Özet:

World War-I was considerably about the territorial partitioning of the Ottoman Empire. The Allied powers of Great Britain and France had offered, apart from their own shares, Istanbul, Turkish Straits of the Dardanelles and Bosphorus, parts of the eastern Black Sea coast-line and of Eastern Anatolia to Russia, while promising Greece the Aegean coast including İzmir (Smyrnia), also planning the establishment of carved-out Armenian and Greek-Pontus states. The Mudros Armistice Treaty of 30 October 1918 and the Sèvres Peace Treaty of 10 August 1920 officialised these secret arrangements upon the defeat of the Central Powers, whereas the Ottoman Parliament would never ratify the Sèvres Treaty, thereby rendering it defunct. The Turkish National Resistance against the occupying Powers and the surrendering of the Istanbul Government was led by General Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk). However, the Eastern Front under General Kazım Karabekir’s command deserves the credit for setting the stage at the Erzurum People’s Congress of July 1919 for the launching of the Resistance Movement under Mustafa Kemal’s leadership in defiance of orders from the surrendering Istanbul Government and against the Allied Governments. Karabekir’s military victories leading to the retrieval of all eastern Anatolian territory from the occupying Russian and Armenian forces as well as the protection his forces extended to Azerbaijan against Russian-British-Armenian aggression would win him the popular reputation as the “Savior of the East”. His military victories in eastern Turkey and the Caucasus would be sealed by the peace treaties of Gyumri and Kars which he negotiated with Armenia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, drawing current borders. 

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