a not inferior, but
a party with equal rights.
While contemporary commentators praised them as “The Great
Three” o f the Peace Conference o f Lausanne, with the hindsight
afforded by history they appear rather miserable: Lord Curzon, a
self satisfied, unreasonable and violent diplomat who infested
Central Europe, just as he had earlier done in India in his capacity
as viceroy o f India; Benito Mussolini, at that time already
prime minister o f Italy, and M. Poincare, the notorious warmonger
and occupier o f Rhineland (January 1923), indirectly one o f
the persons primarily to blame for the rise o f the National
Socialistsin Germany.
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