The Mudros Armistice. The Armenian Question and British Diplomacy

Abstract

The Ottoman Empire came out of World War I defeated. The representative of Great Britain signed the armistice agreement with the Turks in the port of Mudros on the Greek island of Lemnos. With that, the Turks were subject to capitulation. The terms of the Mudros armistice also had an impact on the Armenian Question. During the war, the Turks organized the Armenian Genocide and the Armenian territories under Ottoman rule (Cilicia and 7 provinces of Western Armenia) were completely ethnically cleansed. Out of 2.5 million Ottoman Armenians, 1.5 million were killed and 1 million became refugees. The task of this study is to demonstrate how Cilicia was immediately liberated from the Turks by the agreement of Mudros and the Armenians were able to return to their homeland, but Western Armenia was not liberated, which led to the emergence of the Kemalist nationalist movement and the failure of the Armenian Question. The article covers the negative consequences of the conditions of the Mudros armistice in the failure of the Armenian Question. The problem has never been considered from this point of view by historiography. Analyzing facts, the article shows that it was due to the intrigues of British imperialist diplomacy, which was directed primarily against France. However, it also aimed to block Russia’s way from the Caucasus to the south. The British tried to achieve their far-reaching goals through another power – the United States. The work mostly refers to archival materials and documents, also drawing on some studies related to the topic. The article is built on comparative and critical analysis, observing the principles of objectivity and historicity. Many representatives of Western and Russian historiography have addressed the Franco-British contradictions over the Ottoman heritage. Armenian historians have also referred to some aspects of the issue in question. In the study, facts previously published for different purposes are presented in a new way. The problem was set to show the influence of the British far-reaching aims on the Armenian Question.