Treaty of Lausanne

About the Author

The Treaty of Lausanne was authored by the delegates to the conference. Several delegates played major roles in composing the final treaty, including Lord Curzon, Horace Rumbold, Eleuthérios Venizélos, and Ismet Pasa. George Curzon was an educated British statesman from an aristocratic background. He became undersecretary of state for India in 1891 and undersecretary of state for foreign affairs in 1895. In 1899 he was appointed viceroy of India, where he introduced a series of reforms and became familiar with the affairs of the East. During World War I, he joined the war cabinet of Prime Minister David Lloyd George and became involved in Middle Eastern affairs. He opposed the Greek occupation of Anatolia and wanted to offer peace to Turkey. Because of his involvement and expertise in Eastern affairs, he became foreign secretary and represented Britain at the Lausanne conference. He was a tough negotiator, playing a major role in arbitrating population exchanges between Greece and Turkey, and uncompromising in his views. He served as foreign secretary from 1919 until his retirement in 1924.

Horace Rumbold was also an aristocratic British diplomat. He was fluent in Eastern languages, and between 1900 and 1913 he was appointed as an attaché in Cairo, Egypt; Tehran, Iran; Munich, Germany; and Vienna, Austria. Because of his knowledge and understanding of the Middle East, he was appointed ambassador to Constantinople, serving from 1920 to 1924. Joining the second phase of conference negotiations, he compromised on the terms of the final agreement and signed the treaty on Britain's behalf. He then served as an ambassador in Madrid and then in Berlin before retiring in 1933.

Born as an Ottoman citizen in Crete in 1864, Eleuthérios Venizélos became a Greek statesman. He was the architect of the Megali Idea, the concept of expanding the Greek state to include all ethnic Greeks, and worked for the annexation of Anatolia to Greece. In 1910 he became prime minister of the military administration of Greece, which allied with Serbia, Bulgaria, and Montenegro against the Ottoman Empire during the Balkan Wars. He managed to keep his nation neutral during World War I but went to war with Turkey afterward, with the Turkish War of Independence being waged against the Greek occupation of Anatolia. Venizélos signed the Treaty of Sèvres, and he joined the Lausanne conference negotiations as head of the Greek delegation. He maintained peace with Turkey after 1928 but ultimately proved unsuccessful in his policies and resigned from the government in 1935. Venizélos died as a Greek citizen in Paris in 1936.

Ismet Pasa would adopt the name Ismet Inönü and serve as prime minister of Turkey and as the country's second president, from 1938 to 1950. He graduated from the Turkish Military Academy in 1903 and from the Artillery War Academy in 1906 and joined the army the same year. He fought in the Balkan Wars, World War I, and the Turkish War of Independence. After the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, he became prime minister under Mustafa Kemal. Because of his success during the war for liberation, he was selected to defend the nation's interests at the Lausanne conference negotiations. After the death of Atatürk in 1938, Ismet Inönü became president. During his administration, Turkey shifted to a multiparty system. He was a close follower of Atatürk's ideas on modernization of the Turkish Republic, development of parliamentary democracy, and foreign policy.