TR EN DE FR ARAtlas of the Sultans · Wars, battles and treaties

Treaty of Sèvres

Treaty · 1920

The Paris Peace Conference met on 18 January 1919; Britain, France and Italy pursued different aims in dividing the Ottoman lands. According to the TDV encyclopedia, an Ottoman delegation of the senator Hadi Pasha, Rıza Tevfik and Reşad Halis signed the treaty of twelve parts and 433 articles at Sèvres near Paris on 10 August 1920. Rejected by the Ankara government, the treaty remained, in the TDV's words, “a stillborn document”.

About the event

Signed	10 August 1920
Place of signing	Sèvres, near Paris
Parties	Principal Allied Powers, British Empire, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, India, France, Italy, Japan, Allied Powers, Armenia, Belgium, Greece, Hejaz, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, Czechoslovakia, Central Power, Ottoman Empire

Main articles of the treaty

Land west of the Istranca–Çatalca line was left to Greece (arts. 84–87)
Smyrna (İzmir) and its region, formally Ottoman, were placed under Greek administration with a right to join Greece after five years (arts. 65–83)
Istanbul, the Straits and all the Marmara shores were placed under an international Straits Commission (arts. 37–61)
An Armenia with borders to be fixed later in the east and local autonomy for the Kurds in the south-east were envisaged
The independence of the Hejaz and mandates in Iraq, Syria and Palestine were accepted (arts. 94–100)
Heavy financial, economic and military obligations were imposed on Turkey; the Public Debt Administration continued

Aftermath

After the Ankara government's successes, Lloyd George declared on 10 August 1921 that Sèvres was torn up.

This event in the atlas

Took place during the reign of Mehmed VI (1918–1922). Mehmed VI

Open the reign of Mehmed VI on the map

Context of the period

By the atlas's calculation the Ottoman lands covered about 765,000 km² in 1920; at the start of Mehmed VI's reign they measured 1,132,000 km², at its end 773,000 km².

During Mehmed VI (1918–1922) the atlas records 0 regions gained and 9 regions lost.

Regions lost: Syria–Lebanon (Aleppo–Damascus) (1918), Antep–Kilis (1918), Hatay (Sanjak of Alexandretta) (1918), Palestine–Jordan (Jerusalem) (1918), Mosul–Shahrizor (1918), Yemen–Asir (1918), Kars–Ardahan–Artvin (1918), Batumi (Adjara) (1918), and 1 more.

Mehmed VI in brief

The last sultan of a six-hundred-year dynasty. For four years he sat on a powerless throne in an occupied capital; when the sultanate was abolished on 1 November 1922 he left the country aboard a British warship and never returned.

Other battles and treaties of Mehmed VI

Armistice of Mudros (1918)

In nearby years (1918–1922), under other sultans

Areas are land area computed from the atlas's region data; see Method and sources.

Source: TDV Encyclopedia of Islam, “SEVR ANTLAŞMASI” (Turkish); text written for the atlas.

Cite as: Atlas of the Sultans, “Treaty of Sèvres (1920): Terms, Date and Outcome”, https://padisahlaratlasi.com/en/events/treaty-of-sevres/ (last updated 12 November 2026). Corrections